Episode 20: the blog is reactivated / Davidson Homecoming / DC
Seeing as I’ll be living in France for 7 months, I decided to reactivate the ole travel blog to keep y'all updated (if I picked up “y'all” in North Carolina, I can pick up Ch'ti in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, right? [Ch'ti is the regional dialect in the north of France near Belgium–where I’ll be living!])
Anyhoo, I wrapped up my job on the Tom Niermann for Congress campaign (my former history teacher for whom I’ve been working this summer–check him out & support! https://www.niermannforcongress.com/) and headed back to Davidson for Homecoming weekend. It was great to see a bunch of college friends before leaving for the year– and maybe the last time that many of us will be back in the same place for even longer. Friday we spent in Charlotte, and two friends from my pledge class let a bunch of us crash at their apartment. Then we spent a beautiful day at lake campus playing spikeball, and went out on campus Saturday night. Someone realized Sunday that no one thought to get a picture, but I guess it’s good we had such a great time in the moment. Here’s a substitute (imagine that some of these goons were photoshopped in, that none of us are in formal dress, and that lake Norman is behind us rather than the Atlantic)
Sunday I hitched a ride with #mybff Cate Dorigan up to our nation’s capital city (after breakfast @ The Egg with my pledge class and elevensies @ Cracker Barrel with Cate, polocrosse super-star Alex Harvey, and progressive icon Gloria Nlewedim).
My incredible sister Kellyn let me crash at her new DC apartment–it’s awesome, and her roommates are both super cool. She is living in the District as she works to get Dr. Ralph Northam elected governor of Virginia–support him too! http://ralphnortham.com/
We got up early the next morning for a Northam event, where I got to meet Justin Fairfax–the candidate for Lt Governor of VA–and Cecile Richards, the head of Planned Parenthood.
Her mother, Ann Richards, was an incredibly cool Governor of Texas (great quote–“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels”)
I had a great couple days in Washington–it was so fun to be back. Grabbed lunch on various days with KC pal David Marsh, who started a job with Booze Allen (sic) last month (funny turn of events, a year ago he was the one visiting me in DC), and Cate, and master procrastinateur Phillip Bader, and my former pledge master Andres Franco, who protects us all from white collar crime at the SEC. Went to a trivia night in Adams Morgan with Harvey, Bader, Cate, my Sigep big brother Kevin Wilford (& got to meet his awesome girlfriend Jackie), and role model for youths Myles Cameron / مايلز كامرن… and we won! Best of all, spent some quality time with Kell and got to know her roommates.
Kell’s roommate Emmet told me about a thrift shop called Buffalo Exchange, so my gallant girlfriend Blaire and I went (she came up the night before our flight) and it was so cool we each got something despite having 0 space in our bags. Some ragrets.
Then we flew to France. Yay