Mmm tapas

It’s raining tonight and is the ideal night to stay in.  I have plenty of homework, a cool roommate to hang out with, and it’s nice and dry inside.  So I decided to take a study break and make some tapas!  Mmmmm tapasssss.

Tapa #1: Fire-roasted crackers with goat cheese, tomato, and olive oil

 

Tapa #2: Baked and sliced red new potatoes with agave nectar and cayenne pepper

Last night I had a ridiculously fun time.  There was a happy hour between archrivals Georgetown School of Foreign Service (SFS) and SAIS (Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies) at the SAIS campus in Dupont Circle, my neighborhood last year.  The two schools constantly vie for first place in rankings of international programs (Georgetown has been #1 at the policy-related Masters level for the last two years), and teaching philosophies are very different (SAIS contributed heavily to great ideas such as the Iraq War and the Washington Consensus), so getting together is always interesting.  I also had a lot of house mates last year from SAIS, so it was good to run into a few of them. 

Anyways, I ended up meeting some really cool people actually from Georgetown that are first-year students at SFS.  After the happy hour one of my new friends and I went to get some empanadas at nearby Julia’s empanadas, one of the cooolest place in DC.  He mentioned that there was actually a Paraguayan girl in the flagship MSFS program, something which I had heard and had to confirm since there are so few Paraguayans in DC.  Basically anytime someone from Paraguay does make it here, it’s almost guaranteed we have shared friends back in Asunción.

We were headed to the Big Hunt, a great dive bar/pub, to meet up with other Hoyas when my friend yelled, “Mike! That’s her!  That’s Claudia, the Paraguayan!”  So basically the best luck ever running into her randomly.  Claudia and her friend invited me to come to a huge Paraguayan DJ party on U street (one of the coolest parts of DC) to raise money for an organization that builds houses for people outside Asunción.

A Paraguayan in need of help!

So we walked to the place, Station 9, and it slowly began filling up.  With people.  And more people.  And more people!  The place was packed – full of Paraguayans, other latinos, tons of people working at the OAS, IDB, World Bank, etc.  And wow!  It was a blast!!!!  Sadly I didn’t bring my camera with, but I had such a fun time – it felt like I was back in South America with my friends, and couldn’t believe my luck.  I can’t wait to see how much money the dance party raised, and I’m happy to have a couple more Paraguayan friends in DC now!

Thursday night Steve and I also had our first shindig at our apartment.  We had our classmates over from the Chile program, and had a great time hanging out and drinking pisco sours!  So things are going great in DC!  I’m getting much more into the swing of coursework, and heavily into the job search.  But it feels great to be back.  I missed Georgetown, my friends, and DC!

At the National Portrait Gallery

Help for friends in the Peace Corps in Albania

Hi All,

My friends from church in Colorado, Will and Wendi Bevins, are Peace Corps volunteers in Albania and could really use your donation of a few dollars (goal: raising US$975) in setting up a youth camp for children from difficult backgrounds.  You can see pictures of their work here and here.   They could really use your help, as they explain:

“If you are one of the many kind people who offered to send supplies or money for a project when we first set out on our Peace Corps adventure, this is the way you can help!! The Peace Corps has set up a website for the friends and family of volunteers to donate to our projects. The donations are tax-deductible and all donations go to support the camp that we are helping lead. There’s no overhead because all the staff at this camp are volunteers, including the Albanians who help. This camp is a great chance for kids to learn, play, and do things they don’t normally have a chance to do. For example, in Albania, girls and boys rarely play together. This camp will include both genders equally. It will mix traditional lesson topics (like geography and history) with interactive games and trips so that the kids retain more and have fun in the process. This kind of learning is just now entering Albanian education and this camp may be the first time the kids see that learning can be fun (instead of having a teacher read a book out loud to them for hours on end). Also, we’ll cover topics the children rarely or never hear about, like physical fitness and environmental stewardship. Wendi has already done a few yoga lessons and Will plans to do some self-reflection and journaling activities. If you have any questions about the camp or want more info, please do not hesitate to contact us! Just go to the website below to donate, and any donation would be appreciated by us and especially by the staff and kids at ASTA. 
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=304-013“

Shout out to Sneha

Today’s blog post is a shout out to my friend Sneha.  We used to work together at Sun Microsystems when I was at the Colorado campus and she was at the Silicon Valley campus.  Anyways, we hung onto each other’s e-mail addresses after our internships at Sun were over and met up when I first moved to DC in August and she had just finished her Masters at George Mason U in Virginia.  Shortly thereafter she moved to NYC to work on some computer-related thing.  So that was kind of a bummer to me, with her being my only friend when I moved to DC.  Fast forward several months to this past May.  I found a screaming deal on plane tickets to Paraguay from NYC, so I took the bus up from DC, and stayed with my best buddy, Krishna.  I met up with Sneha for lunch one day at Columbia University where she works.  Turns out she is actually a GIS analyst that works in poverty mapping in the developing world at the famous Earth Institute at Columbia University!  Wow!  So that just goes to show how rewarding it is when you meet someone neat, even briefly, and keep in touch down the line.

 

Yummy Cuban lunch near Columbia U!