The coolest things about this year’s conference is that my twin sister is here with me! This is her first ALA conference and we started off with a bang.
After checking in at our hotel, we headed over to the convention center to pick up our badges and take a swing through the exhibit hall.
After that, our first stop was the Holiday House reception at the Park Grill in Millennium Park. It was a nice reception and, afterwards, we went up top to the Bean. After a few photos we wandered over to listen to the end of concert in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. We got to hear the Grant Park Orchestra, conducted by the Portland Symphony’s Music Director Carlos Kalmar, and pianist Conrad Tao play the end of The Firebird. It was a great introduction to Chicago.
From there we walked to an ice cream social hosted by Penguin Random House at the Chicago Athletic Association’ Stagg Court, a converted basketball court!
We ended the evening at a MacMillan dessert event, where lots of authors were on hand My favorite comment to my sister was, “Lemony Snicket is right behind you!”
Tomorrow is chock full of meetings for me, but there will be some fun author sightings and other fun conference events to tell you about.
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