New Discoveries At the Winchester Mystery House

I wasn't going to do another entry about my work yet but I'm just still so thrilled by what happened at work today that I really can't help myself! I turn 26 in three days, and as a birthday present to me I suppose, Mrs. Winchester's "beautiful but bizarre"™ mansion has revealed some more of its beautiful secrets!

Today at work, I was cleaning before the tour when I noticed two of my superiors in the tour department crouched in the tiny closet in the Carriage Entrance Hall. I questioned what they were doing in there (it's a very tiny closet) and one of them told me they had found a dry well:

New Flight Date!

Wheeeeeee

 I'm unable to remember where I've said what (did I say this on this blog? Was it just on facebook and/or tumblr? Fuck if I know.) but by now at least some of you know I did have to push my flight back for a variety of reasons. (Not least of which being that I would prefer to work the entire summer before I leave.)

Well, now I have the new flight date! 8 September - three days after the anniversary of Sarah Winchester's death - I'll be flying out of the San Jose airport mid-morning. I have one layover in Los Angeles, which is an airport I've been to once before when I was much younger so I don't remember much about it but it can't be any worse than the time I got completely lost at the Salt Lake City airport...

My final day of work will thus be on 31 August and I can grab my paycheck for August a couple of days before I leave, which is nice. I do arrive in New York after sundown which is... not so nice, but it is what it is, and it's still not that late. Hopefully I can arrange for someone to pick me up, even if it is just an Uber/Lyft driver.

It's exciting, right?
-Nym-

I Took An Adventure Yesterday

This is a very photo-heavy post beneath the cut. Just warning you.

I've been compiling a list of the most beautiful places in Santa Clara County - I'm picking places that are buildings or formal/manicured gardens, not natural beauty (though there's certainly a lot of that around here; I just want the list to be manageable). I'm also not including restaurants or shops.

And yesterday, I got the opportunity to visit three of the places on my list.

The San Jose Municipal Rose Garden, the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, and Mission Santa Clara. While I did visit them on crutches (and thus I could not walk the labyrinth at the CSE) I got a lot of photos...

So It Turns Out I'm A Little Psychic

Okay so the title of this blog entry isn't entirely serious. But honestly, I don't know what to make of this dream I had? On 14 May, in my journal, I wrote about a weird but entertaining dream I'd had the night before. I've censored some names, but otherwise what I wrote was as follows:

Immigrants: We Get the Job Done

Last night was the Tony awards. Last night, the Broadway smash sensation "Hamilton" took home 11 of the 16 Tonys it was nominated for. And last night, a Polish immigrant girl who has always struggled with that part of her identity got to hear, on national television, people cheering on the line "Immigrants - we get the job done!"

I wanted to put a video of the performance here but it's not online yet.

Avenging Nathan Hale

Last week, a beloved coworker left the company because a family situation has made it so that she needs to move back to Virginia. (I plan to visit her over there once I get settled enough on the east coast to travel.) To send her off properly, of course, we held another Winchester Nerf War. The theme was vigilantes. Some people dressed as Batman or the Green Arrow. Sarah dressed as the Winter Soldier.

Me? I dressed as Nathan Hale.

SHUT UP HE TOTALLY COUNTS OKAY?

Sarah got it, and a couple of other people sort of got it when I gave my quick explanation of "he was a spy in the Revolutionary War". I don't think anyone cared, we all just wanted to shoot each other. But, of course, I'm rather attached to Nathan Hale and I totally think he could count as a vigilante, and I fought well that night so I would say I avenged his untimely death in my own way. And since this is my blog and I can post whatever the shit I want, I'm gonna give the man his own post.

So You're Going to Visit The Winchester Mystery House...

By now you all know very well where I work.

 
I love my job, okay? I absolutely adore it, despite my antisocial tendencies. I love the history, I love the architecture and decor, I love the beautiful gardens, I love the creepy legends, and I love my coworkers. My biggest complaint tends to be the guests on my tours.

Which is no to say I hate everyone on my tours. On the contrary. Most people are great. I still rave about the really sweet man with the orange beard who bought his own flashlight on Christmas Eve (still one of the best guests I've ever had on one of my tours). Last weekend I had a pair of "Gravity Falls" cosplayers (my favourite show of all time) on one of my BTS tours and they were delightful and I genuinely wish I'd had more time to talk with them!

But occasionally we get the one crotchety person who ruins the whole fucking day even if everyone else we meet that day is amazing and wonderful.

That's where the idea for this post came from. But no one wants to be lectured of course. And often people find out I work here and ask me "Is it worth going? What should I expect?" So I decided to combine these two ideas into one post.

So you're going to visit the Winchester Mystery House? How can you get the most out of your experience and be the best possible guest you can be? Here are 10 tips!