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Washington DC and NCTE

The week before Thanksgiving I went to Washington DC with my friends Paula and Kristen to attend the National Council of Teachers of English conference, along with the ALAN workshop, which focuses on young adult literature.

We went a couple of days early so we could see some sites before our meetings. I had been to DC before, it there's so much to do there, I saw lots of stuff I hadn't had time to the first time. Washington DC was having a cold spell, so we were definitely feeling it as we walked from place to place. The first day we took a little trolley ride around town and then went to Arlington Cemetery and saw some of the sites.




 After that we went to the Newseum, which was a super cool museum about the news. There were so many cool exhibits there talking about the history of journalism in our country and a lot of the issues around media. I could have spent a couple of days there.

The next day Kristen and I went the Holocaust Museum and later met Paula at the Air and Space Museum. I've been to several Holocaust museums, including Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, but I think the one in DC is top notch. Really well done. At the Air and Space Museum we watched a cool movie on dark matter and then walked around the exhibits. After that we went to the Library of Congress and saw the Magna Carta and a couple of other exhibits. That night we ate at a yummy Mexican place. We finished off the night with a tour of the monuments at night, which was great but really really cold.












Because we got home really late the night before, we slept in the next day and then went on a water taxi to Old Alexandria. We ate at a tavern from the 1700s and then walked around some shops before heading home.

We were in meetings for the next couple of days, with breaks for meals. We stayed around the resort, the Gaylord National Conference Center. It's right on the Potomac and pretty nice.






Sunday we took a taxi to church in a Maryland ward and really enjoyed it. We went for a walk along the water and just relaxed for the rest of the day.

On Monday and Tuesday we had the young adult workshop which featured many of the top authors with new books coming out in the next year. We also received about 60 books for our personal libraries. I read three or four books over the course of the conference. It was fun. Monday night we rode the big ferris wheel and ate some seafood to finish up our stay.

Tuesday we flew home and were all ready to get back to our homes and lives. It was a great trip though.

Comments

  1. markandjennyDecember 3, 2014 at 7:40 AM

    Sounds like you're the perfect person to hand out book recommendations, I'd love to have them!

    ReplyDelete

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