So it’s Sunday night as I’m typing this and IC 2022 is done. It was probably busier and more tiring that I thought it would be, but it was fantastic. I’m quite behind on my blog though so I’m going to try and whip through a day or two a post to bring you up to date.
TLDR; I didn’t crash, pretty pictures of UMass at bottom of post.
Tuesday So i got to have a bit of a sleep in on Tuesday and try and catch up on some sleep. Check out is 11 in the US, so that’s nice and leisurely. About 9.30 I went down to the Starbucks that was in the lobby to get my Cappuccino and muffin. I usually drink a latte in Australia, but Cappuccino seems to be the safest order in the US. I went back to my room got packed then went down and caught the airport shuttle. After a bit of sneaking around because I wasn’t actually flying, I managed to get to the AirTrain and another $8 later took the 5 minute trip to the hire car area. There was bit of a wait but I ended up with a black Ford AWD SUV that drives very nicely.
Driving on the right is an adjustment, but as long as you’re switched on it’s not too bad. Driving with other cars is actually quite helpful it’s when there’s nobody around that it can be a bit harder to remember what to do. I only had one hiccup on a quieter back road when I almost had an accident because I forgot to check left again. I was looking t wrong way for oncoming traffic but luckily we avoided the crash. Other than that I’ve gone to the wrong side of the car many times and had a few to many run ins with the right hand curb (mainly when parking). I think it’s partially a function of just not being used to having the space on the right and partially because I can’t see the front corner of the car I’m driving from the driver’s seat.
Nonetheless, with relatively few hiccups and a brief stop for lunch I made it to UMass Amherst without any major issues. The Campus is huge and very beautiful. I’ve included a few pictures below. Accommodations were standard dorm room accomodation bed, dresser, wardrobe – nothing fancy. Each room was in a group of 4 rooms, 2 shared bathrooms, a kitchen and a lounge room. As of Tuesday neither of my roommates had arrived.
I almost forgot. Before UMass I went to the nearby shopping centre and amazed myself again at the range and size of Walmart. I wanted to pick up a few supplies. So after going inside, going to my car then going inside again to the the things I forgot I headed to UMass.
I spent some time getting myself unpacked and organised and by then it was time to get organised for the welcome luau. I dressed in my newly purchased Hawaiian shirt from Walmart and headed downstairs. I met April (executive director of FPSPI) in person for the first time. A group of us walked to the old chapel and got to know each other as we went. It was a nice dinner, a good chance to meet some people either for the first time or the first time face-to-face.
When we got back to the dorm I went to Walmart again, finally found Rooibos tea and got some real milk. And a few other things though I still forgot some items. I came back, had tea, and went to bed pretty early, I was still tired.
Phew, that post was long sorry. Hopefully it wasn’t too boring.
So it’s been almost half a week, a lot of it has been travel. A brief rundown of the days:
Sunday After my previous post I landed in Sydney. Transfer was relatively painless head to the transfer area and Qantas bus takes you through to international terminal. Security & immigration were both pretty quick. I was pleasantly surprised by premium economy on the A380. Great service & food, decent leg room. The main downside from business was that the seats don’t lie flat (and being in the back row I think I had less recline than most). I wanted to sleep for the first little while and I did dose, but didn’t get great sleep. Coming through customs in LA was a long wait but pretty simple. I found the hotel shuttle bus without any issues. Hotel room was simple but fine, I ordered room service. Then I thought I would try and have a shower before bed. I tried for a good 10 minutes but I could not figure out how to turn the shower on. In the end I was so tired I gave up and went to bed. I slept well and woke up reasonably early to give myself plenty of time at the airport.
Monday I took the airport shuttle back to the airport and I as I hadn’t been able to checkin online I had to go to the JetBlue counter, but there were no problems there. Security was fine and then I waited in a line for a good 30 minutes to get a coffee. As far as US coffee goes it was pretty decent – this order was just a straight hot latte (which not all cafes seem to have). Bordered the flight to Newark and I was blown away by the quality of JetBlue. I was expecting something like a JetStar equivalent but it was better. Primarily in terms of leg room – I reckon I had very similar to the amount I had in premium economy – I have never been so comfortable in economy class! No meal but free drinks, coffee, snacks and you could help yourself to more, so that was a good experience. Landed in Newark, had a decent wait for luggage then paid $8 for a <5min monorail ride to the hotel shuttle pick up point. This hotel was slightly nicer than LA, it was a slightly bigger room with a couch. The first thing I did was made sure I could use the shower and I figured this one out. It also confirmed something I noticed – one of the main differences so far – US toilets have more water in them! I don’t know why, but the literally the water in the bowl is half way to the top, which compared to Australia is just weird. There was no room service at this hotel so I spent some time looking for places, but there wasn’t a lot around. I went down to the restaurant and eventually decided to eat there. I had salmon and the house white and it was really good. I then went back to the room had a nice bath while watching Master Chef before heading to bed.
The other think I noticed about the US is that food seems to be quite expensive. I remembered it being cheap from 2005 but not so much so far. Although it did occur to me that I probably haven’t been eating in the cheapest places (airports, hotels) so far, so it might change.
This post has got really long and I’m typing this on Saturday, even though I started it Tuesday so I might end here and start a new post for the next few days.
Well, it’s been a while. It seems like the last time I actually published a post was just under 11 years ago! It probably doesn’t mean much because I don’t think anybody reads this blog anyway!
At any rate I’ve unearthed it now as I’m heading off to the US for 3 weeks. And as much as I’m usually bad at keeping a record of my trips the snippets that I do have always make for enjoyable reading and reminiscing. So the plan is for me to record my travels here, how frequently and how often remains to be seen.
At the moment, we’re at 34.985ft, flying 835km/h and heading for Sydney. From there, I’ll be boarding a flight to Los Angeles, but I won’t have internet then so I’m making the most of Qantas WiFi now. (For those interested in tech you’ll get alight to know that the ping of my connection is 962ms!)
COVID has obviously kept me out of the air for a while and as much as I’ve been keen to travel internationally I haven’t really had a way to make it happen til now. I am looking forward to flying on an A380 – my first super jumbo since I was on a 747-400 about 25 years ago when my family went to Germany & Switzerland. I was hoping to use my point to upgrade to business which unfortunately didn’t come through, but I did manage to upgrade to premium economy so that should be reasonable on the longer flight.
Once I land in LA, I stay the night, then fly across to New York stay the night again and from there hire a car and drive up to UMass Amherst. That’s where my first event and primary reason for going will happen – Future Problem Solving International Conference 2022. This post has been surprisingly long so I think I’ll leave it there. Maybe shorter, more frequent posts may be the way to go…
