Articles by Jessica Welch
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience[s].” During my time in D.C. I’ve been trying to follow Eleanor’s advice and grab new experiences with both hands, and I have to say: I haven’t done half bad.
This weekend was my last weekend in D.C. With summer internships coming to an end, the girls and I wanted to relax and celebrate our last few days as true D.C. citizens. We’ve spent the majority of our time here exploring every tourist destination we could and wandering around the city from Embassy Row to Adam’s Morgan and Chinatown. This weekend we wanted to continue our exploration of D.C. in a different way.
Since my first weekend in D.C. when Kate, Lindsay, and I went to the top of the George Washington Monument, we have wanted to do the paddle boats in the tidal basin. We could see people paddling around while we were in the top of the monument and we wanted to do it, too, but something always seemed to come up—it was raining, people in our group couldn’t come, we were too tired, etc. This weekend we were finally able to do it!
Each year, GMA hosts a variety of staff events throughout the year. Apparently the summer event is one of the most anticipated of the yearly events; everyone leaves the office early and goes to a party that is organized by an “events team” somewhere in the city. Alexis and Megan were both on the events team, so we knew this party was going to be a ton of fun…in fact, all anyone talked about the entire week before the event was the party.
The Nationals Baseball team is an important facet in D.C. life—after all, what better place is there to play America’s pasttime then in the nation’s capital? During the baseball season, Nationals players grace the field for the thousands of fans who flock to the stadium. Last Thursday however, the stadium was crowded with a different group—politicians.
This weekend went by way too quickly. I’m exhausted, but I have learned a lot…like how to become a successful international spy. The International Spy Museum taught me.
The iconic D.C. tourist would visit Capitol Hill immediately upon arriving in the city, but I don’t really feel like a traditional tourist. I feel like D.C. is my home in some ways, with its teeming metros, street musicians, political activists and aspiring interns. Yesterday, two months into my stay in the nation’s capitol, I finally got my visit to The Hill, and it was fabulous.
My friend Courtney interns at the Newseum. The Newseum is a News History Museum that just opened a few months ago. Because Courtney works for the Newseum, she was able to take a few of us as her guests, allowing us to visit the exhibits free of charge—the Newseum is one of the few museums in D.C. with an entry fee.
This weekend my Washington, D.C. adventure continued with Mt. Vernon, the former home of America’s first president, George Washington. The sprawling 8,000 acre estate is now only a small portion of its original size but continues to boast the elegance and beauty that George and Martha Washington were known for.
My biggest event of the summer is now over. While I am still attempting to recover from all my running around before and during the conference, I can happily say that it turned out to be a huge success!
When I arrived in D.C., I made a list of everywhere I wanted to go before the summer was over. I knew that there would be places that other people had no desire to see, but luckily most of my friends and I shared the same interests in both history and exploring our temporary home. This consensus continued until we approached the topic of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
One of the first things I thought about when I found out I would be in Washington D.C. for the summer was Independence Day. What better place could there be to celebrate our nation’s 232nd birthday? The day was above and beyond anything I could have anticipated.
Although my D.C. friends and I continued our tour of the city this weekend, we were all exhausted from the past week at work. It seems like everyone I hang out with gets busy about the same time, so this weekend we all agreed to try and keep it as relaxing as possible.
Yesterday was my 20th birthday, and I’ll admit that, as excited as I was to be spending my birthday in D.C., I was a little depressed that I wouldn’t be around my family or …
As I’ve met people in D.C., I’ve made a point of asking them where their favorite places are to visit; I want to make sure that I experience the “true” D.C., whatever that is. Out of all the people that I’ve asked, only one person said the National Gallery of Art and only one person suggested the FDR memorial. In fact, many of the people I work with have never been to either of these places. This weekend I decided to pay a visit to those rarely suggested stops, the places ignored by most tours and forgotten by D.C.-ists. And I was surprised by what I found—by far one of the best days I’ve spend in D.C.
