We are already 6 weeks into the semester, and it has been an interesting one to say the least. Insane weather, with two snow days and two days off school for President’s Day and Martin Luther King Day. And this week, I was hit by February Flu, or in the UK what we would refer to us Fresher’s Flu, wherein after a few weeks of classes, and everyone returning back from their holidays, you are knocked off your feet and into bed. I did however get a reprieve this weekend when the sun suddenly appeared, and the temperature wasn’t scarves and gloves for the first time! I have been told that nothing is more beautiful than Washington DC in the Spring and I cannot wait to see this, and this weekend, I started to see the beginnings of it. After spending most of the week watching House of Cards and sleeping, I decided to head down to my favorite spot in DC: the national mall and monuments. Hundreds of people had gathered in the sunshine to take a walk around the Vietnam memorial and Lincoln memorial and have their photographs taken. I had not visited every monument however; my missing ones were The FDR memorial, Martin Luther King memorial and Jefferson memorial. For any student who has not walked every monument – take some time one afternoon, have your walking shoes on and get out there. Because they will take your breath away, particularly this weekend. I was surprised to find that although there was sunshine some of the reflection pools were still covered in ice. 
Our first stop was at the Martin Luther King memorial 
where a stone had been pulled out of a larger rock, with the inscription “out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” What I found surprising was that this monument was only completed two years ago, over 40 years after his death. I also walked through the large FDR monument, an interesting look at everything that happened during the 12 year presidency
.However my favorite moment of the afternoon was seeing the Jefferson memorial 
Sitting beside the water, there were blocks of ice slowly melting and floating on top of the water was an interesting sight! 
Walking up the steps, it was truly an impressive site 
, it completely takes your breath away. I love DC, and at times forget how lucky I am to have places like this on my doorstep. Next week keep an eye out for The St Patrick’s Day Parade in Old Town Alexandria on March 1st.
Tag: DC
Reflection Time !
By nimames
Being thousands of kilometers away from the comfy and toasty cocoon of my home has made me realize something; life is a sneaky little thing ! What I mean by that is that life works in rather mysterious, often unexpected ways. One day you are perfectly content with the way your day is going. And the other, well it's not as great is you might have expected it to be. This weekend has been the combination of both. Great moments of joy and happiness shared with loved friends and moments of disappointment and helplessness. I don't mean to be a downer by any means but tonight, as I am sitting in my desk covered with books, articles, and notes, I feel pensive.
First things first ! I have spent tremendously great moments catching up with my friends. We went out to explore DC's nightlife for a much deserved night of fun. I had personally had a hard week what with discovering that the eye infection I had, hadn't resolved and has to be surgically drained. Therefore, we took matters in our hand and headed to the Sign of the Whale where we could enjoy good music with an amazing company. Saturday was a great day for a stroll in the city since the sun has finally decided to show itself gifting us a warm, sunny day. We decided to walk to Georgetown and I was pleasantly surprised to see the nice little neighborhood (it's kind of my favorite) filled with people. In fact, the streets were downright packed with lines of pedestrians that dusted off their flip flops, t-shirts and shorts so they can absorb as much vitamin D as a the day could allow.
The next day was yet another sunny day but I had the feeling that it wouldn't last. Having been here for more than month now I have learned a precious lesson: not to trust DC's weather. It can be 17 degrees Celsius and in a blink of an eye, the temperature would drop below the dreaded 0. Granted, I wouldn't say no to (yet another) snow day but still, I have heard great things about spring time in DC when all the trees blossom and the streets are covered with pink and crimson. That is certainly something I look forward to ! I hope with all my heart that like the iPhone map, the weather forecast would be wrong about the next days to come. A snowy, chilly weather wouldn't encourage me to either tackle the dreaded amount of reading I have, nor would it allow me to see as much of the city (and the country) as I would like to. Fingers crossed !
Getting stuck in Foggy Bottom
It has been another interesting week at GW thanks to the winter storm that hit most of the East Coast. By Wednesday evening, the campus was abuzz with discussions on whether we would have another snow day, and how much snow would fall. Thanks to the GW Program Board, myself and a few of my friends went down to the cinema that evening to see an early screening of Endless love. Much to our surprise, when we came out at 10pm, the ground was covered in half an inch of snow already. My friend Vanessa who is Australian decided to make her first snow angel: 
. Not long after we received an email informing us that school was cancelled – SNOW DAY! Not wanting to miss out on the incredible snow coming down, I went out with a few friends to capture some pictures of the monuments in all their snow glory. 
