Alrighty,

Here I am at week 2 and I'm having a fabulous time. So I'm from Massachusetts and we have our own public transportation, the T, but the Metro is a welcome change.

Here, the stations are smoke free, food and drink free, even pet free. They're almost unbelievably clean. They're really convenient because they actually follow a schedule that can be traced. www.wmata.com can help you plan any trip and the expected expenses. There are a few ways to get around on the Metro. What's generally recommended is the SmarTrip card, which is a rechargeable and can be registered so you won't lose your money. There are also different kinds of passes. For my personal use, I have a SmarTrip card but I think the Short Trip weekly pass is the best for the money I spend. It's $26.40 per week, but I can go anywhere that's less than $2.65 during peak hours. That makes more sense when you're actually here but the website is really useful when making those decisions.

So the rest of the week at work was extremely awesome. To work in the Smithsonian "with the stuff" was something I've wanted since i was 13, on my first trip to DC. My specific project at the moment is removing photographs from frames and putting them in folders. These photographs are panoramic images of different C.C.C. camps. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a work relief program, giving men jobs when there weren't any during the Depression Era. I'm sure it sounds boring to some, but this is becoming something I really enjoy doing. I work as an intern for the processing team and they've all been so helpful for answering my questions not just about the work I'm doing now, but also about where to go to make a career out of archiving, becoming an archivist.

Along with working, my job is centrally located near the National Mall which has the Washington Monument

and the Lincoln Memorial

among other memorials. As an actual employee of the National Park Service, I'm actively working on my Passport to the National Parks. It's a book that you put image stamps in with descriptions of the different locations, and there's a cancellation stamp with the date on it for when you actually visit. So far I've been to a few of the DC sites, and I plan on trying to make it to all of them.

Before I go, we did get snow this past weekend, which being from New England, isn't a huge deal, but here's a view from my window of the snow.

That's all for now,

~K