washington DC
I got back from DC last night. It was a good trip .... for what it was. We (co-workers and me) flew in on Wednesday afternoon, checked into our hotel, got some lunch and the conference started that night. 3 days (Wednesday night through Saturday morning) of sessions on healthcare marketing. Fun stuff.... right. Well, we did get to do some "fun" stuff. Thursday night was a dinner cruise on the Potomac that all attendees were invited to. I thought it was going to be a more scenic tour (ala Chicago River architecture tours), but it was more like those dinner cruises off Navy Pier - dinner, drinks, "entertainment" (in our case it was a live band) - and yes, people were getting down. There was even a conga line, but (fortunately) I missed it while out on the deck. It was three hours long, which was way too long for me. My favorite part was watching the planes come in for landing at the Wash National airport - it's right on the river, so the planes were flying really low over us. Friday night was much more enjoyable, one of our vendors (they publish our consumer and employee magazines) hosted a dinner for all their clients, and they are a very nice group, so that was actually fun. We had to play that "two truths and a lie" game, which was actually fun. Might have been the open bar. But they were a fun group.
After the conference ended on Saturday at noon, one of my co-workers and I killed the time until our 7pm flight by walking around to see the sights. It was hot and I didn't have any good walking shoes (just a pair of business casual loafery shoes). But, it was nice to see the sights. Of course I took a ton of pictures.
These are all in my LJ scrapbook, so you can click to see them bigger
The Vietnam Wall .... I think I have this exact picture from when I was in DC in 1996 on our 8th grade trip
Going to see Honest Abe
Abe's view
Korean War Memorial (that's me and my co-worker in the reflections)
The World War II memorial ... this was my favorite because there were a few WWII veterans there, and they all reminded me of my Grandpa - he was in WWII with the Navy
My patriotic close-up of the Washington Monument
Views from the Washington Monument
Downtown DC
The Castle of the Smithsonian (the information center)
The Arts & Industries Museum ... it was the only Smithsonian museum I really wanted to go into, unfortunately it was close for renovations :( we didn't have time to go in any others
Despite the many pictures I took of El Capital, we never actually made it to that end of the National Mall ... we had a flight to catch, plus we were super sweaty and my feet were starting to hurt
We wanted to go to the National Archives, but there was a long line out the front door (from what I remember, the Dec of Indep and whatever else is there is all right inside the main entrance) and we didn't have the time or desire to wait.
Taken on our walk back to the Metro
Ye Olde Post Office
And that was our afternoon in our nation's capital
Next year's conference is in San Francisco, so if I go, I'm totally going to turn it into a week-long vacation.
So, the Cubs. I feel like I completely missed them being in the playoffs (even though I didn't miss much). I was in DC (or on a plane) during all of their games, and since I was on Eastern time, the first two games started at 10pm and our sessions started at 7:30/8:00, so I slept through most of them, and I missed the last game because of my flight. So, even though they completely choked, they are not in the playoffs very often, so I'm kind of disappointed that I missed out on the experience - didn't get to watch games with my family or trade game comments the next day with co-workers. Oh well. Next year, right? When is this "next year" going to come?
After the conference ended on Saturday at noon, one of my co-workers and I killed the time until our 7pm flight by walking around to see the sights. It was hot and I didn't have any good walking shoes (just a pair of business casual loafery shoes). But, it was nice to see the sights. Of course I took a ton of pictures.
These are all in my LJ scrapbook, so you can click to see them bigger
The Vietnam Wall .... I think I have this exact picture from when I was in DC in 1996 on our 8th grade trip
Going to see Honest Abe
Abe's view
Korean War Memorial (that's me and my co-worker in the reflections)
The World War II memorial ... this was my favorite because there were a few WWII veterans there, and they all reminded me of my Grandpa - he was in WWII with the Navy
My patriotic close-up of the Washington Monument
Views from the Washington Monument
Downtown DC
The Castle of the Smithsonian (the information center)
The Arts & Industries Museum ... it was the only Smithsonian museum I really wanted to go into, unfortunately it was close for renovations :( we didn't have time to go in any others
Despite the many pictures I took of El Capital, we never actually made it to that end of the National Mall ... we had a flight to catch, plus we were super sweaty and my feet were starting to hurt
We wanted to go to the National Archives, but there was a long line out the front door (from what I remember, the Dec of Indep and whatever else is there is all right inside the main entrance) and we didn't have the time or desire to wait.
Taken on our walk back to the Metro
Ye Olde Post Office
And that was our afternoon in our nation's capital
Next year's conference is in San Francisco, so if I go, I'm totally going to turn it into a week-long vacation.
So, the Cubs. I feel like I completely missed them being in the playoffs (even though I didn't miss much). I was in DC (or on a plane) during all of their games, and since I was on Eastern time, the first two games started at 10pm and our sessions started at 7:30/8:00, so I slept through most of them, and I missed the last game because of my flight. So, even though they completely choked, they are not in the playoffs very often, so I'm kind of disappointed that I missed out on the experience - didn't get to watch games with my family or trade game comments the next day with co-workers. Oh well. Next year, right? When is this "next year" going to come?