Brief post, because longdaytired, but two things happened today that you should know about.  The main feature of today’s convention was visiting local magnet schools.  This is what happened when we got there:

That’s every kid in the building at this international magnet school, lined up along the stairs on the way into the building, waving flags to welcome us to visit their school.  A few minutes after I took this, they filed out about 20 of them to sing a song at us in five or six languages, and then their Special Olympics team came out to run the steps and head out to the Special Olympics.  Which were today.

The schools I visited today were so wonderful that it actually ended up kinda depressing.  Luckily this happened:

You don’t want to know how much I spent on dinner.  But OMG.  Worth every dime, especially since I’m being reimbursed for all the dimes.

There was also seared ahi tuna.

In general, I’m finding I really like Raleigh, in a very distinct Man, I could see myself living here sort of way.  It strikes me as the type of city that Bloomington (as in Indiana, where I went to college) would be if Bloomington had two million people living in it.  It’s beautiful, for starters; wooded everywhere– I’ve never lived anywhere with this many trees– and the downtown area is clean and neat and fun.  I deliberately walked back from the convention center to see more of downtown, cutting through Fayetteville street and checking out the courthouse.  It’s just a really neat town, and the bits of it I’ve seen outside the downtown area (granted, through the windows of either a bus or a taxi) have been really cool too.  I’m sure part of it somewhere sucks but I haven’t seen it yet.

Tomorrow will either be tapas or oysters, and I’m gonna have barbecue for lunch.  I’m excited.  Oh, and the conference might be cool too.  I hope.