L'espoire fleurit

I love any apartment with hardwood floors and white walls, its the best backdrop for decorating! It always looks good with oriental rugs. 

Yesterday, my friends and I went on a bike ride through the DC portion of Rock Creek Park. It wasn’t total nature immersion, but it was still pretty awesome. 

I am feeling serious nature withdrawal lately. I have been dreaming of heading back towards Asheville somehow and hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Sounds edenic right now. 

SO much life has happened in the past week and a half and yet, when I look back its a bit of a blur with bright, colorful moments sprinkled in.  Spent a very sunny weekend returning to Standard. Freshly made cinnamon donuts and massive beers isn’t too horrible of a way to welcome the weekend. 

Then topped off the day with some super summery drinks. By Sunday, however, I had to force myself to recuperate a bit from the very stressful, sleepless week before. Almost on key, I got hooked on the Hunger Games books and a storm front rolled in. After such an intense year of prep, serious political knowledge building, applications, and interviews, it was pretty fun to get totally lost in a silly, but action packed book. Curling up with a book during a spring storm was just what I needed. 

Then, came Monday. I waited all day to hear from Pickering and.. nothing. Then 5:45pm, on my way to yogalates (yes, please laugh, because I do, every time I say it), I received a congratulatory email! Woof. After the emotional roller coaster, stress, and exciting interview, it was just relief, peace, excitement, and happiness. I feel very blessed. :)

Yesterday was the final interview process for the Pickering Fellowship. It has been an intense, emotional, stressful, and exciting ride to this point. I felt very humbled and in awe by the room full of State Department officials, Ambassadors, and distinguished young people around me. They said that more people applied this year than ever before, so just to make it so the top 40 was a pretty big deal. If anything, the experience was very enlightening and I was honored just to be a part of it. 

The day of activities was held in a conference building in Rosslyn, VA. The glass windows offered a pretty fantastic view. In the early morning, there was heavy fog, crew boats, and lots of activity on the Key Bridge. As the morning went on, the sleepy, mist was replaced by a gorgeous, sunshine filled panorama of the Potomac, DC, and Hogwarts Georgetown. It felt very surreal to be sitting in such an incredible room of people looking at a school I am still floored that I will be attending this fall. Life is good. 

While my iphone zoom lens doesn’t do it much justice, here are some photos of the view. 

Ok, I will try and keep Palestine out of my posts from now on, but I couldn’t resist just one more. While Jerusalem and Gethsemane are beautiful, there is something absolutely stunning about Galilee. The region is within Israel, but home to some very dominantly Christian Palestinian communities (especially in Nazareth). It is much more green than the rest of the region with huge aloe plants, bright pink flowers, palm trees, and aqua-green water. 

Walking throughout the ruins of Matthew and Mark’s homes, visiting the Mount of Beatitudes, which over looks the valley to the mountains of Syria, and swimming in the warm waters upon which Jesus once walked: heavenly. 

Here are some of the beautiful flowers we saw at the Botanical Garden.