 |
| It's a LOT bigger on the inside than it looks. |
Now, as is my general habit, I emailed ahead of time to ask about pictures (they aren't OK every where, so I like to ask ahead of time to be safe. I also would like to avoid another DISASTER like the mansions in Rhode Island). I received correspondence back from a super friendly and helpful guy named Luke, who originally offered to give me and my sorority sister a tour, but had some personal things come up. Totally understandable and OK! So my soror and I went in hoping to do a self guided tour. There were three things I specifically wanted to see: The room dedicated to African-Americans, the room dedicated to women, and the main rotunda (in my experience, main rotundas are pretty dope).
 |
| Even if the pictures you take don't do them justice |
So, rotunda and an atrium (!), check! No problem! There was a wedding party taking photos in and around the building (and understandably so- it really was a pretty place) but in trying to find the other locations, we hit a bit of a bump in the road. In walking back and forth trying to orient ourselves, I'm more than sure the couple will find two black chicks looking confused and tired in the backgrounds of a picture or two.
Eventually, through dumb luck, we found the room dedicated to the role of women in Ohio's political history. I didn't get a chance to browse in detail, but I thought the banners and displays were neat.
I wasn't able to find the room dedicated to African Americans though. On the map we were given, it seemed to be directly across the hallway from the Ladies' Gallery. However, what we found were a bunch of locked offices. Both the Ohio House and Senate chambers were locked even though no one was in them (in Rhode Island I was able to take pictures of their chambers since they were not in session). Also, the museum portion of the building was locked up and gated off. So I couldn't even enjoy that. There weren't ANY employees around the building (only near the doors and in the gift shop, it would've been helpful to have a guard or something in the main rooms like the atrium. Instead, we kinda blindly wandered around until we realized we needed to head back to our convention for the second half of our day.
 |
| The locked up museum.... |
 |
| I did, however, find this amusingly upset elf that used to represent the Cleveland Browns. Oh Brownies, how STEELER NATION laughs at you. How is this supposed to be intimidating? HA! |
On the way out, we (attempted) to ask the officer the fastest way back to the Convention Center- would it be faster to walk or wait much longer for the shuttle that was supposed to pick us up but was running late. I guess it was "tease a tourist" day and we missed the memo, because he kept giving us vague non-answers with a goofy grin on his face. By this point, we were tired, disappointed we got lost in the building, and running the risk of being late for a very important part of our conference. We ended up just walking away from this guy and his stupid grin and finding our shuttle- making it back just on time!
While I won't totally call this visit a bust. The people we DID interact with, save that last doofus, were super friendly. There were a lot of beautiful things to take in, we just wish we'd had time to actually see them all (or, have someone nearby that knows what they are talking about). If I'm ever back in Columbus, I'd try again.
Thank you again for reading my blog. Stay tuned for my next conquered state: Nevada!
As always, see you on the next adventure!