It was a beautiful sight, even better than seeing them during the day a few weeks before. We started a mini snow ball fight between the four of us and then got asked by a CNN reporter if he could film us for the morning news – here is a print screen from the video the following morning! Our claim to fame!! 
Even though the snow was very fun, by the next morning nearly a foot had fallen outside, shutting down the metros and buses – I stood in a pile of snow that went up to my knee! 
Unfortunately this meant that we were unable to celebrate my friend Christina’s 20th birthday properly, due to being stuck in the apartments 
. By Saturday though, most of the streets had been cleared, so we were able to go cheer on the men’s basketball team in their game against the University of Massachusetts. It was a great game, with the teams keeping a single figure difference between them for most of it. 
Unfortunately the team lost narrowly by 6 points. It is a pretty good streak though, this being the first loss at home of the season. So although this week has been a little different to usual one’s, there was still time to have some fun, see friends, and once again enjoy DC for all its glory.
“America the Beautiful”
By aaront162
It could be said that there is hardly anything more quintessentially American than the Super Bowl – the great annual tradition of great pomp and circumstance that is the championship game of American Football and de-facto national holiday. This was my first Super Bowl in the United States and the game this year, was to the say the least, anti-climatic as the Denver Broncos took a beating that had most declaring the game in effect over by the time Bruno Mars finished doing the splits or the Red Hot Chilli Peppers finished the last riff and line on their strangely cordless guitar and bass (the reason for which was subsequently explained by bassist Flea). Perhaps given the not-so riveting game, the focus naturally turned towards the other great attraction of the Super Bowl which is of course, the commercial advertisements. An alleged ten million dollars for a thirty second spot is a serious matter, more so in an age when the attention of at least one hundred and ten million people can be so undivided (or at least as undivided as it can come in this day and age). There was the usual assortment of zany, at times barely coherent humor and “what-the-hell was that?” kind of moments but nothing jumped out as particularly remarkable or memorable including a certain Coca-Cola ad consisting of a simple enough montage of different people from different cultures singing “America the Beautiful” intercut with lines of the song in different languages – including Spanish, Arabic, Tagalog, Mandarin and Hebrew. I would like to think that the ad was pretty standard sappy stuff for the United States but the strange controversy which followed it was enough to merit some thought.
I am still getting orientated with the strange spectrum and poles which seems to direct and guide the American political compass and the controversy which followed in the aftermath of that Coca Cola ad provided some interesting points. The reaction from the right-wing conservatives – the “Fox News” crowd as they would be known and lambasted as by Australian satirists – was in some senses surprising and in other senses predictable. Former politicians who now out of the spotlight yet always craving attention could perhaps be expected to lambaste whatever they can as to the degeneration of society – Allen West’s comments that the ad was “truly disturbing” neatly fits into this category. Random everyday Joe’s and Jane’s now armed with the gigantic megaphone of Twitter and Facebook can be expected to make their semi-drunken spiel of bigotry.
The Coca-Cola ad revealed that many still hold onto a particular vision of what they believe to be theirs within America – a vision of the stability and surety of homogeneity of which the diversity captured in the Coca-Cola ad seems to disturb. Yet as many have pointed out, this vision of America never really existed given that large sections of the US spoke Spanish or that many of the ancestors of those lambasting their multi-lingual take would not have been able to sing “America the Beautiful” in English either. One of the most striking things about arriving in the US is seeing the English signs at the Airport side by side with the Spanish translation – something which continues into everything from brochures to television. Such linguistic diversity is not found in Australia but it was a pertinent reminder of the cultural and historical diversity of the US. There is little doubt that multiculturalism and diversity remains a major issue for many and this is something which perhaps hits home with Australia, itself on the one hand priding itself on its diversity and on the other hand, providing the same glimpses of bigotry. I suppose it strange that a simple Super Bowl ad would bring such a simmering issue to light.
Exploring DC events
DC is a wonderful city, with so many different events happening every day, however when you’re at college you find yourself in a bubble of going to classes, eating at the same restaurants and visiting the same bars. I decided this weekend to find one of these great events, and see what Washington had to offer. This event came in the form of the Mercedes Benz fashion show, which was being hosted at the W Hotel. 
. A free event that only required an RSVP, my friend Maleeha and I decided to celebrate her birthday by being classy ladies, dressing fancy and being sophisticated women for a night and not just college students. 
When we arrived, everything appeared to be coated in pink, including the live DJ performing 
We grabbed a cocktail and went to explore the area. It was incredibly busy with many people watching the live models show off Diane Von Furtstenberg’s latest designs (which were incredible!).
