Part Two: New York!

Wednesday was such a tiring day, but it was so amazing and such an experience!

I had to get up at 3:30 am because I had to be at Union Station by 5:00 for the bus to leave at 5:15. I wanted to get to the station early to by breakfast, booked a taxi for 4:30. I got to Union Station about 4:35 and went to get breakfast. I was at Au Bon Pain trying to decide what I wanted when this security guard comes up to me and starts to talk to me! Now I was still half asleep and not really in the mood to talk, but I stood there and listened to him because I didn't want to be deported! Ten minutes later me fellow intern who was coming with me and my supervisor shows up and the security guard pretty much restarts his stories About 4:45 he left us and we were able to get our breakfasts. We got to the bus 5:00ish and found my supervisor. We were on a double decker bus! There weren't many people on the bus, but I sat we my fellow intern and my supervisor sat behind. Five minutes into the drive Valerie, my supervisor, was fast asleep. The intern and I talked and looked out the windows for about two and a half hours. We stopped in Baltimore to get more people and the bus filled up to the max. We woke up from our naps just in time to drive into New York City. The view of the city was spectacular and it was quite overwhelming.

We drove under the river and got off the bus stop about 10:00ish. We hopped in a taxi and headed over to the Intrepid Museum for the re-opening of the Shuttle Enterprise exhibit. We got there about 10:30 and the ceremony had just finished! We were all quite disappointed by that because we didn't get to hear the speeches or anything. However, we did get to into the exhibit before the public. The other intern and I were pretty much given a private tour by Valerie. Valerie used to be responsible for the Enterprise before it was transferred to the Intrepid and she got Discovery.  It was really cool to have her there! She commented on how the exhibit set up and explained all the artifacts and why things they looked the way they did! It was interesting to see the Enterprise which never flew in space and compare it to Discovery who had been in space multiple times. The Enterprise was much cleaner and had a little bit of a different look to it. The Enterprise was meant to fly, but NASA decided that it would have cost more to refit Enterprise that was a test Shuttle and make it a real one then building a whole new shuttle. That's why the Enterprise never flew in space. However, NASA would come in to the museum every once in a while and take parts of the shuttle to preform tests on it. Because of that the Enterprise has holes in it. In the end we spent about an hour and a half in Enterprise exhibit.

The Intrepid is a airplane carrier! We spent another hour and a half on rest of the ship. We did it pretty quickly because we were hungry. Owen, the other intern and I'm pretty sure he's my brother from another country, and I went into the Growler which is a submarine from the Cold War. This submarine was stationed outside of the USSR and was meant to rise to the surface and deploy to nuclear missiles if the US was attacked by the USSR. It was so small! You really got a feel for how these men must have lived and how little space they had to do it in. 

