Settling In

My journey to Washington, DC, actually began in Ann Arbor, Michigan – I was there for a 3-day workshop on dyadic data analysis (I know, I’m a nerd). Since I hate to fly, I decided to take the train from Michigan to DC.

I enjoyed last summer’s lengthy train ride from DC to Chicago (until the very end, anyways), and this one was going to be much shorter (most of which would be overnight), so I thought it would be fine. Little did I know that the tracks in Pittsburgh would be flooded and we would end up over 10 hours behind schedule. Oh yes, 10 hours delayed.Because we were supposed to arrive at 1pm and weren’t going to make that, Amtrak gave free lunch and dinner to all the passengers. That seemed great until I showed up for lunch to find there was hardly anything left to eat! Fortunately, they still had lettuce and dressing, so I had a nice little salad. By the time dinner rolled around, they were serving some kind of beef dish with biscuits. So I had a biscuit for dinner. I had packed a few extra snacks, but was not at all prepared for a train ride twice as long as it was supposed to be.

I managed to make it to DC in one piece, although I started to get a bit of cabin fever around 9pm – you can’t blame me, I had been on the train for 19 hours! Thankfully, when we finally arrived at 11pm, my favorite Virginian, Amy (who I lived with last summer), picked me up, took me to a late night diner, and let me stay the night at her place.

The next morning, I met up with the person who had my subletted apartment keys. I opened the door to my studio and was pleasantly surprised by the cute little place. There was very little in the apartment itself: a bed, a loveseat, a bench used as a coffee table, 3 chairs (no table), a few forks and knives, and one plate, but no cookware whatsoever. Obviously, my first errand was to purchase a pot and a pan (and table).

I am getting settled in nicely. I love that the apartment is only a 7 minute walk to work (love it!), and that it has a great big window across on of the walls – the natural light is wonderful, and the view is not too bad, either!