“Let Me Check My Schedule…”

I seem to have gotten extremely busy over the last little while and I’m not even really sure how it happened. Suddenly today I found myself saying “let me check my schedule…” and actually meaning it. I’m definitely not complaining because there is just so much cool stuff going on here I just can’t seem to find enough time to catch it all.

As for my internship, things are going great. Another intern started last week – Joe from Alaska – and having an extra “in the process of learning Spanish” homie in the office is definitely a plus. I’ve really been enjoying the work too. The past couple of days I haven’t had any assignments except answering email and phone questions. They’ve been pretty random, and I’ve definitely been learning a lot from researching answers…and running up to my supervisor’s office every hour to ask advice.

In addition to my internship, I’m in the process of starting up the Civic Engagement section of my program. TWC requires you to get involved through volunteering somehow in DC, and I’ve decided to do mine with the HI Hostel. Basically a few more volunteers and I will be planning some events for the guests at the hostel, running them, and making sure everyone is digging DC. I’m pretty pumped to get started, and am joining the hostel’s free tour of Georgetown this Thursday night as my orientation – convenient considering I haven’t been to Georgetown yet and will probably enjoy it more than the hostel guests. I also got in touch with the Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to see if I can help them out at all. The guy I have been in contact with is extremely nice, and is now sending me a weekly schedule of his meetings. He told me I can sit in on any if I ever want to meet anyone, or hear about an organization in particular, which I think is a pretty sweet deal. They also have regular mixers for their members, so I’m headed to one tomorrow night to help out and do some mingling.

Last week I went to one more forum about American policy towards to drug war and violence in Mexico. It has been my favorite talk so far and was a panel of really awesome speakers. Again, it was at CATO, which is definitely a very liberal institute as the first guy got up and right away went into how the only solution was complete legalization of drugs. All the speakers were great, but this guy in particular was so intense and passionate and knew so much about Mexico I couldn’t even take it. I even went up to him afterwards and got his card so hopefully I can follow up with him. We can even discuss the day that Canada legalized Marijuana (yes, it actually happened, kind of).

As for the weekend, I made it to the travel show in an effort to solicit myself for a job, but alas, I chickened out. It was a really cool setup with booths from pretty much all the major destinations in the world, and then everything in between. In my defense, there was a TON of people, most of them very stereotypical, obnoxious, very loud almost yelling-ish, socks with sandals type tourists, and I pretty much found myself just wanting to get out of there after a while. I grabbed a lot of propaganda and got a list of exhibitors so my plan B is now in motion, and that is to blanket their email addresses with resumes. We’ll see what happens.

A few of us met up on Sunday in an effort to make the hike to Georgetown, but it ended up being ridiculously cold, so instead we hit up the Natural History Museum. Of course, this included another 3D Imax movie, which I still swear are the coolest thing to hit the planet. I’m not saying the rest of the museum isn’t awesome, but nothing really beats wearing sweet red glasses and having dinosaurs pop out of the screen.

Last night a group of us went to a Sam Roberts show at the Rock n’ Roll hotel. If you haven’t heard of Sam Roberts, don’t be ashamed….he’s big in Canada (and by big I mean “big”), but not so much here. I actually saw him the week before I left Calgary for $50 in a big auditorium. Last night it was $12 in a pretty small venue and we were pretty much arm’s length away from him. I thought it was quite stellar. There’s another Canadian act coming to town on Friday. K’Naan is playing at the Millennium Stage in the Kennedy Centre Friday night at 6pm, and its, guess what, FREE!!! A theme I do love. I guess the Millennium stage has free shows every single day at 6pm; this will be my first time there but I’m sure more will come.

Also on Friday all the TWC students from the Western Hemisphere (except the USA) are meeting with the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. I’m really excited to hear their take on all the current Latin American issues like Chavez, the Merida Initiative and Cuba. All of the US students are having meetings with their congressmen scheduled, but obviously we internationals don’t have any here, so this is basically our version and I’m expecting it to be really good.