After we went to lunch at Landmark Tavern which is a block from the museum and I had a really good veggie wrap. Following that Valerie set Owen and I free because she was catching an earlier bus back. The two of us decided to go to the Tenement Museum so we got on the subway and headed that way. When we got to the right stop we tried to get to the surface, but we had a lot of trouble! We kept wandering around the subway and at one point ended back where we started. Eventually we got out and found the museum. How this museum works is that you choose and hour or an hour and a half tour and they take you to these tenements that they have bought along Orchard street. We chose to go on the Sweatshop tour. This tour focused on Jewish immigrants, one family from Poland who lived there in the 1890's and a Lithuanian family who lived there from 1911 to 1934 when the building was evicted and shut down. We weren't aloud to take pictures inside, so I having nothing to show you so I'll try to describe it. We went up to the third floor and the first apartment we went into was in the original state of when the museum bought the building. You could see the paint and wall paper peeling off the walls. Our tour guide was saying that you could tell how many families had lived in that apartment by how many layers there were on the wall. I guess in one area they have found 20 layers of wall paper! These apartments only had three rooms, a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen. It was all 340 square feet, so really small! We went into another apartment that had been reconstructed to be like a 1890's apartment that the Polish family probably would have lived in. This family consisted of the two parents and five children. The father ran a tailors business out of the living room, aka a sweatshop. He would get a contract from a company telling him to make 100 dresses in 10 days. He would then hire 3 more people. That means in the 340 square foot apartment there were 10 people in there for ten hours a day six days a week! It was really hot in there with only eight of us for 30 minutes. It must have been terrible with 10 people for 10 hours with a coal fireplace burning! Since the guy was Jewish he took Saturdays off instead of Sundays and had fellow Jews work for him that had the same practices. We were told that if someone didn't show up for work you could just go into the street and hire someone else. Orchard street was so busy that you had to use your elbows to get through the crowd! After that apartment we went to the Lithuanian one. This family lived there in 1911 and things were a little bit different. There were eight of them in that apartment. The father again had his own tailoring business and his eldest daughter worked for him. They sent the other five children out into the world. The two boys opened an import/export business, but the girls went to work in factories. Factories ran on a Christian schedule, meaning they worked Monday to Saturday and took Sunday off. This family really showed the sacrifices of ones culture and religion to make ones way in the world. Our tour guide told us how one Saturday in 1911 there were protesters outside a factory. In order to stop them getting in and to keep his workforce working a factory owner locked his all female staff in the factory. A fire broke out and the 174 women inside were killed because there was no way out. I guess word spread quickly and most of the community was Jewish and hoped that their girls didn't perish. It made it even more terrible that it was on a Saturday when the Jews were supposed to be home with their family an not working. The museum was inspiring and it gives me different ideas on how history can be presented.

The last thing we did that day was go to Katz Deli. It's supposed to be the best deli in New York. A scene for When Harry Met Sally was filmed there. I got a HUGE Swiss cheese  sandwich, cheesecake, pickles and a cream soda. Owen almost got the same thing except he got a pastrami sandwich. We got it to go, but first we sat down to enjoy the atmosphere and try a bit of our sandwiches which were delicious! I had a hard time getting me mouth around mine! About 6 pm we headed towards the subway because we had to catch the bus at 6:40. 

We hadn't taken into consideration the time it takes for the Metro to come and the time to go up and down the stairs. By the time we got to 34th Street and 6th Ave it was 6:25 and we had to get to 34th and 11th. We started walking because traffic was so bad that it was faster. We got down two of New York's giant blocks and looked at the time. It was 6:32 and we still had a long way to go. We looked at each other and Owen asked "Run?" which I nodded my head at, so we began to book it down 34th. Both of us were carrying three bags, our bag we brought with us, a bag full of souvenirs from the Tenement and our bag full of food. We ran down 34th like our life depended on it weaving in and out between people and flaying awkwardly! We got to 11th Ave at 6:39 and there was no bus! There was a big crowd of people by the megabus sign so we asked them if the 6:40 bus had come yet and we were told no. So we made it! In the end the bus didn't show up until 7:40. We piled on the bus an hour late exhausted and we agreed that we would keep each other awake the whole 5ish hours back. On the way back we both ate half of our sandwiches and we told each other stories. I told Owen about my epic present making abilities and my amazing boyfriend and he told me about his girlfriend of five years and him being a history camp councilor. We successfully made it back to Union Station at 12:20 without either of us falling asleep! Yesterday was a great first time in New York and I'll probably never forget it!

     

Part one: Sunday, Monday, Beer

After the Holocaust Museum and feeling depressed Saturday my friend and I decided to go to Georgetown Sunday. Georgetown is an older neighbourhood in Washington.  It was really pretty! The buildings looked old and well taken care of. It was only two blocks from the river, so I finally saw the Potomac river. We went to the oldest house in Washington the Old Stone House. It was built in 1765 and there is folklore surrounding the house saying that President George Washington and Pierre Charles L'Enfant used it as a base, which isn't true. We went to this really nice and cute french sandwich shop and tea house for lunch called Paul. It was very pretty inside and had a nice view of the outside! The bread of my sandwich was delicious and it had olives baked into it! It was yummy! Even though Georgetown is a shopping district I only bought one thing when I was down there! I can't say what it is because it's part of my mom birthday present and she reads my blog, but let me tell you it was awesomely amazing! I didn't buy anything else because everything was so expensive! The cheapest dress I saw was 150ish $! I couldn't believe it! I definitely won't go back there to shop, but maybe to stroll around the streets and along the river where they have kayaking which I want to try!

