So, There's a lot of large buildings around here...

Well I'm halfway into my second week in my internship and finally getting into the life of a city girl. This past weekend I spent a lot of time at the Smithsonian Musuem of American History, which houses some of the more famous pieces the Smithsonian holds. There's Judy Garland's ruby slippers, Kermit the Frog, the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner, and many of the first ladies' inagural ball gowns. I've added some pictures below of what I took, but there are so many more (and probably better quality) at the Smithsonian website.

~Abe Lincoln's Hat

~Kermit

~Trying to be President. It didn't go so well...

~Helen Taft's inaugural ball gown

~ Outside the Museum. The Washington Monument is so close!

Monday morning came soon enough and it was back to the Archives. This week I am wrapping up my orientation meetings and finally getting started on projects. I was in the Resource Room and Learning Lab so far this week, helping students find research pertaining to their interests or a school project. On Tuesday morning, a group of students came in and looked at documents that are from the Treasure Vaults of the Archives. These are originals that are very influential or highly sensitive and are only taken out a few times a year. Some of these include the note that impeached President Andrew Johnson, a working copy of the 13th Ammendment, and the Electoral College votes for the election of 1876. They were amazing and the students were just as intriguied as I was with the documents.

~This is one of the documents we got to see up close!

On Tuesday, I went to the second large facility in the DC area that the National Archives has. It's located about 40 minutes north of downtown DC, on the campus of the University of Maryland at College Park. It is the second largest government office building in the country, and is full of almost 600 miles of record storage shelves! I will be working here (also known as AII) once a week, helping out with archiving and the volunteer program. I went back into the "stacks" and just didn't know where to start! There are so many papers and topics that draw my attention that it might be hard to narrow down to just a few. Once again, I've added some pictures for this, but this time they are courtesy of Google.

~Exterior of Archives II at College Park. It was built around 15 years ago, and unlike Archives I, it was built for this purpose.

~Inside the Archives, in the research rooms

Today was a field trip day again, and this once focused on the military. We visited the Pentagon, and had a tour of the building. It is the largest office building in the US, which makes perfect sense if you have seen it before. Since we could not take any pictues on the premises of the Pentagon, mine come from Google again.

~This is as close of a picture you can get, because of all the security there.

Tomorrow I head back out into the DC schools to help with the district competition of We the People... I'm excited to see what the students have put together and whether they can handle the test of a congressional hearing...