-At the beginning of October, I visited friends (that I went to Ecuador with through BCA) at Messiah College. I took the Greyhound Bus to Harrisburg, PA and then I got picked up at the bus station. I visited Nicole Steiner and also Christa Marshall. I forgot to get a picture of Christa and I. I wasn't able to see my friend Claire because she had other plans that weekend. While I was at Messiah College, I went to a soccer game (Saturday night) and Messiah won!! The weather was cold, but the soccer game was exciting. At the soccer game, I also saw Brittany King, who I went to Hesston College with in Hesston, KS.
-During the weekend of October 16-19, my sister visited me. Ingrid got here Thursday night and left Sunday morning. We went to the Lincoln Memorial, The Capitol, walked on the Mall, went to the U.S. Botanic Garden and took pictures of The White House. It was really good to see her and have her here that weekend.
-On October 20, a new volunteer named Hattie Lehman arrived. She is from PA.
-On October 31, the next host couple, Clayton and Ruth Steiner, arrived. They have been the host couple before at the International Guest House.
-At the end of October/beginning of November, both Phyllis Hostetler and Wilbur and Helen Yoder left. Wilbur and Helen Yoder finished their 14 months as being host couple and returned to Iowa. Phyllis finished her year of volunt
eer work and now is living and working part-time in the District (for those who don't know that is Washington, D.C.).
-Most recently (November 7-8), I met up with my aunt in Alexandria, VA and spent the night with her in her hotel room. Then, on Saturday, Nov. 8, I walked around Alexandria, VA and took the Metro back to D.C.
I am going to post other pictures of random things after this post. I hope everyone is glad that I updated my blog. Also, I hope everyone enjoys looking at the pictures that I have uploaded. I hope everyone has a good week in whatever they are doing. :)
Sorry I haven't blogged in a long time. I have been busy doing my job here at the International Guest House. This blog is going to be about my day off on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 (I know that seems like a long time ago). I went to the U.S. Botanic Garden again to take pictures. The first time I went there I forgot to take my camera and I wanted to take pictures of many things. The U.S. Botanic Garden has different rooms with different plants in each room. The rooms each have a different name. When I entered the U.S. Botanic Garden, I was in the Garden Court. The other rooms that I went to were the Jungle (a tropical rain forest area), Southern Exposure (plants native to the Southern states and Mexico), Rare and Endangered Species, the West Gallery (display about Plants and Culture), Plant Exploration, Orchids, Medicinal Plants, World Deserts (desert plants), Hawaii (plants from Hawaii), Garden Primeval (ferns and other ancient plants), Plant Adaptations and the East Gallery (there was a display of how plants work in this room). In the Jungle Area you can go upstairs and do the canopy walk. It is just walking around the top and you are able to look down at the jungle.
Also, I took a picture of the National Museum of the American Indian. I had visited this museum before and wanted to take a picture of it for all of you to see. Next, I went to the National Gallery of Art. I spent a decent of amount of time in this building looking at Galleries 1 to 51, which were in the West Building. There are security guards in each gallery watching your every move that you make. Some of the security guards were being loud and talking on their cell phones. I did not think that was very nice as people were trying to focus on the art. The pictures in the different galleries were very interesting. However, I began to get tired of looking at art (because there were so many to look at). I looked at art from 13th to 15th Century Italian, 16th Century Italian and Spanish, 17th Century Italian, Spanish, and French and 18th Century Italian, 15th to 16th Century Netherlandish and German and 17th Century Dutch and Flemish. I did not look at all of the galleries in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art. Then, I took the underground walkway to the East Building and ate lunch at the Cascade Cafe. After lunch, I looked at some of the galleries in the East Building. I think that you need more than one day to go through the National Gallery of Art because there is just so much to see.
I had thought about going to the National Air and Space Museum, but I was really tired and wanted to go back to the International Guest House (IGH). There are some pictures that I took during my day off on Sept. 17, 2008. The pictures are not in chronological order. I may post more pictures from this time on another blog post.
My desk and one of my chairs. The door is the door to my closet.
