MBAs vs Laundry machines

One of the things that I find really different in the US is the approach to doing laundry. In Europe, I’m used to having a laundry machine in my house. And it is common practice for all houses and flats to have its own laundry machine.

For me it’s different to say the least that flats in new buildings that are 8 or more stories high do not have laundry machines inside. Instead, there is a set of laundry machines in one of the stories or in the basement and people go there to do the laundry. Sadly enough, most of these machines are coin operated.

That poses two problems. Firstly, it is costly. Secondly, if you have never seen this system in place and the laundry machines are old, you might be completely clueless when it comes to operate them.

That’s exactly what happened to us in our temporary accommodation. There was a set of machines and they were all coin operated. However, they were very old and there were no instructions. Now imagine being in a foreign country with a limited number of clothes and at some stage, having all of them dirty! I’m sure you’ll understand the case is even worse if I say in Washington it is more than 35 degrees now and humidity is very high!

After many unsuccessful attempts to put them to work, things didn’t seem that bright. As clever Cambridge MBAs we thought we were, we didn’t give up. We tried all different possible combination of coins, all different buttons and still the damn machine wouldn’t start working. After exhausting all possibilities and making use of our recently learnt MBA skills, I’m proud to say we finally found a reasonable solution:

Thai Temple, Teepee and Caged Houses...

What do you do when you are utterly homeless and desperate for a place? Search for options. Now these were options that we were honestly (to our hearts) given. We are safe to report that we are no longer struck with that ill-fate and no longer desperate enough to listen to anymore advices.

Option 1 - Use Craigslist.
The past two weeks have been an exciting time searching for accommodation. During our search, we have been touring around houses all over and some have been been very uninviting to say the least. A short description of what was 'cute little house in the suburbs with den with a view' turned out to be 'horrible, caged window flat above basement with a small 2m by 1.5m shelter overlooking a row of caged houses'.

Despite being qualified and trained in Karate and Taekwondo, both of us fled holding on tight to our lives. (no photos to show.. needless to say, we didn't even dare bring out our camera and heavily concerned that possibility of doing so would have resulted in a tug-of-war)

Second option - try living in a Thai temple in Washington DC should all fail.

A Thai lady at the World Bank had kindly suggested this when I told her that I had checked out of the hotel with no further options. You should have seen Jorge's face when I introduced the possibility of him sleeping on a wooden floor and waking up at 5 in the morning to do prayers. :) Personally, I would have done so in less than a heart's beat, just to see how the experience would have turned out for him. Suffice to say, the early morning meditation classes and vegetation meals were not enough to entice Jorge ..

Third option - Whilst site seeing, we found a cute Native American Teepee by the Capital.

Eversince childhood, I had been very fond of the Native Americans whilst watching movies about their adventures, and always wanted to try out a Teepee. I had finally got my break!! It even came along with a portable loo!!


'Picky Portugese' didn't like it. This was not going to hold by Jorge's ever high standard so we finally moved to a more civilised setting. Enter 1500 Massachusetts' Avenue...



Hurray, a home at least till the end of our internship. Our place comes with a fantastic view of the city too!! Also, amazingly enough, we found more Portuguese and World Bank folks living in the building.

Shelter in place

The World Bank is a very exciting institution to work for. It deals with many interesting projects that will have a huge impact in the community it is addressing. That is what we learnt on the first day of work.

On the second day of work we learnt there are other forms of excitement in the Bank sometimes. We were eating at the canteen when an announcement was made through the speakers: “For security reasons, we are imposing a Shelter-in-Place. No one is allowed to enter or leave the building until this condition is lifted”.

Shelter in place occurs whenever there is a potential threat to the World Bank’s personnel. Despite being locked inside, it seems like no one really cares that much. The World Bank building is so big that it seems like a city by its own right. Apparently, some individual left a suspicious package near the World Bank and the police was investigating. Turns out it was nothing.

I just hope if this happens again, it doesn’t happen by the end of the day. It’s my first time in Washington and I still have lots of sightseeing to do, so I need to get out early from work!

