Embassy protesting: just another day on the job

I am so much in love with life right now. I truly am. La vie est tres tres tres bonne! Je l’aime tourjours!
I’m having a blast being down here in D.C. It’s an amazing city with tons to do. Just the other night we were at a place called Madam’s Organ (seemingly a former brothel), for a fundraiser for Amnesty’s Mid-Atlantic Region. It was a good time hanging out with interns and such. Afterward we went to a hooka bar where we hung out with our friends from the Middle-East while we watched the news about Egypt.

This weekend I just went skiing in Pennsylvania with my brother and dad, and that too was a blast. Just a note, though, whoever lives in Pennsylvania – I’m sorry. Your roads are the most poorly marked roads ever! Honestly, who puts exits 40 miles from each other without warning you that if you miss your exit you have to drive an hour just to turn back and drive another hour to get back to where you were coming from! Sheesh. This is near Pittsburgh too. I think the Steelers lost the SuperBowl because Pennsylvania roads are bad. Just a thought.

Anyway – my internship is going great. I spoke to a lot of Congressmen and women this week to get them to sign a letter to Secretary Clinton urging her to tell the Mexican government that they need to stop abusing human rights in their country. We’ve also been doing a lot with Egypt. We’ve had press conferences, press releases, interviews, rallies and more all covering the past two weeks of mayhem in Egypt.

Here I am with a fellow intern, Heba (whose family lives in Cairo and was giving us updated information):

photo courtesy of Lanna Ripp.

We got to protest outside of the Egyptian embassy in D.C. to encourage them to help maintain human rights in Eygpt.

Here’s a picture of us with Aasif Mandvi from the Daily Show:

photo posted on Facebook.com by Maggie Carroll.

So, good news is that President Mubarak has decided to step down as president of Egypt. After 60 years or however long he was in power, it’s about time for change. The only thing we’re kind of nervous of is that the military rule will be something undesirable and too strict. We’ll see. We can hope for a strong democracy in Egypt for everyone’s sakes, but most importantly the Egyptian people’s sakes.

One month into the internship, woot! Wish me luck! I’ll keep you posted.

Oh, yea. Here’s another picture of me that a Reuters photographer took at the rally.
Photo credit: Molly from Reuters