I have been fortunate enough to have traveled a lot of places during high school and college. However, I have never experienced the amount of diversity, and enthusiasm for embracing it, as I have at The Washington Center. Just my apartment has me (a Russian Jew), my roommate, Jess, who is from Barbados

and our other two roommates, who are from South Korea and Mexico. In just our apartment alone, three languages are spoken!

Our week here started off pretty slow with the usual orientation activities and introductions. When we finally had a whole day free, Jess and I decided to go sightseeing with a few of our friends from home. We hit up the usual places such as the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, etc... In one of our seemingly endless searches for a bathroom (its harder than you think to find a good, clean bathroom, especially as a girl), Jess and I stumbled upon a cute food court in the lower level of the Ronald Reagan Building, which houses the U.S. Agency for International Development and other offices. The food court had a painted elephant and donkey,

which I was lucky to find, since my mom and I love going to find the painted animals many cities have featured (my aunt even has one of the painted cows in her garden!).

Instead of work this week, I am one of the lucky (and extremely bored) few who are starting next week. So, a couple of the interns who I am working with and I visited the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center and the U.S. Botanic Gardens. The Visitor Center turned out to be pretty boring. I did learn, however, that the capitol does not have an address. The botanic garden, on the other hand, was mesmerizing. I was not expecting to enjoy it so much. They had rooms dedicated to jungle plants, desert plants, rare and endangered plants, and so much more. The jungle room had stairs you could climb up to the top so you could look down on the canopy of trees! Even if you are not a plant person I would recommend going to the Botanic Gardens; you will be surprised how much you will enjoy them.