just having a good time in an art gallery
Yesterday I went to the National Gallery of Art for a scavenger hunt by Watson Adventures. It was an event posted by one of the meet-up groups I've joined, and based on the HP book series because I am renewing my fannishness of the series through my rereads with the kids. The hunt itself? Tons of fun. Getting there? Not so much fun.
They're doing some construction on the Metro, which I was aware of to a point, but wasn't aware of as far as the obstruction of travel bit goes. I arrived around eleven fifteen, and was at first pleased by the lack of throngs, since it was also Shamrock Fest and the drinking holiday tends to subsume DC and everything with spectacular crowds of green-clad people looking to get drunk. There was a pack of loud obnoxious dudebros there, though, but they were everywhere yesterday. Drinking holidays do that.
In any case, I should have been warned by the complete lack of people that something was up. We made it to the next Metro stop, which was West Falls Church, and the train shut down. The barely distinguishable voice from the speakers told us to go to a free shuttle to East Falls Church, and confused and annoyed, all of the passengers going to DC poured out of the train and to the shuttle. I managed to get there ahead of the crowd, but let me tell you- that was one stuffed shuttle. All of this took ages and probably more than half an hour off my travel time, so it was fortunate I planned for this thing to take ages. (More because of crowding issues, not because of the Metro being in various stages of construction.)
Apparently some people had been in commute for an hour and had gotten nowhere. Jesus. Meanwhile, I made my way to L'Enfant fairly normally from there, although the Metro was ridiculously crowded once we started getting closer to DC and Metro center. I sat with some fellow daycare teachers and we discussed our jobs as the train drew steadily closer to my destination. (The yellow/green line was fun because really it was the next stop after L'Enfant. So, hop on, hop off.) At that point I went to Starbucks and got a protein breakfast and an Izze because I had not eaten anything up to that point. The Starbucks was manned by two disgruntled guys who kept announcing that their location wasn't serving anything hot- no doubt made grumpy by all the surly customers complaining about it.
The hunt had everyone meet in the room outside the coat check-in on the main level. This really was a good place to hold a Harry Potter scavenger hunt, because with very little exercise of imagination, one could picture these rooms being part of Hogwarts. It's grand and old fashioned, giant portraits, fancy wallpaper, stuffy couches and old tables, and a big chandelier along with wall sconces. They were electrically lit, but made to flicker like candle flame. (I know, aflightoffancy, you hate that.) I arrived ten minutes early and signed in. When the rest of the people came in, they gathered everyone together and explained the hunt.
Basically, we were all given team sheets to write the team members names down and sign a consent form saying we took full responsibility for ourselves during this event. We all named our teams (Mine was Expelliarmus Chocolate Frog) and received a sheet of paper with twenty-five or so questions on it, each for certain galleries. Questions like: Go to gallery 31. You will find the slithery traces of a Nagini-like creature in an object that could be the Horcrux for Hufflepuff. On the flipside you'll see a saint. What is the saint's name? We had an hour and a half to find everything and then go back to the starting point. This was tons of fun. Everyone scattered and started inspecting all the paintings like mad.
I got back about half an hour earlier than all the other teams, but got a couple questions wrong. (Right paintings, wrong answer. I put down that someone was cheating with loaded dice in a painting about a man cheating at cards and dice because I didn't understand someone was giving him a signal, for example.) Didn't win, but it was still great fun and I would still do it all over again. It was a great way to see the gallery and just plain out a good time all around. I haven't been on a scavenger hunt in ages and forgot how fun they could be!
They're doing some construction on the Metro, which I was aware of to a point, but wasn't aware of as far as the obstruction of travel bit goes. I arrived around eleven fifteen, and was at first pleased by the lack of throngs, since it was also Shamrock Fest and the drinking holiday tends to subsume DC and everything with spectacular crowds of green-clad people looking to get drunk. There was a pack of loud obnoxious dudebros there, though, but they were everywhere yesterday. Drinking holidays do that.
In any case, I should have been warned by the complete lack of people that something was up. We made it to the next Metro stop, which was West Falls Church, and the train shut down. The barely distinguishable voice from the speakers told us to go to a free shuttle to East Falls Church, and confused and annoyed, all of the passengers going to DC poured out of the train and to the shuttle. I managed to get there ahead of the crowd, but let me tell you- that was one stuffed shuttle. All of this took ages and probably more than half an hour off my travel time, so it was fortunate I planned for this thing to take ages. (More because of crowding issues, not because of the Metro being in various stages of construction.)
Apparently some people had been in commute for an hour and had gotten nowhere. Jesus. Meanwhile, I made my way to L'Enfant fairly normally from there, although the Metro was ridiculously crowded once we started getting closer to DC and Metro center. I sat with some fellow daycare teachers and we discussed our jobs as the train drew steadily closer to my destination. (The yellow/green line was fun because really it was the next stop after L'Enfant. So, hop on, hop off.) At that point I went to Starbucks and got a protein breakfast and an Izze because I had not eaten anything up to that point. The Starbucks was manned by two disgruntled guys who kept announcing that their location wasn't serving anything hot- no doubt made grumpy by all the surly customers complaining about it.
The hunt had everyone meet in the room outside the coat check-in on the main level. This really was a good place to hold a Harry Potter scavenger hunt, because with very little exercise of imagination, one could picture these rooms being part of Hogwarts. It's grand and old fashioned, giant portraits, fancy wallpaper, stuffy couches and old tables, and a big chandelier along with wall sconces. They were electrically lit, but made to flicker like candle flame. (I know, aflightoffancy, you hate that.) I arrived ten minutes early and signed in. When the rest of the people came in, they gathered everyone together and explained the hunt.
Basically, we were all given team sheets to write the team members names down and sign a consent form saying we took full responsibility for ourselves during this event. We all named our teams (Mine was Expelliarmus Chocolate Frog) and received a sheet of paper with twenty-five or so questions on it, each for certain galleries. Questions like: Go to gallery 31. You will find the slithery traces of a Nagini-like creature in an object that could be the Horcrux for Hufflepuff. On the flipside you'll see a saint. What is the saint's name? We had an hour and a half to find everything and then go back to the starting point. This was tons of fun. Everyone scattered and started inspecting all the paintings like mad.
I got back about half an hour earlier than all the other teams, but got a couple questions wrong. (Right paintings, wrong answer. I put down that someone was cheating with loaded dice in a painting about a man cheating at cards and dice because I didn't understand someone was giving him a signal, for example.) Didn't win, but it was still great fun and I would still do it all over again. It was a great way to see the gallery and just plain out a good time all around. I haven't been on a scavenger hunt in ages and forgot how fun they could be!