Cultures, City, and Change

Hello from Washington DC! What a few of days it has been! My flight from Lubbock to Dallas left at 5:30 Wednesday morning, so I was at the airport by 4:15 and had landed in Dallas before the Sun had even begun to break the horizon. Nevertheless, I made it to Washington DC without any hiccups. Seemingly as soon as I entered my room, there was culture shock (naturally, living with a Belgian, an Indian, and a New Yorker). Perhaps the most fun part of the culture meshing was my Indian roommate, Deepankar (we call him Dee), eating his first cheeseburger. Upon the first bite, Dee looked as if he had found enlightenment in the form of red-meaty, Swanson-esque paradise. It has been extremely surprising how multinational The Washington Center is: in just 3 days, I have met people from India, Belgium, China, Japan, Gibraltar, Canada, and many more, as well as from all around the US (there are 450 interns, roughly half of whom are international). In fact, in the Business and Global Trade program, roughly 80%(!) are international.

The RAF 210 squad: me, Mike, Arthur, and Dee

It has also been surprising how big DC feels. Being at the mercy of public transport and walking, a simple walk to Walmart takes a solid 20 minutes. Fortunately, TWC has a shuttle that takes interns to Walmart and Union Station at night, making grocery shopping much easier. Thus far, all we’ve really done is orientation and introduction activities. Because of this, I haven’t gotten the chance to sightsee and be a tourist yet, with the exception of Union Station (which is amazing, similar to Grand Central in New York). However, much of DC is under construction at the moment, such as the Capitol Building. I will get the opportunity to see the beauty of DC soon though! The upcoming week will be very busy! I start my internship Monday, so this weekend will be spent learning the public transportation systems of DC. Because of this, the upcoming week should be full of interesting new experiences!

More to come…

Story of the Week: Everyone has been very amazed that my name is truly James Dean. Friday night we had TWC Crawl, which was karaoke, trivia, dancing, etc. (I participated in most of these, if sitting and watching counts as participation). During karaoke, a group of people sang “James Dean” by the Eagles. Upon finding out about this, many of my new friends (especially the Belgians) stood up in the middle of the song chanting “James Dean! James Dean!” as if it were a soccer game. Everyone in attendance was greatly confused until they saw me in the middle of them slowly sinking in my chair with a cherry red face. Because of this, everyone I have seen has said “you’re that guy whose name is James Dean, right?”