Soon!!

I plan on posting about New York as soon as I get a couple hours of rest! I've been working 10-12 hours the last 2 days and again tomorrow on my last day! I promise that I'll write about New York this weekend! Happy Friday!

Working at USGBC

I've been meaning to talk about my work environment for the longest time, but after laughing until I cried this week, I figure there is no better time to describe what a fun work environment I work in. I only have one week left here at USGBC, so I better get to it! Crazy how fast time has flown by!!

Our office is truly one of the best work environments ever. The first perk is that we have recommended hours that we need to be into the office, but rarely is anyone "on time" and everyone has their own little schedule of when they like to be at work. They just expect everyone to put in the time that they need to get everything they are supposed to, done. This usually ends up being waaayyyy over 40 hours a week (not for me), but being able to do things when they want to, seems to make people enjoying being here a little more. Another really neat thing about the office is that it is huge (about 300 total), but everyone intermixes so much. There are many different departments, but they only have one kitchen, making everyone have to interact with different people.

More important than all the departments being together, my department, LEED, is fantastic. Not only is everyone extremely welcoming, they are constantly planning things for everyone to join in ie. watching the World Cup while working, frozen yogurt outings, bringing in treats for everyone, happy hours (which I can't partake :( ), etc. Every Friday, everyone who is interested heads to a place nearby, Freshii, that does half price frozen yogurt on Fridays between 3-5. Who can beat that??

On Wednesday of this week there was a group of about 12 of us that withstood the disgusting heat and went to the DC United game after work! Elena joined and fun was had by all!

Last, the people I sit around are fantastic. Chrissy, one of my supervisors, could be my twin, not by looks, but by personality. She is also extremely funny! I don't work closely with Jason, but he is always so friendly and has gotten used to making fun of me on a daily basis. Beth, is a researcher from Cornell, writing a book on the process of LEED, but is in the office quite a bit and has become one of the "gang", just like me. Troy, manager of another department, sits across the hall from me and until he left last week, would shout jokes to Chrissy and I. Needless to say, our little cubical is always full of jokes and fun! I truly could talk about how fun everyone is that I work in close contact and everything that we do, but it would take me a week (as if my posts don't take long enough as it is)!

I truly love working with all of these people and will be sad when I have to say goodbye next week! It has been such a great time! Off to this week's Freshii Half Price Frozen Yogurt Friday outing!

Rockies, Museums and the Pool

Last weekend was one of lackadaisical proportions. By Friday night we didn’t even have a plan for the weekend, when we headed to yet another Nationals game. This time, the game was against the Rockies and we were in full support of the Rockies! We had pretty good seats (though they didn’t cost $2) and were among other Rockies fans which made it even more fun! Although the previous 5 game losing streak the Rockies were on, they won the nail bitter against the Nationals, 3-2. After having so much trouble with the metro nearest the stadium at the last Nationals game, Elena and I decided to walk about a mile to another metro stop that had A LOT less people. The night was beautiful and cool, as it had rained (down poured) earlier that afternoon. We headed back to the apartment and went to bed; we have been running ourselves thin.

Saturday morning we opted to sleep in and tentatively plan to be a tour at the Library of Congress at 11:30. We were up around 10 and made it to the tour just in time. Building was beautiful and our tour guide was the best one we’ve had yet. He was funny and very interesting. From there we headed to the US Botanical Garden near the Capitol. We spent about 30 min. in there before we were ready to move on. The plants were swell and keen to look at, but we don’t really care what their full name is. The day was hot (what is new) and we were ready to head into a building, so we headed towards the Smithsonian “Castle”. The building was pretty much a waste of space, but from the outside it is gorgeous and the inside was chilled, so we were content. On our walk over to the castle we even picked up some ice cream from a street vendor that hit the spot. Also on our walk, we noticed the Smithsonian Folklife Festival was still underway (we thought it had already ended; apparently it is a multiple week thing). So, after we had cooled down in the castle, we headed back out to check out what the festival was all about. We thought that it would consist of the different countries that they featured and the booths would be like a market. We were wrong. There were only about 3 tents that sold anything and that was food, in each of the sections. All the other booths were educational booths (should have expected something like that when it is put on by a group of museums). They had some authentic music which was pretty nifty, but it was all outside and we were just tired of the heat. Not long after we got to the Folklife Festival, we headed to the Eastern Market, Farmer’s Market to get some fruits and vegetables, as the selection at the Safeway near us is miserable. After walking around for a bit and getting what we wanted, we headed to the metro and headed home. As soon as we got home we headed to the pool! It was very refreshing and much needed after our very warm day of walking around. Later that night we made dinner, watched a movie and went to bed, nothing too spectacular.

