In our last days in the District two of my friends and I thought it would be fun to tour the monuments, like good little out-of-towners all decked out in our best clothing, and take glamour shots.
Now before you start to laugh and judge me, remember this: We've been down here for an entire term and our internships required us to dress up and look nice. Why not take advantage of our wardrobe and make it work on the Lincoln Memorial?
We tweaked our outfits, learned what each of the settings on our cameras actually meant (I never knew what that little setting with the flower did ... still don't), and strutted our stuff under the granite and marble of some of our nation's most famous monuments. Once in a while we would stop a poor, unsuspecting tourist and ask them to snap a shot of all three of us, and we'd always get asked where we were from.
What do you mean where am I from? I live in D.C.! Then it hit me. No, I don't - I'm just a tourist too, here on my last days, trying to enjoy every last spot. I'm not a resident but merely another passerby, one of thousands that come and go all the time in a city run by interns and free labor.
Speaking of free labor, on the second to last day of my internship, I got an e-mail from my think tank's internship coordinator saying that we could visit the White House South Lawn that very same afternoon and greet the president as he landed on Marine One. As the time drew near, my excitement grew, my glands swelled to ungodly levels, and I got so agitated that I had to use my inhaler at least once every 30 seconds (I don't actually use an inhaler).
As we waited just feet from the Rose Garden and the Oval Office (and for that matter the portico that connects the Executive Residence from the West Wing), the president's two dogs, Barney and Miss Beazley, played on the lawn.
We stood there as the president's three choppers approached from the distance (two are decoys). They swooped over the edge of the 18-acre compound and then one of them broke away and flew right at us. That was the one, Marine One, with the president on board.
Word on the lawn was that if the president is in a good mood and the weather is nice, he comes off of Marine One and walks over to greet the small contingent of people in our position. That particular day there were about 14 of us total standing on the edge of the grass, almost getting blown over by the wind from the chopper blades.
If I had actually paid attention to the news that day, I would have understood better in that very moment why so many photographers were on the scene. I also would have understood why the president waved to us and quickly crossed the grass to enter the Oval, instead of stopping to shake our hands for a few. He was returning to the White House to veto the Iraq funding and withdrawal resolution from Congress.
As we stood disappointed on the South Lawn (snapping photos of the Rose Garden and Barney), the president was in the Oval Office vetoing legislation and preparing to do an address to the nation on why he decided to reject the bill.
A few days later, two of my friends and I went down to the White House to see the Queen. Or at least we thought we'd be able to watch her go from one side of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other, from her stay in the presidential guest house, known as Blair House (no connection to Tony Blair, nice try), to the White House.
Nope. Instead, about a half an hour before her majesty was supposed to be at the now infamous South Lawn ceremony (where Bush broke all sorts of etiquette and winked at the Queen), the Secret Service shut down Pennsylvania Avenue and proceeded to scream at us until we were all sufficiently out of the way and just out of digital-camera-zoom of Blair House's front door.
Her majesty, the Queen, and her husband, Prince Albert or something (I know, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip), exited the Blair house, entered the black limos sitting out front, and made their way about 45 yards across the street to the White House. Or at least that's what I thought I saw. At least three queen look-a-like decoys exited the guest house before the actual queen came out. This got me all excited for nothing, as I never really knew which lady with an awkward, oversized and out-of-style hat was the royal monarch herself.
Later that same day, as we walked past the reflecting pool in between the WWII Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial, stopping every six feet to photograph the little ducklings and goslings, we saw a young lady dressed as a nurse with what looked like a little cloth house on wheels.
Inside the house, if you pulled aside the curtain, there was a shiny crystal ball. The nurse, a young artist that was touring the country getting people's opinions and predictions for the future on film, asked if we wanted to be interviewed for her project. She also informed us that if we didn't know the answers to any particular question, we could consult the crystal ball.
How can I ever turn down a chance to be the center of attention on camera? She asked us where we thought the U.S. role in Iraq would be in the coming years, if we thought there would be an end to global warming, and what types of issues we would like to see changed or fixed in the future.
We gave long-winded answers about how Iraq is in the heart of the Middle East, poised between the Kurds/Turkey, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and our doom-and-gloom thoughts on the potential for a regional collapse if the situation in Iraq and the ongoing conflict in Israel/Palestine/Jordan aren't resolved.
We gave her our thoughts on cap-and-trade efforts to curb global carbon emissions and the possibility of a carbon tax. It isn't going to be easy and it is going to take some time, in which, we postulated, we still won't be able to completely end our pollution of the planet.
After the interview, I started to think about the things I had learned this term away from home, in a new city fueled by money, power and politics.
I learned that D.C. is more than just a place where politicians run the show. D.C. is a place where everyone has a sense of importance; if they don't make it to work on a certain day, then the world will end!
Each day there is new hope and new opportunities, and you never know who you are going to see or what is going to happen. Every two years there is an election. Every month, every quarter, every season, new people are coming and going. Some hope to make D.C. their home. Others just hope to gain some valuable experience and make connections. Others are plotting an elaborate scheme that will land them at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (the White House, FYI). Still others are just lost and hope to be found.
But the reason we come here is no matter. Everyone who comes is looking to take advantage of the opportunities, be they political, social or economic, that D.C. has to offer.
D.C. is all about opportunities - you can never plan; you aren't ever going to know what you are going to do or see in any given day. You never know when the presidential motorcades will whiz past you at 90 mph. You never know when you'll walk past Dennis Kucinich in the Longworth House Office Building or Barack Obama AND John Kerry in the tunnels under the Capitol (all of which happened to me this term).
You never know when you'll get the chance to talk with Ways and Means Chairman Chuck Rangel (D-NY) or meet with Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT). You never know when your very own Congressman will take you to a baseball game. You never know when the president will come speak to a small crowd at your internship. You just never know who that is, sitting in that black sedan with diplomatic license plates.
I drank the Kool-Aid and I think now I've got a mild case of Potomac Fever. Truth is, I'm not yet tired of D.C. I don't have a crystal ball, so I don't know what the future will hold for me or for our nation (despite all the brilliant predictions I offered to the nurse at the reflecting pool).
But I do know this: I'll be back.
Jamie Bologna is a junior majoring in political science. You can reach him at James.Bologna@tufts.edu.
