Smithsonians, statues and a show

To start out, I'd just like to show you one of the statues not too far from my house that makes me laugh every time I see it. It's just so awkward and I can just imagine him saying "Look at me, I'm naked!" We will use this as the second edition of Name This Building... Any guesses?
So much has happened in the last 2 weeks, so I will have to do a quick recap of the fun filled time: Tried to sit in Supreme Court but only got to be in Court for 3 minutes, helped out with committee meetings at work, mom came into town, went to TONS of museums, mom went home, got to sit in Supreme Court oral arguments! Long story short... now time for the details and the pics.

The first time I tried to attend Supreme Court oral arguments was last week. It had snowed overnight, so the marble was covered in snow. Being from Arizona, I didn’t know about the whole phenomenon of snow on top of marble feels like standing on a block of ice. Awesome. After waiting a very long time, didn’t get real seats, but got to go in for 3 minutes. Sad day...

Sitting in on the council meetings with representatives from many of the pharmacy organizations was quite enlightening. It was great to meet all of these people (even though a main topic was the lack of residency positions... didn’t do a thing to treat my nervousness about the Match!) and realize all that they do to push the profession forwards. Great experience.

Now on to my mom being in town... It was very last minute plans. She booked her ticket a week in advance with the encouragement of my step-dad (Thank you, Ray!) and we saw pretty much everything. I think we crossed off half of my DC rotation bucket list. The first night we went to a place at Union Station to get a bite to eat and a delicious mango margarita. Afterward we starting walking the area around the Capitol, which is lit up beautifully at night.
One of the best things about the house where I live is that we have amazing breakfasts. We have a cafeteria in the house and not only do we have a fruit buffet along with yogurt and cereal, but we have a made to order hot breakfast every day of the week. I can have pancakes, eggs any way including egg white omelets, bacon, sausage, oatmeal, grits, and then whatever special of the morning. I had some mean cinnamon apple pancakes last week. Yum, yum. I will miss that about this place. I’m not a huge breakfast person and it rarely involves me cooking up anything on a stove. So this has been quite the change, but quite nice considering I have no way of cooking for myself. Such a blessing and talk about a wonderful way to start off the day! (Although on a side note, I am really missing cooking... It's cathartic and a great excuse to invite some friends over)

So my mom’s first full day in DC involved 2 different tours of the Capitol, Smithsonians (American Indian and Air & Space), a show at the Kennedy Center, and dinner in Chinatown. The Capitol is topped with a statue of Freedom, which is not quite as recognizable as the Capitol building itself. So here’s a closer view with a replica in the visitor’s center as well as a reminder of what building she perches atop.For anyone interested in a good meal while visiting the Smithsonians, I highly recommend the cafe at the American Indian Museum. Absolutely wonderful and it is one of the contenders for my favorite meal while in DC. The bison was delicious! Plus it was quite colorful and I felt like I blended in with the meal.The Kennedy Center has a free show every night of the year (and of course hosts many shows that are not free in the slightest), but we caught a performance of a chamber choir in the Terrace Theater. Delightful, free concert with great talent. One of the conductors had quite the receding hairline which was extremely noticeable when he would bow after each piece (this will come into play later). After a wonderful show, we headed to Chinatown to get some great food. We found this little hole in the wall restaurant that was amazing... almost made me feel like I was back in China. Almost.

On Saturday, set out to explore the Library of Congress and went to the Natural History Museum. The Library of Congress is amazing... it’s beautiful and the pictures will not do it justice. But to try here are a few...
While at the Library of Congress, we were walking down a staircase where you can view one of the only 4 circular reading rooms in the world (little trivia tidbit) and I see a familiar hairline walking up the stairs. It just happened to be one of the conductors from the show the night before. I stopped him on the stairs to let him know what a wonderful job they had done the night before and I could tell from his expression that he was quite appreciative I would remember him enough to pick him out from a group of tourists. Needless to say, I didn't tell him the real reason why I was able to recognize him.

Just a couple photos from the Natural History Museum, including one of my mom and cousin...Almost the size of a great white... Almost.
For those that know about my hiccups... (note the large fossil in the background)Where I hang out during the day...Just a little lesson from Einstein...Making new friends with the neighbors...I am loving this rotation!

My first few days with the American Pharmacists Association (hereafter referred to as APhA) has been a little scattered trying to get building access, figuring out who is where and what floor has what, and the alphabet soup is intense even for someone who thought they were pretty good with the all the pharmacy acronyms. The building access is a nuisance but necessary since the State Department rents out floors 2-5 of the new building. So I am uber safe in the building, but figuring out my access badge was more confusing than it needed to be, considering I was never told the code to use with the badge when I enter the building.

It’s been great so far, just attending some meetings, figuring out what I’m doing and what everybody else is doing. This is a crazy time (which makes it an awesome time) to be at APhA because our annual meeting is coming up at the end of my rotation, so this is crunch time. It gives me a great idea of what the most stressful time of the year is and what all goes in to making a huge meeting like this run smoothly. Great times! It’s also been great to reconnect with the APhA staff that I have befriended the past few years and get to see them more often than just randomly at meetings. This has been such a surreal experience as I get a wonderful view of the Capitol every day when I catch the Metro at Union Station. Last night when I was heading home after dinner with Nick Dorich, the Capitol was lit up and looked stunning. While today when I was heading home to eat dinner, there was a beautiful sunset painted across the sky behind the Capitol building. Beautiful.