"Jazz In The Garden"

June to August is a season for live Jazz in Washington DC. A weekly event with different jazz bands packed to make any week complete and ready to kick start the weekend. Not one to disappoint, we just had to join the crowd to see what the fuss was all about. The atmosphere was AMAZING!

Our friends were all geared up and ready to go. We had beautiful weather, a picnic mat, picnic food (We left England but still had cheese, crackers & ham... sigh .. we have been converted!!), sangria and live music. What else could we possibly need for a Friday, post work?


For over three hours, we sat in the park by the lake near the Capital and enjoyed the ambiance till mosquitoes invaded our privacy. At this point, we took the party to an Ethopian restaurant near McPherson Square. Courtesy of my Italian friend, Gianni gave me my first 'roadtrip' in a Vespa down Washington DC. :)

(Photo of my tour guide)

Giving Directions

Remember the last time you were at the mercy of someone else's for direction?

I know that giving fool-proof instructions is a necessity but I didn't expect this. Walking down Dupont Circle and looking for Massachusetts Avenue, I looked around for a helpful soul under this burning heat. A blonde lady, all geared up for a long jog and more, come to my rescue. When asked where Massachusetts Avenue was, she responded "See it is near 15 St", I nodded at this point listening very attentively. 'We are now at 18th St', the native explained, "After 18th, comes 17th street. Then, after 17th street comes 16th street. Then after 16th street, comes 15th street.", she waved her hands in mid air as she explained the row of streets to follow. At this point, I was just staring at her hands and trying really hard not to grin.

We thanked her for her help, wanting to get on with our way. As we did, she turned around and asked "Did you get all I said?"

Washington sightseeing

After a very hectic week and finally getting our independence, we were able to relax. And to celebrate that, we went for sightseeing in Washington. We went to most of the hot spots of Washington DC, and when I say hot spots, I really mean it, as it was over 35 ºC degrees all day long!

Washington DC is a very nice city, especially in a sunny day. We got to see the White House, the Capitol, The Treasury, The Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. These are all places I’m used to see on the movies so it was very cool to see them live.

The most striking thing for me is the scale of everything. The streets are amazingly large with four lanes each way and the buildings despite not being very tall are massive!

It’s also new to navigate in a city where the streets have no name. Instead, they are Excel-spread-sheet like: they have numbers for rows and letters for columns. I guess it makes it easier to know exactly where a certain street is.

The day ended with a visit to a shopping mall (guess whose idea was it!). It's amazing how everything looks like it's on sale once you leave the UK! Hurray for the weak dollar!

Boiling Spot

Despite coming from Malaysia, a country bordering on the equator, my (almost) ten years living in the UK have acclimatised me to the cold, constant rain pour and limited sunshine. Like a vampire suddenly coming out of the closet to realise the warmth and optimism of sunshine, I am slowly adjusting back to the heat.

It just so happen that I have arrived in the hottest time of the year! Averaging at 90 degrees, Washington DC is one hot spot right now.

I’ve got a great tan to show off. I’m wearing shades, slippers and shorts, and eating ice cream on a daily basis. Hurray!!

1st Day at the World Bank

After many weeks of waiting, we finally got to start our first day at the World Bank on 1st July. It was an amazing experiencing walking down the streets of DC. As part of a normal journey to work, we would walk past monumental organisations like the White House, UN, American Red Cross, FBI (Yes FBI) and IMF. Every corner is home to leading organisations that have such global impacts.

Bordering H and 18^th Street, we find the World Bank Group Building itself residing in between the IMF and White House.

I was in awe as I stepped into the glass building. Amidst all the high security, we were greeted into the building with an atrium at the centre, fountain and a wall decorated with flags from all nations. A plaque with “A World without Poverty” in platinum silver stood out at the main entrance. We were going to be working in this building and for the Energy Unit Anchor Department, to learn about developing frameworks for ensuring energy security and stimulating investments in energy efficient projects. We were excited!!

