May 24th-May 31st: My 2nd week living and interning in Washington D.C.

Last week I blogged for the first time about how I got my ACCU internship in Washington D.C. and how I had settled in during my first week. This next post is an update concerning my second week in the United States' capital city. 

Overall, this past week has been a week of firsts, realizations, achievements and challenges.

For example, last Saturday afternoon was the first time I had ever watched the UEFA Champions League final outside Ireland and what a game it was this year. Around the 87th minute mark, a gentleman and his partner walked up out of James Hoban's bar and I heard him remarking 'that it's over'. As we now know they missed four goals and a remarkable comeback from Real Madrid C.F.. Fortunately, I had learned from the 1999 final that it's never over until the referee blows the final whistle.  
Also, before Saturday was at an end, my friend Matthew Berkeley and I, headed over to the Dupont Circle area and walked down Massachusetts Avenue in order to see the embassies and get pictures taken outside the Irish one. On the way back from viewing the embassies, we stepped into a bookstore, had a look round and found a bar attached onto the store. What an invention!

On Sunday, I went to midday mass with Matthew at the majestic Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, a wonderful basilica that is located on the same site as the Catholic University of America (CUA). Later that evening we took in the 2014 Memorial Day concert on the steps of the Capitol building. The concert was hosted by Joe Mantegna ('Fat' Tony from The Simpsons) and Gary Sinise and featured some wonderful singers and a speech by former U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell. It was an awesome event; full of patriotism, pride and remembrance although it also did seem to glorify American military involvement in various parts of the world.

On Memorial Day, Matthew and I were joined for dinner by Orla Gallagher, her roommate, Natalie, and Brighde Mulholland, a fellow Study USA student and friend from back home, who had attended the College of St Benedict's and St John's, Minnesota and was in DC for a few days before returning to Ireland. After work the next day, Orla, Bridghe and I again met up and, after battling monsoon-like conditions, we were successful in getting to Nando's in Chinatown for dinner (another first for me) and then moving on to Fado's Irish bar across the road for a quick beer.

As Memorial Day was on Monday that meant that I had another four-day week again. Although Wednesday and Thursday were usual office days, Tuesday and Friday were quite memorable.

On Tuesday morning, the ACCU President, Dr Michael Galligan-Stierle, presented a PowerPoint presentation on Campus ministry officers and chaplains (I had helped him prepare it) at a conference on the third floor of our building. In attendance were education association presidents of various Christian sects including the Presbyterian Church, the Lutheran Church, the Episcopalian Church, the Baptist Church and the Jesuits. After Michael's presentation I not only got the opportunity to have a catch-up with the Executive Director of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities (APCU), Gary Luhr, the man who had matched me to Warren Wilson College in March 2013, but also have lunch with Michael and the rest of these important US education figures.    

After nearly two weeks interning at the ACCU, I finally got the opportunity to tour the archives at CUA on Friday and I located previous files that had been submitted by the ACCU and its former parent organisation, the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) in 2005, 2012 and earlier this year. I took note of some of these files and asked the head archivist, John Shepherd, to clarify some matters. John is from Pennsylvania and has an impressive knowledge of not just American historical issues, but also Irish ones too. We talked at length about some Irish historical topics and, while I was going through ACCU files later, his assistant brought me some files relating to Sinn Fein's rise to power in the early twentieth century, the Irish War of Independence, negotiations leading to the July 1921 truce and the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Unsurprisingly, I was delighted and I intend to return to the CUA archives in my spare time to scan through more of these files relating to twentieth century Irish history.

In addition to putting together a lot of information for the new Food Security and Catholic Social Teaching (CST) segment on the Peace and Justice section of the ACCU website during the course of the week, I continued with more archival work and was successful in sorting through a large amount of ACCU records. Nonetheless, I have a long way to go and I will need to ensure that I maximize my time during the next two weeks.

This coming Monday marks the halfway point in my internship and although I have worked hard a lot more remains to be done. More challenges are still there to be overcome and I have realized today what a life experience my time in DC is proving to be. I am traveling to and from work every day in America's capital, paying my way and shopping for myself. Why is this significant? Although I have shopped for myself while at university in Belfast, shopping in D.C. seems different. It is harder to arrange and shops are not located at the 'bottom of the road' or 'around the corner' like they are in Newry or Belfast. For me, I am no longer a 'mummy's boy' but rather a fully fledged adult (at long last some may say!).

Comment below if you wish and please check back next week for my third update!

Le meas,
              John McCaul Jnr