Weekend trip to Washington, D.C.

It seems like spring has finally come to Philadelphia.  Today it is sunny and temperatures are in the mid-60s!  This is a drastic change from the single-digit temperatures that we experienced this past winter.  Despite the stress of upcoming final exams and job applications, the pleasant weather has put me in a great mood today.  

First of all, I just wanted to remind you all that our last Web Chat of the semester will be taking place tomorrow (Friday, April 11th) from 7-8PM EST.  Whether you're still deciding to enroll at Penn for the upcoming year or are just looking to learn more about GSE, I highly recommend that you attend.  Myself and many of our other graduate assistants will be online to chat with you, as well as our Associate Director of Admissions and Financial aid.  Just use this link to RSVP: 
https://www.gse.upenn.edu/admissions_financial/events#online

This past weekend I took a trip to Washington, D.C. to visit one of my best friends from college who lives and works there.  Our other best friend who is in med school in New Jersey was there with us as well.  It was so nice to see them--we only see each other a few times a year, but we always have a lot of fun when we reunite.  It was also the beginning of the Cherry Blossom Festival in D.C. and there was a lot going on.  I took a bunch of pictures, so I'll use those to illustrate the rest of my post!

On Saturday morning we went to an area of D.C. called Eastern Market.  There were a ton of vendors selling clothing, handmade jewelry and soaps, purses, and fresh fruit and veggies.

This is the Smithsonian Castle, the main building on the Washington Mall, which is where most of the Smithsonian museums are.  I've been to most of the museums before, but it was still great to walk around and see the beginnings of some of the cherry blossoms.

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I really like this picture!  I took it just as the sun was setting.  My friend said that Washington D.C. has some of the prettiest sunsets she's ever seen. 

After dinner we went to watch fireworks over the Potomac River.  This was also in honor of the Cherry Blossom Festival.  It was difficult to take pictures of the fireworks with my phone, but they were so beautiful in person.

During the day, we explored an area behind the Smithsonian Castle called Moongate Garden.  There were a lot of dogwood trees in bloom, as well as a pond and some sculptures.  This picture is of myself (left) and my friends Vicki and Grace.

This weekend was the first of the Cherry Blossom Festival.  Washington, D.C. has cherry trees planted all around the Washington Mall area, and they have festivities every spring when the trees bloom.  Only one of the trees had bloomed when we were there, so we took a ton of pictures with it.  Apparently the trees are in full bloom now though.  You can actually monitor them with this link: Cherry Blossom Web Cam

Finally, this is us in front of the Washington Monument!  It was a wonderful trip and I can't wait to see them again.  They're hopefully going to come to Philadelphia to visit me in a few weeks.