We felt like superstars at such a cool event , but it got even better when we found out we could get our make-up done for free. 
After we were glammed up to the max and had our photograph taken 
, we felt incredibly grown up. It is a lot of fun to get out of your comfort zone and experience something new, and I recommend to anyone here on exchange to just do a little Googling or checking local events for the area. With the cherry blossoms festival coming up in the next month, there will be a lot of events going on including the Blossom Kite Festival on the 29th March.
At GW It was also Homecoming weekend which is the tradition of welcoming back alumni of the school. It opened on Friday night with a Bonfire in University Yard, 
including performances from the Acapella groups on campus. The basketball game against Fordham was great as GW are still on their winning streak and beat Fordham 93-67. I missed the first half of the game unfortunately but for a good cause as I have just started volunteering at an organization called Life Pieces to Masterpieces. Only 33% of students in Wards 7 and 8 (areas in DC) will graduate from high school and only 5% will earn a post-secondary degree. These numbers are very low, compared to both district and national averages. The organisation works with African American boys on an after school basis with homework, leadership and development. They create art such as these
to express feelings on projects they are working on. I thought it would be good to do something different while I was living in DC and give something back to the community. For anyone interested in this, speak to EngageDC, a great organization working through GWU.
Sunday for us is always breakfast day, courtesy of my wonderful chef Vanessa, who this morning was making Waffles with Johnny sorting the Bacon. 
We also headed out for a late Brunch at Founding Farmers – I have learnt that Brunch is a very important thing for any big city in the US and I am a big fan of it! James had already decided he was going to pig out, and he definitely had more than enough food there 
Vanessa and I decided to avoid the burgers but still had way too much food ourselves!
Keep tuned for next week as I’ll be starting my new internship at the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Fund – exciting stuff!!
Running around DC
By inepalacios
While the past week I was talking about the places I knew in the US, my class, the journeys and the people that I know, I ran out of space to talk about one the most lovely aspect of my exchange experience: running around DC.
At the beginning I felt that this habit would not be interesting enough to write about. Week after week, the people I met, the places, and the enjoyable moments made it impossible to avoid talking about this activity. I actually discovered for the first time most of the most important place of DC while running.
The first time, I went to the Washington Memorial and the White House with one of the exchange friend, Johanna. Since that time, I have not spent any week without going for a run. The following week was the turn to see the Lincoln, the Jefferson and the Martin Luther King Junior Memorial, it was awesome: the smooth wind, the landscape, the Potomac, the serenity, the beauty of the city by night made enjoyable every instant. The last time, on Friday afternoon, while running to the Capitol, I saw the best sunset I have ever seen in the Northern Hemisphere.
The best aspect of my running experience in DC was that I could find a running team “to temporarily replace” my running team in Buenos Aires. No doubt that both groups are particularly different, but wonderful in their own way. I miss my Argentinean team, but meanwhile I have been spending enjoyable trainings with the GW Cross Country Club, the guys of the team are really friendly people. Thanks to this team I could know new places, new roads and news neighborhoods. Most importantly: being part of the group allows me to experiment another aspect of the GW students’ world.
Many people told me that running is boring, for me is a way to relax, to keep active, to enjoy the nature, to clear my mind. In the past years, running was the chance to spent time with my friends. Now, it allows me to get to know more people, the city and to get involve in another great GW experience.
Time to enjoy DC: the perfect excuse for hanging out
By inepalacios
If two weeks ago the solution to see all the new friends and to save time to study was organizing a party in my dorm, this last week there was no solution. I had no other choice but to join all of the proposed plans made by my new friends, adding more incredible moments to my exchange.
The great plans started since the Sunday the 26th, when the exchange students from Australia decided to organize a party to celebrate the Australian independence. Games, music, jokes, and typical Australian food, which were delicious, set the precedent for all the rest of the exchange students to share our culture. Timo, the other Argentinean student, and I were thinking that we definitely should prepare some of our typical food: empanadas, as soon as possible.
To not miss each other, the exchanges students planned to go to another excited Colonials’ basketball game. As it was expected, the Colonial’s victory required celebration, so we had a dinner in Timo’s room, and played songs on Timo’s ukulele.
On Thursday night the plan was impossible to refuse: Nima and Nadine, both exchange students celebrated their birthday, although I had a class on Friday morning I ended up going to Nadine and Nima’s party for a while.
On Friday despite the fun moments my thought was “I spent 4 weeks in DC, with the exception of the orientation week, I didn’t go out of GW’s campus”. But with the weekend, the solution to my concern appeared.
