My very second business trip, day 0
Sep. 3rd, 2012 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassI know it's only 8:15, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there won't be anything else interesting happening tonight. That's because my body picked an absolutely horrific time to catch a cold.
I knew I had a problem the moment I woke up this morning. See, between the shisha smoke on Saturday night, the sleep deprivation that followed, and the general pushing-too-hard I've subjected my body to recently, I woke up with a sore throat and a runny nose. This, my friends, is a Really Bad Thing (tm). I've been trying to take care of myself, but I'm worried that another full night of sleep isn't going to be enough to fight this one. Which would suck.
Anyway, got down to the train station with enough time to hang out in the Panorama Lounge before my train started boarding. Have I mentioned how much I love being able to skip the line? I really do.
In any case, the train was on time and delightful. Business class was almost empty; there were less than a dozen of us. Like last year, I was given a cup of tea and shortbread cookies even before we reached Dorval. And now I had a conundrum: eat the shortbread cookies, or not? On the one hand, so tasty! On the other, I'm *trying* to be good with my eating this week, and those two little cookies were 140 calories. In the end, willpower won out over taste buds... at least for the moment.
I did, on the other hand, have second breakfast on the train: scrambled eggs, potatoes, zucchini, fruit, OJ, and half a croissant. And more tea. I'm sensing this is going to be a theme this week.
I spent most of the trip playing DragonVale, because I'm an addict. Oh, well. At least it passed the time.
Arrived at Ottawa station around 12:10, took a taxi over to the hotel with Ann the Coworker (who was on the same train), dumped my stuff in my room (including placing my teddy bear lovingly on the king-size bed), and almost immediately left again to go meet up with my friend Eric. Eric's been living in Gatineau for almost three months, and that's far too long a time to go without seeing one of your best friends.
So, along a bit of a twisty-turny walk through Major's Hill Park and past the canal locks, over the Alexandra Bridge (with some fantastic views of downtown Ottawa), and down to the Museum of Civilization, where we planned to check out the last day of God(s): A User's Guide. It was... pleasant. Not quite as big as I'd expected or as deep, but the section on pilgrimage was very nice, and I loved the pictures about the use of the body in religious practice. We checked out a few of the other exhibitions before deciding we'd had enough culture and left.
It took us a little while to figure out where we were going next, which turned out to be a late lunch at Cafe 55 in the ByWard Market, followed by a bit of browsing the stores, including a very nice tea store. They have some adorable rubber-ducky-shaped infusers, but the price was more than either of us wanted to pay. Sadly, after about an hour of meandering around, we realized that neither of us are what you might call "shopping people," so we bid our farewells and went in our different directions.
For me, the first step was finding my way back to my hotel. Now, I was only a half-block away, and I could easily have walked it outside, but I wanted to see if I could figure out how to do it through the Rideau Centre. The good news: I can! The bad news: I probably walked the length of the mall twice trying to figure out how. (Now that I know, though, it's actually quite quick.)
Got back up to my room, unpacked, played some more DragonVale, answered some work email, and generally tried to figure out what to do with myself. I realized at about 5:30 that I'd forgotten to bring a shower cap, so I rushed down to the Rideau Centre again, barely a half-hour before closing, to buy one at the Shopper's Drug Mart.
My room has this really cool shower, by the way: enclosed with glass doors and very nifty-looking. I tried to take a picture of it, but I just couldn't get the angle right; I kept getting reflections of the toilet, which really wasn't the feel I was going for in that picture. (Photographer friends, any tips?) I figured, with a shower that nifty, I can take two a day, and also wanted to try to get some of the muck out of my sinuses.
So I took a shower, lay down in an attempt to get some healing sleep, and succeeded only in bringing all the muck back up into my sinuses. Kids, it's gonna be a long week if this is what my sleep is like.
I knew I was sick when I woke up and willingly decided to watch TV. I don't remember the last time I watched TV. Watched an episode of Mythbusters while waiting for room service to arrive (a bacon cheeseburger and a salad), but I didn't need to wait very long -- 13 minutes from call to delivery. Now that's efficiency! Finished it off with a bowl of berries, because I'm still trying to be good with my food in anticipation of all the horrible stuff I'm going to eat for the rest of the week. Colorful and healthy! Yay berries! (I admit, though, that I wound up eating the shortbread cookies sometime late this afternoon.)
I should also mention my internet situation. Like most fancy hotels I've been in, there is internet available "for a nominal fee." By which they mean $15 a day for probably really crappy access. Screw that. Last year, I managed to convince Agneta the Boss to pay for internet in my room (really crappy internet), but Agneta has moved on and now I've got Christian the Boss and didn't try to make the same request. In fact, I'm using the uber-awesome data plan on my new iPhone (bought in February, a special promotion of 6 GB of data for $30) to tether my computer. Honestly, it's probably faster than what I would have paid $15 a day for.
So that's where things stand now. It's 8:50, which is too early to go to bed but a bit too late to start wandering the city on a work night, particularly when I'm feeling under the weather. I'll probably just stay in my room and watch TV and/or play DragonVale. It's not an exciting night, but I'm trying to kick-start the healing process. Only time will tell whether I'm successful.
So that's it. Tomorrow morning starts at 10:00 with the pre-con meeting, following by a bunch of prep and probably dinner with my coworkers. At least I don't have any other social events planned for the week, so hopefully I won't be skimping on sleep too much. G'night all.
