All posts filed under: Washington D.C.

A collection of posts about adventures in Washington, D.C.

The end of an era

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Looking over my last entry, I kind of get the feeling that I was feeling a little overwhelmed and homesick. It seems that I just fell off the face of the earth, never to be heard from again. You won’t get rid of me that easy. When I returned to the District after Thanksgiving, I was feeling a little down and a lot homesick. The holidays really are the most wonderful time of the year to me and my family. Every weekend we go to a different Christmas display and spend too much money buying each other gifts, baking and cooking stupendous meals. I’ve just finished eating my big Christmas dinner with my family before I sat down to finally post this entry. But I didn’t really crawl under a rock my last three weeks in the city. I spent a couple of days developing a few story ideas and then dug in, barely getting two of the three stories finished by the end of the internship. In my last few weeks I practiced a …

Change of pace

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And now for something completely different. Typically on this blog, I talk about things I do and see, or things I want to do and see, not what I think or how I feel. When it comes to talking about how I feel or what I think about something or someone, or moments that shaped a part of my character, I freeze up. I froze up earlier this evening when I was talking to one of my roommates about how this internship has changed my perspective on some things. She has decided to relocate to DC from the western U.S., and we were discussing what it’s like to be in a city where you know no one. When I got to the part where I tried to vocalize how in the last couple of months I have changed from someone who valued having an exciting career above all else to someone who valued family and friends above all else, I mumbled out, “But, I don’t know.” I couldn’t articulate why I no longer want to …

50 in 30

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There are two kinds of perks with this internship: work and non-work. These are very technical titles, so pay close attention to the following descriptions. Work perks are the kind of everyday perks one experiences as a reporter in Washington D.C. These are things like being able to go to the White House. Non-work perks are just about everything else. These include just living in DC and the general proximity to other eastern states. I want to see all 50 states before I turn 30 on July 14, 2015. At the start of this internship I had about four years and 20 states to go. After the East Coast Extravaganza two weekends ago, the magic number is down to 13. The first leg of our trip took though four states I had already seen before. We started in Virginia, where we picked up our rental car, passing through Maryland and Delaware to get to Philadelphia. I wasn’t particularly thrilled to go through Delaware again, but we passed through Wilmington and realized that there is a …

Little Victories

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One of the things about this internship that can be frustrating is the amount of time we can spend on a story without any assurance that it will actually be picked up by someone. The easiest way to get a story picked up is to write it for one of the Scripps papers or someone else who requests it. My first story was picked up when I did the cost of living adjustment story for Trish Choate, the Washington correspondent for the Texas papers. I know the other interns have been picked up in other Scripps papers or have been published on the Scripps Howard News Service (a national wire staffed by seasoned journalists, not just students.  We’ve recently established a relationship with El Paso, Inc., a weekly in Texas, where the mother of one of the interns this semester is editor. So after I spent a week harassing sources and gathering information about a dicennial process I really didn’t know much about, putting a story out on the wire without knowing if it would …

Blood, Sweat and Tears

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I hope you’ve been to SHFWire.com by now and read the election stories Elvia and I wrote today. (In case you didn’t I linked to them on our names and the wire’s website is no longer password protected. Score!) And I’m sure you’re aware of the election outcome, so I’m not going to rehash any of that. What I do want to talk about is what it was like covering my first major election. I’ve covered Student Government elections before, but sitting around with a fellow newspaper watching the Student Government people sit around waiting for election results is nothing like this. In my previous entry, I explained how Elvia and I really wanted to cover something for the election, even if we knew no one was going to pick up our story. It was as much about the reporting experience and being part of something historic. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, speaking at the Republican watch party Tuesday night. As soon as I walked into the Grand Hyatt I knew I had stepped into a …

It’s the Journey

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A row of embassies. I love the weekends. Don’t misunderstand me, I love my internship too. But I love being able to get into some jeans and my comfy shoes, grab a camera and just get lost in the city for a while. The weather has been perfect every weekend I’ve been out here, so I’ve been doing outside exploring before it gets too cold to enjoy things. Last weekend, I decided to just go for a walk. I’m still too uptight of a person to just wander around without some kind of a guide, so I knew I wanted to end up in Georgetown and I knew the navigation in my phone would get me there. So with Google maps as my guide, I began the two mile walk from my apartment to Georgetown. Latvian’s perception of American culture I always have to remind myself that in life its not about the destination, but the journey. To get from Woodley Park to Georgetown, I passed by several countries’ embassies. Maybe I’ve watched too many …

Busy Work

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So much for weekly entries. In all reality, I haven’t done anything super exciting or covered any particularly sensational stories lately. Most of the last couple of weeks have been spent finishing this story about community involvement in redistricting next year. I got a crash course in the process and learned all about how people can submit their own maps so they can make sure their own rights and interests are protected. It was one of those complex topics that made me feel alternately brain dead and fascinated. The high stakes of the process was interesting; these districts will influence elections for the next 10 years. The volume of information and level of involvement in the process made it feel almost overwhelming at times. I was relieved when I finished, but I’d hate to have this knowledge and background work go to waste after this story. I’m hoping to be able to keep following this story on the local level when I get home for a local news outlet. Beyond that, I had my first …

Nothing like a cemetery to cheer you up

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Arlington National Cemetery There was a “One Nation Working Together” rally Saturday on the Mall, and I absolutely wanted nothing to do with it. I avoid dense crowds and large gatherings of people at all costs. I had no idea what I wanted to do yesterday when I woke up. I just knew I wanted to stay as far away from the Mall as possible. I ended up at Arlington National Cemetery. I got there  late in the afternoon, so I didn’t get to see much.  I did get to see Kennedy’s gravesite and the Tomb of the Unknowns. The ceremony of the Honor Guard was the most elaborate thing I’ve ever seen. I’m not one to stand on ceremony. I try to stay barefoot as much as possible and just do things without much fanfare. The Changing of the Guard was about a 15-minute ceremony where the guard on duty is replaced by a new one. The relief commander comes out to announce to the crowd that the ceremony is about to begin and …

How to survive your first trip to DC

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Mom and Dad’s first Metro ride. Their expressions say it all. If you’re visiting DC for the first time, there are somethings you need to keep in mind. First, if you’re claustrophobic and don’t like crowds, don’t take the train. Second, check for scheduled maintenance on the Metro line on the weekend. It could keep you standing on a crowded train for an hour if you’re not careful. (There is a wonderful Android app for that.) Third, exercise before you come here. If you’re not used to walking, you won’t survive here more than a few hours. Last weekend, my parents, brother and cousin made their first trip out to DC and learned these lessons the hard way. I think they’re all still recovering from the experience. The Washington Monument at sunset. My dad is the claustrophobic one. He really hates crowds, doesn’t like to be in large groups of people and gets kind of freaked out in small spaces. I was kind of impressed on how he dealt with the train. I was actually …