New Friends, Old Stories

Union Station

Interior of a Mail Car

So the past two days at work have seemed a bit like deja vu for me. We have had a new intern (E) join the group on Wednesday, and since the coordinator has been out of town for the week, she has been my buddy for the week. Luckily my training was not all that long ago, and it has been really nice to have someone the same age to work with. Hopefully she will be able to navigate her way through ARC and the building without getting lost.

On Thursday I had what might just be the quietest lab group yet! They did such a great job working through the Constitution, and even had their parents excited about the lab! E observed the lab, and was thrilled that she was going to be doing this for the next 10 weeks. I also finally (finally!) finished one of my videoconference research projects. The Cold War file is now much thicker than it was before, and hopefully it will be of use for many years in the future.

Friday was a Resource Room day for me. With the Cherry Blossom festival starting this weekend, I expected it to be really busy, but it wasn't. I had a wonderful family come in with their 91 year old grandfather, who is a WWII veteran. I showed him how to retreive his personell records from the Archives, and then listened to a few of his war stories. They were wonderful to listen to; I wish that others would take the time to listen to these tales, they are a dying art.

Sadly, as the semester is coming to a close, there are assignments piling up! This means that Saturday was a homework day; pretty boring for my blog, but I did get things accomplished!

Today I needed to get out of the house, so I went to the Smithsonian Postal Museum and Union Station. It is a smaller Smithsonian museum, but by no means a bad one. There was a great exhibit about Victory Mail during World War II, and a larger exhibit about the development of the postal system, with the Pony Express and Airmail included. This musuem is a little off the beaten path, so I hope that other visitors to the DC area get a chance to peek in here.

Union Station is a mix between a shopping mall and old town promendade. It is where the DC Amtrak lines come in, and it is one of the oldest train stations in the country. I have not been in a mall in almost 3 months, so it was refreshing to walk around in one! :) Once my little excursion was over, it was time to get back to the books. Next week is Easter, and my family is coming out to visit! I am excited to show them DC now that is a bit more familiar than when I left them 3 months ago.