I knew I had a problem the moment I woke up this morning. See, between the shisha smoke on Saturday night, the sleep deprivation that followed, and the general pushing-too-hard I've subjected my body to recently, I woke up with a sore throat and a runny nose. This, my friends, is a Really Bad Thing (tm). I've been trying to take care of myself, but I'm worried that another full night of sleep isn't going to be enough to fight this one. Which would suck.
Anyway, got down to the train station with enough time to hang out in the Panorama Lounge before my train started boarding. Have I mentioned how much I love being able to skip the line? I really do.
In any case, the train was on time and delightful. Business class was almost empty; there were less than a dozen of us. Like last year, I was given a cup of tea and shortbread cookies even before we reached Dorval. And now I had a conundrum: eat the shortbread cookies, or not? On the one hand, so tasty! On the other, I'm *trying* to be good with my eating this week, and those two little cookies were 140 calories. In the end, willpower won out over taste buds... at least for the moment.
I did, on the other hand, have second breakfast on the train: scrambled eggs, potatoes, zucchini, fruit, OJ, and half a croissant. And more tea. I'm sensing this is going to be a theme this week.
I spent most of the trip playing DragonVale, because I'm an addict. Oh, well. At least it passed the time.
Arrived at Ottawa station around 12:10, took a taxi over to the hotel with Ann the Coworker (who was on the same train), dumped my stuff in my room (including placing my teddy bear lovingly on the king-size bed), and almost immediately left again to go meet up with my friend Eric. Eric's been living in Gatineau for almost three months, and that's far too long a time to go without seeing one of your best friends.
So, along a bit of a twisty-turny walk through Major's Hill Park and past the canal locks, over the Alexandra Bridge (with some fantastic views of downtown Ottawa), and down to the Museum of Civilization, where we planned to check out the last day of God(s): A User's Guide. It was... pleasant. Not quite as big as I'd expected or as deep, but the section on pilgrimage was very nice, and I loved the pictures about the use of the body in religious practice. We checked out a few of the other exhibitions before deciding we'd had enough culture and left.
It took us a little while to figure out where we were going next, which turned out to be a late lunch at Cafe 55 in the ByWard Market, followed by a bit of browsing the stores, including a very nice tea store. They have some adorable rubber-ducky-shaped infusers, but the price was more than either of us wanted to pay. Sadly, after about an hour of meandering around, we realized that neither of us are what you might call "shopping people," so we bid our farewells and went in our different directions.
For me, the first step was finding my way back to my hotel. Now, I was only a half-block away, and I could easily have walked it outside, but I wanted to see if I could figure out how to do it through the Rideau Centre. The good news: I can! The bad news: I probably walked the length of the mall twice trying to figure out how. (Now that I know, though, it's actually quite quick.)
Got back up to my room, unpacked, played some more DragonVale, answered some work email, and generally tried to figure out what to do with myself. I realized at about 5:30 that I'd forgotten to bring a shower cap, so I rushed down to the Rideau Centre again, barely a half-hour before closing, to buy one at the Shopper's Drug Mart.
My room has this really cool shower, by the way: enclosed with glass doors and very nifty-looking. I tried to take a picture of it, but I just couldn't get the angle right; I kept getting reflections of the toilet, which really wasn't the feel I was going for in that picture. (Photographer friends, any tips?) I figured, with a shower that nifty, I can take two a day, and also wanted to try to get some of the muck out of my sinuses.
So I took a shower, lay down in an attempt to get some healing sleep, and succeeded only in bringing all the muck back up into my sinuses. Kids, it's gonna be a long week if this is what my sleep is like.
I knew I was sick when I woke up and willingly decided to watch TV. I don't remember the last time I watched TV. Watched an episode of Mythbusters while waiting for room service to arrive (a bacon cheeseburger and a salad), but I didn't need to wait very long -- 13 minutes from call to delivery. Now that's efficiency! Finished it off with a bowl of berries, because I'm still trying to be good with my food in anticipation of all the horrible stuff I'm going to eat for the rest of the week. Colorful and healthy! Yay berries! (I admit, though, that I wound up eating the shortbread cookies sometime late this afternoon.)
I should also mention my internet situation. Like most fancy hotels I've been in, there is internet available "for a nominal fee." By which they mean $15 a day for probably really crappy access. Screw that. Last year, I managed to convince Agneta the Boss to pay for internet in my room (really crappy internet), but Agneta has moved on and now I've got Christian the Boss and didn't try to make the same request. In fact, I'm using the uber-awesome data plan on my new iPhone (bought in February, a special promotion of 6 GB of data for $30) to tether my computer. Honestly, it's probably faster than what I would have paid $15 a day for.
So that's where things stand now. It's 8:50, which is too early to go to bed but a bit too late to start wandering the city on a work night, particularly when I'm feeling under the weather. I'll probably just stay in my room and watch TV and/or play DragonVale. It's not an exciting night, but I'm trying to kick-start the healing process. Only time will tell whether I'm successful.
So that's it. Tomorrow morning starts at 10:00 with the pre-con meeting, following by a bunch of prep and probably dinner with my coworkers. At least I don't have any other social events planned for the week, so hopefully I won't be skimping on sleep too much. G'night all.
