+++
date = 2025-08-08
description = "Capitol Hill and Crochet"
+++

Hotel breakfasts are bad, even if they are presented in a conference-like setting like this one. The tea, however, is a lifesaver; Lipton isn't great, for sure, but it has caffeine and doesn't taste like dirt! After breakfast, the people in charge of the CBYX program from the U.S. Department of State talked with us about the importance of this program and to reiterate how impactful this will be for us. When I say 'us,' I mean not only my crew (of 42 people under the care of AFS) but also the other crew (about 80 people under the care of CIEE).

The coach bus ride to Capitol Hill was uneventful; I napped. It's hard to find time to sleep when curfew is at 22:00, at which point I still need to do my vocabulary study and write this ~~annoying~~ wonderful blog post.

Anyway, Capitol Hill was beautiful, as usual.

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Us three [Pennsylvania Fifth Congressional District](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania%27s_5th_congressional_district) folk decided to first visit our representative, [Mary Gay Scanlon](https://scanlon.house.gov/). She had pride flags outside her office, which was good to see! When we walked in, her secretary was reassuring a constituent that "When there is a motion to impeach him, she will publicly express her support for it. She supports any effort to stop the terrible things happening right now." That was nice to hear! I feel represented!

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Once the secretary got off her call, we were told that "unfortunately, her education staffer isn't in today," and got handed a business card. Surprisingly painless.

Our next meeting was with Senator [David McCormick](https://www.mccormick.senate.gov/). Unlike the representative meeting, which was a walk-in, this meeting had been scheduled ahead of time. Barely. McCormick has potentially the *least* responsive office I have ever had the displeasure of interacting with. To schedule the meeting, I filled out the [form](https://www.mccormick.senate.gov/services/scheduling/) on their website, as one does. After a week of no response, I built up the courage to call his office - only to be told that the form *doesn't work* and to email an address that *doesn't exist*. Pardon, *what?* It seems to me that it should be easy to reach one's elected officials; I was frustrated. In the end, one of the adults at CBYX got involved and scheduled the meeting for us.

The meeting. How did the meeting go, one might ask. It went well, all things considered. Upon entering the room, which, by the way, was on the seventh floor of one of the *coolest* office buildings I have ever seen, we got greeted by his secretary, who notified the staffer as to our presence. While waiting, I absorbed the room I was in.

On one wall was a large American flag from the Civil War. It had 13 stars to 'remind us of what we were fighting for.' On the other walls were a number of small (maybe 10"x10") framed photos of McCormick with a variety of figures, including Donald Trump, a dairy farmer, Donald Trump, a police officer, Donald Trump, Serena Williams, and Donald Trump. I swear, there were more pictures of Trump on that wall than of McCormick!

I digress. The meeting was akward, brief, and effective. After a series of weak handshakes, we filed into a meeting room with gaudy blue carpeting ("picked out by his wife") and chairs like the ones in Congress. The staffer was quite receptive. He assured us that "what [we] are doing is incredible" and that McCormick was "supportive of [the program's] goals." When Senator Fetterman came up in conversation, the staffer assured us that McCormick was "on good terms" with Fetterman and that the two "worked closely together." That was good to hear. We said tschuess and left, confident that we did well.

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We then walked a couple of office buildings over to visit Senator [John Fetterman](https://www.fetterman.senate.gov/). He also had pride flags outside of his office, right next to the board of hostages still being held by Hamas. Fun. His secretaries greeted us cordially, though the education staffers were not in. They invited us to help ourselves to a variety of Pennsylvania-made products lined up on shelves on the wall, including chocolates, unfrosted Pop-Tarts, and little boxes of Raisin Bran. I can't get over how chill Fetterman is. What other Senator gives away free food, free *junk* food nonetheless, in their office? (Don't answer that)

At this point it was nearing 13:30 and we were all starving. For lunch, we headed over to the Union Station Shake Shack, where I got fries and a chocolate shake. At this point, we had a group of about 10 people, all from Pennsylvania (there are 13 PA folks in total). As lunch hour dwindled to an end, some of us had meetings and others wanted to shop. 2 of my peers and I decided to take the 25 minute walk down to the [National Natural History Museum](https://naturalhistory.si.edu/), where we spent an hour just wandering aimlessly. We saw gems, minerals, sea animals, and all sorts of fossils. We made it back just in time for an AFS-CBYX group photo on the steps of the Capitol building.

The bus ride home was as uneventful as the one there; I napped. Being a lobbyist must be exhausting.

After my dinner of salad and a brief bias-awareness instructional session, one of my peers and I went out to the courtyard to chill. The sound of the crickets and cicadas there is beautiful! There was an eccentric woman crocheting alone at a table to the side. She asked if we minded if she smoked (weed); we didn't. When we mentioned crocheting, she spent the next 15 minutes telling us all about how much she loves to crochet and showing us various works she's finished recently. She was on the cover of a British crochet magazine and her patterns are widely published in others! She explained to me the pattern she was currently working on; make the sleeve and top portion of a sweater or shawl using a grid-like "double crochet and chain one" pattern before going around and around the body with a 'chain 5' scallop-lookign design. I'm going to try to make it; crochet is fun!

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As always, I love yall and hope yall have a fantastic rest of your day.

~ Andromeda <3