Agustín, a Spanish friend organized to have a dinner with Ernestine, Inma, Gonzalo, Gisella, and Javiera (all of them are exchange students who have been studying in Washington since last semester), they were definitely a great company to get to know Georgetown, one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in DC. Among talks of history, politics, personal experiences, they shared with me their exciting journey of studying in GW.
On Saturday, as a great international city, Washington, DC was prepared to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The best way to get involved in the occasion: celebrate it in the interesting neighborhood of Chinatown. Andrew, one of our EXO leaders, invited all of the exchange students to his home. It was a really nice way to get to know and enjoy Chinatown.
On Sunday my buddy Steven planed to bring me to Dupont Circle, and have a delicious brunch. I was there, when a memory of the first Washingtonians that I knew came to mind. It was in Santa Maria, in the province of Catamarca, in Argentina last year, when I met a couple of Washingtonians who gave me my first demonstration of DC. Among their descriptions they told me “DC is well known for its nice habit to have brunches, the combination between breakfast and lunch, we do it every Sunday”. It was exactly a year ago. By that time I could not imagine that a year later, I would be enjoying that brunch that they had described to me so well in DC.
At the end, Mary (a friend of Steven who accompanied us), Steven, and I finished walking around the pleasant area of Dupont Circle.
If I was worried because I had not left GW, a weekend was enough to give me the pleasure of knowing Georgetown, Chinatown, and Dupont circle.
But the weekend had not finished yet. Megan, Christine, Sam, Arielle, some American friends that I had met a couple of weeks ago invited me to see the Super Bowl, the most important game in American Football. Although I did not know a lot about American Football, it was an opportunity to get involved in a typical American activity.
At the end of the day, I realized that beside that the parties could be fun, the place nice, and food delicious, spending time with new people is my favorite pastime.
Although I did not talk much about my class, the difficult challenge of studying in a new language is still present. But the friendly people who are accompanying me are the perfect balance, definitely.
Happy Chinese New Year and Superbowl!
This week has been one of trying new food, and experiencing new events, and what a week it has been! For the last few months my friend Vanessa has been telling me how amazing Korean BBQ was, so on Thursday evening I finally bit the bullet and we travelled into Virginia for one of the biggest meals I had ever had. The table was completely covered in fantastic plates of delicious food; 
I ate so much that I needed a nap by the end of it!
Vanessa decided that after this meal she was going to prove how great her cooking was, so on Friday night we hosted 12 people for a dinner party. This turned out to be quite a squeeze and a real run around trying to find enough chairs, but it turned out to be a great success with every plate licked clean. 
The dishwasher definitely came in handy that night! On Saturday it was Chinese New Year – the year of the horse (or the Bronco’s my friend Paul told me, but this will come later). There was a big parade in Chinatown featuring dragons and great dancing!
... and then it was time to celebrate with a pot luck party. I am not the best cook so Vanessa and I made some pasta together and took over a chocolate cake – there was so much food and of course some fortune cookies too! Vanessa and I also got to try our friend Ian’s world famous chocolate chip cookies – and they were the best I’d ever had. 
We had a great time and a lot of fun meeting new people. I was treated on Sunday to crepes, thanks to French Pancake Day courtesy of Christina; 
she even let me make a few (with supervision of course) and they went down a treat!
Sunday however was the big event of the weekend – The Superbowl! Now in the UK it is a little difficult to watch the Superbowl as it doesn't start till 11pm, so to see it through, you’re up half the night. Luckily being in the US I was able to sit down with everyone at 6:30 ready to watch the greatest game of the year! I went over to my friends in Chinatown where the guys had turned on the grill and made some fantastic homemade guacamole. 
There were over 20 people crowded into the living room to watch the Seattle Seahawks take on the Denver Broncos. 
I was supporting the Broncos, which as you have probably seen from the scores, wasn’t the best choice. Unfortunately for my friend Paul, this is his home team, so it was a pretty sad night when Seattle won 43 to 8. 
The half time show though was incredible, with Bruno Mars dominating the stage 
and the commercials were brilliant too. Check out the Budweiser Advert – best one of the night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQB7QRyF4p4
So as you can see, most of my weekend has been spent eating a lot of food, but also getting to spend some time with amazing friends!
Das Weekend.
By nimames
I have been feeling lately that all my blogposts revolve around food and I would like to point out that I do not have a relationship solely with food and I do in fact have friends; people that I have met only 3 weeks ago but proud to call my friends.
