Down in D.C.

After several sweaty planes, a pair of aging trains, and at least one hydroplaning automobile, I've made it to D.C. More accurately to Falls Church, VA, some twenty minutes or so outside of our nation's center via Metro.

For those visiting for the first time (either in a while or in absolute times) this blog chronicles my travels, beginning with my time before studying abroad and concluding, on a daily basis, in the present. With my camera in the shop, for the time being most of the reporting will be of the word-heavy kind, but as soon as I get a digital point and click in my hands, your appetite for visual media will be more than sated. At the moment, I'm beginning the Koch Summer Fellowship, a program run by the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. Within the fellowship, I'll be working at the Taxpayers for Common Sense. The rest of the summer will flesh out the nature and mission of any and all important institutions in due time. If you're desperate for more info, the links have all the pertinent information about all parties involved, but I won't bore you with it.

For those interested in past travels, check the archives, which faithfully record the span of the past six months or so. In the immediate past, I idly tossed some pictures and words from Pasadena up... don't be thrown by those, more exotic tales and pictures hide in the months before.

At the moment, I'm taking advantage of the high-speed wireless in our fancy schmancy apartments, anticipating a welcoming day of "fun" with the other Fellows. While I've managed to keep the jury from leaping to too many conclusions, one is clear: the collective brainpower in the first meeting was enough to a fun-lover's heart melt. Not in a good way. I'm officially intimidated by just about everyone else in this program. I'd been taking a good-natured approach to the mandatory readings (by good-natured, read: if it's your nature to read it, good for you), but that ends tonight... or perhaps tomorrow morning. We'll see.

Regardless, this promises to be a radically different couple months than those spent in Greece and the Doughty Traveler will be narrating the whole way. If you're interested, check in. If not, I'll see you in September and have a good summer. And with that, I'll burrow my nose in my books.

The Navigator

P.S. My roommate just walked in and picked up his bedtime literature. It's a Tolstoy work. I think I'm going to hide the Tom Clancy I brought with me. Geez.