20 Years Old in DC!!

This past weekend was my 20th birhday! Finally I am not an invincible teenager. Although I did not get to see my family and have my puppy rip open my presents with her mouth, it was a pretty darn good birthday!!

I made red velvet cupcakes to take to work and I would say they were pretty popular based on the Thank You emails I got for making them as well as the fact that 20 of them were gone in an hour!! On Friday night we had a dessert party complete with cookies, more red velvet cupcakes, and a cake decorated like the WHITE HOUSE made by my friend Emily!!

Saturday was a girls day in Georgetown and a half-dozen of us went on a historic home tour of a place called Dumbarton House (no photography allowed) and wandered around the beautiful neighborhoods. as well as at lunch at Circa at Dupont where I had a delicious cheese sampler platter :) and some delicious pizza with mozarella, mushrooms, and prosciutto. YUMM!! That night I went to a DC United soccer game with my friend Jon. Even though they have not been a very good team this season, and lost 0-2 on my birthday it was great to see some soccer. It also reminded me how much I miss playing!

1 Month In

Another week has gone by and I realize I've already been here for a month, scary. I have become more and more comfortable with life in the city and can even give directions around my home and work!

My first few weeks in Senator Levin's office have mainly been filled with running errands, obtaining signatures, and mail and news sorting. But in addition to these tasks I got to give my first tour of The Capitol last week. The couple I took around were history buffs and very politically aware so in addition to teaching them about The Capitol, they taught me a few things! One of my favorite tidbits about the building, and that my tour participants enjoyed, is a statue on the Capitol Rotunda carved in 1921, Portrait Monument to Suffrage Pioneers, that depicts Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott as well as a large uncarved chunk of marble. This statue was carved just after women gained the right to vote and it is reported that the uncarved portion was reserved by the artist for the first female President of the United States. Additionally I got to escort the Afghanistan Ambassador to the U.S. through The Capitol for a meeting on the House side. It was a really neat opportunity and I was particularly excited that the Ambassador had been to Bloomington, and knew how beautiful the IU campus is! The Senate adjourned last week so things are definitely going to be slower at work. I'm hoping that there will be more opportunities to become involved in more comprehensive, in-depth projects.

This past-weekend some of us IU girls headed down to the National Mall for a rally at the Lincoln Memorial. I had not yet been to the Lincoln Monument, and definitely had not been to a rally like this! The event was named "One Nation Working Together" and was billed as a positive message in opposition to the recent Tea Party gatherings. Although it turned out to be almost exclusively a pro-union gathering that did not stick to the script of strictly positive messages it was an incredible experience to see tens-of-thousands of passionate people gathering for their cause. There were lots of extra signs and things laying around so I tried my hand at being a protestor!