Too many trips to the continent!
Sep. 11th, 2005 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_cubedSo, I'm here in a hotel in Linkoeping, Sweden. Luckily they have free wireless in the hotel so I can waste time updating my LJ account instead of sleeping (I have a problem sleeping in strange places and it take me up to four nights or extreme exhaustion to get over this) or doing any productive work.
I've done so many trips to the continent this year that I'd lost track. According to my trusty Psion 5, I've got fifteen entries including LHR and two including LGW in my diary. Hmm, that's an odd number and means I didn't come back from one of the trips - or maybe I mis-spelled LHR :-). So, including this trip which lasts until Friday (the conference only lasts until Thursday but the connections from Linkoeping mean that I'd have had to miss half of the final day to get back on Thursday) and the one to Madrid next week, that's nine trips so far this year to the continent. unusually for me, no trips to the US this year between worldcon being in the UK and not being able to make any US conventions during term time due to teaching commitments.
This is too much travel and I'm beginning to get a little tired of the standard response when I tell people I'm going to European city X, Y or Z next week (usually Paris, Madrid, Rome, but sometimes Linkoeping, Brussels, or Bremen). This standard response is "How nice" or some other highly positive and bright response. I'm not much of a tourist, touristing on your own is very little fun and you know, when you spend this much time in hotels (and sundry other impersonal accommodations like University dorms) it stops becoming an adventure and just becomes a pain in the arse. You want to be at home with your own stuff around you and access to the "comforts of home". Maybe it would be different if I still lived in a tiny bedsit, but although my two bedroom flat is relatively small it's not pokey. Plus there's the assumption that conferences are "jollies" - I work even harder at conferences than at home, plus my job means generally that what I need to do doesn't go away when I'm not there to do it - most of it is still there when I get back.
Still, this is a new conference to me - ETHICOMP - and the programme looks interesting. A bit too much of the dry "moral philosophy" approach at times, but enough to keep me awake and interested in most of the sessions. Plus there's always the book proofs to go through when there's nothing to interest me.
I've done so many trips to the continent this year that I'd lost track. According to my trusty Psion 5, I've got fifteen entries including LHR and two including LGW in my diary. Hmm, that's an odd number and means I didn't come back from one of the trips - or maybe I mis-spelled LHR :-). So, including this trip which lasts until Friday (the conference only lasts until Thursday but the connections from Linkoeping mean that I'd have had to miss half of the final day to get back on Thursday) and the one to Madrid next week, that's nine trips so far this year to the continent. unusually for me, no trips to the US this year between worldcon being in the UK and not being able to make any US conventions during term time due to teaching commitments.
This is too much travel and I'm beginning to get a little tired of the standard response when I tell people I'm going to European city X, Y or Z next week (usually Paris, Madrid, Rome, but sometimes Linkoeping, Brussels, or Bremen). This standard response is "How nice" or some other highly positive and bright response. I'm not much of a tourist, touristing on your own is very little fun and you know, when you spend this much time in hotels (and sundry other impersonal accommodations like University dorms) it stops becoming an adventure and just becomes a pain in the arse. You want to be at home with your own stuff around you and access to the "comforts of home". Maybe it would be different if I still lived in a tiny bedsit, but although my two bedroom flat is relatively small it's not pokey. Plus there's the assumption that conferences are "jollies" - I work even harder at conferences than at home, plus my job means generally that what I need to do doesn't go away when I'm not there to do it - most of it is still there when I get back.
Still, this is a new conference to me - ETHICOMP - and the programme looks interesting. A bit too much of the dry "moral philosophy" approach at times, but enough to keep me awake and interested in most of the sessions. Plus there's always the book proofs to go through when there's nothing to interest me.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 10:30 pm (UTC)BILETA is in malta next yr!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-12 08:22 am (UTC)http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Sweden/Oestergoetlands_Laen/Linkoeping-186186/TravelGuide-Linkoeping.html
indicates there are um, well, lots of things to do...
There is an ice cream shop, and a sushi bar, and it is where they build Saab fighters, and you could even go and look at there new public library! Will the excitement never end!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-12 02:40 pm (UTC)And I agree, playing the single tourist is not the most enjoyable of pastimes.