en-us Copyright 2008 - All Rights Reserved. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:15:29 GMT 15 By Jared Vadenais

From March 18-23 I stayed at one of the most prestigious hotels revolving around the world of journalism – the Watergate Hotel. Unfortunately, too many of today’s generation, my generation, do not even know what Watergate is – never mind know that it’s a hotel. But fortunately, the other 101 student journalists and I do. The Watergate Hotel was the location of the infamous scandal that was the eventual cause of President Richard Nixon’s resignation. The hotel was broken into by five men, who were later arrested, who were attempting to obtain information of the Democratic Nation Party. One of the trip highlights was ESPN Zone. Although all we did was eat breakfast there (and yes, it was good) I did get a small idea of what goes on. From what I was able to see there was an arcade in the downstairs part of the building. That is something I get excited about considering we have, umm, none around here. Televisions were everywhere and tuned in to all the ESPN stations (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPN Classic, etc.). Another highlight was the hotel itself. The hotel is gigantic complex defined as a superblock which has 250 guest rooms and 146 suites in the 11 story bulding. The two tours, one in daylight and one in citylight, were also a great feature. We drove down Massachusetts Avenue where ‘Embassy Row’ is located and more than 45 diplomatic buildings a represented. The night tour featured the White House at night, the capital building at night, as well as Iwo Jima and the Washington Monument lit up. We also toured the Korean War Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Vietnam Memorial and the Washington Monument during the day. Instead of the scheduled tour of the Franklin Delanor Rosevelt memorial, we made a last minute change and visited the White House where we saw protestor Concepcion Picciotto has been stationed in front of the White House everyday, rain or snow or sunshine, since 1981. Because protestors are not allowed to protest after dark, Picciotto has an apartment not far from the White House. With no money and obivously no job, one ponders how she gets food. “I get by,” she replied. Picciotto is protesting the use of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. Overall, this was a tremendous experience which I am grateful to have participated in and to have received the Free Spirit award. I owe the award to this newspaper and the experience it brought me because I would have never had the chance to test my writing skills in the journalistic world, Bird’s Eye View adviser, Ms. Nancy Dandurand, who urged me to apply for the award and who has prepared me to continue my education in journalism, my staff which has helped me along greatly with the newspaper and Ms. Carol Hoyle for sparking my interest in journalism. ]]> Fri, 12 May 2006 02:05:00 GMT