Update

It has been a while since my last blog post and thus an update is due!

Part 1: Student
On paperwork it usually asks what your occupation is and as a young adult I write "student." However, I have never really felt that was completely true until now. I have never in my entire life spent so much time studying or sitting in frumpy library seats. I was talking to one of my professors about this to which he responded "well, that's how you know you are going to a good school." Alas.

Part 2: Rotation
The girls on the crew team have decided that our day to day routine goes like this.
         Rowing
         Omelette
         Study
         Sleep
         Repeat
There is an omelette station in the cafeteria and because we get back from practice around 7:40ish, there is only us and the ROTC kids in line. And i must make a confession, I've never had an omelette before I came to AU but nothing tastes better after practice than an omelette, potatoes, and chocolate milk.

Part 3: Monumenting
Here in DC, the monuments on the mall are open all day and night. Mainly because you can't really close them....but doesn't matter. The point is that at night the monuments are beautifully lit and there aren't any tourists. Thus going to see the monuments in the middle of the night is called monumenting- I've been twice so far and this last time my friends and I ran into two people who worked for NYU at the Washington Memorial. They were both here for a conference in DC and only had the weekend to see the city and thus we decided to combine our groups and walk to the LIncoln Memorial. They were both extremely interesting ladies and upon crossing a crosswalk one pulled me aside from the group. She told me that she could tell I was really intelligent and recommended that I never stop or let anything get in my way. I'm incredibly flattered and it caught me off guard. This is because we met as all of my friends and I were singing Africa by Toto while our legs and feet resting on the memorial to star gaze.

Part 4: NYC
This past Saturday I had the opportunity to spend the day in New York City! About 50 kids in the UC program including hopped on a bus to ride 4.5 hours there and then in the evening ride 4.5 hours back. I spent the day with my friend from crew and we did quite a bit.
Found a street fair and ate gyros.
Walked to MoMA- only to figure out that museums in New York are not like DC museums and cost a lot to get into.
Walked through central park to climb a boulder, lye in the sun, and accidentally took a nap.
Visited the met.
Took the subway.
Ate some cheesecake and a diner.
Walked along the Highline in Chelsea which is brand spanking new. It's old railroad tracks that have been renovated to be an outdoor walking path above the city. They still have some of the old tracks, plenty of sitting room with lawns to picnic in. The whole path is surrounded by different greenery and later on the path turns next to the Hudson River. It's beautiful and one of my most favorite spaces ever.
Got chocolate milkshakes.
Met my friend's French Jewish grandmother who was a doctor in Switzerland and went through the Holocaust. She lives on the Upper West Side in a building that Garrison Keiller lives and Alec Baldwin used to. We went to dinner at a Turkish restaurant on Broadway and the food was divine.

This being only the second time in New York, it was an adventure but I found myself remembering the grid of the city just fine from my previous visit and overall it just felt like a bigger Seattle.