On a side note, my brother and one of my good friends are arriving on Saturday for a week long visit. I’m soooooo excited to see them and am sure there will be some crazy antics going down while they are around.

Paz amigos.

Otra Semana

As you can tell by my title, my level of Spanish has pretty much reached fluency by this point. I never thought it would happen this fast either; I must have underestimated myself. But actually, the title is just my most recent attempt at convincing myself, and the rest of you, that my Spanish is amazing. I'm thinking it probably isn't working at this point, but interning at the Mexican Embassy is seriously helping me improve so hopefully in a few weeks I won't just be pretending as much.

The internship has gotten much better since my first few days, and this past week I was working on some articles for the monthly NAFTA newsletter my department sends out. There has been some pretty interesting topics and I appear to be retaining random facts of Mexican imports/exports from some of my work: for example, South Carolina is the top exporting state of film cameras to Mexico. Who knew? And who remembers that? Apparently I do.

I've also been going out for lunch a lot with some other interns at the embassy. They have been really great at helping me with my Spanish, and want to practice their English too, so it works out well. It is getting pretty expensive going out for lunch so much, but being at the embassy in particular I feel like its necessary. The Mexican people (from my point of view anyways) are very interested in mingling with coworkers and getting to know them, and lunch is a very important part of the work day because of it. We get two hours for lunch, which is AWESOME, and means that I may actually go home knowing some people on a deeper level in comparison to the usual 1 hour max, eat at your desk and become bitter towards your job/life approach.

In addition to my internship hours, I've been going to a few conferences. One that I attended today was about the development gap between the US and Latin America. It was based on a book by Francis Fukuyama called "The Fallen," and he was one of the speakers. I swear he is probably one of the smartest people I've ever heard talk and was pretty amazing. The auditorium was packed full, but YAY there was still enough free lunch for all of us. But aside from the lunch it was a really good conference. I've enjoyed all the events I've been to so far at the CATO Institute, and am actually heading to another tomorrow on the drug problems of Mexico and the relations with the US.

Besides the internship and conferences and such, everything else is also going really well in DC. The long weekend was great, and I spent all day Saturday sightseeing with American Sarah who's in my program (she's known as American Sarah and I'm Canadian Sarah--for obvious reasons. Represent). We went up the Washington Monument and then to the Holocaust Museum on Saturday, and then wandered around Alexandria, VA on Monday. I figured the Holocaust Museum would be pretty empty on Valentine's Day considering the mood, but the line was still pretty long. It is such a great museum I couldn't believe it.

Just happy to be here...

View from the top of the Washington Monument. The WWII Memorialand the Lincoln Memorial

With some fellow Mexican Embassy Interns (Humberto and Hector) infront of The White House

As for Sunday, I ended up going to visit some friends' parents who live here in DC. They live on the naval base so it was a really cool experience to get a tour from them of the area. We're not too big on the whole military, navy thing up in Canada, if you haven't noticed, so it was definitely all new to me. And a home cooked meal was also much appreciated as I seem to be living off of a lot of cereal and ham sandwiches at this point.

This weekend I've got a few plans, including crashing a Travel Expo that's being held in DC. It's basically a fair with a bunch of travel/tourism companies sitting at booths, and people come and plan their trips. Instead, I'm going to go with a handful of resumes and see if I can maybe get a lead on a possible job. I may get kicked out, as the tickets specifically say SOLICITING OF EXHIBITORS IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED...but hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. As long as it doesn't lead to arrest followed by deportation, I'm up for a healthy kick out.

Until next time, paz.

Getting Settled...

First off, I just want to throw it out there - if you like it you can take it, if not you can throw it right back - DC is amazing! I’ve been feeling rather overwhelmed since my arrival, but definitely in a good sense. There are so many opportunities here, whether it be potential jobs, attending conferences, or simply just having a debate (which I’m realizing seems to happen quite often).

