Metro Mania

I officially have my first week of work behind me.  It was busy!  In-processing is done (mostly).  I have a couple of things left to do for my online training and an official orientation in a few weeks but all the running around and other appointments are done.  I was able to spend the week getting to know a new Captain that will be joining us as a nurse.  She just finished a Masters to RN program and this is her first nursing job.  She has 22 years in the Army already in logistics so she was full of stories and information.  We got along great and I'm excited to work with her in the future.

My household goods came on Friday!  Movers were here for about 3-4 hours unloading everything and now my apartment that went from empty with not even a chair to sit on or a bed to sleep on, is overflowing with boxes!  I'm not even close to having everything out and organized yet but I've made some good progress!  No pictures yet, it's a mess, but I will once I get everything put away...there isn't much storage in the apt so I have to be creative.  I have off all this coming week so I should be able to get the majority of that done. 

I would have gotten more done over the weekend but my friend, Ross, her boyfriend, and I took our first metro trip yesterday to the big city!  We were told about some shortcuts to the metro station so we tried to take those right away and ended up going the wrong way a couple of times, but now we know where to go so next time should be pretty easy.  We got on the Red Line at the Twinbrook Station which is less than a mile from our apartment and rode it to Metro Station, where we switched to the Orange Line and rode that to the Smithsonian Station.  The whole trip took about an hour, not too bad.  When we emerged from the metro station we were right in the middle of the National Mall!  Our first stop was the National Air and Space Museum and it was really cool.  We didn't spend a ton of time stopping to read everything because we all know we will be back later with family and friends. 

 (This plane was on skis!  How cool is that?!)

(Some of the rockets in the NASA section)

 (Early flight-The Wright Bros)

(This Spirit of St. Louis!)

We were there about 3 hours and then we moved on to the National Botanical Gardens.  They were much smaller than I was expecting but very cool.  I can't wait to go back there with my good camera and spend the afternoon! 

 (Took this one with my new iPhone...not too bad!)

 (They had miniatures of all the monuments)

(Getting ready for Christmas!)

Our last museum stop for the day was the National Museum of the American Indian.  Not something I'm very interested in but it was neat to see.  They were celebrating Chilean Indians while we were there and had a dancing demonstration that was cool to see. 

 (This was outside the entrance to the museum)

(Some flags of American Indian tribes)

We wandered around there for a couple of hours and then left to walk to the Eastern Market.  It's a flea market/farmers market that is about a mile away from the National Mall.  First we stopped to take pictures of the Capitol...

 (Standing in front of the Capitol!)

(View from the side as we were walking)

We headed that direction because we were meeting up with Ross' old roommate from BOLC who lives in DC.  We found her at a place called the Banana Cafe.  They had great food and drinks and a live piano player.  It wasn't very crowded, I guess people don't start coming out until about 10 in the city which was fine with us because we wanted to make sure we were home by then!  After dinner, we headed to the nearest metro station and came back.  It was a long day but really fun and I can't wait to go back to the city to see more stuff!  The metro is really easy to navigate, now that we have it figured out we're going to start riding it to work everyday.  Should be a pretty short commute, less than 10 minutes. 

I got more unpacking done today but was interrupted by the Packer game.  We went to a bar nearby to watch the game, it was rough but we pulled it out! 
Ok, I'll post again once my apartment is all unpacked and put together!

In Processing: Walter Reed Style

Today was my first official day of work.  I got there about 0715, didn't have to be there until 0730 but I wasn't entirely sure where I was going so I wanted to be a little early.  We started off at the S1 who got us started with the in-process process.  There is a list of about 30 different places we have to visit to complete in-processing.  The way it works is you go to the office on your sheet, they tell you what they need to tell you about what they do/have to offer and then they stamp your form.  The entire process could take a couple days or at most about 4 days depending on how busy each office is, how many people are in your group, and if you have all your paperwork with you.  If you are missing things you have to go back later.

(This is a rendering of the completed facility-still a lot of construction work in progress...)

