<p>Well, I’ve just concluded the interesting experience of putting a 50 percent deposit down for D’s housing in D.C. this summer. Fingers crossed that the anticipated internship actually comes through this week or next…she had a 30-minute telephone interview with three people on speakerphone last week and I’d have to guess this omens well…maybe I should check the auspices.</p>
<p>Anyway, internship housing in D.C. can be a crapshoot if your S/D’s college doesn’t have a facility like the housing UC has for its interns.</p>
<p>So if anyone is interested, here’s a link to GWU’s summer housing program. You might be able to do better with a situation on craigslist but then again you might not. </p>
<p>I feel your pain, Dad. I did that last year. S1 made a bunch of friends in the GWU dorms. It’s a great mix of kids with all kinds of neat internships. Great location too. </p>
<p>Tell her to get on craigslist to get a bike from a departing GWU student!</p>
<p>The social aspect of the GW dorms rates highly.</p>
<p>Otoh, D has never learned to ride a bike. Long story, basically revolving around ballet. Has never skiied either. I suspect “bike riding” is on her list of skills to acquire when she has time to breathe. Not happening this year, I don’t think. Anyway, the walk to the Metro station isn’t bad and this year she knows the drill very well. Plus this internship, if it comes through, is paid.
Which means parental subsidy is still in place, just at a lower amount.</p>
<p>Last year the GW wouldn’t have been an option. Everyone has to be out by 8/11 and she was there until 12/15. As it is, she’ll have to find a place to crash for the last week of her internship but she figures she can improvise and there has to be some intern somewhere who is leaving a week or two earlier.</p>
<p>We lived in several neighborhoods where bike riding isn’t particularly safe…this isn’t suburbia. You don’t see many kids out riding their bikes around here. More to the point, neither she nor we was willing to risk an injury that would compromise ballet–which saw all of about two two-week breaks a year. The sprained ankles in 10th and 11th grade, both ballet related, were bad enough.</p>
<p>I commuted to two jobs one summer on a bike in DC. Went from near Georgetown to AIA headquarters (near the White House) much of that route was through Rockcreek Park and not too bad. Other job was giving tours at the National Cathedral. That was all uphill. (Cathedral is located at one of DC’s highest points.) Not fun in the summer and lots of busy streets that couldn’t be avoided.</p>
<p>If the targeted internship comes through for D, it’s even closer to Union Station than the Senate Office Building she worked at last year. Easy walk. </p>
<p>Having seen–and been–a DC driver, I wouldn’t want to be commuting on those streets. Just a fraction of a second’s inattention or distraction by a driver and you’re an instant organ donor.</p>