A dresser and the door to the hallway
Both chairs and a bookshelf
Two single beds
My desk and another chair
The window in my room
Right now there is a total of five volunteers (that number is including me). I will tell you who the other volunteers here are at the IGH. The host couple is Wilbur and Helen Yoder from Wellman, Iowa. They are very nice and met me at the train station when I arrived here on September 3. They will have been here a total of 14 months and will be leaving at the beginning of November- when a new host couple is coming. Phyllis Hostetler is another volunteer. She is from Archbold, Ohio. I don't know how long she has been at the IGH. She has been here a number of different times. She was a volunteer here two years ago. She doesn't know when she is going to leave. Salome Tice is also a volunteer. She grew up in Panama and therefore she knows Spanish. Before she came to the guest house, she lived in Delaware. She is very nice and answers any questions I have about the city and the guest house. Salome will also be leaving at the end of October/beginning of November. I have enjoyed getting to know the other volunteers here at the IGH. They have all been so helpful and nice as I have been learning how to do the different jobs here at the IGH. However, I am realizing that I don't have much more time with them since they are all going to be leaving soon. I will try to post pictures of the staff a different day. Each month, we have a staff outing and hopefully I will be able to get a picture of us all during this time.
I hope everyone enjoys this post. -Megan
First, we went to the Freer Gallery of Art. The Freer Gallery of Art has Asian art, Japanese prints and Chinese ceramics. All of these things were interesting to look at and some were very different. They have a nice courtyard at the Freer Gallery of Art. We also went to the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. There were many interesting sculptures.
A yellow rose outside the Enid A. Haupt Garden
A rose outside the Enid A. Haupt Garden
A rose outside of the Enid A. Haupt Garden
Flower in the Enid A. Haupt Garden
Second, we went to the S. Dillon Ripley Center to see a display of Jim Henson's Fantastic World. Jim Henson was the creator of The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. They had Bert and Ernie there. However, you could not take pictures of the exhibit. It was neat to see some of the writings that Jim Henson had done with The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. It showed how Big Bird was made and how the person controls Big Bird during Sesame Street. The exhibit also talked about Fraggle Rock and how the show and characters were made. The exhibit was interesting to see because it reminded me of being a child because I watched those shows as a child.
Next, we ate lunch at Qdoba Mexican Grill. I had a shredded beef burrito. The things they put in the burrito are the meat, rice, beans and anything else you want on top of those things. The burrito cost $6, but it was very big and good. A lot of people were at that place because it was during the lunch hour. After lunch, Salome and I went to the National Museum of Natural History. There were many people at the museum. I saw an exhibit of Dinosaurs, a Hall of Mammals, bones and reptiles of different animals, an insect zoo, an exhibit on geology, gems & minerals and The Hope Diamond (which was very pretty). There was a Live Butterfly Pavilion that you had to pay to enter and in there you could see many different kinds of butterflies. However, it cost $6 to be able to see the butterflies. I didn't want to pay that much at the time, but I might go back a different time. I would recommend the National Museum of Natural History to anyone visiting Washington, D.C. because it was very interesting.
Fountain outside the Enid A. Haupt Garden
After the museum, we walked to the Enid A. Haupt Garden which is near the Smithsonian Castle. The Enid A. Haupt Garden has many different plants and has some fountains in the garden. I took some pictures of flowers (roses) that were in the garden and I will post them. (The pictures of the roses and other flower are above). Then, we walked to the Washington Monument and sat there awhile to relax. Next, we walked to The White House. There were many tourists taking pictures of The White House. There was a lot of security around The White House watching every move that every person made. After, we were done looking at The White House we walked to Georgetown. We walked down to the waterfront (The Potomac) and saw ducks, people kayaking and people walking on the dock. It was a very beautiful place because the sun was shining on the river. Georgetown is a very nice town and has nice streets. One of the streets that we walked down had a lot of expensive stores (Banana Republic, Hu's Shoes and Urban Outfitters to name a few). I saw many college students walking around Georgetown. Then we walked to an ice cream shop called Thomas Sweet. I had one scoop of Oreo ice cream (I know that that is original). Next time I think I am going to try their Blend Ins. Blend Ins are things that you can blend together with ice cream. I think that those are what they are, but am not sure how much they cost. Then, we walked to a main street to catch a bus and I got off at 16th and K Street in D.C. Next, we got on a different bus to take us back to the International Guest House. We finally got home around 8:15 or 8:30 p.m. It was a very nice day in Washington, D.C. I have more pictures, but I decided just to put a few of them on this blogpost.
