Friday, Day 1:
I woke up about an hour later than usual and had a leisurely but efficient breakfast before heading off to the Metro. I began reading Pack Animals (Torchwood #7) by Peter Anghelides on the long ride to the Library of Congress. While walking from the metro station to the LOC building, I passed two women around my age taking photos of a group of people walking across the street, escorted by the police. I have been watching news nonstop for the past two weeks, but I didn’t recognize anyone in the group (and I’ve been watching a lot of news). Looked like it might have been a representative and her congressional aides, but I’ve no clue. Anyway, I got to the Thomas Jefferson Library of Congress Building a little before 11.

The Library of Congress put together a really neat pop-up exhibit only available for a few days, called Library of Awesome. It was filled with parts of the LOC collection, grouped by themes. It was a great reminder that the LOC preserves these parts of culture that are important to fans. The people behind me as we went through the different exhibit rooms were in the most AMAZING Wonder Woman and Black Panther outfits ever. There was also a brave young man in an amazing Fantastic Four outfit. There were so many great comics on display, I couldn’t begin to list them all. But I did take photos of some of my favorites. In one room they had clips from TV shows playing and I walked in just as Buffy was sacrificing herself (feels!), following by a clip of Doctor Who with the Tenth Doctor. It was a surreal to be standing in the largest library in the entire world, watching Buffy and Doctor Who and looking at first appearances of comic book characters in print! There was also a neat letter from Gene Roddenbery to Carl Sagan.

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