Geek Week

These past two weeks have been crazy and now I finally have something to blog about! From April 28th to May 5th I got to go to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. It was amazing!! I went to attend the American Association of Museums Conference in Philadelphia. With D.C. being so close, I had to of course go to the Mall of America and get my fill of the Smithsonian museums. The last time I was in D.C. was on my 8th grade field trip and my attention span was much shorter. I think I had more weird pictures of me and my friends than any of the historical sites, which probably isn't too shocking. It was great to go back and visit the museums with a greater appreciation and knowledge of what they are about and how they work.

On Tuesday night, Carlee, Adrien, Heidi and I made it to Washington, D.C. where Tammy met us at the airport and was kind enough to let all four girls crowd her apartment for the night. She played Tour-Guide-Tammy and took us around the different memorials that evening. The weather was perfect that evening; it was the only day it didn't rain the entire trip.

The next day we visited 5 different museums. We went to the National Museum of American Indians, The Air and Space Museum, The National Archives, The National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History. Only a true museum lover could handle a day like that. That evening we drove to Philadelphia to check into our hotel.

Our hotel was in a rather um...cultural part of Philadelphia. It was surprising because you could literally cross ONE street and be in the sketchy part of town. Our hotel was on the sketchy side. I didn't find it necessary to tell my mom that we were right next to a men's homeless shelter. If anything, walking to the hotel was always an adventure. It was just down and around the corner from the conference center therefore making it totally worth the strange encounters. I don't think I have stayed in a smaller hotel room ever. It was a minor miracle that all five of us could fit in there (even though one person slept on the floor each night). It was all part of the experience, right?

In between attending sessions, we discussed our views about session topics, visited even more museums, found fun places to eat, and took personality tests online. The last day of the conference, we went to the constitution center and made a meal out of the hour d'oeuvres, took pictures with life-size statues of the signers of the constitution, saw the liberty bell, visited two or three more exhibits and then ate yummy desserts.

Our last day in Philadelphia, we went to two more little museums about Benjamin Franklin and saw the remains of the archaeological excavation of his house. We also visited his grave in the Christ Church cemetery. That evening, Tammy drove us back to D.C. where we invaded her house again for another night. We stayed up watching National Treasure so we could point out all the places we had visited that week.

The next afternoon we flew back to Salt Lake, ready to sleep in our own beds. To sum up this trip, I got to visit 12 museums and exhibits, attend about 12 museum seminars, eat yummy philly cheesesteaks, buy a book on forensic anthropology and successfully avoided contracting swine flu. I can't say I wasn't a little museumed out at the end of the week, but it was totally worth it.