This conference was awesome. Tiring, but awesome. I nailed my speech. I was overwhelmed with how supportive and welcoming everyone was.
Yesterday, we had a field trip to the former Allegheny Arsenal site (where I acted as a sorta tour guide), Allegheny Cemetery with James Wudarczyk, and Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall. Then we had several fabulous lectures (including one by a high school student...she rocked it) and then a banquet of Pittsburghese cuisine. For those of you non-local, that includes pierogies, kilbassa and sauerkraut, halupki, rigatoni, fried chicken. Then we had a sing along of period music (16 years of living history helps with knowing so much of the words) and a fishbowl auction and door prizes - I won a couple books. Score. And today, we finished with a few more lectures. It was such an honor to present before so many knowledgeable people, as well as my loved ones (my mom, sister, and boyfriend, in this case).
For some reason, my "smart" phone likes to get pics out of order, so bear with me:
The people I'm with are my mom (in the blue dress), my sister (of In the Swan's Shadow blog, in brown) and my boyfriend Mark. There's a few photos of the Allegheny Arsenal explosion monument at the Cemetery, and of Soldiers and Sailors. I included the Peanuts/cartoons display because I'm a huge Peanuts/Snoopy collector.
