Day of Sightseeing

Today = Crazy.

First, meeting Al Franken. Awesome amazing. I was walking to work and waiting at the corner to cross the street to the Hart building. I quickly noticed the senator standing to my right and was pretty much just staring and being very excited. He eventually looked over at me...
Me: good morning sir
him: good morning...where are you from?
Me: I am from Michigan, but I actually go to school in Minnesota.
Him: o reall, where?
Me: Macalester College
Him: O, that's a great school.
Me: Yea, I really enjoy it there.

by now we are across the street and he has to turn while I continue to Russell. Me: Have a nice day.
Him: you too.

it was pretty cool.

Went into the office and started work on my memo about "birth tourism". I got to watch a couple news reports on it including ABCs. also had to work on putting together a memo on the after school educational programing briefing I went to yesterday.

Mid-morning we got a call to run something over to the house offices so I volunteered and went up to get some signed books from the senator's scheduler (read assistant). Carl happened to be behind her desk talking to another person, but it was the first time I had seen him. I said good morning. (senator #2 of the day).

Came back eventually and worked more on my things including looking up and researching the court case Rumsfeld vs Hamdi and immigration statistics. Had to leave again to give a tour of the capitol. Our first tour assigned to the interns. Justin and I showed around a guy who works for the GR office that was in town for some training in research tools. It went decently well. The guy was young and cool enough that it wasn't high-pressure. Good run-through.

Worked a little more before going for training on our research programs. After this went with a group to see Justice Ginsberg speak. We had to drop a speech off for Carl in the cloakroom at the capitol first. Another intern from a different office was doing the same thing so we befriended him and went to get in the line to see the lecture. We arrived at the supreme court 40 minutes early, but were too late and got turned away with a ton of other interns because the room had filled up. too bad. Instead though we went to the gallery and watched some republicans complain about the financial reform bill that had passed that morning.

While two guys ran up to the coatroom to drop the speech, Alex and I stayed and waited on the first floor where Senator Dodd came with his family and stood right next to us. He was with his granddaughters I guess and they were very cute in their interactions. One of the little girls fed him some ice cream. Alex and I were just looking and smiling because it was so cute and Dodd looked at us, said hello, and said sorry for blocking the elevators. We told him it was fine and that the girls were very cute. (senator sighting #3!)

Resigned to the workroom afterwords and outlined my memo, printed some reading off entitled "U.S. Citizenship of Persons Born in the United States to Alien Parents" from CRS and chatted with the other inters a bit until it turned 6 and I left.

Went for a run, but my body is so tired. Ready to sleep and ready for the weekend. 9 hour days are exhausting!