Hoya, SAXA!

After a very long day in New York the day before, I was hoping for Washington D.C to be smaller and less fast paced for the sake of my sore feet. I was pleasantly surprised with the pace of the city and the amity of the people. Once again we had taken the Megabus in the morning but unlike the trip to NY, the bus ride was three hours. This game me the chance to once again nap and work on my blog.

Train Station in D.C.

When we got to D.C. it immediately struck me as a mixture of Berkeley and San Francisco but it was not nearly as busy as New York even with 4th of July coming up. We took the circulator to Georgetown and walked the rest of the way to Georgetown University. Our walk went by in no time since the weather was so lovely. On the way we stopped by a coffee shop to get a quick snack to hold us over until the info session and campus tour was over.

GU

When we stepped in the campus I was shocked at how pretty and green it was. Something that I always look for in any higher education institution is greenery because it makes it feel more cozy and fresh. To sign in for the info session, we walked into a very imposing red brick building that is the Intercultural center. The admissions officer began speaking about the usual requirements and what they look for as an institution. She also talked about the colleges within the bigger umbrella institution. They have many undergraduate colleges and schools. One that grabbed my attention because it was the first of its kind to be opened in the U.S is the Walsh School Of Foreign Services. This school provides both graduate and undergraduate programs. After the info session we broke off into tour groups.

Christian talking about traditions in GU

We decided to go with Christian who is from LA and is studying the Fine Arts of History and Politics. He gave us the best tour ever. He talked about many of the traditions they have at GU like when you get accepted you have to climb on the lap of the statue in the front of the school, take a selfie with it and post it on social media as a welcome to the school. He also told us that GU was one of the only places that was allowed to hold Congress if there is an emergency in the capitol. The students that go to GU are required to live on campus for 3 years and on their 4th they can opt out or enter a raffle to be in a town house which is like a 3 million dollar house. Christian also talked about the remaining of a building to Freedom and Remembrance due to the ties the school had to the slave trade back when that was still legal to own slaves. I think  it’s really cool that the students are making a push to repair the damage that was done in the time of slavery instead of just trying to ignore such a huge part of the history that in one way or another involves all of us.

After the tour we met up with Chris, a rising senior who is VP of the students body. From the beginning he was very nice and talked to all of us about his experience and his background. He is from Florida and comes from a large public school setting like us. He talked about how the social life in GU centered around the clubs you were in and that Greek life was there but it didn’t have much emphasis like in other schools. The campus culture he described is very friendly and no one pressures you to party or drink because everyone is focused on doing well in school and getting the most out of it. We were all starving so we went to eat. The restaurant were pretty packed but luckily Chris took us to Old Glory a southern style restaurant. We got a ton of food and talked about some of the issues in the world like racism and gender norms. After our meal we said our goodbyes and we headed to D.C to the monuments.

After eating lunch with Chris

We first saw the White House. I was hoping we could get a glimpse of Obama but that didn’t happen. He probably wasn’t even there but a girl can dream. We saw a guy protesting nuclear bombs  that has been there for a very long time. After we went to see the Washington Monument.  It was so majestic and beautiful. John told us how it has two different colors in the base and at the top because they started building it but during the Civil War they had to stop and when they kept building after the war, they had to use a different rock quarry. After we saw we saw the WWII memorial which is massive and you can tell that the U.S is really proud of their involvement unlike WWI. That monument is so small and plain giving further proof of how the U.S wasn’t proud of their participation on it. We kept walking and saw the Korean War memorial which is very different because it has statues of soldiers leading up to a center. One of my favorites was the Lincoln Memorial.  It is very huge and you can see where MLK stood when he gave his I Have a Dream speech. After the monument we went to see some of the buildings like Congress and the Supreme Court. They all look pretty similar since the architecture is so similar and the colors are the same of maybe a shade off white. They are still very pretty and impressive.

After visiting the monuments and buildings it was time to head back to Philly to get some rest. I really like D.C because it gives that city feel without all the rush. It also is very pretty, anywhere you go you can see that the area is maintained Georgetown is also one of my top choices now because of all the opportunities that come along with the campus. If i go there maybe I can even meet the Obamas since when this term is over they will be moving to D.C.