They have a canal!

The Potomac!

Monday was a pretty important day for us Space History Interns. It was our turn to present at the Brown Bag lunch. Every Monday all the Air and Space Museum interns gather at lunch and a some people present on who they are and what they are doing at the museum. Now, my group had been planning our part for weeks! We wanted to be the best and I can for sure say that we were! We dressed up all fancy. All the guys wore bow ties and the girls wore dresses. We all then wore suit jackets to look uniform. Our presentation was awesome! In it we defined what space was and was not and then we each had two slides introducing ourselves and what we were doing. We made the other interns and our supervisors who had come down to cheer us on laugh a lot and actually pay attention for once. We were huge keeners and even took questions at the end. It was mostly our supervisors who had questions, but it was still fun and made us feel quite professional and like we did a good job!

Tuesday was almost a normal day. In the morning I went to a talk about trees in DC and urban forests with my male supervisor. It was interesting, but there were so many numbers and things that I didn't understand that I almost fell asleep! At lunch us interns went to Space History's Tuesday movie. We watched a TV pilot from 1959 called Destination Space. It was really cheesy and predictable. There's a reason that no one picked it up! After work us Space History Interns along with four other interns went out for drinks at Kelly's Irish Tavern or something like that. Not wanting to feel out of place I ordered a beer called Harp. It went down way to easily. I didn't really like it and it tasted like nothing, but I learned that I'm a light weight and don't have a high alcohol tolerance for after that one drink things were swimming! I followed that beer with almost an entire pitcher of water and that seemed to help. However, at one point I had to get up to use the washroom and I went inside, because we were sitting outside, and there was a little slope down in the entrance and I almost fell on my face! No more drinking for me!  I left there pretty early along with most of the group because I had to wake up at 3:30 am to catch the bus to go to New York City!

Independence Day, Friday Day and Holocaust Museum

July 4th was American Day! I mean Independence Day! My Canadian friend and I decided that we wanted to have the whole American Day experience, so we decided to do all the festivities the city of Washington DC had planned. We started out at 11:45 by going to the Independence Day Parade. What's with the US and long parades? This one was over two hours long! By then end I was exhausted from sitting and standing in one place for so long! Also, there were so many marching bands! At one point we were joking that there was going to be a middle school and a high school marching band from each state because there were so many. Luckily there wasn't! The parade was pretty cool! They had some elaborate floats and giant balloons shapes like eagles, stars and Tweety Bird!

After we decided to go get crepes and smoothies because that's very American you know! That was followed by us stopping by the Folklife Festival which was packed of course. I finally bought myself a water bottle. I got the 5$ one instead of the 10$ one because it was cheaper. The only difference was the cheaper one said 2012 instead of 2013 on it. I'm fine with that because it's only a water bottle. It was getting hot out so we decided to head back to my place for a bit to cool down and have the most American thing in the world! A rootbeer float! It was so hot out and that float was perfect way to cool off! Sixish we went for pizza. I, still feeling American, got cheese pizza and an old fashion cream soda. Just when I thought my day wouldn't get any better we went to the Capital Concert. Every year they hold this concert and broadcast it across the nation! It wasn't at all what I thought it would be. I thought that the National Symphony Orchestra would be playing more, but it was mostly pop singers such as Barry Manilow and Darren Criss. I was a little disappointed by that. It made it worse that we left early to move more into the Mall so that we could see the fireworks. The people running the concert said you could see the fireworks from the concert, but we were happy we moved because we were pretty sure the trees in front of us would have blocked our view. Leaving the concert early meant we missed the National Symphony Orchestra play the 1812 overture, but we heard the cannons go off! The fireworks were spectacular! They were set off behind the Washington Monument. It was a little odd because sometimes you could see the fireworks through the scaffolding on the Monument, but it was still really cool! I'm quite happy that I had the Washington Independence Day experience! I did sometimes feel out of place when MCs would say things about everyone there being American and proud of their great nation, but I got over it and tried to embrace the one time experience.

