The Trip to Boston... so far...

Despite my assertion to the contrary ("not in this day and age") K discovered last night that there was indeed an nonsecure WIFI access point in our range here at the hotel. Not sure where it is but they haven't even changed the name of the AP from the factory setting "linksys", forget putting a WEP encryption on it. In laymans terms, we can access the internet for free from our hotel room any time we want. Good signal strength, too. So... our trip so far:

The bus ride to Heathrow and flight over the Atlantic were quite smooth and uneventful. We arrived early. This time I got through without a massive fine, but we did get questioned a bit sternly, particularly about the length of time we had been away and how long it had been since we had actually lived in the US. Having now gotten hastled about that in Miami and Boston, it's quite clear that they are cracking down on this. If it wasn't for the fact that I had applied for a travel document, we might have gotten in trouble again. The agent didn't back off until I showed him the document that proves I have applied for the permit.

When we got outside with our luggage, we were hit by the bracing, cold Boston weather. The England we left behind is actually warmer. I had to buy a sweater to wear under my coat. It even snowed today.

We registered for the conference this morning then went for a stroll around the area. Had a scrumptious lunch at Legal Sea Foods, a bit pricey but worth every penny. Had two pints of really tasty Harpoon ales (IPA and Old Salty Dog). We were absolutely stuffed when we walked out!

Then we went to one of the conference presentations, one about film adaptations. It was not very exciting, but it certainly alleviated a lot of our nervousness about our own presentations. It was a big room with lots of chairs and a handful of people. The 6 panelists were all sitting behind a long table at one end of the room. Every single one of them just read their paper. No Powerpoint slides or even film clips. And here we are building these thought-out presentations with the main goal of capturing their interest, entertaining them, and communicating the concepts in our papers. We're going to some more panels tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see if everyone just reads out loud. Either way, I don't think it will be too bad of an experience.

After the somewhat boring panel, K and I took the "T" (the subway) over to Boston University. It was snowing/raining by this point. Luckily, the conference organisers gave everyone a free umbrella when they checked in. These came quite in handy. I gave K a damp squib of a tour of the main campus during which we got quite soaked. Not the best way to see the campus but it was nice to see it again. Hasn't change that much since 1998.

At 6 o'clock, we met up with the lighting professor that I had contacted a couple of years ago when I was applying to U. of Exeter and U. of East Anglia. He wrote a great recommendation for me that time, even though he didn't know me that well. Since we're in town, we thought we'd go take him out to dinner, so we arranged to meet up after his day's classes. He actually recognized me, which was quite impressive since I had long hair back then. Anyway, we had a nice dinner at Noodle Street (a Pan-Asian noodle restaurant). Unfortunately, he didn't let us pay and was able to grab the bill before we had a chance. It was a nice evening.

Stopped by the BU store on the way back to buy a new t-shirt since my old BU shirt has fallen to shreds. Now we're cozy in our hotel room watching good ol' American television, sheltered from the freezing rain. Bed time... feeling the jet lag!