Screen on the Green

Fortunately it has cooled down here a little the last few days which is a relief because for awhile I thought I might be sticky and sweaty for the rest of my life.

A few nights ago I attended Screen on the Green with some friends from the hostel. They played a Doris Day movie on the lawn in front of the capitol building. As an added surprise we were actually able to see and hear the whole thing. Apparently there is some strange DC ritual involved because when the opening credits came on, half the people stood up and started waving their arms in the air and jumping around. I still don't know what it was about but I have no regrets about participating.

I also did a little more sightseeing around the city.

The National Gallery of Art

Exchange Reunion and Sightseeing

Thanks to the magic of facebook I discovered that an old exchange friend of mine is interning in DC for the summer. We only overlapped by a few days but fortunately we were able to meet up for dinner in Georgetown. We haven't seen each other since we studied abroad in Sweden 5 years ago and it was really nice to catch up. It's always nice to see old friends and find that you still get along great.

Between running around the DC area to look at rooms and try to charm people at open houses I managed to find time for some sightseeing. I decided to go see the National Zoo with a girl from my hostel. It was very hot, so many of the animals were hiding in the shade but we had a good time regardless.

 

First Day in DC

So I made it to DC, where I will be starting a new job in August. I've been waiting for this move since April so I'm really excited to finally be here. The flight from San Francisco went without incident and I arrived at my hostel in the evening. Today I embarked on an apartment search. Rents here are, not surprisingly, quite high, so most of the narrowing down has been done for me. Today I looked at a couple of places off of the redline metro. Neither was a good fit, but I figured out the metro and used zipcar for the first time. Yay for small victories!

Between looking at places I decided to check out Bethesda, where my work will be. When I first got off the metro I was a little underwhelmed because it mostly looked like this

There weren't a lot of restaurants or shops, just office buildings, banks and construction sites. I was also hungry and hot so things were looking pretty grim. But then I turned a corner and discovered Bethesda Row which is super adorable and lined with trees and trendy-looking restaurants.

Much more like it

I've been enjoying seeing the city and can't wait to explore it more when I have my housing all settled.

Baja

To kick off my new blog I thought I'd post some old photos of my road trip down the Baja peninsula with my roommate Matt. We started from Santa Barbara and drove down as far as the Bahia de Concepcion. We made it through the many checkpoints to experience the lovely landscapes of Baja California from desert to ocean to oasis.

Our first night we camped in Rosarito. The cement and gravel "campsite" was a pretty accurate indication of what was to come

The enormous and completely empty beach of Cielito Lindo

There were enormous Dr. Seuss plants all over the desert

The most delicious fish tacos of my life

Mission San Ignacio, situated in an oasis in the middle of the desert

More oasis

We got as far down as Mulege in the Bahia de Concepcion where we found a man to take us out searching for whale sharks

Success!

He also took us diving for scallops. I think I will keep my day job.

Grey whale watching (and petting)