the week so far

Monday was great because after work i got to wander around the U-Street area for awhile, then headed over to Dupont Circle and met up with Matthew Taylor and our friend Andrew Maguire. Andrew goes to VU with us and is a counselor at an international diplomacy camp at American university. he doesn't get many days off from his job so it was great to see him! we at a place that is literally called 'the burger joint' and it was really good. then we walked a few blocks over to a frozen yogurt place called Mr. Yogato that Andrew's friend had recommended to him. i didn't get anything, but apparently it was LITERALLY yogurt that was frozen and not everyone's favorite. the place itself was really cool though. froyo shops and gourmet cupcake shops are all the rage here in DC (as they are in nashville) but they have yet to really reach louisville yet (not surprising). TLC is even starting a new reality show soon called DC Cupcake. no complaints about so many yummy things being stationed around me!

I went home after that and crashed early as i was really tired. Tuesday was great at work because to celebrate Anita's (my boss) birthday we went and got Ethiopian food! There really, truly aren't any African cuisine restaurants in all of nashville, and to my knowledge our one and only one in louisville, Queen of Sheba, just opened. I had no idea what to expect but it was really cool. you're served everything in a large, wooden bowl that you share with your group, and you don't use utensils, instead you pick up everything with this spongy bread and eat it that way. sorry for my lack of culturally accurate terminology, but, well, i'm coming from an area that doesn't exactly excel in global awareness ;)

Tuesday night i met up with katelyn, jill and matthew at the Nat's stadium for the Congressional baseball game (democrats v. republicans). it's been going on for 30-40 years and it was a lot of fun watching members of congress play each other in baseball (even if i was forced to sit on the democrat side). the dems won big, and ben chandler (D-KY) played! we sat in front of his interns, mostly from KY, and i found out we had a lot of mutual friends- go figure. then we all went home and used katelyn's quesadilla maker that her mom brought us- yummy!

Wednesday was also fun at work- my supervisor Evlyn is a flamenco dancer and had a show in the afternoon so we all left the office to go see it! she's in a really talented company and they put on an awesome show. definitely a great lunch break!!! the rest of the day went by really quickly. however, my computer crashed AGAIN because let's face it, if you're working on a 10 year old Dell, things aren't going to go very well. the piece of crap was ridden with viruses before i ever got here and we've already had to wipe the harddrive multiple times. so, starting today, im bringing my macbook to work every day and just plugging in the ethernet cable for internet. on one hand im happy about it because i have a lot less wrist pain (which was becoming really bad on the dell) on my macbook, and it works a LOT better. however, i walk about 1/2 mile to the metro from my apartment and then a full mile from the metro to work each way. my bag weighs 20+ pounds and i already did a LOT of damage to my shoulders this year at school carrying around all that stuff, so im worried about it here as well. I don't have a backpack and seeing as i wear a dress or skirt every single day it'd hardly be feasible. im sure ill figure it out soon enough.

today is the last day of my work week as Laura and Mom will get here tonight after dinner sometime! since they're only in town for one full day im taking friday off (hey, they dont pay me- i deserve it!) not too much going on in the office, but we won't be taking any fabulous lunch breaks or field trips today that im aware of- i was getting used to it ;)

Tomorrow i'll be showing Laura and mom around the mall and monuments in the morning and maybe checking out the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival- it has a TON of cool free things going on. then we're meeting katelyn and jill and going to the Holocaust Museum. We might fit in the botanical gardens after that, and then we're meeting michael kariya for dinner. can't wait!!!