I arrived about 2 weeks ago now, and everything went as planned. I’m not living in The Washington Center housing, but rather found an apartment online through craigslist.org. It was a little daunting coming here on my own and not really knowing if my roommate actually existed, or if she was planning on robbing me upon arrival. Instead, she helped me get settled, took me for a tour, and then bought me dinner. I was like WHOA I definitely scored with this setup--the place is great, the roommate is super nice, and the area where I’m living is amazing. I’m just a few blocks away from downtown Bethesda in Maryland, which is packed full of nice restaurants and shopping. I really don’t think I could have asked for a better spot to be.

The Washington Center orientation was last week as well, and was pretty interesting. It was great to meet all the people from my program (Global Trade and Regional Integration) and start having some peeps here to hang out with. Everyone seems really nice, and we have a huge mix of people from all over North and South America. We also started our Monday programming which has been pretty good so far. We were able to visit the Organization of American States, which is in one of the most amazing buildings I’ve ever seen, as well as hear from a few speakers who are kind of a big deal.

I’ve only had two classes so far, but both were full of US vs. the rest of America debates regarding political / trade issues. I felt kind of bad last night as there are only two people from the states in my class, with about 10 others from Canada / Latin America, and it basically ended up being a 10 vs. 2 type debate on the Buy America provision. I have a feeling this division may keep going throughout the semester so it could be interesting.

I also started my internship last week at the Embassy of Mexico. I’m not gonna lie, I was definitely on the fence about it after the first few days, but I’m feeling good about it now. The main difficulty for me has been the English/Spanish barrier, as pretty much everyone else is Mexican. The work is mostly in English, and everyone is extremely nice, but I’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed at lunch hour especially with 4-5 Mexicans all speaking super fast. By the time I think of something to add to the conversation in Spanish, they’ve already moved on to something else, so I guess I’m just gonna play off the “strong and silent type” persona. We did go out for juevecitas last Thursday, which pretty much means Thursday Date. I guess it’s a tradition at the Embassy for the interns, which I’m definitely not complaining about. There were several Coronas involved, which seemed to improve my Spanish quite a bit…go figure.

I’ve done quite a bit of sightseeing already on my own including a LOT of exploring by foot, as well as the Museum of National History, tour of the Capitol, Eastern Market, the Mexican Cultural Institute, Embassy Row and the Museum of Natural History. For most cities a list like that seems to be the extent of the sightseeing, but I seriously feel like if I was to go see something different everyday while I am here, I still wouldn’t see it all. The best part is that pretty much all of it is FREE!!! Hey oooo!!!

The awesomeness that is the Capitol

The amazing murals inside the Cultural Institute of Mexico

A couple of us from the Global Trade Program at the top of the Old Post Office Tower: (L to R) Andrew from Canada, Kyle from Florida, Sarah from Wisconsin, Me, and John from Pennslyvania

I also went to my first conference/forum today at the CATO Institute. It was basically a panel of speakers discussing the importance of services in free trade…sounds boring I’m sure, but I can honestly say it was pretty stellar. There are two other ones planned by CATO next week, one on the Latin American economy, and the other on drug trade issues in Mexico. I’m hoping to be able to go to both, and it seems my supervisor is pretty laid back so hopefully it works out. They are all free, and you get a sweet nametag for registering in advance, as well as free lunch afterwards. I kind of want to go to one everyday so I never have to buy lunch, I wonder if they would catch on.

Oh, and one more thing to mention….I saw my very first presidential motorcade today. It was intense. I was walking to the Embassy (which conveniently is just a few blocks from the Whitehouse), and boom, all of a sudden this cop car came out of nowhere and blocked traffic. No one really seemed as excited as I did so apparently it must happen down our street all the time…or maybe it wasn’t even Obama, who knows, but I don’t really know how many people get such sweet convoys. Anyways, right after he blocked the traffic all these motorcycles started coming and then about 10-15 black SUV’s and cars with tinted windows, followed by more police. Then suddenly it was over; he flipped off his siren, drove away, and traffic continued as normal. I basically stood there stunned wishing I would have had my camera and thinking about how well organized it was. Seriously, it was perfectly timed and pretty much awesome.

That’s all I got for now, but with the upcoming long weekend I’m hoping to have some pretty compelling stories for my next post.

Paz.