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Schedule

BCinDC planned a ton of fun, exciting events in Washington, D.C., as well as some options to venture into nearby Maryland and Virginia.

Throughout the Convention:

  • Special name badges
  • Multiple book buffets
  • Fantastic goodie bags
  • Creative, specially-created games
  • Literary/DC-related board games available
  • Reverse scavenger hunt
  • Socializing with other BookCrossers and lovers of literature

Thursday- Extreme Early Bird:

  • 4:15 PM- Anyone already at the Crystal City Sheraton meets in the main lobby to travel by METRO to Union Station. All others arrive at Union Station on your own (if you need assistance getting there, see below about letting us know).
  • 5:00 PM – Dinner at Union Station in Washington, D.C. (your choice from a wide variety, at your cost)
  • 6:15 PM – Gather at the Center Cafe area of Union Station and begin picking up your tickets from the members of the Planning Team
  • 6:30 PM – You may begin boarding the Tourmobile buses parked outside of Union Station. They will not guarantee that we will get seats on the same bus. However, if we are all there boarding early we will be first in line to choose the seats that we want.
  • 7:00 PM – The Tourmobile Twilight Tour leaves Union Station (don’t miss the bus)! The tour is described as driving in the National Mall area to point out the sights that are visible and specially lit at night. In addition to what we will drive by on the bus, there will be stops at the following places:
    • Jefferson Memorial – 20 minutes
    • Franklin D Roosevelt Memorial – 25 minutes
    • Lincoln Memorial (to include Korean War Memorial and Vietnam War Memorials) – 40 minutes
    • World War II Memorial – 25 minutes

    The stop times are approximate. There will be a live narrator on the bus who will exit the bus with us to further give information and interesting tidbits about the sights. The length of the tour is between 3 and 3.5 hours.

  • 10:00-10:30 PM – The Tourmobile returns to Union Station. We will escort people back to their hotels via Metro or private car as necessary.

Friday- Early Bird:

  • 10:00am-2:00pm- Choose from a number of outings in Washington, D.C.:
    • U.S. Capitol Building
    • The National Archives
    • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    • Bureau of Engraving and Printing
    • Library of Congress
    • Release walk & snarfari
  • 2:00pm-4:00pm- Tour of historical Old Town Alexandria, Virginia including the Potomac River Waterfront, the Torpedo Factory Art Center, and the City Hall/Market Square

Friday- Convention:

  • 3:00pm- Registration opens at the Crystal City Sheraton
  • 5:00pm-6:00pm- Locals will each lead a small group to area restaurants and there will be “book club” discussions by genre during dinner. (you are responsible for the cost)
  • 6:30pm-10:30pm- Cash bar available
  • 7:00pm- Welcome speech
  • 7:00pm-10:00pm- Kickoff reception with light snacks and exciting activities
  • 10:00pm- Atrium will remain open for socializing and browsing the book buffet

Saturday- Convention:

  • 7:00am-9:00am- Breakfast in hotel (included in registration)
  • 9:00am-10:00am- Travel to Washington, D.C.
  • 10:00am-12:00pm- Morning activities (choose one):
    • Library of Congress tour
    • General D.C. release walk
    • Literary Museum Hopper- see a little slice of different museums
    • Stroll through the Sculpture Gardens
    • Visit a museum of your choice
    • Old Post Office Tower tour
    • U.S. Capitol Building tour
  • 12:00pm-1:00pm- Lunch (not included in registration)
  • 1:00pm-4:00pm- Afternoon activities (choose 2 short activities or 1 long activity)
    • Library of Congress tour (short)
    • General D.C. release walk (short)
    • Literary Museum Hopper- see a little slice of different museums (short or long)
    • Stroll through the Sculpture Gardens (short)
    • Visit a museum of your choice (short)
    • Old Post Office Tower tour (short)
    • U.S. Capitol Building tour (short)
    • Snarfari & release walk (long)
    • Extra long release walk (long)
  • 4:00pm-7:00pm- Free time:
    • Visit a monument of your choice
    • Relax and read
    • Board games at the hotel
    • Watch videos at the hotel
  • 7:00pm-10:00pm- Banquet dinner (included in registration), speeches, presentations, quiz game
  • 10:00pm- Atrium will remain open for socializing and browsing the book buffet

Sunday- Convention:

  • 7:00am- Early morning release walk in Crystal City
  • 8:00am-10:00am- Farewell Brunch (included in registration) & raffle prizes handed out
  • 11:00am- Choose an activity:
    • Book Thing of Baltimore trip- free books and possibly Poe landmarks
    • Battlefield tour- visit American Civil War battlefields
    • National Zoo release walk
    • Old Town Alexandria tour & release walk
    • Arlington Cemetery visit/tour
    • International Day of the Book Festival

Sunday- Hanger-On Dinner:

  • Dinner at Murphy’s Grand Irish Pub

16 Responses to “Schedule”

  • Jan (Sherlockfan):

    You have asked about my entree choice for Saturday night dinner. I don’t remember what choices I made before which doesn’t help deciding now. If the fish dish is Filet of Sole Medley and does not include shellfish in the Medley bit that is what I would like. Is it an A-Grade pain to check that out because I am allergic to shellfish?

