Puzzlefest

It turns out that a competitive crossword puzzle competition is our idea of a good time. If we didn't realize we were nerds before, this knowledge definitely solidifies it.

This past Saturday was the annual Arlington puzzle festival, and we were able to attend for the first time ever. Historically it's the same weekend as Hallowiener, and Hallowiener takes precedence.

We arrived bright and early for the group puzzle competition, which was surprisingly hard. There were some word puzzles followed by a more complicated puzzle that involved 32 trivia questions, the answers to which had to be grouped together according to rules we had to figure out. For example, mail, harmony, commerce, and bay were all in group E, because sticking an e in front of each word results in an internet thing. Meanwhile dead, north, and Irish were all in group C because they're all seas. We didn't start to figure all of this out until close to the end of the time limit, so we didn't get as many points as we could have. It was a lot of fun to stretch our brains out, even if we didn't ultimately do very well.

Then it was the crossword puzzle competition, which I did horribly at. Kevin and Zach finished the first two puzzles in the time limit, and Sarah almost did, but I had a whole empty section even on the easiest puzzle. By the last puzzle I was able to figure out maybe 4 words.

We decided not to stick around for the Sudoku competition in the afternoon, because we had too much other stuff to do. Maybe next year we'll be able to spend the entire day doing puzzles. Even if we only go for the group competition again, it'll be a lot of fun.