Montreal - Day 1 - Fatigue, Near Death Experience, and a Questionable Airport Happening.

So here I am. Sitting at the Montreal Marriott Chateau Champlain. Let me tell you, I'm tired. So, in German fashion, let's start from the beginning.

Today was almost the trip that wasn't. Last night I was under the impression that my flight was to leave Nashville, TN around 10AM. I'm really bad with checking up on flight schedules, but luckily around midnight last night I decided to recheck my itinerary. Turns out I was to fly out at 7AM. I wasn't even planning on waking up until 7:30. Phew!

So, this changed things...I had to wake up at 4:30AM to make it in time. I felt bad that Elizabeth had to wake up with me in the morning. We both got approximately 3-4 hours of sleep. Not good...

So, we get a nice wafflehouse breakfast in and she drops me off. My first flight went out on time. Unfortunately, this wasn't a direct flight, so I had to fly to La Guardia airport in NYC. Flying into new york was excellent as I had a great view of the city while landing.

You gotta love NYC. Every time you're there you get a feeling that you only get when you're there. All the different cultures, everyone running around at mach 5, food everywhere. it's great.

One of the more notable things that happened at the airport was when I was waiting for boarding. While in somewhat of a daze I noticed two women (one cleaning lady that only spoke Spanish and one flight attendant who only spoke English) yelling at each other. I guess the cleaning lady was getting into this restricted cabinet behind one of the counters and the flight attendant wasn't having it. They started getting physical and pushing each others arms away while slamming each other into the cabinet. The flight attendant starts yelling for security and about 5 NYPD officers came in to separate them. I guess the cleaning lady wasn't supposed to be in the cabinet...so the cops started questioning her. Next they investigate the cabinet and find this secret compartment under everything in there. If you think that's weird, next the officer pulls out a dr. pepper bottle full of some weird blue liquid. in addition there was this small glass container with a brown powdery substance. Not sure what either of them were but they removed them from the area in no time. kind of creepy, really.

Anyways, moving on..I boarded my plane, tired as can be, and made the 1 1/2 hour flight to Montreal. I didn't realize the airport was so far away from the city, so transportation was a hassle. Luckily i ran into a couple colleagues and we all split a ride into town.

Our driver was hilarious. He's this dude from Beirut that made it over here in 1988 just before it got real bad over there. This guy was opinionated...and that's an understatement. He told us stories that ranged from "laughing in the face of bombs", Muslims converting to Christianity in vast numbers, him becoming the "new slave", and how messed up big oil is (from both sides of the aisle). He pretty much talked for about 25 minutes straight. He also told me that the island of Montreal has over 3.5 million people on it and that there were only 46 violent crimes reported last year. not sure if that's true...I'll have to look it up.

Anyways, my hotel is real nice and spacious. I'm on the 16th floor (which is about half way up the building). Here are two pics of my view:


This old church is kitty-corner to my hotel.




I didn't get too much done today due to being exhausted and sign-in being closed by the time I made it to the conference.

I mainly focused on walking around and acclimating. Everything is in French...it'd be nice to have Elizabeth around to help me understand everything...and to keep me from getting killed. seriously, what's up with my travels and near death experiences? So I'm crossing the street today...kind of doing a kitty-corner type of deal and this car nearly blindsides me. I mean, it was close. Luckily this other guy jumped in front of the car (?) in an attempt to stop it. Somehow that worked...but i don't really see his logic. I probably would have been hurt real bad. We had a good laugh about it and I told him that I have his back on the next go-around.

Other than that, i pretty much walked around and returned to my hotel room. I'm going to try and have an early night. We'll see how that goes...

Till tomorrow,

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Montreal - Day 1 (hello!)

The return of the travel blog. ahh...it brings tears to my eyes (or is that just my alergies).

Check in here for the next 5 days for the updates + pictures. just bought batteries for my camera...everything here is expensive. I'm currently getting settled in and googling "montreal cheap" like an addict.

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Day 4 - Parties, China, and Baseball


Well, let's start with last night. Elizabeth and I attended the Michigan State party. Open bar and a room full of academics equals good times. Pretty much everyone i knew at the conference attended the party. Those who didn''t regretted not showing...

