By carlyfisher4
Today marks the end of the second week that I have been in DC and it is amazing to me how quickly this city, and in particular GW, have come to feel home-like and comfortable. With that in mind, I realized quickly that although the goal here is to feel at home, it is important to ensure that we don’t take for granted the opportunity to live in DC and to get to know the city in great detail. Accordingly, I have decided to set a different goal for myself, which is to experience something new every week, which I will then be able to share with you in this blog 🙂 .
This week has been filled with new experiences and therefore is the perfect week to act as an introduction to my new challenge. Apart from starting classes at GW (and surprisingly not getting too lost – which was beyond exciting because I still get lost all the time at my home school), I enjoyed my first college basketball game, visited U-Street and took some time over the weekend to indulge in the sights of DC. So far my classes have all been great – and strangely enough they have been both very similar and incredibly different from what I am used to at home. The fact that the classes are so small are a big change, but so far I have liked all the classes I have taken, so lets hope that remains true throughout the semester.
One of the best parts of this week was going to the GW v. Richmond Basketball game. Although I am generally not a big sports fan, I ended up getting really into the game and had a really fantastic night. I have heard many GW students mention the lack of school spirit that is usually demonstrated by the student body, (I’ve heard a number of people say that internships are to GW students what sport is normally to college students) and so I went in with some hesitations. I don’t know if I was expecting a below par team or sub-standard spirit as a result of these statements, but what I witnessed certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. If this is a school that ‘isn’t all that into sports,’ they sure did a good job of fooling me! The entire court was electric, excitement was drowned out only by the chants of screaming GW fans and the stalls were filled with everyone in matching Buff and Blue supporters’ shirts. The game itself was incredibly engaging and was easily one of the most exciting basketball games I’ve ever been to – probably because we were so invested in their win as we wanted our first GW game to end a success.
When the game, in its second over-time, was finally down to its last 10 seconds and it looked like we had it in the bag, the floors and walls began to shake with excitement as GW supporters stomped, chanted, sang and cheered. After a rather long game of basketball (it was such a tight game!) the GW team won and made our first time to the basketball here a thrilling experience, one that we are already all planning on going back to together. It was awesome too meeting up with a large group of the other exchange students as obviously during the week we don’t see each other all the time as we are all off meeting our own friends in classes and hanging with our roommates, etc, so it was a great opportunity to meet back up as a group after a couple days apart.
Aside from the basketball, the other highlight of this week was having my friend from Ohio visit for the weekend, and sightseeing with her. We started the weekend off with breakfast at the Old Ebitt Grill as we were told that it was iconic here in DC, before beginning a long stroll down the National Mall enjoying the sights of the monument, the World War II memorial, the Lincoln memorial and the Vietnam memorial. The grandeur of all the sights, especially the Lincoln memorial, certainly did not disappoint and were as magnificent as my memory served based on my visit years ago. The weather definitely set the scene this visit, especially as we were able to step onto the semi-frozen reflection pool and essentially ‘walk on water.’
Eager to indulge our collective sweet tooth, our next stop for the day was a visit to Georgetown Cupcakes – and indulged we were 🙂 . With cupcakes in tow, we continued our day down on the banks of the Potomac, where we went ice-skating. Realizing my lack of skills on the ice (and that of my friends), we found ourselves eventually needing to move on once again…after embarrassingly being overtaken numerous times by the small children on the ice.
And so the fun in DC continues, and with more of the long weekend to look forward to, I cant wait to take advantage of all the new opportunities and experiences that come my way.
Until next time…