    Only 108 days to go. I must make decisions about activities and order raffle tickets, hooded sweater etc. Really looking forward to this whole event.
    Warm regards to you busy organisers.
    Jan

  • SciFisstrs:

    I noticed there are no authors scheduled to speak at the convention. Will there be authors there that is not known yet?

  • One thing Discoverylover and I want to do – and I am sure others will want to come with us – is to visit the tree planted in memory of Becky on the shores of the Potomac.
    Pete

  • katekintail:

    SciFisstrs- We have one author booked and are working on a second. I think we were holding off on making an announcement until we officially had the second name, but that’s a good question and I’ll talk to the other organizers about when we’re going to make the official announcement(s).

  • MissMarkey:

    How can I change some of my choices of activity. e.g I signed up for the Thurs eve meal and trolley tour and will not now be arriving until Fri morning in Washington so that won’t be possible. Also I now fancy the Book Festival instead of previous choice of zoo. I too would also like to visit Becky’s tree.

  • katekintail:

    I’m 99% sure we’ll be stopping by Becky’s tree during the Old Town Alexandria early bird afternoon activity on Friday afternoon. One of us will send you an e-mail about changing your other choices, but it won’t be difficult to change from the National Zoo to the Kensington Book Festival. Look for an e-mail from us soon (we convention planning meeting in about an hour so we’ll be a little tied up tonight)

  • Azuki:

    Hi just wonder when the reverse scavenger hunt list will be posted? Do we have the whole time of the convention to do the hunt?

  • katekintail:

    We finished the rough draft of the list quite a few months ago. There’s one item on it we’re waiting to see about in the next few weeks before we release the list. But we’ll have it up as soon as we’re sure about that one so you can start collecting books and thinking about themed releases.

    The scavenger hunt will be due by 11:59pm Saturday night so we can give the prizes out at the farewell breakfast the next morning. You’ll have Friday and Saturday to release your books for it.

  • Pritzkit:

    On sat you say choose 2 short or one long. How do we know which is which?

  • Dena:

    Is the Smithsonian Hopper tour the same for Saturday Morning and Afternoon
    or does it repeat?

  • katekintail:

    Great question. The answer is… both! There will be 18 stops on the Museum Hopper and it will be up to you (and your partner/group) to choose which ones you want to visit. If you want to do all of them, you probably will need more than 2 hours. So here are the choices:
    1. You could do the morning option and not see everything
    2. You could do the morning option and then in the afternoon block you could visit all the ones you didn’t get to in the morning (and have time leftover to spend at a museum or do another short activity listed)
    3. You could just do the afternoon option and try to get to all of them.
    It all depends on how fast you want to/can move, if you want to just see things in museums of interest, or if you want to complete the entire worksheet for bonus Bally Bucks.

    i.e. if you go in the morning, you will not have to repeat anything you saw in the morning again in the afternoon. Also, it says 1-4 for the afternoon but the museums close at 5:30 so I’ll probably allow people until then to complete it. The local BCinDC group is doing a second dry run of it tomorrow so I’ll be able to see how long it takes them to find all of the items in the museums. Last time we ran it, it took about 3 hours, but there have been some changes to the format and which items are included since then.

    I do have a suggested set, based on time–
    Suggested Morning (10am-12pm):
    American History Museum
    Freer Gallery
    Sackler Gallery
    Ripley Center- International Gallery
    Museum of African Art
    Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
    Air & Space Museum
    American Indian Museum

    Suggested Afternoon (1pm-4pm):
    Natural History Museum
    American History Museum
    Freer Gallery
    Sackler Gallery
    Ripley Center- International Gallery
    Museum of African Art
    Rose Garden
    Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
    Air & Space Museum
    American Indian Museum
    National Gallery of Art- East
    National Gallery of Art- West

  • katekintail:

    I’ve added (long) and (short) to the afternoon block events on the schedule. Hope that helps!

  • The breakfast in the hotel on Saturday morning – is that included in registration or in the booking of a hotel room? And if I’m not staying at the motel is it really worthwhile to make my way to the hotel and then BACK in to the city for the morning activities?

  • katekintail:

    @DiscoveryLover The Saturday morning breakfast is included in registration. It’s up to you if it’s worth it to head to the hotel and then back in DC or not. We’ll probably have morning announcements, 2 raffle prizes will be given out, and, of course, there’s the book buffets for daily release fodder. We might also have some BookCrossers speaking about the great BookCrossing Kiva group. But if you decide it doesn’t make sense to go all the way there and back again, we’ll understand :-)

  • I won’t be at the convention this year…too much going on. If you are blogging about the convent, please let me know so I can live vicariously through you.

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