Day 1



DC Hotel Room



DC Train









Arriving in DC three days early was certainly a good idea. The anticipation of the program starting had me a bit stressed for some reason. The past few days gave me some to travel to NY and do a lot of relaxing and thinking. I stayed in a very nice hostel in NY and had dinner with an old friend. Overall a pleasant time but I felt much better once I got back to DC. Oddly enough I feel at home in this city. Beautiful, powerful, diverse, admired, important are all the words that come to mind while walking through the city. But today my tourist hat came off and at 2:30 my Marshall Memorial Fellowship experience began...and thank god it did.



Blessed is how I felt throughout the day as I thought about the wonderful opportunity I've been afforded. Today I met the other fellows and as I looked around the 20ft board room table surrounded by accomplished young business and political leaders from all over the US I knew this is was going to be one amazing ride.

So in short here was our day:

2-4- Program orientation


4-6- A rather interesting and varied discussion on everything from the African and middle east uprisings and the affects they will have on the future economic stability of the EU (not to mention the emerging markets that may or may not blossom from these new democratic societies) to the eroding transatlantic relationship between the US and the EU and China's major role in playing the two sides off one another.




Dinner at Romanian Ambassador's Home



6-8- Amazing dinner with the Romania Ambassador to the US and his wife and their private residence. Wine and delicious Romanian food was followed by a wonderfully inspirational history of Romania's rise from communism and a discussion of what this economic meltdown means to the avg Romanian and how the country is coping. All of the Romanian embassy staff we amazingly nice and genuine people and their love of there country was felt by me with every word they spoke.



GMF Fellows w Romanian Ambassador and his wife



Ambassador's Home

Romania Ambassador and his Wife

11-Bed time.

Big day tomorrow--off to Belgium.