Astronomers Do It At Night

Over winter break I went to Seattle for the AAS conference. It lasted from the Sunday immediately before classes to that Thursday. Because of this, I skipped the first week of school. At first it sounded alright- in fact I was a bit excited (come on, don't tell me you're not excited when a class got canceled?) Once I emailed all my professors and got homework for the week though, I wasn't really too keen on the idea of missing the first five days of class...

I presented a poster over my research from last summer at NAU. It was great- lots of interesting and stimulating people came around and asked me about my research. I met a lot of really cool people- astronomers and students alike.

Alec, Jenny and I in front of my poster!

Last year Chris went to AAS in DC and whenever I called he always told me how tired he was and how busy he was the whole time. At the time, I had a hard time believing that you could be busy all day at an astronomy conference... Yeahhhh, how wrong I was. Talks started at 9 in the morning and lasted until about 5. There were a few invited talks each day that almost everyone attended (big conference rooms, well-known astronomers speaking), and in between those were special session talks over specific areas of astronomy that were smaller. And going on all day in the exhibit hall was the poster session where people like me stood next to their poster all day waiting for people to come by and look. The conference in general was socially tiring, but worth it.

After the "conference day" was over, I would be invited to dinner with someone from somewhere, or I went to scheduled dinners. After dinner was drinks, after drinks was talking, after talking was finally getting back to the hotel to pass out in bed. Lather, rinse, repeat!

I did get to go out while there as well. We went to Pike Place Market...

One evening we went to the Space Needle. It was really neat to see the city at night!

Nicole (from my REU!), me, Teresa and Jenny at the top of the space needle.

We went to Chinatown for lunch one day and got dim sum (only two vegetarian options... sad...) We also went to the original Starbucks! Not that exciting really, but I had to go out of principle. One evening I visited University of Washington and got to talk to their grad students and faculty about grad school (eek!) and see the department. I also went for a run down on the waterfront...

And got lost on the way back. After the conference ended, Jenny and I stayed until the following Sunday, bring our trip length to a whole week. We had planned this out months ago, and in hindsight I probably should have come back to school as soon as possible to get back in the groove of classes and catch up on what I missed, buuuuut... how many chances do you have to go to Seattle (paid for, no less)?

Things we did:
-Visit the EMP (Experience Music Project) and Science Fiction Museum (a music and science nerd's dream come true)
-Eat at Top Pot Donuts
-Went to the market again
-Visited the Fremont Troll (a huge stone troll under the Fremont bridge!)
-Went to the Erotic Bakery... haha. It was very interesting.

That was about it. Two nights Jenny and I stayed with a friend of Alec's, and the last night we stayed with Keaton (he did an REU at Indiana and stayed through early September). Then on Sunday we left early to catch a bus to SeaTac airport and from there it was back home. After a layover in Minneapolis, I made it back to Indy about midnight and then drove back to Bloomington.

All in all, Seattle was great! I could do without the weather and the extremely poorly-designed road systems... but the stores, restaurants and nightlife were diverse and unique. Skipping the first week of school? Not one of my best ideas, but I had a great time anyway. Hopefully next year I'll get to go to AAS again!