Summer in DC
This week was the 4th of July, so it seems like the perfect time to share a little about what I’ve been doing outside of work! I was very excited to move to DC this summer because I’ve never had the chance to live in a real city before. I grew up in Kentucky, primarily in Elizabethtown and Glasgow, which are both very small towns. I then went to Centre College in Danville, Kentucky- another small town- before coming straight to law school at William & Mary. Living in DC has certainly been a major adjustment, but I’ve been having a great time trying to experience everything that the city has to offer!
Although I work in Arlington, I live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of DC which has been particularly nice for sightseeing! My house is just a little over a mile away from the Capitol, so I frequently take walks down to the Capitol Building after work. I am also within walking distance of the United States Botanic Garden and Eastern Market! After growing up in cities that aren’t very walkable and have little to no public transportation, I’ve been really enjoying how easy it is to navigate DC.
Even though I’m not an artist myself, I’ve always enjoyed art galleries, so I was excited to visit the National Gallery of Art. As I walked through the exhibits, I recognized many of the paintings- including Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait, The Japanese Footbridge by Claude Monet, and The Railway by Edouard Manet. They even had a special exhibit up on artwork related to Dante’s Inferno! I’ve also had the chance to check out the National Portrait Gallery. I went to see the portraits of the American Presidents, but the Gallery also had a variety of other works to see, including landscapes and sculptures!
Some of my closest friends from college came to visit over the 4th of July weekend, so I took them to see the monuments and the White House! We even had the chance to see the fireworks from the Capitol lawn. The DC Nationals also happened to be playing the Cincinnati Reds on July 3rd, so we went to watch them play at Nationals Park. All of my friends from college are from Kentucky too, and the Cincinnati Reds are the closest MLB team to the state, so we all grew up going to watch their games or watching them on TV. It seemed like perfect timing that they were playing in DC on the same weekend my friends were visiting!
Even though I’ve only been in DC a little over a month myself, it was very neat to act as the tour guide for my friends over the weekend and through the 4th of July! There are so many things to see and do in DC that I know I won’t be able to get through everything on my bucket list, but it was fun to check some things off with my closest friends!
