Mr. Dungan Goes to Washington

Updates are in order

Wow...I feel as though there is so much to say. It has only been a few days since I last posted and already it feels like weeks. I suppose the best way to go about doing this is day by day...so despite my lack of remembrance regarding details I think I can piece it all together so everyone has a picture in their head of how things are!

Thursday, January 8:
After spending the night in a magnificent little hotel (I enjoy hyatts) in South Bend, Indiana, we set off for the second leg of the long journey to Washington. Before leaving the town, however, we decided to drive through the campus of Notre Dame. While this might sound strange, I have always had somewhat of a fondness for Notre Dame and have been curious about what the university looked like all these years. The architecture was gorgeous! It actually reminded me of the University of Kansas in its layout only it was flat. And what trip to Notre Dame would be complete without checking out touchdown Jesus. If you're not sure what that is, just google it...it's pretty great.

So we ended up hittin' the road between eight and nine, when I then proceeded to sleep for about 4 hours. Needless to say this sped up the drive considerably. Once I awoke, we had some lunch and continued to drive with us swapping around who was driving when. It ended up working out so that I was the one who drove the last 3-4 hours and therefore into D.C. At night. On the Beltway. That was ...exciting. But in all seriousness it wasn't too bad. However, once I got behind the wheel the snow began to hit in small bursts all through PA and it would go from clear to blizzardy in 2.5 seconds, so that wasn't exactly cool.

After driving into D.C. we arrived at the hotel to find my Grandpa (who I call papa), who was supposed to meet us there, already waiting for us to arrive! You have to understand that Papa is the nicest, funniest person...ever. We came in and there he was, dressed to a T, with a suit and fedora on waiting to go to dinner with us. After we had gone this long distance we decided that we should just eat at the restaurant located within the hotel and it turned out to be really nice. It was this smaller, trendier, Asian-Indian-fusion kind of thing and the food tasted wonderful!

Post- dinner, Doug and I decided to drop off some things at the apartment even though I wasn't going to move in until Friday so that we could see the layout and I could say hi to the roomies. Let me just say that I really really enjoy the place. It is so much nicer than I could ever have asked for as my first real 'outside' living experience from student housing. I will most likely take pictures and post them here for all to see sooner or later.

That first night in D.C. then I ended up coming back to the hotel with Doug and slept there for that first night. Once again, I really enjoyed the hotel. I believe it was a double tree and the general atmosphere was just really cool! That night I was really excited to come into work the next day (my first day was friday, if I haven't already said that) and so I had some trouble sleeping...maybe it's lame...but still, I was stoked!

Friday, January 9th.
My first day on the job. To sum it all up, it was incredible. While I might not have done very much, I felt as though I was doing actual work instead of just licking envelopes the entire time, and it was nice. My office is fairly small...just a few actual offices and three-four desks for the rest of us. I do get my own desk and phone which is pretty great, as well an actual work e-mail to use with clients! It's hard to sum up what exactly all I did that day, but to put it shortly there was a lot of typing, a bit of editing, some e-mailing, and a bunch of talking to people who I'll be working with. It was also very nice of them to take me out to lunch on my first day. We went to this delicious restaurant called Olives that is about a block away from the White House and had these great flatbreads. I Know that this description of my first day is somewhat lackluster, I just am not quite sure what all to say about my job...it was so overwhelmingly exciting to walk around that area, see the places that you hear about so often, and know that I'm working there! For someone like me it was like being in Hollywood, you just keep your eyes open all the time for someone who you might recognize or a place that you've heard of.

I will say that I am probably the only guy in DC who walked to his first day of work with his grandpa. Papa thought he'd help me out with the metro the first day and walk with me to the office. It was really cute and pretty great. Like I said, Papa is the best.

That night, after work and dinner (at this nice place called Clyde's?), we all went over to my appartment and moved some of my stuff in. It turns out that I have the big room with the small bed, so when I walked in it was rather funny looking. I love the room itself though...once everything got moved in it looked wonderful. This first night, however, it was rather...spartan. I decided to spend the night there so that I could start getting used to sleeping in the place, given that I would have to do it soon anyway. So that night I just sat around and talked with Rachel and Jacque, and both seem to really enjoy their jobs out here.

So those were my first two days! I know it may not sound like a lot ( or maybe it does...I'm not sure) but it was intense, exciting, and exhausting. I'll do the second half of this catch up-update here in a bit. I have to start getting ready for work and this post is getting rather long winded.

Hope everyone is doing well! I miss you all.

posted by gdungan @ 5:24 AM