First Week in DC

[United States Capitol]

First Sunday

I find it interesting that some of the best conversations and advice I have ever recieved have been from car drivers. I remember one time in Hawaii and another in Canada in particular. I remember last time my family was in DC they had a great experience with a cab driver as well. I even started my mission journal talking about a quote that I wanted to live by from the Dominican driver I had up in Whistler. Anyway, another one of my cab driver experiences was on Sunday. Fred picked me up for church on Sunday. African American guy who had lived here for several years and originally from New York and the only cab driver I’ve met since I’ve lived here that wasn’t from Ethiopia. Fred was a republican so we seemed to get along pretty well and we talked about several things. Eventually we got into a great conversation about accountability. One of the best conversations I have had in a long time. Nobody takes accountability for anything now days. He went on to tell me about how one night when he was driving and it was very late, he was very tired, and the visibility was almost none. He was driving up the highway and as he was losing consciousness along with being miserably frustrated there was a great light that seemed to come through the mist which ended up alerting him in a peaceful way allowing him to make the rest of the trip. The light was the LDS temple here in DC. We went on to talk about the church including blacks and the priesthood, which is always a delightful conversation and of course invited him to Church. It was a very memorable experience.

Once I got to church I found that the time online was for last year and that it wouldn’t be starting for another two hours. So I listened to the congregation in Spanish, which was going on at the time. Finally when singles ward started after sacrament I learned that it wasn’t the ward that I belonged to. I still met Heather, Kim, Chris, and Spencer. All great people. I even sat next to Tyler Oaks’ brother in Priesthood. Small world. Kim introduced me to Spencer who gave me a ride home. Spencer is an actor that is moving to LA in May. He knew everybody everywhere. I met him after last hour to give me a ride home since Kim wouldn’t allow me to take another $40 cab ride home and Spencer lived the closest in the Ward. He introduced me to basically everyone left in the building and I was even forced to play along saying I knew him from his mission in front of some girl that he was dating. He and Chris had both served in Argentina as well. So on the ride home he told me a lot about the area and how to get in the loop with a few things. He even went on a few detours to show me around Pentagon City and a few other neighboring side streets and pockets where there were some good restaurants and shopping. I was really grateful.


[Mayan Temples in Jungle]

I didn’t have any food so I went to the sea food place across from my apartment. The food was okay but my server was from Guatemala and he told me all about the Mayans and the ruins there.

I went down to the Metro after to figure out how the whole system worked. Although Ms. G didn’t seem to be very nice at first, after she noticed that I was over at the wall reading how the thing actually worked she was nice enough to come out of her warm little box and tell me how she was impressed that I was actually reading. She complained how most people don’t ever read first. After that she was nice and helpful. She even game me a little map.

Then I walked to Chareece’s house, which I thought was going to be like a mile and ended up being like 10 instead. Which I didn’t mind although it was way cold and I think that’s what ended up making me sick the last few days. She was throwing a birthday party for her roommate. Her complex was cool. It was very quaint. Red brick. It was fun, I met two of my future co workers who were very nice, Nikki and Noelle. They gave me a run down on the best way to get to work, which was nice. Nikki had just gotten back from Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. Sounds a bit like our trip a few months ago, right? So we talked about that and some other things. I ended up meeting some other cool people. A few attorneys and a few more people that worked up at “The Hill”. Nobody calls it “Capitol Hill” it’s always “The Hill”. One guy was telling me about his job over on the Senate side and another about working for an economic committee. Both interesting actually. They mentioned when they first got here how interesting it was that so many young people were working on Capitol Hill. The average age of people working there they figured was around 26 years old or so. A bunch of young people are the backbone of what is making the country function.

Getting To Work



[Washington DC Metro]

From my apartment it takes me about 10 minutes to walk through an underground tunnel through an underground mall to get to the metro. I take the Yellow line three stops from Crystal City to L’Enfant Plaza. I get off and take either a Blue or Orange line two stops to Capitol South. I walk out of the metro and about 50 yards to the Cannon building where the House of Representatives' offices are. Jeff’s office is on the second floor. The metro trip to the office takes about 35 minutes. So it takes a good 45 minutes to get to work.

First Week On The Hill



[Statue of Democracy in front of Capitol]

First week has been great. The other intern and the rest of the staff have been really nice. Mike, the other intern and I work mostly with David who is training us. My first day was good although I was sick. I got there early so I went to the end of the hallway where the ceilings go up another floor. The floors are marble and at the end where I speak of has huge columns and gold plated domed ceilings. I noticed there were people being interviewed on the next level up by the balconies and later found out that that is where Fox news does its broadcasting. So that was cool. We constantly see people being followed by groups of journalists and other people staring in a particular direction signifying that they recognized someone of notoriety. I honestly don’t know the faces of a lot of the politicians yet so I don’t know who it is a lot of the time.

Yesterday I got to go with Jeff down to the floor. He had to go down and vote so we went with him. We sat up on a tier that was only for staff and he pointed out a lot of things to Mike and I. He pointed out who a lot of people were, who was talking to who, where particular people seem to congregate, how the voting system works, some of the culture within the members of congress, and some other interesting things. It was the best experience so far. We’re waiting to take a class in order to start giving tours. We’re also supposed to start going to more hearings and learning more about the whole process. Other than that I have mostly learned how a congressional office works. Pretty impressive. It has been a great learning experience so far and I am enjoying it.