Sunday morning we again decided to sleep in (this is becoming more and more appealing as we come to the end of our list of things we really want to do). Around 11, we headed to the Museum of American History. I have to say, we are getting through the museums faster and faster, as we don’t like reading everything like we did when we first got to DC. Still, the museum was a large one (who knew we had so much history??) and we made sure to see it all! We took a break for lunch before we headed to the Holocaust Museum. This is something Elena could have gone without seeing, I think, but I was determined to go and see it, so she decided she might as well join. First of all, the Museum was packed, making it hard to read/see anything, but it was set up over a timeline and as you walk in you get a card of a person who had to go through the Holocaust and their story. Overall the museum was very well put together and very interesting, but the crowding of people got to be too much! Maybe that was the point of it? Hmmm. After that, we were ready to head back home and relax. We made dinner, watched another movie and headed to bed. Do you see a pattern of our daily routine? J

Pictures to come tonight of all the posts that don’t have them!

Independence Day in the City Where It All Began

Our long weekend, one we couldn't wait for, started on Friday night with a little in home activity, coffee ice cream! We needed to go grocery shopping, so we headed to the store, got what we needed for the week and got the supplies to make our own ice cream! We made the ice cream and it didn't quite become hard, but we enjoyed it! We headed to bed early that night!

On Saturday, we were up by 7 so that we could catch the metro 8 to head to the Kennedy Center for our 9:30 tour. We had an, ahum ahum, interesting tour guide to say the least. After that tour, we headed to the capitol building to get in line for security to get our tour. We were hoping for a specialized tour, since we set it up through the Colorado Representative Doug Lamborn, but we were one of about 150 in the room. It was a tour I had done before, so I wasn't too sad about it. As soon as we finished the tour of the capitol, we headed to the Washington Nationals Baseball Park. We found a deal that on July 2nd, we got to watch a double header for $2 a ticket. We got free t-shirts as we came in and fireworks afterward. As if that wasn't enough, the Washington Post had 2 for 1 foot long hotdogs and 2 for 1 drinks in souvenir cups. We had seats on the second deck, third base line and we were in the shade. Probably the best part about the whole deal! We had an absolutely wonderful time!!

Sunday, we got back to our tourist efforts and were joined by another summer associate from USGBC. We started at the Marian Koshland Science Museum. It was a very interactive museum about global warming and  diseases. It was small, but very interesting. We then headed to the only presidential museum in DC, the Woodrow Wilson House. We spent over an hour walking around his house and learning all about him. I really hasn't known much about him so I really enjoyed it. After that we headed to the textile museum. We spent about 20 min. there, as it wasn't very big at all, but it had a couple cool things. As if this wasn't enough for the day, we headed to the nearest hair salon for Elena to get her haircut. We headed home for a quick dinner after that, before we went to the capitol to try to see the dress rehearsal of the capitol concert. We weren't able to see it though, as a freak storm had gone through and they closed it down for anyone that wanted in, in case of the storm going back through. We were not happy about it!

Monday we were happy not to have to get up for work, but we did get up decently early to go get a seat at the parade. We showed up 2 hours early, where we sat and read and played games on our electronics. We had some time just relaxing as the streets filled with people. The parade was nothing spectacular, mainly high school bands and some smaller versions of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloons. After that, we headed home to just relax for the afternoon. We were going to head towards the mall for the fireworks, but ended up just heading to a hill near us later that night to watch the fireworks and it was a great view. The best part was being able to walk home and not have to metro anywhere. We went straight to bed from there and then to work the next day. The weekend was fun and a 4 day week was awesome!

Pictures will come tomorrow. :)

Not your average tourist weekend.

The 5th week/weekend in DC was just as busy as the weeks before... Here it goes.

Wednesday of the week Elena and I headed into Georgetown to meet up with a classmate of ours who was in town touring. We got to see as well as get some frozen yogurt (if I haven't mentioned, this is one of our favorites!).

