BLOG POST #200

Hey, folks! Guess what! This is my 200th blog post!

HOORAY!!!

After falling off the wagon for a while after finals (those went fine, by the way! I don't have to sing the "Let it Go" parody I wrote), I wracked my brain to think up something interesting to do for my 200th blog post. 200 is a big deal, you know?

Well, I thought and I thought, and then I was lazy and lazier, and I never really came up with a good idea. I suppose I could have done that instead of watching Justice League on Netflix, buuuuut... I like Justice League, okay?

Well, around three weeks passed, and I started getting packed up to travel to Richmond, Virginia. It occurred to me that the beginning of my internship adventure could be a fantastic way to break my impromptu hiatus and celebrate 200 blog posts.

So! Here we go, ladies and gents! I have a brand new car and a room in my aunt's house, and I am ready to take on this internship with Virginia Living magazine!

Except for just a few things.

The main thing is transportation.

I'm used to driving around in a calm, medium-sized (if that) Alabama city where the roads are smooth, wide, and well-marked, and I can park in any of the bounteous parking lots.

Soooooo yeah this driving around on the teeny-tiny, bumpy, one-way, poorly marked Richmond roads where the drivers are more aggressive and the only parking is the parallel kind is... kinda hard.

Like, seriously, parallel parking isn't even on the driver's test in Alabama. None of my high school classmates learned to do it through our high school driver's ed class. I'm still in the process of mastering it. Like, I did it successfully by myself for the first time a few hours ago. On a residential road with no traffic.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp somebody help me heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp

Well, that just means that tomorrow is going to be an adventure. I'd be lying if I said I weren't extremely nervous. But you know what? It's okay! Everything's gonna be oooookay. I'm feeling optimistic. Putting my best foot forward.

Richmond seems like a pretty cool city so far. There are three Starbucks in walking distance of my aunt's house. We walked one of her dogs to one of them this morning. This part of the city seems pretty walker and biker friendly. It was a nice day, too! Not too hot. Not windy. Nice and sunny. We passed by several runners and fellow walkers with dogs or strollers.

The folks at Starbucks were pretty friendly, and I enjoyed my green tea lemonade. We walked back to the house and I unpacked a bit.

Later on, I watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with my aunt. My conclusion is that I'm pretty sure it's a fantastic movie but I'm going to need to rewatch it because I had a few lapses in attention and I'm not really sure what was happening in some parts.

After the movie, we went to Burger Bach, a burger place in (or at least close to) Carytown, which is a popular shopping and dining district in Richmond, with kind of a downtown feeling. That was a pretty good burger! According to the menu, they're New Zealand-inspired. The meat was very fresh. The fries were really tasty, too! We got a large bowl of fries, which came with two dipping sauces.

Then I fueled up my car at a gas station. The Ford Fiesta gets absolutely lovely gas mileage, but the tank does, in fact, run low sometimes.

Then I drove through Richmond like a crazy person, baffled and bemused by all the one-way roads, traffic circles, skinny lanes, brick roads, and spotty painted lines. I did not intend to drive like a crazy person, but... I mean, I'm already kinda rusty on my driving since I haven't had a car for the past three years, and I'm not used to this kind of driving. But nobody died! So I call it a success.

Now it's definitely time to turn in. Tomorrow's my first day at my internship! I've got to get to sleep so I can hopefully drive less like a crazy person tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

This is the beginning of my adventure!

Happy 200th Blog Post! Thanks for reading!