Here's some pics from it with captions:


Johnny Sparks and Elizabeth having a good time.


Me and Johnny. Brown is in...


Elizabeth and I.


My WSU advisor Rick Busselle and I.

Wow...lots of pictures of me. I got complaints that I never posted pics of myself in Germany. I dunno, it's kind of vain to me, but i must appease the readers. Anyways, onto today!

Well, this morning I had my poster session. We were presenting our Daily Show study. It was a pretty successful event and we had a lot of interest in our poster. From the looks of it more interest than most. Volkan Sahin made our poster look awesome and professional. Here's some pics and captions:


Me, Dr. Julia Fox, and Volkan Sahin in front of our poster. Much coffee was had. Mmm...free coffee.


Dr. James Angelini and Sungkyoung Lee in front of James' poster.


Sungkyoung Lee in front of her poster.

After the ICA-stuff Elizabeth and I decided to go on a walk around the city and see a few different areas. This turned into nearly an 8-mile walk and it felt great! I think i'm already starting to get stronger in my legs with all these hills. So we first went up to Chinatown which was huge. It's supposedly the largest and oldest chinatown in the united states. I believe it...the place was filled with tiny shops selling tiny things. One store we went in sold various herbs and what i can assume are traditional chinese medicines. I couldn't even tell what most of the stuff in the store was but it was interesting. The neighborhood also featured a ton of traditional chinese architecture. Here's some pictures:


Here's a Bank of America


Another bank with cool architecture.

Next we made a long walk toward the San Francisco Bay and walked down the shore to AT&T park which is the home of the San Francisco Giants. This is a newer park and is unique because if a player hits a homerun out of the park it will fly into the bay. Every game there are a bunch of small boats that wait for the balls. Here's the outside of the park where the balls fly out:




And here's the front gate:



We next walked all the way back to the hotel and have been taking it easy. Big day of travelling tomorrow.

Till then,

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Day 3 - Moving and Stuff

We switched hotels today. Goodbye Renoir, Hello Donatello! This place is niiiiiiice...and hip too! Orange and blue is the theme with a flatscreen and jacuzzi. Again, niiiice.

So today there isn't a whole lot to blog about. We were on the move and a crises occurred. No worries though, it was eleviated. I love my parents.So anyway, today we transferred hotels. Yes, yes, i already said that but it's a nice segway, no? When we checked into the Donatello our room wasn't ready. We had to wait a few hours but it wasn't any big deal. We checked our luggage and when we finally checked in the bellhop delivered our luggage to the door! never had that much service. what did i ever do to deserve such treatment? yeah...

So i keep taking breaks while writing this. Bad Jack Nicholson movies and what not. Yeah, so when we were waiting for our hotel we decided to hit up the shopping district. The area around us is upscale to all get-out. We window shopped a bunch of places. We even went into Tiffany's which featured sparkling jewelery I never knew existed. That place was crazy. They even had this baby section with pure silver baby rattles for $250. Ridiculous...

Tonight is the Michigan State party for the conference. Very nice. I'm kind of excited because my girlfriend gets to meet my undergrad advisor, Rick Busselle. This guy had a huge impact on me when i was at Wazzu. It'll be fun.

Afterwards we're planning on hitting the jacuzzi and sauna.

Overall a good day but stressful for a while. It's all good.

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Day 2 (Part Two) - Crooked Lions and Sea Streets

I'm sitting in the hotel right now relaxing from a busy day. Note: I got a card reader today, so this will have some pics, finally.

Today, after all that stuff in my previous blog, we visited the fisherman's wharf. We caught a cable car, which is what most of us call a trolly, from downtown. It looked a little something like this:


The ride was great and it was nice being able to be driven over the hills as opposed to attempting trekking it on foot. Half way through our ride we saw this couple try to get on the trolley when it was moving. The guy got on first (how chivalrist) and the woman almost fell off the back. It looked pretty dangerous.