I can imagine that we did something on Friday, but I don't remember. :) On Saturday, we got up early and headed to the metro so that we could catch a bus to the Clara Barton house. We were the only ones there, so we got a personalized tour of her house, that was very interesting. Learned quite a bit of things about Clara Barton that I didn't know. After that, we walked "next door" to Glen Echo amusement park, which brought Clara Barton to the house in the first place. We didn't stay there long, and then caught the bus back to metro so that we could head to the zoo! The zoo in DC is free and was extremely crowded and very hot. (We are getting sick of the heat). As if we hadn't done enough, we then headed toward some murals that our "Little Black Book" told us about. After we found two of the 3 murals, we headed to a park one of my co-workers told me about (little did we know it has two names and was on our list). The park was very nice with a bunch of nice fountains. We sat and relaxed a bit before we headed to U street, known for its food and livelyness. I think we were too worn out by that point so we grabbed some iced coffee and headed home. We were exhausted and planned to sleep in on Sunday.

We may have planned to sleep in, but it definitely didn't happen. We were awake by 9:30 so we started going and going again. We started by heading to the National Postal Museum. It was small and somewhat unexciting, but the stamps were neat! Next we headed up to Brookside Gardens, which is the furthest stop north east that you can go on the metro, plus a mile walk. The gardens were neat and had a bunch of different types of gardens on the 500 acre plot of land. They were also showcasing an exhibit all about the different butterflies of the world. We paid for that and I'm glad we did as the amount of butterflies in the small room was spectacular! After spending about 4 hours at the Brookside Gardens, we decided to head home to rest a bit before work the next day. I'm pretty sure the week is our time of rest. I'll dedicate another post later on to what we do at night. Pictures below.

 Clara Barton House

 Clara Barton's bed

 The zoo

 Presidential mural

 Cows on Bikes Mural

 The fountains at Malcolm X Park

 Mural on U Street

 National Postal Museum

 Being goofy at the Brookside Gardens

 Butterfly at the Brookside Gardens

 Again

A neat tree at Brookside Gardens

Yet another adventure....

As another weekend approaches, I better keep trying to catch up on our previous weekends.

On Wednesday night of the week, one of my friends from high school was in town for a conference. We went and spent some time catching up with him, before heading back home so we could get to bed for work the next day.

We started our weekend right away after dinner on Friday night by walking across the bridge to Georgetown for some frozen yogurt. It was cloudy and ended up raining a bit, but made for a really nice night. After grabbing our yogurt, we started walking down M street, toward downtown DC. We walked down M, past my work, onto the back of the Whitehouse and then tried to get around to the front. We got blocked by construction on the road and so we ended up just sitting on the bench just talking. By 10 we headed to the metro to head home. When we got home, we calculated the distance we had walked, over 4.5 miles! What a night! :)

On Saturday we got up at a decent time and headed to the National Geographic Museum. They had a great exhibit about the race to the end of the earth, the journey to the very southern point of the world. They had some photos that have never been published, but not as many as I would have liked. After that museum, we headed to the park for lunch before heading to the museum of Crime and Punishment. It was a 3 story museum with so many really neat exhibits about anything that has to do with the law. It was neat. We also were able to do a mock forensic lab of a crime. It was pretty neat. We spent about 5 hours there! By then, our legs were tired and we headed home.

Sunday we were up by 6:30 am to head to Mt. Vernon. It was a pretty neat. We were able to see quite a bit and even took a 45 min. ferry ride on the Potomic River. We were supposed to go to the Distillery and Gristmill too, but after we got to Mt. Vernon, we found out it was 3 miles a way, and with very little public transportation, as if the metro ride and the long bus ride to Mt. Vernon wasn't enough. We decided we would  wait for the hourly bus and try to head there. The buses were extremely confusing to figure out, and as we ask the bus driver about where he is going, he barely speaks English and has no idea where we are trying to go. There is more to the story, but ultimately it was his bus we were supposed to be on, so instead of waiting another hour, we decided to head back to the metro. Instead of just heading home, we decided to head to Old Town Alexandria. We walked down the main street and down to the river. It was neat to see all the different little shops and we ended up spending quite a bit of time in some of the stores. We got all the way down to the river and then took the free trolley back up to the metro. This made for another long day! From there, we headed home to get some sleep before the next week of work.

Pictures are below, again out of order.

 At the Museum of Crime and Punishment

 Elena locked in a cell at the Museum of Crime and Punishment

 Mt. Vernon

 Washington's Tomb

 The boat we were on 

 On the way down to Old Town Alexandria

 The Warf at Old Town Alexandria