aturday the 9th of December and a trip to London to catch a plane. Before setting off, do a quick Web hunt for information on what to do if the plane crashes. Very frosty and crisp; hoping for some warmer
weather in the States (should have checked where Boston was on the map first).
Flying across on Virgin Airways was a surreal experience. One of the inflight movies was "Babe", all about a pig that talks and herds sheep. Several people in the row in front start crying at the happy ending; the in-flight dinner of ham salad is subsequently declined by many passengers. With several alarming thuds, the plane touches down in Boston late-afternoon (eastern US time). Boston airport is peculiar in that it is situated only three miles from the City Centre. The approach involved flying over large tracts of American suburbia, intermingled with fog, low clouds and various combinations of rain/snow; disappointingly not that much different from home.
Baggage, customs and immigration was super-quick, so we were out of the airport less than half an hour after touching down. As we discovered later, several other of the UK delegation, who were due to arrive not long after us, suffered 12 hour delays due to the weather at Boston, most of it staring at a lonely runway from out of their plane at Washington airport.
colder, wetter and windier weather than that left behind in England. Due to the congestion at the bus to subway link, and a lack of faith in map reading, a taxi was requisitioned to speed us to our hotels.
The taxi driver took a suspiciously circular route, twice passing the bar on which "Cheers" is based on.
The two official conference hotels were the Sheraton and the Copley Marriott, both huge (and expensive) complexes, connected (thankfully) by indoor walkways. Both hotels were luxurious, not really comparable to your average English conference hotel.
Most of the conference was due to take place in the Marriott, which had dozens of session/function rooms of differing sizes, the largest of which could comfortably hold 3000 people. Exploration of the connecting walkways revealed the inevitable shopping mall, as well as the Hynes Convention Centre, a large building of mainly huge, empty rooms (reminding one of the film Brazil), where the remaining sessions were to be held.