Anyways, we got off the trolley before the wharf because it had a drop off at Lombard Street. You've probably seen it in photos before. It's the world's "crookedest" street. I can't believe how many cars drove down it. I didn't think some of them would make the tight turns. It also hosts some of the city's most expensive real estate including beautiful victorian-style homes with a great view. Here's a couple photos:




(Happy Felix Day)

Next we wandered downhill to the Wharf. There was a lot going down along this waterfront. The first thing we saw was a bunch of old wooden ships. This sight yielded awkward-brian-picture #1 of the trip. Actually, now that i look at these, i can't decide which picture is more awkward. You be the judge:

vs.

Now it was finally time to eat! The Wharf has cheap musings and we took advantage in the form of fish & chips, followed by a baguette from the boudin sourdough factory (for later of course), and shrimp & chips. Elizabeth and I split the food so we get to try everything. Overall a cheap and delicious venture.

Next we walked down to pier 39 (or was it 37?). This hosts a grip of shops, food, and SEA LIONS!!!!!!! These animals rule. They're huge, lazy, and fight for position on the docks. Check it:





By this point we had been walking around for about 4-5 hours and were getting tired. Luckily we found a bus that took us pretty much to our hotel's doorstep and have decided to take it easy tonight. Tomorrow we switch hotels so we have to get up early to check-out/check-in.

Until then,

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Day 2 (Part one)- ICA Stuff, caffeinated ramblings...

I woke up this morning recharged. I got the 9 hours of sleep I desperately needed and was ready to make the most of my first full day in Frisco. Actually, I was woken up by a phone call at 5:45 AM PST from a company I applied for a job at. They informed me that I got the position which is a good, good things. Rock.

Anyways, so the first thing I did this morning was walk to the conference. I attended a panel session featuring a bunch of people I know including Johnny Sparks and Sam Bradley Both of these presentations were excellent, as expected, but I had to run out early from Sam's (sorry buddy).

I then ran into my old adviser from Washington State University, Rick Busselle. It was great to see him and catch up. He told me where and when the legendary Michigan State University party is for this conference so I'll get to talk with him more.

Anyways, I'm sitting in the hotel lobby right now typing this waiting for Elizabeth to be ready to go out. We're planning on taking a trolly car up to the Fisherman's Wharf and will probably spend the next several hours having fun trying not to get eaten by sea lions.

More later...

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Day 1 - The Day of Two Days

8:32 PM PST (PDT?)

Well, well, well...Welcome to the next chapter of my travels. San Francisco, California. I'm here attending the 2007 International Communication Association Conference. You might remember that last year's was in Dresden, Germany. If not, just scroll down...

Anyways, so it's 8:32 PM (if you forgot that, look up...) and i'm exhausted. This time I have the wonderful company of my girlfriend, Elizabeth Jenkins. It's a lot better to travel with a partner because it gives me someone to talk to instead of the usual conversation i have with myself while sight-seeing. I get fewer weird looks this way...

So, as usual, let's start from the beginning...

I'd say an appropriate start time would be yesterday at about 6:30 PM. This is when the migraine began. One of the worst I've had in about a year. This kept me from getting more than about 45 minutes of sleep. Not necessarily a bad thing because I had a lot of house cleaning to do and didn't start packing until about 2 or 3 AM. Not a fun task to accomplish with a migraine but what are you gonna do? We made our way up to the airport around 7 AM and our flight took off at 8 AM.

The flight had about half of the Department of Telecommunications faculty and grad students aboard. One of my profs joked that if the plane went down there'd be a big problem for the department. Kind of morbid, yet true. Anyways, we arrive at SPO (San Prancisco Oirport?) around 10 AM Pacific Time and I still have a headache.

Oh yeah, one beef here...thanks-a-freaking-lot Northwest airlines for making the coach-seats on your plane sized for toddlers. This is kind of what i looked like for over 4 hours:



And yes, i still had the migraine at this time.

We made our way to the Renoir Hotel which is shaped like an isoceles triangle

or a big wedge of cheese for those non-geometric folks.



It's an old hotel but charming. It's not in the best neighborhood, but nothing too serious.

