D.C. Day 11

Today, my alarm woke me up, and I thought I was back in my parents house for a minute because of the rain pounding on the roof. That music playing on the rooftop put me back to sleep and I woke up twenty minutes late. I rushed to get ready in time. As I dashed outside with my breakfast in hand, I was so happy to be in the rain that I didn't care that my toast was bloating with rain water. But after walking for ten minutes, I was enviously eyeing all the people around me who had umbrellas.

At work today, I covered a press teleconference about the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IPs Act. Everyone is making a big deal about it, and tomorrow over 7,000 websites are blacking out in protest, including Wikipedia, Reddit and incidentally, Minecraft. :P Google isn't going to completely shut down, but it is blacking out its logo and providing a link. We'll see what happens!

So I actually did stuff after work today instead of returning home to wallow in boredom and sleep. I decided I would attend institute at the Barlow center instead of our chapel because the Barlow center is much closer to where I live, and it's unrealistic to return home after work and go all the way out to the chapel. (The Barlow center is a church building where all the BYU interns live, because BYU interns deserve better treatment than BYU-Idaho interns apparently. But I don't mind because they have strict rules and have to write essays all the time. Imagine being in Washington D.C. and living in a BYU-ruled dorm. Ack!)

Anyways. So institute at the church is on Tuesday, but institute at the Barlow center is on Wednesdays, so I wasn't gonna go to institute tonight, but rather tomorrow night. But my friend Alan insisted that I go. (And we know I'm easily persuaded by males) Not to mention he offered to buy me dinner beforehand. Considering my general lack of money and food, I figured it would be a good investment. (Not to mention a male being involved) So we ate at this burrito place, and I had a divine burrito with all kinds of things in it like chips and jalapenos. I ate the entire monstrosity hoping that my body would store some of it away and I might not have to eat the next day. Yeah right, like that's gonna happen. By the time I finished my meal, I had begun to view Alan as a saint. I may exagerate my financial standing in life, but it really has been a while since I've been truly full after a meal. After we ate, I sat and observed people around us. I learned some things about the dating rituals of non-Mormon DCites:

I'm glad I wasn't on a date with that tool! So after we ate, we walked around D.C. and saw random D.C. things. Alan said I should take more photos.. like this one:

I know where to get books for my future kids! :P We also walked by this:

I was expecting Tom Cruise to come out of the building.. It didn't happen. Here are a couple other cool things we walked by:

Aslan!!!

A wall mural of Marilynn Monroe!

So yeah.. fun adventures. It was lovely walking weather too. The rain that morning had left the air crisp, but the clouds had kept the warmth in. It was so warm, I only needed one coat, it was great. 

And then institute! Which was ok.. It was really really really basic so it was kind of boring, but everyone was nice, and I met this chick from Tacoma, Washington! That's basically where I lived. So we reminisced about being true Washingtonians. Then I took the long trip home and promptly passed out in my bed. :)