Esperanto in the USA
Fri May 28, 2010 22:17 EST (UTC -5)Last year, just before Andy and I left for our European vacation, Andy made a quick trip to St. Louis for Esperanto-USA's national congress (convention). At the time, I said,
Although he makes spontaneous trips like that all the time, I wasn't ready to take a plane trip halfway across the country on a few days' notice. He called me a few times and seemed to be having a good time. I wish I could have been there. Maybe we can go together next year with some more planning.
Well, with a little more planning, we're going. This year's congress is in Washington, DC, which I first visited only a few months ago with some other friends. There were piles of snow everywhere then, and now it's probably as hot as it is here, so that should be interesting. Oh, and I have my own camera this time!
I'm in Gainesville, and Andy is in South Florida, but isn't stopping us from traveling together. Tomorrow, Andy's taking a flight that goes from Fort Lauderdale to Jacksonville and then to Baltimore. I'm going to get on the plane in Jacksonville. Andy's dad is going to pick us up in Baltimore and take us to Bethesda, Maryland, where the congress actually is. We'll be staying with friends of Andy's dad. On the way home, Andy and I (and Andy's dad's car) are taking the Auto Train from Lorton, Virginia, to Sanford, Florida, overnight. From there we'll drive back to Gainesville, hopefully in time for my class.
It's funny. I never used to consider myself a big traveler. Before last year, I had only flown in an airplane twice. Tomorrow I'll have flown five times in 369 days!
Anyway, when we're not traveling, we'll be checking out the sights in Washington and spending time with some cool Esperantists from throughout the country. I expect to have a good time and do a lot of interesting stuff. I'll be sure to write all about it when I get back.
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3 comments
#1 by Kate: Sat May 29, 2010 15:40 EST (UTC -5)
Your blog posts seem to be more and more like Wikipedia articles to me. I find myself expecting to see explaining links to such words as "snow" or "plane", as I'm used to. ;)
Before this New Year, I had never flown by plane. By the 5th of July I'll have flown seven times in 188 days :P
#2 by Keith: Mon May 31, 2010 21:31 EST (UTC -5)
I'd kind of like to go to a Kongreso one of these days. I'm not an interesting person, I know, and I really can't understand spoken Esperanto very well (I get bits and pieces of podcasts, interviews, etc. that I download, but it's not like I can really understand exactly what is being said). Furthermore, I get sick in cars, so I can only imagine how bad it would be in a plane.
If I were to attend a Kongreso, it would have to be enlanda, definitely. How would I get to it in a country speaking a foreign language? Like, the UK will be convening in Korea in 2012; the only thing I know about Korean is that it's kinda like Japanese (which I know like two things in).
#3 by Andy: Tue Jun 01, 2010 20:35 EST (UTC -5)
I'm so glad that you decided to come with me this year! Looking forward to reading about the Convention from your point of view! :-)