Day 34 – Washington DC
Today was the second day of the NTLS meeting so I was moving shortly after 7:00 am, showered, went down to get coffee for both of us, ate cereal in the room and headed off just before 8:30 am.
The morning started with a short general session and then separated into the same working groups as yesterday. We worked through the morning in the EDUsummIT group, making good progress, before returning to the large group to report. Lunch was eaten with the editors group discussing how we would approach the panel session in the afternoon. The panel went well, starting with short introductions about each of the journals and moving into an interesting discussion about the ramifications of accepting video content as illustrative additions to traditional articles or as full narratives. The association presidents followed that panel session and then the meeting wound up before 3:00 pm.
I walked back to the hotel and spent some time working on email before Majella decided that she needed to find a fabric store. She googled and found something that looked a possibility about 3 km away. That was too far to walk so she persuaded me to join her to take the Metro. We found the route using Google Maps and headed off just after 4:00 pm.
There were no fabric retailers in the area that Majella had identified but it was close to the Capitol so we walked across to the Mall to see the Capitol across the pond and then decided to walk back to the hotel rather than backtrack to the Metro station. That took us a bit less than an hour by the time we visited Barnes and Noble looking for elves and bought chocolate, necessary to keep Majella moving, at a CVS.
We were back at the hotel soon after 5:30 pm, early enough not to miss all of the happy hour. We had a glass of wine and some conversation with Punya Mishra about cricket and other matters. I had hoped to catch Gerald Knezek there since he had suggested yesterday that we might meet up for dinner tonight. I had emailed him earlier in the afternoon about details but had no response.
By 6:30 pm we were back in our room and thinking about going out for dinner when I had a response from Gerald suggesting we meet at 7:00 pm. That worked for us and we went with Gerald, David Gibson, Mike Searson, Joke Voogt, and Margaret Cox to the Adams Morgan area. Most of us walked along Massachusetts Avenue (Gerald, Joke, and Margaret took a cab) and we were able to pause for a photo opportunity outside the Australian Embassy.
We had dinner at Madam’s Organ. I had BBQ ribs with french fries and collard greens. Majella had chicken salad. After dinner we walked next door to Bossa and had caipirinhas. That encouraged a relaxing walk back to the hotel where we were soon ready to turn in after another full day.