So that is a small picture of where I work.  What you don't realize from this picture is that many of those buildings are connected; Buildings 1-10 are actually one building.  It gets confusing when you are inside and someone says, go to building 7 for 'this' because it could be right down the hall from where you are standing and nothing inside tells you that.  But I am slowly figuring out where everything is.  Today I went to security, IT, Family Services, Optometry, Staff Education and Training, Vehicle Registration/ID's, a safety brief, and TriCare Services (our insurance). 

Still lots more to do, tomorrow I have a finance brief for the entire morning and then a ton of other places.  It helps a lot that we have an escort to take us each place we need to go.  Many other people get there, are given the list of places and a map and they have to figure it out on their own.  We have someone there to take us and answer our questions so things go much faster.  I can't imagine how long this would all take if we had to figure out everything just from the map, it would be like a massive scavenger hunt!  

I was able to get some other things accomplished after we finished today and even got to go for a run, it was beautiful here, 72 and sunny!  Perfect running weather. 

Tonight is the Packers game so I need to make dinner so I'm ready to watch the big game!

GO PACK ATTACK!

I'll write more later this week when there's more to write about!



Welcome to Bethesda!

I am now a resident of Maryland!  I arrived in Rockville, my new home, on Thursday afternoon.  I was planning to sign in right away in Bethesda but after talking to one of my friends, Julie, who also lives here (2 floors above me, actually) and arrived a week and a half ago, she said it was best to wait until after hours so I didn't get stuck doing excess paperwork right away.  Instead, I found my new apartment complex, got my keys, and unpacked my car.  My new apartment is really great, brand new appliances in the kitchen!  I have a dishwasher AND washer/dryer.  Two things that were on my 'must have' list when I was searching for my new home.  (I will post pictures once I have the whole place put together and unpacked)  After I unpacked my car, I met up with Julie and her boyfriend, Tim, for a tour of Rockville, the Navy base, and some dinner.  There is so much right in the vicinity of our apartment complex, it's crazy.  Restaurants, grocery stores, Target, you name it, I can walk there. 

We had also made plans for a trip to Arlington in the evening to see the new Warren Miller movie, "Like There's No Tomorrow..."  I discovered it was playing at the Arlington Draft House Cinema earlier in the week and didn't think there was any way I could miss it.  Because it was my first night in town, we took Julie's car, as they have a little more knowledge of the area than I.  The movie was great...despite starting almost a half an hour late.  We got out of the movie at 12:30 and walked back to the car.  Except the car wasn't there anymore.  It was no where to be found.  Welcome to Bethesda!  A few quick phone calls later, we found it had been towed...thankfully...and not stolen.  I guess just because we parked in a spot that didn't have a tow sign on it doesn't mean it's not fair game.  We hailed a cab, climbed in and said we needed a ride to A-1 towing.  The cabbie said to us "did you bring your GPS?"  I guess I had always thought it was their job to know where they were going but not this guy...Julie was able to pull up directions on her phone and after some U-turns, he finally got us to the tow lot.  (He only charged us $10 instead of the $14 that the meter read...good thing too because I'm pretty sure all three of us would have gone off on him).  By 0130 we were back on the road and headed for home, and the tow company was $125 richer.  On our way back I caught a glimpse of the Washington Monument as we were crossing the Potomac!  I can't wait to get downtown DC!  Julie and Tim dropped me off at the Navy lodge for the night.  I had made a reservation because I had anticipated getting my apartment keys on Friday; not to mention I had no bed or anything else in the apartment and figured a room with a real bed and TV would be pretty nice. 

Friday: Happy Veteran's Day!  Today was a day for errands...lots of them.  We started off at lunch at the Silver Dollar Diner (it's right behind our apartment building), very good!  Then we hit up Class Six (which is what the military calls the liquor store), Target, Giant foods grocery store, and Trader Joe's for some much needed essentials.  I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking things and organizing my apartment before relaxing for the evening with a beer.  I am borrowing Julie and Tim's internet right now as I don't have mine set up yet and hopefully my household goods will be delivered next Friday.  That's the plan anyway.  Julie also loaned me a twin mattress for the week so I don't have to sleep on the floor, what a nice friend! 

Tomorrow we might attempt to ride the metro and who knows what else is in store, I'm sure something entertaining will come along.  It seems to be a city on the move, plenty to do and see all the time. 

Welcome to Bethesda!