Thursday, January 21, 2010

Made it to Rockville!

Hello, all! Today has been exhaustive because of the fact that I did not sleep for long enough last night and have now had to stay up way late. Boooo for mandatory things. Boo!

Anyway, we got on the road this morning at like...9am maybe? Made it to the Rockville Town Square about 11am. Fenestra Apartments is NOT where the GPS says it is. It is a few blocks further down. And there is NO easily accessible parking to the area. There are two public lots on the entire Town Square area and they are ridiculously full. But Dad made nice with the Fenestra concierge because she's a fellow Alabamian and he was wearing one of his Bama jackets (my parents are die-hard Bama fans). She actually went to Auburn, but I think we bonded over the "It's cold here, huh?" thing. Because it is cold here. Around 40 degrees. There are random piles of snow outside. It's weird.

So Caroline, the concierge, told us about a secret loading dock place where we could park. There is an elevator RIGHT THERE that leads up to the apartments. So we unloaded after I checked in, and I set about unpacking after seeing that I was the first roomie to arrive. It was actually a pretty painless endeavor until I got to my "bathroom/miscellaneous" tub o' stuff. Then I was tired of it and didn't want to do it anymore.

My parents were starving by then, so we walked over to Noodles & Co. I got some buttered noodles with grilled shrimp. They were okay. Next time I think I'll get some kind of seasoning on them. But for $7, it was awesome.

We came back and I still didn't want to unpack, but did a little bit. My parents needed to check-in to their hotel room, so they scurried off to do that. In the meantime, my first roommate arrived!

Annie was born in China, but her family moved here in '97. Well, not here, but to the US. She lives in Cincinnati and goes to college in St. Louis. She's here for the Bilateral US-China Trade Relations program. She chose to share my room (it's the bigger of the two). She's a light-sleeper. I fear that the traffic and trains will keep her up all night.

Well, there was some grocery/market stuff that I needed, so we located a Target not far from here. I picked up a few things, including a nightstand (there's only one in the room) and we came back here to find...another roommate!

Michelle flew here from Beijing, where she's from. Her English is really good. She's also doing the same program as Annie, the bilateral trade thingie. And obviously, she's also Chinese.

We got a flyer about a mandatory meeting (with pizza) in the club room at 7pm. It was about 6pm at this time. So we chilled and I finished unpacking everything with much help from my parents.

The meeting ended up being a lot of "duh" stuff. No smoking, no kegs, no parties, etc. Oh, but I did find out that, unbelievably, a $39 weekly metro pass is the best deal. Why? One-way trip from here to DC is $4.25. Twice a day is $8.50. If I didn't even go into the city on the weekends, that's still over $40. I guess I'll use up the $10 on my smartrip card and then start getting those passes. Public transportation is expensive here! :(

Now Annie and her father have taken Michelle and another of Annie's friends to pick up a few things they need. I'm exhausted and would like to stay up to talk with them a little before bed, but it doesn't appear that will be happening...

Oh, and apologies for stilted and grammatically incorrect prose. I'm exhausted and just want to post this without editing it much.

Tomorrow is a full day of orientation, 9am-4pm. Let's hope I can get a good night's sleep in preparation...

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