ARLINGTON, Va. - Having escaped from Kansas, I'm now back in the equally strange world of metro-riding, happy hour aficionados known as Duke-in-D.C. Or, as I like to think of it, the "Gothic Bureaucracy."
D.C.-more accurately, an amalgamation of cities in Northern Virginia (NoVa), Maryland's Montgomery County (MoCo) and the northwest quadrant of the district proper-is a tantalizing place for a Duke grad.
It's close enough to Durham for a weekend jaunt, brimming with idealistic young people, and gentrified enough to feel like Main West. And just as much of Duke has its sights on Yale, D.C. sometimes likes to think of itself as New York with better weather.
Most of the recent Duke grads I've encountered here work in one of the following capacities: IT consultants for Accenture, paralegals for the Department of Justice or lab researchers at the National Institutes of Health.
Since even the private consulting firms here primarily do federal jobs, it's government hours for the most part: nine-to-five, Monday through Friday. As a result, too many weekends end up exactly the same-happy hours on Thursday, clubbing on Friday and a chill bar on Saturday.
Duke kids tend to grow up following rules. This explains why so many thrive in the rigid bureaucracy here. Much of Duke-in-D.C. feels like a second childhood. One of the most popular spring activities is the World Adult Kickball Association. It's a perfect combination: a tediously organized league for a juvenile sport. Think Playfair. With a lot more flipcup afterwards.
Dillo-esque pub trivia is also big among D.C. Dukies. As my friend, teammate and former Chronicle columnist Rob Goodman '05 points out, it's another perfect match: a chance for overeducated Duke alumni to show off their useless knowledge, all while being graded and drinking. (If you're ever in town, our group-Team Steve Holt!-competes every Tuesday at Madam's Organ in Adams Morgan.)
House parties are still pretty common, but it's harder to find Beirut or anything similarly rambunctious. Sports coats pop up more and more often, and there's as much discussion of work on the Hill as anything else. But Duke students are a crafty lot, and real political discussion is conspicuously absent. In a city as incestuous as D.C., you never really know who is running secrets for which party.
The Duke Club of Washington has suckered most of us into joining, and it's not a bad deal. Stars and Stripes, the anointed Duke bar out in Arlington, shows all the Duke games and ostensibly has a loyal youthful following. But unfortunately, most of the alumni at the first UNC game looked old enough to be our parents. The latest buzz has centered around the Duke-Georgetown lacrosse game and tailgate, which is coming up this Saturday.
Georgetown, in fact, feels a lot like Duke's cousin. The same sorts of students go there, and the architecture is strikingly similar-though Georgetown is a lot smaller and set in a nicer area of town. Walking into The Tombs feels like a night at Satty's, and with a little imagination M Street could almost feel as cosmopolitan as Ninth. (Right.)
But it seems like everyone in D.C. went to the University of Virginia or Virginia Tech. A handful of Maryland, George Washington and George Mason students frequent the same haunts, but it's the big "V" stickers that are everywhere. We're all getting sick of hearing about Sean Singletary.
Like Duke's nook in North Carolina, the Washington area has some beautiful nature around it. A lot of young alumni end up hiking in Great Falls Park, camping out in the Shenandoahs or poking around Rock Creek Park, D.C.'s answer to Central Park.
All in all, D.C. has been a pretty good place to transition out of college. We all miss our undergrad days-but so does the rest of the city.
Andrew Gerst, former managing editor of Towerview, graduated from Duke in 2006 and now lives and works in Washington, D.C. His column runs every other Monday.
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