Friday was a pretty exciting day. When I checked my email in the morning, I saw I had been invited to meet Senator Hutchison at a constituent coffee next month. Cool! That should be very interesting. I haven't met a senator since 4th grade when Sen. Phil Graham visited our school and I read an essay I wrote for him.
We had a few kids come in to the center who were avid readers and so excited to be at the Library of Congress. I had a fun conversation about the Hunger Games series with one middle schooler, and talked to a nice family from Idaho and some grandparents from Plano.
I was able to get together with several of the other Junior Fellows for lunch. They reserved one of the dining rooms for us to get together, chat, and discuss our projects. It was neat to hear what the others were doing and what they'd found so far. I was particularly jealous of some who were working in the European divisions. Apparently they have a tea time at 2 every Friday. Sounds fun.
The best part was getting to be in on a meeting about the visit from the Princess. Jane (YRC supervisor) had me and Joe (the college kid who will also be there) come to the meeting with her. On the way, she showed us a few cool places in the library, including the Members Room, which is a really nice room reserved for Congress. The meeting was held in one of a series of really nice rooms full of antique furniture and special collections of books, including Woodrow Wilson's personal book collection. At the meeting were several representatives from Belgium including security, press, etc. as well as a few from the LOC. I was so fascinating to hear and see the process of event planning for something of this magnitude. Definitely surreal to be part of a meeting discussing motorcades, exchanges of formal gifts, press placements, etc. Apparently the Crown Prince will also be visiting the LOC but will not be at the storytime. He'll be off privately viewing the Federalist Papers and a few other pieces of the LOC rare collections. Nice to be royalty. At the end of the meeting, we were all taken on a quick tour tracing the route of the Princess when she comes. So amazing! We went into the Ceremonial Office of the Librarian of Congress, the Main Reading Room, and the Whithall Pavilion. Finally I got into the Main Reading Room! It is breathtaking, and smells like books!! I felt all official and important being led by a security guard who cleared the path through the tourists and opened the normally locked doors to go right in. The Whithall is where I will be reading the stories to a bunch kids (both Belgian and American), the Princess, the press, etc. Yikes! The room was awesome though, especially because that is where the LOC collection of Stradivarius (sp?) violins are on display, as well as a rare flute collection. The funniest part of the tour was the Belgian security guy who we kept losing because he would wander off to look at something or take pictures.
Though it was amazing to be in on meeting, it made me more nervous about the whole thing, At least I have plenty of time to prepare. Now I have to figure out what to read. I don't think I'll take the advice of one of the guys at church to read Everybody Poops
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