Touchdown in Toronto

Posted by Tara C. Smith on May 21, 2007
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Well, I made it here for the American Society for Microbiology general meeting. In Canada. So far, I had the people at my hotel completely screw up where the airport shuttle left from, leaving me waiting at the airport for an hour and a half, screwing up my reservation by almost shorting me a night, then having no internet access in my room (not just that I’d have to pay; but no possibility of getting it because my floor isn’t even wired, and my roomate–whom I’ve not even met yet–is already settled in). So I’m here in this little tiny corner lounge where there’s a wireless signal, right by the door with a cold breeze whenever someone walks in.

Oh, and our bus driver got lost on the way back from tonight’s reception and wasted an hour of my time. *And*, it’s Victoria Day and stuff closed early, or something. Toronto, you suck today. But there’s supposed to be fabulous weather the rest of the week, and there are more interesting sessions and posters than I can ever hope to catch, and I did at least make it to E.O. Wilson’s entertaining talk, so Monday will shortly be ancient history and hopefully tomorrow will be much better….

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Comments

  1. #1 Monado
    May 22, 2007

    It sounds like you had a bit of a rough landing, but at least you’re here. Perhaps we can get together for a drink of spring water.

    - Mona

  2. #2 John Logsdon
    May 22, 2007

    It sounds like I did the right thing by skipping Day 1. I’m sorry that I missed EO, but glad that I’ll be arriving on a regular buisiness day. Was the opening reception good? See you tomorrow!
    John

  3. #3 Unsympathetic reader
    May 22, 2007

    If you have a telephone, you’ve got internet access. Who needs all that bloated graphics stuff anyway? Back in the days of Usenet and text mail programs, 14400 baud was *blazing* speed.

    On a side note: I’ve never found conference-designated hotel accomodations to be as cheap or as convenient as ones I can find for myself. A recent meeting in Montreal directed attendees to hotels some distance away from the meeting center and ignored the many less expensive, ’boutique’ hotels only a few blocks away from the meeting.

  4. #4 Unsympathetic reader
    May 22, 2007

    If you have a telephone, you’ve got internet access. Who needs all that bloated graphics stuff anyway? Back in the days of Usenet and text mail programs, 14400 baud was *blazing* speed.

    On a side note: I’ve never found conference-designated hotel accomodations to be as cheap or as convenient as ones I can find for myself. A recent meeting in Montreal directed attendees to hotels some distance away from the meeting center and ignored the many less expensive, ’boutique’ hotels only a few blocks away from the meeting.

  5. #5 Tara Smith
    May 22, 2007

    The opening reception was OK, but I’m terrible at schmoozing, and they bussed us from the convention to the science center (~20 minutes on the bus) and then the buses didn’t start going to the hotels for another hour–and I’d have enough of the reception after about 20 minutes already. Then coupled with the aforementioned 45-minute-lost-driver-bus-ride back to the hotel and a crazy amount of work I still need to do, yeah, not a wonderful first day…

  6. #6 Monado
    May 23, 2007

    Let me know where and I will appear.

  7. #7 J-Dog
    May 23, 2007

    Ouch! Thanks for reminding me of why I hated it when I used to have to fly for a living, and all that it entails.
    I used to at least be able to cling to the thought that I was building up my Frequent Flyer Miles, so I hope you at least have THAT going for you.

    Looking at the bright side… things got to get better, oui?

  8. #8 Terry
    May 24, 2007

    “Victoria Day and stuff closed early or something”? And the whole city sucks because of a missed bus and a problem with your hotel room?

    Terry (a proud Torontonian also at ASM)

  9. #9 Tara Smith
    May 24, 2007

    It sucked *that day* and *for me*. You’ve never been worn out and annoyed after a day of longer-than-expected travel? Went out last night with a group of other bloggers and had dinner near the University; it was a great time, and today I’m hoping to take a few hours off to explore the city a bit. I do like Toronto…just a bad first experience here, is all.