Oh, Canada
I'm in Vancouver for the next 36-or-so hours, for the meeting of the Pacific Northwest chapter of the Music Library Association. The meeting itself will be small, and not very long-- starts tomorrow afternoon, ends Saturday at lunchtime. I drove up with my UO colleague Leslie... well, she did all the driving, I worked on knitting the ongoing mom sweater. I'm in the stranded yoke now, it's home stretch time! The end is near! Speaking of which, we passed a billboard on I-5 that informed us that the world will be ending on May 21, 2011. Which happens to be my friend Mollie's wedding day, so I guess if the world does end, at least I'll be with gaius_de_mare and many of my friends. Woo? It would be helpful if they were more specific about the time.
We're staying in this lovely historic hotel that is right on English Bay, very near Stanley Park. So far, I love this city, even though I haven't really gotten to know it at all. But it's absolutely lovely. I was also a bit concerned because they'd originally said they didn't have any smaller rooms left when I made my reservation, and they'd booked me in a suite that was about $100 more per night than UO is willing to reimburse me for. But they said they'd waitlist me for something closer to my choice, and when I got here and checked in, they put me in... well, it's essentially a smaller suite. It has a full eat-in kitchen, which would be awesome if I was here for a week and wanted to cook, but it's kind of a moot point when I'm here for 2 days. But at any rate, even though it's still more room than I need, it's not quite so excessive and it just falls into the price range UO will cover. Woohoo!
Oh, and also? This is the first conference I've ever attended where I didn't have to share a bed, let alone a hotel room. Suddenly I really do feel like a grownup with a real job.*
Tonight Leslie and I met up with Paula, the emeritus music librarian of Washington State University, and her husband Paul (yes they're a matched set), who is retired from the English faculty at the same school. They live on Bainbridge Island, across Puget Sound from Seattle, which sounds absolutely marvelous. Leslie and Paula are old comrades, and Leslie's particularly asking Paula for a lot of retirement tips, since she'll be retiring at the end of June. Anyway, we all hiked up the hill a bit to a decent Greek restaurant that had so-so hummus but excellent tzatziki, and a damn good moussaka. Then we rolled ourselves back down the hill to the hotel. Paula and Paul bid us good night at that point, and Leslie and I went into the bar to have a drink and unwind a bit. When the bill came, I reached into the front of my purse to pull out some change, and instead pulled out an antique locket that belonged to my great-grandmother, and which I have not seen for quite a few years. (I have also not used this purse for quite a few years, but I would bet that it's been longer since I've used the purse than since I've worn or looked at that locket.) What's funny is that my great-grandmother's family (the Scots side of the family) did emigrate to the States via Canada, so there's an ancestral-place connection, but I'm pretty sure they didn't come any further west than Ontario, and certainly not all the way to Vancouver. Oblique messages from the Ancestors always make for an interesting evening.
I have a wee bit of spare time tomorrow morning to go sight-seeing. Thanks to recommendations from retsuko and some other folks, I have a plan: the aquarium if it's raining, or Granville Island if the weather's good.
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* I suppose that when I attended the Experience Music Project Pop Conference a couple of years ago, I didn't have to share a bed or a hotel room with anyone. But that was because I was sleeping on nathan_fhtagn's couch. Which I shared, variously, with his cats. So I think my point stands.
We're staying in this lovely historic hotel that is right on English Bay, very near Stanley Park. So far, I love this city, even though I haven't really gotten to know it at all. But it's absolutely lovely. I was also a bit concerned because they'd originally said they didn't have any smaller rooms left when I made my reservation, and they'd booked me in a suite that was about $100 more per night than UO is willing to reimburse me for. But they said they'd waitlist me for something closer to my choice, and when I got here and checked in, they put me in... well, it's essentially a smaller suite. It has a full eat-in kitchen, which would be awesome if I was here for a week and wanted to cook, but it's kind of a moot point when I'm here for 2 days. But at any rate, even though it's still more room than I need, it's not quite so excessive and it just falls into the price range UO will cover. Woohoo!
Oh, and also? This is the first conference I've ever attended where I didn't have to share a bed, let alone a hotel room. Suddenly I really do feel like a grownup with a real job.*
Tonight Leslie and I met up with Paula, the emeritus music librarian of Washington State University, and her husband Paul (yes they're a matched set), who is retired from the English faculty at the same school. They live on Bainbridge Island, across Puget Sound from Seattle, which sounds absolutely marvelous. Leslie and Paula are old comrades, and Leslie's particularly asking Paula for a lot of retirement tips, since she'll be retiring at the end of June. Anyway, we all hiked up the hill a bit to a decent Greek restaurant that had so-so hummus but excellent tzatziki, and a damn good moussaka. Then we rolled ourselves back down the hill to the hotel. Paula and Paul bid us good night at that point, and Leslie and I went into the bar to have a drink and unwind a bit. When the bill came, I reached into the front of my purse to pull out some change, and instead pulled out an antique locket that belonged to my great-grandmother, and which I have not seen for quite a few years. (I have also not used this purse for quite a few years, but I would bet that it's been longer since I've used the purse than since I've worn or looked at that locket.) What's funny is that my great-grandmother's family (the Scots side of the family) did emigrate to the States via Canada, so there's an ancestral-place connection, but I'm pretty sure they didn't come any further west than Ontario, and certainly not all the way to Vancouver. Oblique messages from the Ancestors always make for an interesting evening.
I have a wee bit of spare time tomorrow morning to go sight-seeing. Thanks to recommendations from retsuko and some other folks, I have a plan: the aquarium if it's raining, or Granville Island if the weather's good.
--
* I suppose that when I attended the Experience Music Project Pop Conference a couple of years ago, I didn't have to share a bed or a hotel room with anyone. But that was because I was sleeping on nathan_fhtagn's couch. Which I shared, variously, with his cats. So I think my point stands.