Day 1: Orientation

I decided to do a blog to tell of my time as an intern at the National Museum of the American Indian. I hope you will follow along and enjoy finding out all of the neat and exciting experiences that may happen during my time at the Museum!

On the first day of my internship, I met the other National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) interns and the internship coordinator, Jill, outside of the Museum around 9 am. Once everyone was gathered and checked in at the security desk, we went to the conference room for an introduction to the Museum, events, and general things to expect during our time working in the Museum. We also had Dunkin Doughnuts!

Next we took the shuttle to NMAI's collection storage facility called the Cultural Resource Center (CRC). Here Jill lead the group around to the different departments at the CRC and introduced us to various intern supervisors. Some of the departments at the CRC are Collections Management, Research, Archives, and Repatriation. Then Jill gave us a tour of some of NMAI's collections from all over the world. The majority of the objects are from the private collection of George Gustav Heye.

After finishing up at the CRC, we took the shuttle back to the Museum for lunch. We ate in the NMAI's Mitsitam cafe. It's a little pricey there so it took a while to find something worth eating. I decided on the buffalo burger. It sounded good at the time and I was starving! Unfortunately the burger was a little on the mediocre and not-really-worth-my-money side but the guava agua fresca was amazing!

Lunch went by pretty fast. I mean, when you are having fun grossing people out (especially vegetarians) with weird food customs, you tend to loss track of time!

After lunch, Jill lead us around to other department at the Museum and introduced us to more intern supervisors.

Then to wrap up the busy day, Jill gave us a brief tour of the current Museum exhibits and explained the meaning behind each of them.

Although it was a very exhausting day, I enjoyed seeing the Museum facilities and meeting new people.