Last day!

Today was the last day in DC. I spent the morning packing. In the afternoon, I went to the American art and National Gallery museums.

Rally!

Today was my last day on the hill for my internship. It’s bittersweet but am looking forward to heading back to Orlando. There was a rally at the Senate sponsored by Senator Harkin on the impending effects of sequestration on education programs. If the House and Senate fail to reach a compromise by 1/2013 an overall cut of about 8-9% will be felt across education programs. Congressman Miller, Senator Murray and Congresswoman DeLauro were all present. It was an exciting day and attention was brought to this issue.

For more information…
http://www.ed.gov/blog/

National cathedral

I can’t believe that the internship is winding down! I’ve been at a conference all week and it has been amazing! What a great opportunity and I’m so lucky that UCF supports scholars in going to conferences. After the meeting this am, I headed over to the National Cathedral. It’s a beautiful day, perfect weather!

Museums!!

Today was a busy day! We visited the newseum, natural history museum, and walked around Chinatown. This was the last full weekend in Dc!

Kennedy center

The Kennedy center has live performances each night for free at the Millennium stage. We went on a random Wed. Unfortunately, the Croatian folk music wasn’t quite our style. (although they were very talented) 😉 We went to J Paul’s, restaurant in Georgetown and had half price shrimp and oysters. We also walked around the watergate complex.

Below: Some of the best shrimp I have ever had the pleasure of eating! yum:)

http://j-pauls.capitalrestaurants.com/georgetown/

Below: Watergate Complex

JFK quote below

House mark up

Today the House will be marking up the labor h appropriations in the subcommittee. This funds education, health, etc. This is the last of the bills I be marked up and is quite contentious with a republican led house. Looks like they are cutting 1.2 B dollars but funding IDEA at an increase of 500m. We don’t have the details. The republicans are also trying to destroy the Affordable Care act through these appropriations bills.

For more on the subcommittee: http://appropriations.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=303303

Take a look at the line:

It actually spans another hallway! I waited until about 10:30. They never opened up an overflow room. I guess the way to truly get your spot in line is to pay a line “sitter”. Organizations pay people to sit in line  and hold their place for them for important events at the House or Senate. Usually lobbyists that have the funds to do this actually implement this practice.

Rude awakening

Well last night I had a rude awakening! The fire alarm went off at 3:45am! At first, I had no idea what was going on. Then I realized it was a drill. Not a happy camper!

Nationals Game

We had the opportunity to watch the Nationals play the Mets this week. The stadium is beautiful! It reminded me of being outside of DC (I think the Anniversary trip got to my head). It was pretty hot though, even after dark. The Nats ended up going into overtime to 10 innings and winning it! It was very exciting. A good time had by all:)

Last full week!

I can’t believe the internship is winding down. I still have so much to see (and learn)! This is my last full week in the office and then we gave OSEP conf. next week.

Im trying to finish some “to dos” of sights in DC. Last night we went to a Nationals game. Beautiful stadium!

Above:  Picture of Nationals Stadium

Below: Kevin and I at the game. He should have had his Washington hat on. I don’t know what’s up with that 😉

Below: More pictures of the stadium

The Nationals beat the Mets 5-4 and it actually went into the 10th inning! We ran out of there and hopped on the Metro after.

Anniversary Weekend

Well this is unrelated but still important nonetheless! Kevin and I celebrated our first anniversary this weekend. We drove out to the Shenandoah mountain valley. It’s about a 2 hour drive south west of DC. We had a wonderful weekend with temps at 65 at night and 85 during the day. We rented a cabin in the woods and had campfires both nights. The air was fresh and it was so nice to escape DC. We went horseback riding, canoeing, and to Luray Caverns. Below are some pics.

Hiking the Appalachian trail, seeing a bear, and in the caverns.

Above: Us on the Appalachian trail (which actually goes from Maine to Georgia).  http://www.appalachiantrail.org/

Above: We spotted a black bear! Actually, we saw two as well as heard coyotes at the campfire on Saturday night and saw some deer and beavers.

Above: Luray Caverns. Very cool place. I was never in a cavern before and these are 450 million years old! I actually was getting annoyed with the tourists who were touching everything everywhere. If you touch the stalagmites, it stops their growth. Not a good thing! http://luraycaverns.com/

Above: View from top of one of the mountains. We just loved staying here. We bought lots of fresh and local food and cooked every night. I love all of the local, family owned places.

http://www.nps.gov/shen/index.htm

Above: Kevin surprised me and took me on a trail ride. It was great fun! The horses were beautiful and mine, Leah, was very well behaved:) Kevin’s horse (aka Toby Keith) was not!