Some shots of the office:

The IUCN office sits on the 3rd floor of a building in Dupont Circle. sharing a floor with a think tank called Eco Logic, and an NGO focused on arctic conservation.  The other floors of the building are occupied by the Embassy of Gabon, the Iraqi cultural center, and Human Rights Watch – an interesting mix!  There’s only about 10-15  people from IUCN in the office on any given day. Most of the program officers travel very frequently, and a lot of people work as consultants rather than  full-time staff, so it’s often very quiet.

Being an intern in a small office has its perks though, since it’s easier to get to know people and I can easily drop by anyone’s office and ask them if they can spare a minute to chat with me about their program.  I hope to do more of that in the coming month!

A great thing about D.C. is the plethora of marine related conferences, seminars, and lectures taking place nearly everyday, and luckily my boss always encourages me to go to anything I’m interested in.  I’ve been to a dozen events already, and going to another later this week at the World Bank.

Next post, I’ll write more about the work I’m doing here, and other cool stuff going on in D.C.!