ok now for scotland

where do i start...hmm well i got in around 9am local time on sunday. unfortunately my keys were behind locked doors until 9am monday and conference check in wasn't until 3pm. fortunately i missed my bus stop and had to get a taxi back and this particular taxi had an amazing driver who filled me in on everything glasgow. he was very concerned that i had no place to go and we decided the best option was to drop me off at the on-campus art museum for the day, hoping they had a locker or something to leave the baggage. now this was no ordinary university art museum, but a world class for real art museum.

i laid outside on the bricks until it open at 11 (i was, as you could imagine, exhausted) and much to my delight they had a coat check for me to check my large, square and heavy rolling 'coats'. i actually packed very light, one carry on, a purse and a medium size suitcase (considering i was wandering around all kinds of climates, with all kinds of electronics, for three weeks AND had a bunch of rhiannon's things taking up most of the suitcase) but i pretty much pulled my underthearm muscle and have blisters from carrying all of it around all day. so the museum was great, despite the youth focus which was kind of irritating, but i could only make it two hours or so before i wandered into the library and passed out in a large, verrry comfortable and not at all airplane like red leather chair. i awoke to security (of course) and decided to get some lunch. there was a little cafeteria (which in reality was quite fancy and not a cafeteria at all) where i had an amazing mussel, sweet potato and basil chowder with fresh rolls and yellow butter. the service was all young scottish folk, like everywhere here that i've been, even in the corner markets and whatnot.

i waited until the organ concert ended and headed over to the conference registration. or tried to. i have to say there is very little signage and no sense to the streets around here and i wondered around, trying not to get really pissed, for what seemed like an eternity until i saw a group of computer-nerdy looking guys who i followed, til i realized they weren't informed either, and merged into another group of computer-nerdy looking guys who had a better sense of direction. i ended up beating both groups, even with all my luggage, thanks to a small, out-of-scale and half-way complete map the front gate gave me. i signed in and got my bag and shirt and nerd swag (mouse pad, google notebook, etc). at that point i checked my email and rhiannon had realized about the keys and had her friend's mom coming over to open the door at 9pm. luckily there was a social event the researcher's pub (yes - the researcher pub) with pizza and open bar to keep me entertained from 5-9 after the 3-5 registration ended.

i met quite a few people that night, only about half knew of the other tiffany hopkins (this is a conference which is basically how to make good search engines so everyone is a google freak) and very few were from the us (one other to be precise). i love the mixed origin crowd - one of my favorite parts of traveling - and this is one of the best i've been in. 214 delegates from more than 30 countries.

i made it home and crashed around 11; before i knew it i was snoozing and snoozing and snoozing and snoozing and then i was late. i pretty much was as close to miserable as you can get in such a sweet place - trying to stay awake during the sometimes totally mellow sometimes insanely complex 8 hours of lectures. but they fed us tea and biscuits ever two hours and a great lunch of strange little sandwich triangles including favorites like tuna and corn, roast beef and jelly, cheese and mayonnaise salad with horseradish and turkey cranberry and butter. one of the lecturers talked about my advisor rik's book and how awesome it was, so i'm excited to chat about that once i can track him down. once the academic part of the day was over i ran home to do i'm not sure what - i thought to relax but i spent more time walking than relaxing - and then headed back for the reception in a museum (not the art museum).

the reception was sponsored by google so there was lots of good food and we were constantly hounded about refilling our champagne glasses (i know, it's a tough life). again local curiosities like brie and jam on a croissant and small pressed chicken patties (not like fried but ground up. ew sounds grosser than it was). after i got bored of socializing (god this is a lot of socializing) i checked out the museum - which was awesome! there was this specimen collection from an 18th century doctor (the school dates back to the 15oo's omg!) with everything from an ovarian cyst to a progressive series of skulls inflicted with syphilis (which they treated with mercury at the time...) to 6 legged pigs and deer. yeah it was bizarre. on the walk home the full moon was amazing. everything is lit up to seem even creepier and it works...there must be an awful lot of ghosts around here.



Find more photos like this on ESSIR 2007




ps i finally figured out spell check, so i hope this will be a little easier to read. eeek i didn't realize how bad it was!