What's Happening...

I just returned home from moving all of my stuff out to my apartment in DC. The weather was beautiful and the move went about as easily as something like this could.

My apartment is beautiful, clean, and really homey. I'm moving into an apartment that was completely remodeled after it changed owners just about a year ago. I'm probably only the second person to ever live in my apartment and it shows. With the exception of a small ding in the floor it basically looks brand new and still has some of that elegant dry wall smell. It's a really trendy apartment building with really modern layouts, dark wood floors, and ceiling to floor windows. If my apartment were one floor higher I'd be able to see the river, but as it is I have a really nice view. I can see the waterfront community and watch airplanes coming and going from the airport just across the river. The other tenets seem to be, for the most part, students and young professionals from 20-30 years old. I'll post up some pictures of the place when I get back in a couple weeks.

The area is called the Southwest Waterfront. DC is divided into 4 major quadrants and I'm living in the SW quadrant. NW is downtown and contains most of the museums, shops, and monuments that you think of. I'm less than a mile from The Capital and the Smithsonian, about a mile from the White House, and a few blocks from Nationals Stadium. I'll drive past the Washington Monument and The Capital on my ride to school every morning. There is a Metro subway station just a few feet from my apartment building so I can be anywhere in DC in just a matter of minutes. The area around my apartment is one of the up and coming areas of DC. There is a mall being built right next door to my apartment and a huge outdoor stage/arena right across the street.



This isn't the best map of DC, but you can see the major landmarks. I'm living pretty much exactly where you see the dot that says Southeastern University (towards the bottom right of the map). It's even closer to downtown than the map makes it look because DC is extremely small in actual geographical size. If you look at the key you can see how much space .6 miles stretches through the city. It's probably no bigger than Oshkosh in actual ground space, but it has the population of Milwaukee living there. That number actually doesn't give you a good idea of just how packed it really is however, because while only 500,000+ live there, the city swells up to over 1 million people during the day working in DC. They may go a few miles out of town to Maryland or Virginia to go home, but during the day it's absolutely packed.

There is a lot of talk about how dangerous DC is and I think certain parts are absolutely as bad as anywhere else in the country. SE is the bad section, but as long as you stay on the west side of the Potomac River things should be fine. I don't ever need to go over to that section and my apartment is far away enough that it shouldn't matter. I just have to make sure I don't fall asleep on the Green Line home and end up lost in Shady Grove gangsta territory.

A Catholic church is 2 minutes ride on my moped away and has daily mass at noon which I will try to get to as much as possible. I'll also be able to attend mass on campus at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception National Basillica. It's right on the CUA campus and is the largest church in the country and something like the 7th or 8th largest in the world. I haven't been inside yet, but it looks like it. It makes St. Patrick's in NYC look like a chapel. I'll be heading to St. Mary's for Latin Mass on Sundays. There are so many exciting and interesting things at my fingertips. I think I'll never run out of things to do.

We spent a few days getting everything moved in and ready in my apartment and then we did a few things around DC. We went to a Nationals game, which was really cool, and we got to see them win their 7th in a row. I'm confident they'll post a better record than the Brewers next year. Seeing as how it's a few blocks from my house, I think I'll make my fair share of games. The subways can be packed at times and I think my mom was weirded out by being wedged like sardines into the subway on an occasion or two, but that doesn't bother me. I'll bring hand sanitizer and stop using deodorant to gain some extra space.

I'm looking forward to spending the next two weeks with friends and family. I'll be heading back out probably on Monday, August 24th. That'll get me home in time to buy books and get ready for orientation.