Independence Day

After three days of uncertainty we finally got our independence! We found a place to stay and were released from the money-sucking hospitality industry. We didn’t get a definite solution, but were able to stay at a colleague’s house for a week while she is away on a mission (a mission is the World-Bank-posh-way of saying "external assignment"). That will buy us some time to work out a definite solution and give us some peace of mind to focus on our work here.

This was a great relief and the Americans were kind enough to celebrate our independence day with us. They even threw a major fireworks party near the Washington Monument that lasted for more than half an hour.


These Americans are so nice!

Homeless in DC

£28k of MBA tuition fees, nine months of intensive drudging through piles of MBA workload and five years of prior work experience does not provide you with security! I had hoped that it would :)

Granted that we will be here for only six weeks, searching for a home has proven more difficult than anticipated. Never in a million years did I dream that I would be in Washington DC doing an internship at the World Bank let alone bear the thought of sharing a bridge with another homeless. The thought of waking up in the morning to work and then returning to a newspaper laid bed was severely daunting!

We had started our search from UK and had thought that everything could be sorted from abroad. Touring through Craigslist, we looked at accommodation in places like Foggy Bottom, Dupont Circle, Thomas Circle and Adams Morgan. (From the list, I really liked the novelty of having Foggy Bottom in my list of previous addresses) Nothing turned out unfortunately and as a temporary measure, we booked ourselves into a hotel just four blocks from the World Bank. It was the best that we could do so we just decided to take it from there.

Day 1 - We checked into the hotel after our eight hour flight. After touring around a whole list of houses and a Safeway, we returned back without a home but bagful of groceries to try out in the kitchenette made available in the hotel. In the cupboard, there was one massive pot, 2 tea spoons and no plates. There wasn’t really much but our creativity was still at high after a recent MBA Creativity Workshop, so we made do ...

Welcome to American food ala hotel cooking - a definite far cry from the food served in the colleges at the University of Cambridge.

Day 2 – in the hotel but food enjoyed in a restaurant outside. We learnt our lesson!! :)

Day 3 – “D Day” - It was our last day in the hotel as there were no more rooms available for the 4^th of July. I can’t believe we left for work with literally no accommodation! Our suitcases were packed and ready to find home at the World Bank if needed.

Visa rush

By late May we had some great news: we got an internship with the World Bank! That was very exciting but it was only the beginning of a long journey to get the logistics of our journey done. We knew the internship would start on the 1st of July and we wanted to get to Washington beforehand with some time. However, for cost reasons, we booked our flights for Monday, 30th of June. Since we still had an entire month before the flights, we thought that would be more than enough time to sort out the Visas and take care of accommodation.

Well, turns out to get a diplomatic Visa, we need the World Bank to send some forms to the Embassy. After a couple of weeks, our contacts there were kind enough to send the paperwork for us, but the Embassy requires the central HR department to take care of everything.

By this time of the year, the World Bank is packed with requests for Visas and its central services operate in a first come first serve base. To make a long story short, we spent two weeks exchanging emails with the World Bank and the American Embassy in the UK.

The paperwork was only sent on Wednesday, the 28th of June to the American Embassy in London who was already more than sick of us after so many phone calls and email exchanges. It usually takes 48 hours to process a diplomatic Visa, but Thursday for some reason was a public holiday. The stress was huge and we weren’t seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Most likely we would have to reschedule our flights and start the internship later.

Bottom line...we got our Visas Friday afternoon, just the last week day before boarding to Washington DC. What a rush!

Welcome to Washington DC!

We’re finally in Washington DC! It’s hard to believe we made it to Washington DC on time to start our internship by the 1st of July. After the immense journey we went through to get our internships and our VISAS sorted out on time, it feels nice to finally be here.




It all started on the 30th of June when we landed in Dulles International Airport. In this blog we’ll describe our experiences in the United States as interns at the World Bank. And believe me, we've arrived less than a week ago and we already had loads of stories to tell!