Receptions Galore in DC

Cheesing with Kerry in the background
Cheesing with Kerry in the background

There’s so much to do in DC — for tourists that is. Personally, I think I’m a local by now, having spent 10 weeks in the district last summer, a few weekends throughout the school year, and three weeks this summer so far. With that being said, it should almost be a given that I have been to the White House (both outside and inside), the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the zoo, the museums, you name it. Yet, it’s always surreal to casually walk a few feet away from the house and office of the Leader of the Free World. And that’s exactly where I went on my second night in DC (I was too tired from moving in on the first night).

There are some advantages to living at the George Washington University (GW):

  • It’s in a convenient location; same district as the White House and only five minutes away walking distance from the State Department where I’m working, so you bet I’m leaving my place at 8:55 am every morning.
  • You’re surrounded by hundreds of other interns from all over the country, so it’s easy to make friends.
  • An (overpriced) Whole Foods and the Foggy Bottom metro station are both a block away from my dorm.
  • The AC.

Don’t get me wrong though; there are some not-so-pleasant parts of living in a dorm that was built in 1945, like:

  • Everything else.
  • But specifically, leaky pipes in the bathroom that dripped some sort of murky water all over the bathroom sink and floor, and caused the lights to go out for a couple of hours.

But thank god I’m only there for a total of nine weeks, so I’ll survive.

Honestly though, I haven’t been spending much time in the room since there’s so much to do and see, both on weeknights and weekends. Whether it’s a talk, networking reception, or sight-seeing, there’s always something going on. I have gone to a couple of receptions and networking events by now. I actually met a Pomona alum earlier in June who is now a grad student at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy. My office (Global Partnerships) hosted a reception in mid-June at the World Bank to celebrate the launch of its mFish partnership, a new initiative that aims to make fishing more sustainable and improve the lives of fishermen and their communities by developing practical solutions that use the power of commercially viable mobile technology. This was in recognition of Secretary Kerry’s “Our Ocean” Conference which dealt with a set of actions (sustainable fisheries, marine pollution, ocean acidification) that the US government intends to undertake and to pursue with other nations and stakeholders at the international level.

The more memorable events have included seeing Secretary of State John Kerry speak (twice!) in the Ben Franklin room at the State Department. The first was a celebration for LGBT pride month and the second was at a reception to celebrate the groundbreaking for the USA Pavilion at Milan Expo 2015, the next world’s fair that will focus on food security. Standing only a few feet away from Kerry, and even Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives, was such a surreal experience for me, and I even had to pinch myself every five minutes to make sure this was real. I’m sure Kerry got tired of me taking 50 pictures of him while he was on the podium though.

Chipotle at Pride
Chipotle at Pride

I also attended my first Pride Parade in June and that was definitely an interesting experience. Besides getting beads thrown at me, or snatched in front of my face before I could even think about grabbing them, I enjoyed the solidarity of the over 150,000 people there and local and national LGBT-friendly organizations represented on floats and marches, especially the Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies and Chipotle ones.

While Claremont’s a great place to be, there are also many advantages to living in a city, whether it’s DC, NYC, or even Philly. I definitely have been taking advantage of my time here in terms of both enjoying the summer and networking, and look forward to see how many pictures and business cards I’ll have my the end of my time here.