I'm meeeeeeeelting!

I'm not build for this weather and I'm not a happy camper. Heck, I'm just not a happy camper in general at the minute. Let's recap.

I got up at 2:45am Saturday morning to get ready for my 3:30 pick up to get to Stansted. I was running on automatic, because what little sleep I got was broken up by waking every 30 minutes or so cause I didn't want to sleep through my alarm. At 2am, I gave up and spent a half hour petting the cat that had climbed up on my chest and was purring away quite contently (he's been getting more affectionate since we put a collar on him, go figure).

The flight was perfectly normal by Ryanair standards and, aside from a bit of drama when my poster tube fell off the luggage belt on the wrong side of the luggage pick-up area, the bus trip to Vienna from Bratislava was uneventful. We took the tube to the hotel and that's when we knew we were going to be in for a bumpy ride.

The rooms were a sauna. There was no AC and no wind circulation. My room faces the afternoon sun and is just above a busy street. Joy. The heat was so bad that I had to open a few windows. People who know me will realize just how bad it was. To make matters worse, although there is wireless internet at the hotel, apparently my room is one of the few that gets no reception. Oy.

Anyway. We got some euro and some sunscreen to protect my pasty white skin and headed out on walkabout. It was a good pootle, but it was just too warm. The best bit of that afternoon was having an ice cream cone (in a proper cone, that disintegrates in your mouth as soon as you bite on it). The heat got the better of me though, cause I started getting a bit woozy. Went back to the hotel and had a cool shower and a nap, but I elected not to go out to the opening reception. I didn't feel all that grand by then so I had Katy call me and then went to bed. From what I hear though, it was nice and then people went out to drink afterwards. There are a few places that I want to go see for myself when it's cooler, so I'll keep note and play hookie at some point during the conference.

We're there now. I don't like the layout of the place – it's on 3 levels of the venue and it's a real maze to get from point A to point B. The posters are on 2 levels, which means that since I'm in a back corner, I don't expect to get a lot of visitors…

I'm also pissed off about lunch and will be putting in a formal complaint with the organizers. When I registered, there was a specific form entry for dietary requirements and food allergies. I though to myself, yay, I might be able to finally have a proper lunch at one of these things. Of course not, silly boy. I just asked the catering staff to make sure (I had to use my multi-lingual “I'm going to die if I eat any of the following… ” card) and they said that there was garlic in everything. So yeah. NO SOUP FOR YOU! Bastards.

It's not so bad. I can have a good breakfast at the hotel and I can have nibbles during the coffee breaks (that marbled cake is nice! but you can't live on cake alone – no matter what some people might think). I also came prepared a bit and have some nibbles of my own. It's always the case though. My diet goes to shit when I'm on conferences… I'll go back living off salads when I get back home.