The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: My Time in DC

Good day all,
I am now completely finished with my internship in Washington D.C.  While I was so thrilled to get home and see my family and pooches again, I will miss being in D.C.  It truly was a fantastic opportunity and I will never forget my time at the Anacostia Community Museum or the time spent exploring D.C.
I thought it would be good for me to take some time to go over my experience.
1. The good: obviously the vegan restaurants/ vegan options available in D.C.  I haven't even been home for 48 hours and I am missing Sticky Fingers Bakery so much (seriously everything there is worth eating 100 times).
I also loved all the free things there are to do in D.C., there are museums, and shows, and events, etc. I tried to do everything, but I swear it is impossible to get it all done.  I met people who were living in D.C. who had never even been to the monuments!

 Me while running around the monuments with my mom when she visited (we had the best time)!

 One day while I was there I saw the corpse flower, which only blooms for 24-48 hours and the last time they had one in D.C. was in 2007!

So while there were tons of great things to do in D.C., there were bad things that happened as well.

2. The bad: first of all, D.C. parking laws make no sense at all.  I had to buy a parking permit that last for six months, even though I was only there for 8 weeks, and it was almost $300.00!  And then on top of that, I could only park in certain areas (and they will ticket you faster than you can blink, BELIEVE ME).

More bad: while there are plenty of free events, travel, food, rent, utilities, everything you need to survive is super expensive.  City living I guess.  As Phil Robertson would say "that's yuppieville for you."  

3. Finally: the ugly.  The worst of city experiences happened to me while I was there (obviously not everything bad that could possibly happen you cynics).  One night, walking to my apartment I was mugged!  This kid came by on a bike behind me and ripped my phone out of my hand and took off.  I started running and screaming, caught up, punched him in the back, cursed at him, and took my phone back.  CLEARLY that was very stupid and I could have had something much worse happen.  But it was very scary and I was shaken up after.  I was on my phone because I thought if I was on the phone I was less likely to be messed with because there was a witness in a sense.  However, I also made myself a target.  I learned my lesson and never walked around with my phone again.

This being my first experience living on my own (I didn't know a soul when I got there ), I truly learned a lot and enjoyed it overall. 

In other news, I go to get my visa for my semester in Barcelona tomorrow (yikes!).

My last sunset in D.C.

Hope you all learned from my lessons and get to take in some of D.C.'s finest one day!