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Yo,

I changed the settings so now you can comment even if you don't have a blogspot/gmail account. You just click on "reactions" and then classify yourself as anonymous. Secretive, eh?

Also, you can 'vote' on whether you think my post was "interesting," "cool" or "funny" by clicking in one of those squares on the bottom of the post.

The end!

Memorial Night Walk

Baltimore Museum of Art

Kelly took me on a school bus to get to the BMA.

Pencil Chair!

Afterwards she took me to have fancy Icelandic Yogurt at a coffeeshop. Yum!

Update to Family and Friends

Hello family and friends!

I am writing you from my apartment in Washington DC! I am here for a 9-week internship program through my college, UC Santa Cruz. It's called the UCDC Program. Hundreds of kids from all different UC campuses live in this building with me, we all have different internships throughout the city.

I am interning with the California News Service, a freelance journalism project for college journalists, bringing a DC perspective to local California newspapers. I get to interview congresspeople and write stories and get them published in big papers! I just had my first story published on the cover of the San Francisco Chronicle last Saturday! Here's the link:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/23/MNAE1D3UPM.DTL

I also am taking a class on speechwriting once a week. So far we have met one of Obama's current speechwriters, toured the Politico headquarters, and chatted with one of Bush's old speechwriters. It is so fascinating to talk to these people!

For fun, I play pick-up ultimate frisbee twice a week on the National Mall (you can see pictures of that on my blog here). Someone I met there invited me to play on his team, so I go and play with the "Floppy Discs" whenever my schedule permits!

I emailed my new DC frisbee friends asking if anyone had a spare bike, and sure enough, someone gave me a free bike! So now I can get anywhere in the city in no time at all. It is a great biking city - wide sidewalks, very flat and lots to see! There's an awesome bike/jogging trail called Rock Creek Park. Don't worry, I bought a helmet!

It's easy to bike or walk to Trader Joes or Whole Foods and get my groceries for the week! I also love going to the Farmers Market on Sundays. My favorite dish to make is sweet potatoes and kale, cooked with coconut oil. Props to Auntie Jeni for teaching me!

Finally, I have a part-time job at a frozen yogurt store (Mr. Yogatos!) It is so much fun. We offer discounts for trivia questions (Name 4 countries with "E" as the only vowel!) or getting your forehead stamped (it says "Mr. Yogato stamped me) and I made up my own discount - harmonize with Amber and get 10% off!

As you can probably tell, I love DC. I am meeting lots of interesting people and making lots of great connections. I go to several museums per week. What's your favorite DC museum? I also visited a friend in Baltimore last weekend and plan on visiting a friend in New York this weekend.

If you want to see photos of my adventures, check out my photography blog, www.youngslug.blogspot.com.

Hope all is well,

Love!
Amberly Young

National Aquarium!

We learned about jellyfish...

And I got to pet a dolphin!

Kelly and I loved the indoor rainforest!

She has a good eye for lighting, see?

Notice anything strange in this photo?

This turtle reminds me of the crooked neck giraffe at the Santa Barbara Zoo.

This thing scurries around! Like caught between evolutionary states! So cool!

Visiting Baltimore!

Last weekend I hopped on the Marc Train ($7!) to visit Kelly in Baltimore! She goes to Gaucher college. She met me at the train station (such a great hostess!) and we took a brief walking tour of the waterfront.

Cherry blossoms and cool houses!

Kelly is a good photographer too!

Mermaid sculptures = cool doorway.


You can ride a dragon boat!

Clock tower that used to be the oldest building in Baltimore but now is used as artists studios.

The Capitol

So far, I have been on two tours of the Capitol. One was a constituent tour set up online through Diane Feinstein's office with about 30 other people.

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The other was a private tour with one of my co-workers at Mr. Yogatos who also works full-time for a Florida House member. He took me to the floor of the House of Representatives, which was awesome!!!

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Most people just get to sit up top at the viewing section to look down. But they are very strict about no photography. :)

Isn't it preeetttyy?

This room is called "The Crypt."

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George Washington was supposed to be buried in the middle of this room one floor down but his family declined the offer. He rests at his home in Mount Vernon. The center of this room is also the center of Washington DC (theoretically) and if he had been buried here, his spirit would have been carried up to...

The top of the dome, where the 13 angels, representing the 13 colonies, are waiting to welcome him to heaven.



Like the Library of Congress, all of the frescoes and sculptures are super symbolic. I could probably write a term paper on one piece of art in the Capitol.


The neccessary "me in front of Capitol" photo.


The other neccessary "no people obstructing view of awesome Capitol" photo.

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is definitly one of my favorite places in DC. I went on a constituent tour and was so excited I went across the street right afterwards to pick up my readers card! Now I can get into the super awesome readers room. I would put my own picture of it but there is no photography allowed! I went into the main reading room to study the other day, it's so amazing! They store books in 2 other buildings. They have more books than any other library in the world. You can't check them out, but if you're in the library, you request a book with a librarian and they can send it to you through an underground tunnel!

This mosaic portrays Minerva/Athena, goddess of Wisdom, War, and Defense. Up these stairs and around the corner, you can look down at the main reading room. That room was featured in "National Treasure" and a bunch of other movies.

Isn't it beautiful? Every little statue and painting has some sort of symbolic significance. Like the little cherubs on the stairwell represent all the different realms of learning. One is painting, another reading a book, another planting some plants, etc...

I will definitly be back here to take more pictures.

I've already been here 3 times, and hopefully many many more!

Pick-Up Ultimate on the Mall

On Saturdays, I play ultimate frisbee at the National Mall. The field is sandwiched by Smithsonians and nestled in between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. The view is awesome, beautiful like the ocean panorama at my Santa Cruz field, but in a completely different way.

There's about 15-30 people who usually show up. Many are bikers, most are under 30, and they tend to know about cool places to go in the city!

Something cool just happened on the field so I stopped to watch.

Yay frisbee!

Our Apartment!

This is what you see when you first walk in. We made this sun collage out of a food magazine, cutting up pictures and taping them to the wall.

We have a library...

and a tree growing, nourished with the National Geogrpahic water issue. Kelly made it!

Cranes float in our kitchen.

This is the view from our living room window. The statue is of Daniel Webster. Its a great place to read on warm days (there's Kelly!)

Here's the four of us! (photo credits to Natalie with Kelly's camera)

They cooked us a Middle-Eastern dinner of baba ganoush, a greenbeen/tomato dish, and Israeli couscous. And pita and hummus, of course!

More Cherry Blossoms

The Jefferson Memorial

Tree climbing in DC isn't quite the same as in Santa Cruz...

Zoomed Out

Cherry Blossoms

Window-washers on the way to the Memorials.

The Capitol framed by cherry blossoms!

It was a beautiful day - in the 80's!

Kelly in front of a waterfall at the Roosevelt Memorial.

We ended up walking 5 miles on our Memorial journey!

We got to see lots of pretty trees.

This is at the Jefferson Memorial. I love Washington DC!