The Metro Ride from Hell and Other Adventures

Yesterday was my first "First Fridays" experience. First Fridays is a happy hour at the bar across the street from work for conservatives in DC. It's celebrated on the first Friday of every month and is an opportunity to hang out and network. I had a great time hanging out with my fellow interns and getting to know them better. Afterwards, though, I had to ride the Metro home. Up to this point I've had a great experience with public transportation in DC, but last night was a little crazy. I left Union Station at 9:30 and didn't get home until 11:30. In that two hours, I waited for 15 minutes for the first train to show up, then they were doing track maintenance between stops on my route home, so I had to get on a bus and shuttle to the next working station. Then I waited another 15 minutes for another train. I'm pretty sure I could have walked the eight miles home faster. My new rule...no more riding the metro after 10 pm :)
Today I spent the day sightseeing with Theresa. We took in two Smithsonian museums. The first was the Postal Museum all about the Post Office. Though it may not sound like it, it was awesome! We made cards to send to the troops, then we learned all about the Pony Express, how they used to manually sort the mail (we both decided that job was not for us), and about all different kinds of stamps! The best part was a video of a little girl walking up to the post office and dropping off a letter to, "the South Pole." The postal worker asks, "Don't you mean the North Pole?"
"No, this is my brother's letter!" the little girl responds! :)
After that we walked, in the rain, over to the American Indian Museum. Another great Smithsonian! They have an exhibit right now on how horses impacted the lives of different tribes. They had a lot of saddles, blankets and bridles from South Dakota! Theresa and I both thought they could have beefed up the Lakota portion of the museum though!
It was a great day. We decided that we're going to have make sight seeing together a tradition.
Tomorrow I'm headed in to watch the Giants beat, I mean play, the Patriots with some of the interns!

The beginning of the Postal Museum.

Benjamin Franklin (the Father of the Postal Service)

We ventured out even though it was raining.