The activities for the day mainly consisted of walking a LOT. I just looked at a map and noticed we walked nearly 7 miles up and down hills all over downtown. We hit the Port of San Francisco, part of the Mission District, and Haight/Ashbury. All of which were great. The city is so diverse and the weather is nothing to complain about. Mid-60s with a breeze. I took some pictures but for some odd reason the digital camera card reader on my laptop isn't working. Very upsetting. I'll see what i can do with that problem so I hopefully can show you all some of the things I've been looking at. In the mean time, here's an unrelated picture for you all:



Near-death experiences so far: ZERO! (a new record?). All-in-all a good day and I can't wait to fall asleep. Lots to do tomorrow...

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Day Zero - Prep for San Fran

Currently packing for the San Fran trip. Yes, i'll be blogging. No, i'm not lying. I err....promise.

Pics, commentary, pathetic attempts at comic relief to follow. Yay!

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on the horizon...

So this travel blog will continue. It's pretty much going to be theme'd around my travels, no regular commentary...

Next trip, Oct. 25-29. Society for Psychophysiological Research conference in Vancouver, BC. Ahh...the West Coast.

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Day 9 - Dresden/Dusseldorf/New York City/New Jersey

It's been a whirlwind of a day! Well, well, well...I'm back stateside again. Currently in New Jersey. The day of travelling went rather smoothly. I was sort of grumpy in the morning from lack of sleep and lack of food. I didn't eat until I was in Dusseldorf. In which, I had a reinersnitzel (spelling?!). It was pretty decent food for an airport. I'm really going to miss the high quality of food that Germany has as a standard.

I made it through like 10 levels of customs security and flew away toward the US. I had a window seat this time and caught a spectacular view of London during the trip. That place is huge!

The flight was 7 1/2 hours. Not too bad, but long enough to make your legs hurt. I don't do well with seats that aren't on the aisle.

I flew into JFK airport and took the subway all the way to Hoboken (Jersey City). Then I hopped on a cab to my hotel. I was very releaved to be done with the commuting but wouldn't allow myself to sleep. I wanted to get this jet lag taken care of quickly. It's a lot easier coming this way than going that way. If you can undertand that one.

So I called up my friend Buz who had just moved to Uptown New York from Bloomington. We met up at Madison Square Garden and hung out in the east and west village. Pretty much pub crawling. The NY scene is pretty exhausting from everything going on, but the places we went to were real cool. Lots of very cool and nice people. Lots of awesome pubs.

Well, we stayed out until like 4:30am and I didn't get back to my hotel until at least 5:30am. I had to catch a path train and taxi.

OH YEAH. forgot to talk about near-death-experience chapter two. Why is it that I almost die everytime i'm in Jersey? So when I was planning on going to go meet Buz, I didn't know how I would get over to New York (you have to cross a bay and such). I didn't have the extra money for a cab because they're really expensive. So what do i do? I bet you could guess....I DECIDE TO WALK AGAIN! I'm not sure why I put myself through these situations, but I guess that's just me. So I knew that I could probably find a bus that ran through the Lincoln Tunnel if I walked toward the water for about a mile from my hotel. The only problem is that the only way to get where i wanted to go was via freeway. So I start walking on the side of this freeway (on the shoulder) and find myself on this bridge that has no shoulder over a river delta type thing. cars were flying by me just feet from slamming me into oblivion. It was very scary, but you know what? I got to Madison square garden for $2.30. HA! That's unheard of.

So anyways, I only got a couple hours of sleep last night and I'm drained. I'm actually in the Newark airport writing this waiting for my flight to Seattle. I got to the airport about 6 hours early because I had to check out of my hotel at 11 and I had nowhere else to go. NYC would have been too expensive and I would have had to haul my luggage everywhere..

It's all good though. I'm going through the normal motions. Itunes, Cinnabons, Cooking Light mags, and coffee. The terminal is packed because the airtraffic is heavy. I can't wait to get back and relax.

This travel blog has been a really positive experience for me. It's nice to go back and remind myself of all the things i've done. I really could have written a lot more, but some things are better explained vocally. I apologize in advance if for the next few weeks all my rants involve "Germany this" or "Germany that". It was an amazing trip that I'll remember forever. I can't wait to come back.

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