Washington, D.C. Orientation

My luggage July 28th, the morning I left West Bend

My luggage in my affordable hotel

Okay, So I realized that in all the excitement, I forgot to inform you all about the orientation seminar in Washington, D.C. It started on Friday the 29th of July. I flew in a day early on the morning of the 28th because I scheduled a meeting with my Congressman that day. CBYX likes the participants to meet with their congressional representative and just say hello. CBYX is congressionally funded and it helps to put a face with the program.That turned out to be a bust because he was held up with voting on something. Luckily I had gotten a killer deal on my hotel for that extra night I was in D.C. CBYX provided lodging at Georgetown University for the seminar but if you flew in early, you had to provide your own lodging. I found a hotel that had rooms for $100 per night in D.C. It was in D.C. (not a nearby state like Virginia or Massachusetts), in a safe area, and cheap! I had won the lottery! It was called the Windsor Park Hotel and it is a great deal for the money. It is within walking distance of Dupont Circle. If you are ever making a budget trip to D.C. I recommend this hotel. My friend had warned me before I left for D.C. that the heat and humidity was almost unbearable and, boy, she wasn't kidding. It was so hot and muggy in D.C. and I guess it is always like that in the summer.


So I arrive needlessly early in D.C. on Thursday and sleep in my cheap hotel for one night. It wasn't all that bad. I got a sub from Potbelly and some chocolate covered Flips and had a little picnic in my hotel room while watching Millionaire Matchmaker. All that coupled with the AC cranked up was a recipe for heaven. On Friday, I grabbed all my luggage, checked out of my hotel, and had the receptionist call a cab. The cab arrives and takes me to Georgetown where this whole Germany thing finally gets to start!!!!!!!! I arrive a bit early with all my luggage. I will admit I brought one bag too many but all the floss I brought took up a lot of room in my luggage. Future dentist here and I am very particular about the floss I use and was not about to give up my favorite brand for a whole year. Plus the floss will get used leaving space for gifts in my luggage for the return trip to the USA. So I arrive and see some people that I had recognized from the CBYX Facebook group. I am drenched in sweat and feeling like a total diva with all my luggage. This was not how I had wanted to meet my fellow CBYXers. I guess nothing in life happens how you want it to, though. I made the best of it. I dropped my luggage off in the luggage room and walked to an air conditioned room with my fellow very early CBYXers. We got to talking and getting to know eachother.

The course of the D.C. seminar ran from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. It was filled with presentations on what to expect when we got to Germany and how to act as an ambassador of the US. It was also a good time to get to know each other. I was really surprised to see how different we all were. All different career fields and college majors. And, most of all, all different personalities.

The seminar was filled with lots of useful information and even some laughs aided by the fact that CBYX's partner company in Germany is the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit which is abbreviated GIZ (insert joke here). The 75 of us CBYXers stayed in the Georgetown dorms in Copley Hall for Friday and Saturday night. For such a prestigious university, I was expecting dorms that were, I don't know, better? I'm guessing they were probably freshman dorms. They were two people to a rooms and the shower/bathroom was shared with another room via connected doorway. the University itself is gorgeous and it's reputation speaks for itself but the dorms were a bit of a surprise. I was on the second floor of Copley hall with 70% of the other participants. the 2nd floor lounge was where it was at. We hung out in there and chatted and shared hopes, fears, and expectations for the coming year. It was also where a lot of us texted our friends for the last time on our phones seeing as almost everyone's phones were going to get deactivated in about 48 hours. Sooooo sad! I have had my phone number since I was like 15 and Verizon refused to suspend my contract for a year even though I was moving out of the country for a year so I lose the number. Let's see if I return to them for cell service when I come back. Jerks. 

Copley hall

Anyway, not much else to say about the seminar other than on Sunday we packed our stuff up and headed to the Dulles Airport to head over to Germany. The flight lasted about 7 hours. I didn't sleep a wink. I, instead, made conversation with the person sitting next to me (a fellow CBYXer) and then proceeded to watch a Harry Potter movie on my laptop which ate up a big chunk of time. I was so lucky. I got an isle seat in the way back of the plane right by the bathrooms. I only sat next to one person while everyone else in the plane had to sit next to 4 other people or 2 other people. It made for an easy flight. We landed in Frankfurt at about 8am...and then it hit me. Everything is in German!


Before I close this post I would like to mention that on every flight I have ever taken I can't help but look at the wing of the plane and think of that famous Twilight Zone episode called Nightmare at 20,000 Feet where a gremlin proceeds to try and break one of the engines of a plane. Only one man on the plane can see it and everyone thinks he is crazy. If you don't know what I am talking about, check out the video below and check out the entire episode sometime. At the very least you get to see William Shatner before those ridiculous Priceline commercials. I don't get scared on planes at all and even quite enjoy plane rides but I just think about that little gremlin while flying. He's so misunderstood.