Well I am on my fourth day here and manage to stay very busy. There's a lot to write about the first weekend, but I'm really tired and it's 11:10 and I have to get up at 7:30 tomorrow, so we'll see how far I get. Once it evens out, I'll have more time to post (but then, won't have anything new to post about).
I took a train here from Atlanta. Yeah, very antiquated I know. It seemed kind of cool, but the charm wore off pretty fast, considering the whole trip took about 14 hours. It was about 45 minutes late arriving, which I expected, so I didn't really care. I left Atlanta about 9 pm Friday.
It's hard to sleep in coach on a train, it just kind of looked like everyone was pretty uncomfortable. I got a bag of sour gummy worms at Kroger before getting on the train, so I ate those throughout the ride. I had not had them in a long time, and it was a welcome remembrance of times past. I sat next to a brother, who looked pretty gangsta, so that was interesting. But he only got up like once the whole time, and pretty much just slept during the whole thing.
With 4-6 hours of sleep accomplished, I arrived in Washington at about 12 Saturday. My dad's friend from college picked me up. His name is Richard Soudriette, and his wife is Cynthia. We ate at a Sbarro's in Union Station, and he bestowed upon me travel guides galore. We then took a cab to the aparttment building, really close to Capitol Hill--in fact, I think it's considered to be
in Capitol Hill. We unloaded all my stuff, and I got settled in. I soon became very stressed, because my room is small and hot, my shampoo leaked in my suitcase, the program directors John and Jonathan were badgering me for my security deposit check, and I couldn't give it to them because my checkbook was hidden away inside one of my five bags of luggage. Well, I eventually found it and was able to relax and kind of put my stuff in order rather than just having it thrown around the room in no order.
My roommates all came about the same time. I have 3: Jaewoong (Jay) is 27, in his undergrad at Ohio State, and came here from South Korea last fall. He is a finance major. Warren is 22 or something, goes to Rhodes college in Memphis, political science/history major. He wants to go to law school, and has done tons of internships like this, so I think he's definitely got the resume. Pavol is from Slovakia, is 23 or so, and is tall. He's in the same room as me, and Warren and Jay are in the other.
Much like my first weekend night at UGA, Saturday night was just kind of a disarray. No one wants to just stay in, but no one knows anyone else, and no one knows anywhere to go. A semi-big group of us went to a pub on Pennsylvania Ave, the street right outside our appartment with many restaurants, bars, and cool shops all along it. I think the one we went to was called the Tune Inn, or Time Inn, or something like that, didn't really make sense. I had an egg and bacon sandwich, it wasn't that good. We stayed around a while, then the older people went somewhere to drink. Us 20-year-olds decided to go walking and find the other papartment building. After about 20 minutes of non-success, we came back, and got back the same time as everyone else. Then everyone pretty much just went straight to their rooms, and soon off to bed.
The other three guys in my apartnemt are all Catholic, so they all went to a Sunday mass. I being an interested-in-Buddhismist, slept in. I was awakened by Richard calling at about 11. There's bad service inside my o'partment because we are in the basement level, so I lost his call. He called back later and told me to change my voicemail, because a recording of me singing "From Me to You" comically badly is not considered very professional here. In the afternoon, we 4 men decided to go 'round the city. We got metro cards, and went to the stop for my work so I could find out how to get there and what building it is. It's in a really cool building in downtown. We then just kept walking through the downtown area. I'd never seen this part of DC before and I was stunned how cool it is. It's like the busy business district, lots of corporate offices, large buildings, wide sidewalks. It feels much like New York City. We went through Chinatown, part of the mall, and then a crummy part of town south of the mall back to our apartment. We were all starving and tired when we got back. We ate late lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Then we just came back down here and chilled for a while. In the evening, we went for a photo shoot.
We came back here, and I headed up to the starbucks next door to write this post. I was not even through the first sentence when I saw some girls from upstairs walk by. I'd met them the first day, they had been in the group at the Tune Inn. They were named Lauren, Javiera, and Nicki. They saw me and came in and asked if I wanted to go to dinner. I assented, then went and invited the rest of the guys from my apppartment as well. No one had any ideas about where to go, so we went in one of first restaurants we saw, Mr. Henry's.
We walked in, and it was pretty small and cozy. The tables had those red and white checked table-cloths you find throughout middle America. Our group of 7 went to sit down at a big table. As we walked through, even through it was crowded, I felt like the waiter passed really close to me. At the same time, or maybe because of this, I also noticed that he was buff, in a tight black shirt, and had gelled and bleached hair. I looked around at the other patrons: all the tables had middle-aged men. My head went back and I sighed as the realization hit me. This was an establishment for those of a certain persuasion. I pointed this out to all the others in the group quietly as we set down, and everyone had the same startled reaction. All us guys were instantly uncomfortable, but we just decided to take it like men. However, it remains to be stated that I could not have chosen a more inappropriate or suggestive idiom in that sentence. Luckily, I sat one one corner of the table surrounded by the girls, while the other three guys were all on their end (but I doubt if this really changed appearances at all for myself). At one point, a luscious-looking Hispanic man sat down in the empty seat and began talking to Warren. He probably had a gallon of cologne on. He shook all of our hands, and I couldn't understand him, but the girls said that he told me I have beautiful eyes. Well, he told us he was a radiologist downtown and we could come by anytime for a discounted rate, and left our table. This was an appreciated move on his part by all of us guys. I was not very hungry because our lunch was so late, so I just got a bowl of chili, and while the chili was quite good, I don't think I'll be going back for another.
This concludes my first post, those are pretty much the main events and main characters so far. Today was extremely long; we had an orientation, Georgetown tour, and 2 and a half hour class. I'll maybe give more detail on it tomorrow, but now I'm going to bed.