Friday I was so tired! I trudged to work and was actually quite productive! I finished writing my little article about one of the Shuttle missions and began looking at pictures! That's pretty much all I did that day. After work I went and bought this kid's book written by one of the Space History curators and I'm going to ask her to sign it for my future kids! The book is about why Pluto isn't a planet and is told from Pluto's point of view. I went out for supper with my Canadian friend and one of my roommates to an Indian place called Rajaji near Adams-Morgan Metro stop. It was pretty good. After we went out for ice cream which was delicious and hit the spot on such a hot day!

Today I went with my friend to the Holocaust Museum. We were there from 10 am to 3 pm. It's a really good museum, but be ready to be depressed. After wandering through it for so long we were actually glad to be out in the hot sun which seemed quite welcoming after all the death and destruction inside the museum. We decided that we needed comfort food, so we went and got french fries and milkshakes which made things a little better, but even now I'm still down. The museum told me a lot of stuff I already knew about the Holocaust and some exhibits I didn't agree with because you can't force modern day ideology onto these people! Also, you don't know how you would react in a situation where you could save someone from being rounded up and killed and potentially have your whole family killed or stay on the sidelines and give yourself a bigger chance of survival. It's a really difficult thing to present. I think the museum did a great job. They made it not only informative, but interesting and engaging.

That's all for now. I'm probably going to go to sleep and have nightmares about death camps and crying children. Goodnight.

Part two: Garber, Picnic and Wednesday

Monday us Air and Space Museum interns had a field trip out to Garber. Garber is the old storage facility for the artifacts. They are slowly moving the things from there to Udvar-Hazy. It was wicked awesome! There were warehouses filed with old planes and/or wooden crates. Walking into some of the warehouses you felt like you were at the end of Indiana Jones when the put the Arc into storage! I learned more then I'll ever need to know bout airplanes. I even got to touch one! The plane I touched was made out of steel! Planes are usually made out of aluminium with a steel plate over the engine, but this whole plane was steel. It had the nickname the Tank. These planes were made during the Second World War by the Russians and they were the most produced airplanes at the time. However, there are only six left in the world because most of them were used for scrap after the war.

Monday was also Canada Day! I took the Nanaimo Bars I made to my fellow Space History interns and they all really liked them. The guys were even fighting over who would get the leftovers! Five of my fellow Space interns dressed in red and white along with two other interns from another division who we have adopted. I think I've convinced them to become Canadian!

