Wow. I'm in DC!

Wow, I still can't believe I'm here. I feel a little out of my element here. This hotel is amazing! This is the first hotel I've been to that doesn't have complimentary breakfast, but has room service instead. I'm glad that this is an all expenses paid trip because, man, everything here is super expensive. A bowl of regular oatmeal is $9 and cereal is $8. The hotel alone each night is $255 and we are here four nights. The money they gave me will go fast if I'm not careful. Funny thing is that somehow my work only paid for one night leaving each of us a tab of over $750. Um, yeah, I don't have anything close to that in my account right now. We may be on the street tomorrow night if they can't work it out. We will call them tomorrow, for sure.

One of the first things I did after checking out my room is I talked to the concierge. Who the heck is that? I had no idea either until I was referred to him to answer all my questions about DC and seeing the sites. He is from New York and his accent and vocabulary is amazing. He kept calling me "doll" and when he gave me directions to a place he said it was "6 bucks that way." I had to mentally translate what he was saying sometimes and I couldn't believe I was actually hearing all that NY lingo. It was awesome. He was very helpful, though. He also told me that we are staying in the more upscale part of the city so things here will be more expensive and with a laugh he said, "Nothing here is complimentary, doll!" Another first was seeing an actual bell hop with one of those rolling carts full of luggage like you see on the movies.

I went for a quick walk outside and you can see the Capitol building up the street. At least I think that's what it is because this hotel is on Capitol Hill. I'm excited to go to classes and learn things I'm really interested in and to fit in some site seeing as much as I can. I'm planning to go to the holocaust museum and the DC temple tomorrow. :)

Oh yeah, I also rode in my first taxi. Man, that is expensive!

Here are some pics from the day, if this actually works.