The National Cherry Blossom Festival

Washington D.C.'s pride the National Cherry Blossom Festival.
The Blossoms are all over the place around the mall, and also in a lot of places around Washington.
They line the Potomac River and people line the bridges to take the iconic pictures of them.

It was not uncommon for people to be right up in front of a tree taking pictures, and using extremely high tech cameras to do it.
I on the other hand just had my snazzy little digital camera to take these high quality photo's.
People lining up along the bridge over the Potomac just to see the line up of pink and white trees.
This was a tree that was right by where I live.

White House Protests

My teacher for Peace and Social Justice told us about this protest told us about this Anti-war protest that was going to be taking place across from the White House. So I went to go and check it out. There was pretty big turn out, almost 700 people showed up.
This was the organization that put the protest on, they were called Code Pink a woman's anti-war organization that has been going on since the Vietnam War.
Ralph Nadar showed up to make a very interesting speech against the war.

The protest was a day long event and was also supported by Veteren's for Peace.Protesters preforming a chant to have to government let Bradley Manning (the soldier whistle blower about the wikileaks) go.

Meeting the Senator

As a part of my internship, I also get to do a lot of work on the Hill doing lobbying for our causes, which means I get to go to a lot of the senate offices, I also fortunately work a lot with Sen. Casey's office.
Senator Casey has a "Breakfast with Bob" for his constituents two times every month. So I took the opportunity to meet my senator.

Arlington National Cemetary
The City which I call home for over three months.

John F. Kennedy's Grave

The changing of the guard at the tomb of unknown soldiers.

The Embassy of Indonesia

For one of our "Monday Programmings" that I mentioned we went to the Embassy of Indonesia, we learned about U.S./Indonesian relations, and had some really tasty food.

The Embassy itself was very pretty, lots of elegant artwork everywhere.

The Year of the Rabbit

The first celebration of the year, the Chinese Lunar New Year, The Year of the Rabbit.
The U.S. flag, and the Taiwanese Flag lined H st.
The parade celebrating the New Year. The zodiac Animals walked the streets.
Dragons flew through the parade flying in and out of the crowds.

The Capitol Visit

This was the statue that represented the state of PA.
We also happened to pass by the office of Speaker of the House John Boehner.
The Rotunda of the Capitol Building.
As a program with the Washington Center, we got a tour of the Capitol.

Stuff close to where I live

For all those who take Dr. Bloodworth's classes you will know the writings of this man, this is the great Reinhold Neibhur.
Thomas Jefferson in the National Portrait Gallery, which is like a five minute walk from where I live.
George Washington in the Museum of American History.
Good old Abe Lincoln in his giant memorial.
One thing I got to do here in DC that most don't, take pictures of the monuments at night. The Washington Monument.

This is the Starbucks where I do much of my work on the weekends, it's a very nice Starbucks with two floors and two bars.
We are about a five minute walk from Chinatown which has amazing bars and a really good shopping scene. It's also really close to the museums.
I just thought I would point out that we have a large flat screen HD TV in our apartment.
This is my apartment which has more space then most dorms, and also has its own kitchen and we have our own washer and dryer. I also share it with three other people.
This is the view from my Apartment, we are in the near northeast which is an up and coming neighborhood about 20 minute walk from the Capitol.

Introduction to the Washington Center and Washington DC

This is for all of you who are truly wondering what I am doing when I say I am in Washington D.C. doing an internship. Well I am here for a semester, and I understand that this blog is a little late, considering I am done in like a month. But anyway, Dr. Bloodworth asked me to do this, here it goes. I am not going to write much I am going to try and just do a bunch of pictures with a comment for each. I think that will better explain exactly how it works here, and what I see everyday and each weekend. This is actually the most I will write. I am a senior at Gannon, and I am here in DC doing an internship with the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars, with their International Studies program. This means that when I am not working at my internship site, I am taking two classes of my choosing at night, which are set up in a seminar style and are taught by people who work in the field of the class that they are teaching. For example I am taking a Peace and Social Justice class where my teacher has worked for the Washington Post and has interviewed just about everybody in the Peace-building profession, my other class is International Human Rights, where my teacher is the director of African Human Rights with Amnesty International.
In addition to these classes my program also has what are called "Monday Programming" where each Monday we go to different places (i.e. an Embassy, or a seminar) to discuss different topics in international relations. I am here for 3 1/2 months and it is probably the most amazing experience ever. You learn so much about what you want to do, and you get to be immersed in so many different areas of professional work.
My internship is with the Peace Alliance, and rather than explaining it all here, I am just going to send you to a link about what we do, www.thepeacealliance.com. Basically I work with the Student Peace Alliance where I get to set up meetings with Congress people and other key organizations, and a lot of the time I am leading these meetings. A good example is when we met with Afterschool Alliance, and I basically led the meeting that forged an alliance between our two organization. With the Washington Center you can work anywhere from a government position in the State Department, or a local nonprofit.
This experience is an amazing one and I encourage anyone to do it, because it has amazing opportunities at every turn, and you learn so much more than you would in any traditional class. The Washington Center also teaches you how to act more professionally and also helps you to look for jobs once you are done. Well that is all I have for now, soon I will be putting up a ton of pics from the last two months. So for now, peace.