Tuesday I got up to use the bathroom at 2 in the morning. I was calmly washing my hands when I enormous bug flew at my head! It was gross and huge so I silently screamed and ran out of there waving my hands frantically! I didn't do anything about the bug, but the rest of the night I couldn't sleep because I was worried the bug had followed me into my room of had laid eggs on me and I was going to be covered by baby bugs in the morning! The next morning when I went into the bathroom I slowly opened the door and checked all the walls and the ceiling, but the bug was gone! Either it escaped, died or one of my roommates dealt with it. Whatever happened I'm happy it's no longer around! That day was the Smithsonian picnic. First we started off the day by going back to the simulators. I was the pilot again. I was doing much better until I crashed us upside down into the ground. The game was very nice and flipped us the right was around and let us continue playing. After that I settled back into TMS to finish the morning. By the time noon came I was happy to go outside. It wasn't to hot out, but it kept drizzling on and off for the next two hours. We had been given 11 food tickets to buy lunch and my supervisor was really nice and also gave me hers. I made sure to bring her back a limeaide because I knew she liked them. The picnic was a lot of fun. six of us interns headed outside, but me and two of the guys quickly pulled ahead of the group because we walked much faster. The three of us ended up hanging out together the whole time. We had our food and were looking for a place to sit. All there was was a bench. It was quite funny, one guy sat on one edge of the bench and the other sat on the other side. They left the perfect size spot for me in between them. We were sitting there peacefully on the bench eating our food and talking about awesome things when some people walked by us and started talking about religion, Jesus and sinning to the people on the bench beside us. Now I don't care what you believe, but this men were being quite mean and forceful to these people beside us. The three of us began to talk quite loudly about how we don't believe in God, at least not in their sense. We were also joking that we were in a polyandry relationship meaning that I the woman was married to two men. We were also saying how we were a matriarchal society with me at the top! I liked the sound of that. The men eventually wandered away from us. We're pretty sure they heard us talking and that's why they went away. I don't usually care what you believe, but when you try to force your beliefs onto someone else I get a little defensive. I've have reasons why I believe what I believe and when someone tells me I'm wrong I either have to walk away or I'm going to do something I regret. I can control myself, but I'm worried someone some day will push me to far and that will be the end of it! After we ate we heard there were free segway rides! They were so much fun! I went very quickly around and around in a circle! The guys who run the tours say that because we are interns we get a huge discount on regular tours and we would get an even bigger one if we could get a big group together! We are thinking about maybe one day doing that then coming to my house to drink. The rest of my day was filled with doing TMS stuff. Later on in the night I was really missing home so I went on an hour walk to calm down. It really seemed to help! That might become my new coping method while I'm here!

Today I went to work like normal. I finished up my TMS stuff and then read my medieval history book while I waited for my supervisor. She gave me the most interesting project ever today! After I did that research for her she was really impressed. She told me that I could write two of her entries for the coffee table book she's working on! Today I started writing about STS-42 which was the first shuttle mission to have a female Canadian astronaut on it. I get to decide what is the most important thing about it and have to describe it along with other basic details in under 1000 words. I've decided that I want to focus on the international aspect of this mission. This mission had over six countries chose the experiments that would be preformed on board. Along with the Canadian and US astronauts there was a German one and the experiments were going to go to over 200 scientists in 16 countries! I think that is pretty amazing. My supervisor wants each mission to have its own unique aspect and I thought that was pretty special! I only wrote 250 words today because it was really hard! Reading all of the information and trying to process all of the technical jargon and make it simple but interesting enough for the everyday person makes my head hurt. I had to take a break every hour and work on something else in order to refocus. It's really cool and it will really help with my writing ability. My supervisor said we would go over what I wrote together and revise it and talk about where and how I could improve my writing and if she deems it good enough she'll send it into the editor with her stuff. That means things I've actually written could end up in a book!!!!!!!!! Now my name wouldn't be on it, but it's still really cool!!!!!!!! Also at work today my supervisor told me that she would like to take me and another intern to New York next Wednesday, the 10th, for an exhibit opening of the space shuttle Enterprise! I have my ticket booked. I have to catch the bus at 5:15 am to get there by 10 am and I leave New York at 6 pm to get home by 11 pm. It should be really fun! We're going to the Intrepid in the morning for the exhibit opening and then another museum in the afternoon. We're not sure which one yet. Don't worry everyone I'll be same and in contact as I'm going from my house to Union Station an back again! Finally, for supper tonight I went and got a Nutella crepe.  I don't have that much food for myself at the moment and I don't have time to do groceries until Saturday, so I got my crepe and bought two sandwiches for the next two days for lunch. The crepe was one of the best suppers I have had since getting here! Tomorrow is Independence Day and I'm going to the parade and the fireworks! I'll tell you more about it my next post!

Have a great week!