This week has been great getting to know a bunch of the girls in my house and the other intern at APhA, Daphne. Daphne and I took a little walk at lunchtime since the weather was beautiful (about 65 and sunny) over to the Lincoln Memorial and Korean War Memorial. I love Lincoln. Every time I am at the Lincoln it stops me. During my run, at night when it’s lit up, during the middle of the day, whenever. But that might just be me, and my soft spot for tall bearded men.

So funny little story, I had to take this photo at the Korean War Memorial since it brought back fond memories (even though I was at a war memorial, I know). The memorial has all the countries that were United Nations members during that time engraved along the path and this one caught my eye...
I hope this shows up well, but this is engraved near the pool at the Korean War Memorial. Makes me thankful to be an American and so grateful to all our armed service members.

This week is shaping up to be a pretty fantastic first week in the nation’s capitol.

A little run through the Nation’s Capitol....

I needed to get my internal compass situated to DC, so nothing better than a 10 miler around the National Mall to remedy my need for direction. I did get slightly turned around, but the buildings tend to be a little distinctive around here. First, I’ll give you a little tour of my place. It houses 120 women, ages 18-34, on 4 floors dorm style (except we have single rooms). Boys are not allowed above the ground floor and are kicked out of the building after 11 pm. Many of the women staying here are congressional aides since we are right by the Capitol. And when I say we are right by the Capitol, this is the building I see across the street as I look out my bedroom window. (That would be the Hart Senate building where Arizona Senator Jon Kyl has his office)
So when I start out my run down 2nd Street, I pass by the Senate offices and before I can even think about what’s coming next I’m right next to the Supreme Court. Now for many that wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but for me (who had a dream of becoming a Supreme Court Justice when I was little... ok maybe more like last year) this stopped me in my Mizunos. I’ve been inside the Supreme Court before, but for some reason on this quiet Sunday morning it just made me reflective of the decisions that have come out of this building that have so drastically changed our country. I’m hoping to make it to arguments soon... next week are a few cases that might be interesting. So as not to bore you with descriptions of all the buildings I saw on my run, below are some photos I took along the way including the building I’ll be spending most of my time in!

Where Obama lives...
Some flowers for his birthday...
Some of you may know that my sister-in-law is in architecture school, so I came up with a little game for Stacy that everyone is allowed in on: Name This Building! A few rules to the game: the building will be within the District of Columbia and the location will be appropriately identified if it falls outside of the District borders, and besides that, fair game and cheers to you if you can beat the architecture student. So I will start out easy: Although to level the playing field... extra credit to the person that can describe the major irregularity and why it occurred.

From Saturday (my internet has been down)

I landed in Baltimore after a flight full of crying babies (although I was super thankful for my iPod to drown it out a bit) to find my uncle waiting for me at the baggage claim. I am so thankful for having family nearby, since this is my first away rotation with a connection located not too far away. Since this part of my family lives on the opposite side of the country, it’s not too often that I get to see them. They were so sweet and prepared a care package for me with all sorts of goodies and most importantly, chocolate.

For those that haven’t heard, I’m staying at a women’s boarding house between Capitol Hill and Union Station. It’s a perfect location, 2 meals a day included, a private room, and a VERY reasonable price for DC. All in all, it was a huge blessing to get to stay here (shout out goes to Elizabeth Hall-Lipsy for the suggestion).

My first day has been rather uneventful... just getting unpacked, figuring out what liquid exploded inside my bag, tying up loose ends from stuff back home and getting ready to start my exploration tomorrow. A friend of mine will be in town this week, so hopefully we'll have some fun explorations.

Off to DC...

It’s been quite awhile since my last post, but I will try to be much better this rotation. This is the sixth move in the last 10 months. I have been able to see so many places and do so many things, but it’s also been quite tiring at times. These have been once in a lifetime opportunities to live in different places for 6 week stints. It’s enough time to really get a feel for the place, but short enough that I can get so many experiences in this last year of school. I have lived an another country, a small town that felt like a different country, and now going to a big city that represents my country. Quite the mix. I have a whole bucket list of places to go and things to see in DC and I’ll take lots of photos along the way to share with you all. This is such a great opportunity to work with the American Pharmacists Association and experience DC at the same time. Let me know if there are any places that you think need to be included on my DC bucket list, I’m always up for suggestions.

The hard place I’m at right now personally is determining my rank order for residency. There are so many things to consider and weigh when figuring out the rank. I’ve been able to have some great conversations with people to help me process everything, but it’s not finalized yet. I’m hoping DC will solidify how I want to rank. It’s almost there, but the internal debate is not quite wrapped up. Closing arguments have to be completed by March 11th, but I’m hoping the verdict for this court case is in much earlier than that!

One funny story as I was leaving Arizona: My mom and I drove up to Phoenix and stayed up there for my early flight the next day. I set a couple different alarms just to make sure I didn't miss my flight and one of the alarms is similar to a telephone ring. When it went off, my mom grabbed the phone in the room and was so confused as to why someone wasn’t on the other end. Good times with the mama before I left Arizona.

So for now it’s off to DC to be greeted by awesome family that I don’t get to see nearly often enough!