I was there for work, darn it!

Aruba. Never on my radar, to be honest. Certainly, I've documented here in the blog my more recent fondness for beach vacations (Hello Hawaii! See you in a handful of weeks!), but the Caribbean was not someplace I'd thought I'd visit. No particular reason. Just not on my radar is all.

And then that Nancy came into my life.

I don't talk much about work on here, if at all, and I won't bore you with details of things. Some background, however:

• You all know I am a librarian. If you don't, you haven't paid attention.


• In recent years I have done work with specialized collections.


• My library has a collection of Caribbean materials.


• I am a pretty decent public speaker when needed.

All of that translates into a handful of days in Aruba at the invitation of the National Library. Nancy and I

• visited a college prep high school library







• visited the National Library (the Arubiana collection - the main library was closed for renovations)







• met with the Minister for Justice and Education (meeting not shown) in Oranjestad, the capital (shown)





• presented at the University one night (and look, Conrad showed up to hear us - aren't we spiffy in our outfits?)(and then we celebrated with a late and tasty meal of pizza - that's Ronny from the National Library with us






• presented to the college prep students the next day (that's Nancy, sipping a cappucino beforehand and with Astrid, the National Librarian, with her)

In short, it was work. Really, it was. Nancy and I spent several hours there refining the two presentations. We were on the go a fair bit. We met many people (gracious hosts and others). We kicked some butt in our presentation. We were floored by the Friday morning students who asked many excellent questions.

And then Saturday I went snorkeling. And we dined out nicely. And there was a wee bit of shopping (only a wee bit). In other words, fun. And that's a different blog post to come....