Part One: Soaked, Postal Museum and Shakespeare!

Friday I was all alone! My supervisor had left me to my own devices. Don't worry! I finished all of my research that day no problem. However, I did fill my day with some fun activities. First I got to take a really long lunch, two hours, and go to the Canadian Embassy. The security guard was scary and was questioning me quite thoroughly about why I was there until I showed him my Albertan drivers license and then his whole attitude changed. I went to the Embassy to ask if they were doing anything for Canada Day. It turns out they were, but it was by invitation only!After that I went to the National Gallery of Art the east building. I went through that building in about an hour. I really don't get modern art! In the afternoon the other Space History interns and I went to the IMax "To Fly!" It was made in the 1980's and you could tell. However, it was still really cool! I did get a little nauseous with all the swooping and landscapes. I left work at 4:30 and met up with my Canadian friend. We went on the simulators and killed three planes. I guess I can't do any better then that! We then headed out in the pouring rain to the Natural History Museum. By the time we got there I was soaked up to my knee! We wandered around the ground floor of the museum. I've seen it before, but it was more fun with someone!

After the museum we decided we wanted pizza. I told my friend about We the Pizza, so we trudged over there in the pouring rain. It was good that the pizza was delicious because we were both pretty much soaked to the bone, even with umbrellas and a poncho, by the time we got there! The weather here is an adventure in itself!

Saturday I met up with my friend and we went to the National Postal Museum. The museum isn't that big, but it was full of some interesting things! When it comes to modern day postal service there was a short film playing about how it works from mailing a letter to delivery. Th whole time really intense music was playing and everything was moving at top speed that made the film feel like a spy movie! If becoming a curator doesn't work out maybe I'll be a mailwoman! We also saw an exhibit about mail on the Titanic and Hindenburg and we got to make our own six stamp stamp collection! The museum is out of the way and smaller, so there wasn't as much people. That meant we had the opportunity to try all the hands on stuff and be silly!

We then headed towards the Eastern Market. On the way we stopped at a used book store and I found a document from 1838 about the bequest of James Smithson, the man who donated all the money to found the Smithsonian. The document is about how they were going to carry out building the Smithsonian and what should it focus on. I think it's really cool. The first thing my boyfriend asked me when I told him I bought this document was if it was fake. Even if it is fake I think it's still interesting and it only cost me 15$. By the time we finally got to the market it was super hot out. There was some eye catching stuff that we both wanted, but it was to hot to stop and buy something. After a quick go around we headed back to my place for frozen grapes which are YUMMY!!!!

Sunday was a lazy day. Bright and early at 9am I went grocery shopping with one of my roommates. When we headed out it was nice outside, but by the time we came out of Safeway it was pouring! The reason we went to Safeway instead of Trader Joe's was that Safeway had the baking ingredients I needed. One of the things I needed was custard powder. I looked and looked for it and couldn't find it. I finally asked someone who also couldn't find it. He asked someone who asked someone. By the end of it there were three employees and me looking for custard powder. After a while they gave up and told me they were probably all out. As soon as they left I looked down and there it was right on the second to bottom self!  My friend came over again, but this time we made Nanaimo Bars, which is why I bought the ingredients. We made the two bottom layers and then put it in the freezer. Before we put the melted chocolate on top we decided to go to the Folger Shakespeare Library. I live right by here and it was my first time going! They have two exhibits in there, but the most impressive thing was their theater! The theater looks like a mini-Globe theater. Now we were told that it isn't a recreation of the Globe, but it was still really fantastic!

We then returned to my place and finished the Nanaimo Bars. They ended up being a huge hit with all of my roommates and my fellow Space History interns. I might be able to convert them to Canadians through our delicious treats! There will be more about my fellow interns eating Nanaimo bars and being Canadian tomorrow. 

So tune in tomorrow for the exciting part two where Canada Day, The Smithsonian Picnic and whatever happens tomorrow will be discussed!