This week has been one full of excitement to say the least! I got to celebrate my birthday with wonderful people in three folds. First there was a get together Thursday at my place. Although it wasn’t technically my birthday (my actual birthday was on February 1s), my lovely roommate suggested throwing a party because she wasn’t going to be in town for my birthday weekend. I was really happy to introduce the diversified group of the spring 2014 exchange people to both of my lovely roommates. In the end, the evening was full of excitement and joy and I was really happy and touched to see everyone again. 
It also happened that the following day, was the Chinese new year and what a better way to celebrate it than to go to nice Asian restaurant. We promptly headed to Nooshi and had really amazing Asian food. I ordered noodles with chicken, caramelized onions, peppers and pineapples. The salty of the chicken and the sweet and sour of the onions and pineapples elevated the dish to a whole new level. In other words, it was heavenly. 
Once our tummies were full, we were all craving ice cream so we decided to walk to Georgetown and get some delicious ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s.
I’ve been in the US for over 3 weeks now and I’m always amazed at the array of choices you can get; either at the grocery strode, the coffee shop down the street, and the ice cream parlor. It ranged from cookie dough; berries, vanilla and Oreos, to chubby hubby and scotch scotch scotch. We then walked to the notorious DC cupcakes from which my friend Zenia got me these mouth-watering cupcakes. 
Although I vowed not to talk about food anymore, I keep reverting back to my food experience in DC. I guess it’s because food is a huge part of my experience here and it’s even more worthwhile when I get to share it with the lovely people I meet !
This weekend has been a great weekend not because it was my birthday and I turned 21 but it’s because I got to share precious moments with people I love and appreciate. And I hope that next weekend will be as fun and rich in emotion as this one had been, and I’m sure it will because although we come from different places, we speak different languages and we have various customs and habits, we still are in this together and this is what ultimately unites us !
Dr King and painting playgrounds
By aaront162
There is little doubt that Washington DC presents itself, to those looking inwards from the outside, almost purely in terms of the magnificent white marble and granite grandeur of the White House, the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. On a warm August afternoon in 1963, on those very steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking out towards a crowd of over two hundred and fifty thousand people, Martin Luther King delivered a speech that has been etched into our collective memory of the struggle of that era – a movement which not only fought for the rights of African-Americans but was so powerful that its call for fairness and equality that it resonated far enough to the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa and inspire the Freedom Rides which symbolised the Indigenous Rights movement in Australia.
So some fifty or so years on from Dr King’s speech, the sun drew westward towwards the horizon on a rather quiet winter afternoon and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Day of Service slowly crept to a end. A day which should leave someone with a sense of accomplishment – a basic enough sense of having made a difference to lives of those not afforded the privileges which others are born into – ended in a strangely dejected manner. There is little doubt that the intent was harmless enough and no doubt at all that the enthusiasm was there but by the time the one and a half hours of speeches and pep talk that began the day finally needed in the ballroom of the Marvin Centre, by the time the nicely printed shirts and packed lunches of the day were distributed, the mood had already taken a turn towards what seemed like more than anything else, a misdirected effort. We had painted a fence but barely so, patches of new paint barely covering the old, that is, if covering it all - we left it a half finished job with seemed to be a poignant symbol for the day in itself. By the time we came around to cleaning up the scraps of coloured paper or cleaning the pale green, blue, red and orange paint off the brushes and rollers, a misdirected effort became an opportunity lost.
When I first came to Washington DC, I took a routine bus service to New York City. Moving outwards from Union Square station, there was an unmistakable movement from the exquisitely well kept parks that surrounds the national monuments and wide avenues to the crumbling shop fronts, graffiti strewn across their walls and their windows plastered with dusty and sun bleached “for lease” signs. It may be a certain cynicism which some characterise as quintessential to the Australian attitude but it was hard to connect how the several hours we had spent painting an otherwise well maintained wire fence made any sort of impact upon this almost second world within the boundaries of the city. Again I have no doubt that all all intentions were good but on my way to Georgetown, walking past a homeless woman camped alongside the banks of the Potomac, a plastic sheet draped across scrags of tree for a makeshift shelter, I realized that DC from the inside is truly a city of confronting contrasts - that barely beneath the pristine surface, as clichéd as it may be, the city embodies the very essence of a “have” and “have not” cross section of society.
Inside the very city where Dr King’s words continue to resonate in rhetoric, it seems as though these words inevitably fall silent upon the nameless faces of the poverty and disadvantage which nestles itself in amongst the city's street, in between the cracks of its grand halls, columns and domes. As much as many celebrate what has been achieved by Dr King and his legacy, much more needs to be, and indeed, could have been done to genuinely hold fast to and honour Dr King’s vision of fairness and equality in America.