2 days that I have written about and was just lazy to post about

Sunday, August 22, 2010, 7.24pm.
I suppose I should just start off where I left off on Saturday. After I got done with the blog, I went back up to the room so I could ask my roommate if he wanted to go to find my work with me and then head into DC to visit some sites and being as sly and cunning as I am, he said yes! In all actuality, he wanted the same thing I did, to find out where to report on Monday and to find out how long it would take to get himself there. After a bite to eat and a little of killed time, we left out for our adventure into a city that I had never been to and to a place that was and is larger than life. The first thing we encountered was a series of tunnels, or if you like the more proper term, we walked underground, (but a tunnel sounds cooler) that were, at least for me, confusing. I knew I would get lost, but lucky for me, Billy is not as directionally challenged as I am (I am having a hard time adjusting to N, S, E, and W here). Once we got through all the maze of tunnels, we finally got to where we buy a metro card. The metro is the same as the subway, or U-Bahn if you are German. When we got there, we found out that they do not have a monthly card, but they have a ‘smart card’ that smart people buy because they can load as much money on them as they want—they might even get discounts! They also have a weekly card, a weekly short pass, and a one-day pass. I am lucky enough to have my transportation provided for me, so for me it was an easy buy—one-day pass. The one-day pass costs $9. I spent $9 yesterday (Saturday) and $9 today on the metro system. To me that seems like a lot, but I haven’t figured out the math for it, so let’s see how far I can get on $18 with my van. My van gets 18mpg, a gallon of fuel costs roughly $3.00. If I spent $18.00 on fuel I would get 6 gallons (you may want to double check my math) and with 6 gallons of fuel, I would get 108 miles (once again, no guarantees the math is right). If I decided to use my van, I would have gone a lot further, I could have even driven only 90 miles and bought a box of donuts at a gas station. Why didn’t I get donuts on the metro? Do I not deserve them? I am just kidding. In all seriousness, I think $9 is a fair price for a one-day pass. However, I do think that they should offer a monthly card. The metro out here is not very good, if taken on the weekend, because it only comes about every 20 minutes. Because of this, it takes a bit longer to get around than originally anticipated, but at the same time, if you plan your timing to get to work on a weekend, you should never be late! Once we finally got on the metro, we rode until Rosslyn where we stepped out of the deep darkness of the underground world and found that the sun did not disappear on us while we were under there and located my work with relative ease. We then went back to the metro, and continued on our journey. We got off at Capitol South. Once we got off here, we walked around for a while and I saw the United States Capitol building, the offices of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Supreme Court and the reading room in the Library of Congress. All were very cool. We got a cool card so that we can do some research in the Library of Congress as well. I don’t know how useful it will be, but at least I got to see the reading room. Once we got through with the Reading Room we went back home and called it a night, I was tired and ready to go to eat some food and go to sleep! But, as luck would have it, we needed to have a visitor that night! Molly, our apartment-watcher-overer, came to visit us so that she could introduce herself and give us some basic information about the area and the apartment. There is not much fun to share about the apartment, except that it has a funky smell, the shower curtains in both bathrooms are quite moldy and it has a good view with a nice balcony. When we were finished with this discussion, we went up to Molly’s apartment to meet another intern and to get something from Molly’s apartment (It has since slipped my mind what we went up there to get). We met a nice intern, whose name I cannot remember, and her cousin, also whose name I cannot remember. Around 10.30 or so we went back to our apartment, now I was thoroughly exhausted, and I climbed into bed and slept like a baby the whole night.
Sunday
Sunday, what a glorious day! First, I should mention that I am actually writing a week later than originally anticipated — this procrastination thing does not work very well for story-telling. The morning started out nicely, I got ready for church, I knew where I was going, which was a plus, and I walked to the metro. Once I got to the metro a man, dressed in nice Sunday clothes, asked me, also dressed in nice Sunday clothes, where I was going. I told him that I was going to church, whereupon, he asked, “Why what church would that be?” I replied, “The Mormon Church,” and he said, “I know, which one?”
So, I told him the church that I was going to and as it turns out, we were headed to the same church. I would late find out more information about Robert and his wife, Kolleen, and they became my traveling buddies for the day. Once we got off the metro, we met another fine young, although older than me, fellow. His name is Lee, and he is a Commercial Merchant from Clearfield, Utah. He led us to church as is he had already been there. It turns out he hadn’t, and we ended up going the wrong way, but using common sense, we turned around, started walking in the right directions and five minutes later, we were all sitting down in the “pews” of the church, which were just a bunch of chairs lined up in a row. Being at that church was awesome! It made me feel like I was on a mission again. There were so many different types of people there, Black, White, Middle-Eastern, Chinese, and all were in a spirit of unity and were there for one purpose – to serve and honor God. I can distinctly remember the opening prayer was given by a convert and was loud and open. The man poured his heart out and spoke as if God himself were in that very room. It was very inspirational. I do not remember the talks given, however I do remember that they fulfilled their purpose, they were edifying and it was like having the match spark the fire again. After church, I spoke with the missionaries, who were having a great time there. I left the building alone, thinking I was going to go to the Smithsonian alone, but as I looked ahead of me, I saw my travelling buddies, so I caught up with them and found out what they were doing and it turned out, we were doing the same thing! So we went together. Once we got to the metro, we decided to walk to the Capitol building and the people we asked for directions told us that while we were there, that we needed to go see Eastern Market. The stop we got off at, was Eastern Market, so it was not very far away. We walked there and it was pretty cool. There were a lot of items there. There was fruit, vegetables, jewelry and all sorts of other doodads. One of these doodads was a giraffe made out of wire and an unraveled aluminum can. The creator would fashion a giraffe using wire and then use pliers to uncurl the can into 1/8” strips, he would then take those strips and weave them through the wire. It was quite impressive. Once we left the Eastern Market, we headed on our way to the Capitol in search of some food and some good pictures. Robert was a photographer and he took pictures of just about everything, sometimes multiple times from multiple angles, it was cool to see a photographer at work (although it did take a bit longer to get from point A to point B). We found a sports bar that we decided to eat at. Yes, I did break the Sabbath by buying food. I am not a perfect person and work every day towards The Goal, sometimes I get side-tracked, this time it was by food. But I did pay for, literally, I got a hamburger that cost me $11.00! That is a high price to pay for something to eat. The hamburger was not worth it, but the fries probably were.