So, I spent last week at a conference in San Francisco (the National Association of School Psychologists, to be precise). Here is my trip in detail (feel free not to read it all, it's mostly a record for myself so I remember the trip well!)
TUESDAY:
I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and got showered and ready. I packed the last few things (like toiletries I needed to use getting ready) and threw my stuff in the car. A quick stop at my coffee shop (I lovingly refer to it that way because I've been going there since I was 12 and worked there for a while in grad school) and I was on my way. First stop, I had to pick up M where she lives, about 2 1/2 hours from me, but on the way to Chicago. As I was driving I realized that my tire was making a funny sound and it occurred to me that they had to take my wheel off the week before to fix something. When I stopped at my M's house, I got out the tire iron and gave the lug nuts a few turns. Most of them were tight, but one turned really easily. The tire never made the sound again, so I think it's safe to say that the repair guy failed to tighten the lug nuts well enough...awesome!
We got to Chicago way before we needed to. I wanted to leave enough time to park, get to the terminal, get checked in, etc. I seriously hate waiting in airports. I told myself to shave a little off how long I thought it would take when going home because I didn't want to sit at the gate for 2 1/2 hours on the way home. The people watching was fun, though. And my friend and I sort of laughed at a few of those sad people who almost missed their planes and were forced to sprint to the gate.
We get into San Francisco and get our bags. I'm supposed to be at the conference to monitor a workshop at 6:30 a.m. the next morning. It is 6:40 p.m. and I am not checked into the conference. Check in ends at 7 p.m. and doesn't start again until 7 a.m. and I'm about 25 minutes out from the hotel. Hopefully they won't care that I'm not checked into the conference so I can still take my workshop!
When we get to the hotel, we are famished so we get take out cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory and enjoy our first super healthy vacation dinner!
WEDNESDAY:
I wake up at 3:15 a.m. on the nose. I convince myself to go back to sleep and wake up at...3:45 a.m. This pattern repeats until 5:15, which is when my alarm is for. I get up shower, dry my hair, walk out the door, and suddenly realize that I woke up at 5:15 HOME time, that was why my body was so insistent that I had overslept.
Thankfully they let me monitor my workshop even though I'm not checked in yet. The workshop is great. The speaker is well-respected and the information is really interesting. Unfortunately one of my duties is preventing people from walking into the workshop for free. It is a paid session and it's not fair for people to sneak in. I was hoping that, being a professional conference, we wouldn't have much of a problem. I was very wrong. One lady was even rude enough to say "well, I'll leave when I finish my food" and then tried to take one bite in almost 5 minutes. I had to ask her 3 times to leave because it was a paid session. She huffed off like we were being unreasonable. Wow, great impression. Super professional.
We had lunch at a cafe that had turkey sandwiches and falafal pitas. What a great combo since M only eats a handful of foods and I LOVE falafal! The delicious ethnic foods are a little lacking at home, so I love the opportunity to eat things that I can't find at home.
After lunch I went to a couple paper presentations on juvenile delinquents and gang involvement. One was really interesting and the results were pretty cool. It would be really neat to apply what they found to the kids that I work with. The other sounded like it was going to be really fascinating. They get through the PowerPoint and ask if there are any questions. Someone asks, "so what were the results?". That is when they decide to tell us that they haven't actually done the research yet. Could be useful, if they find anything out from their research.
When we got back to the room, we had an interesting time picking a place to eat. Our friend K met us in San Francisco and shared the room with us. K is doing her internship in Portland, OR. She shares my love for a wide variety of foods. Every place we mentioned was met with "what do they have?" from M. She refused to eat almost anything. We figured out that a Greek place nearby had "Burger Pizza" on its menu, as well as a lot of food K and I love. Turned out the restaurant was literally 2 steps outside our hotel. We ordered a bottle of wine, baba ganoush, falafal, spanikopita, feta, and olives.
Apparently M doesn't drink wine either, so K and I get a little tipsy sharing our bottle. We got a little noisy and goofy. I'm hoping that wasn't why they chose not to seat anyone near us after we got there...but I don't care that much. We had a great evening!
To be continued...
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