The Adventure Begins!

        Well I am finally here and settled in at my apartment in Washington, D.C. For all those who don't know me, my name is Courtney and I am a history major at Wartburg College in Waverly, IA. For the fall term I will be interning at the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington D.C. through The Washington Center (TWC). Throughout my time here I will explain more what goes into the TWC program. I started my adventure last Wednesday and have been enjoying every moment since. Since arriving I have survived the metro, the circulator, walking to the capitol and on the mall, and most of all orientation. 

       Orientation was a two day process. Day one was spent with our program groups, I am in the Advocacy, Service, and the Arts program. We are a small group compared to the Political Leadership group and some of the other but that just means we get to know one another better. The beginning of our group orientation went the same as if you were in the first day of the college class, going over the syllabus. After lunch, however, we went to the TWC headquarters and went through the Leadership Compass with the guidance of City Year. I have done a great many leadership workshops where the goal is to find out what kind of leader you are, but this one put it in different terms and in a way that almost makes more sense. The activity that we did also was a lot of fun. We had to number off in our groups and then get into four big groups. Once in these groups we had to build a tower with the materials provided but depending on what your leadership style was you had something you couldn't do. Some couldn't talk, some couldn't see what was going on, and some couldn't touch the structure. In the end our tower didn't even stand up but it was still a fun activity. At the end of Day One the RA's and some of the other staff here at the Residential and Academic Facility (RAF) had nine stations of ice cream throughout the building, free ice cream is always a good idea to get people together.

       Day Two of orientation was spent in the auditorium listening to the president of TWC and some other speakers talk about the goals of the TWC program and different services to help us along the way. At the end of all the speakers we could go sign up for TWC lead civic engagement projects, which is part of the program. By the end of the orientation everyone was well aware of how busy we would be during our 15 weeks here. 

      The second day of orientation only went into the early afternoon so we had free time in the evening. Some of my roommates and I went to the National Mall and did some sight seeing. We unfortunately found out there is no metro stop close to the Lincoln Memorial, which meant a lot of walking. When we finally got back to the metro we met up with our other roommate and went to a restaurant called Lime. It is a mexican restaurant that is cheap and was really good. 

      The favorite part of my time here so far was doing a dry run of getting to my internship with another girl interning in the same spot. We had to take a bus and ride literally across DC and then walk a little ways to the visitors entrance. Once we got to the Navy Yard we realized that we could probably go see the museum and got a visitors pass went exploring. The museum was really neat and got us both excited. We also got to see display ship Barry, which was also really neat. Then last night it rained and I got to see a storm that produced some really neat lightning. I was told that DC had some pretty spectacular lighting storms and I was excited to see some and decided to attempt to get some pictures, thankfully I got one decent one. I start my internship on Tuesday, which will be another adventure of its own nature!