Images available in Karen’s trip to Lake Tahoe album
Day 1, Sunday April 17
I woke up at 7:00 Sunday morning because there were several things I had to do before leaving to catch my flight, including packing. I left at 11:45 and caught the 103 to Villa Maria without incident and then took the metro. I thought I was supposed to get off at Côte Vertu for some reason, but as soon as I got there I realized I had gone one stop too far and had to go back to Du Collège station. No harm done there, as I had allowed myself a lot of time to get there. I went back to Du Collège and waited for the 202 which goes to the Dorval terminus. There is something nice on traveling on Sundays if you are not in a rush, as the busses are not crowded. On the 202, there was a guy sitting in front of me and a ladybug landed on his cellphone.
When I arrived at the terminus I walked through the tunnel to go under the railroad tracks so that I could walk to the airport. In the tunnel I met a guy my age who said he was trying to figure out where to catch the 204 (the bus that runs from the terminus to the airport albeit infrequently). I told him that I never take it because it runs only every 1/2 an hour or so, but that I was walking and I could show him how to get there. He kindly offered to carry my luggage but I refused since you just never know what some people will be willing to do to get something from you. Everything went fine and we arrived at the airport 20 minutes later. I found the American Airlines ticketing counter and checked in right away. I had to go to a special customs room because I had brought an apple and some salt roasted peas with me, but I was allowed to take them in because the apple was from Washington state and I guess the peas were harmless. When I was going through security I had to take out my iBook and I still had my apple out so one of the security guards asked me if I was a schoolteacher. The whole check-in/customs/security/border crossing thing took a good half an hour. I went to my gate and read my book there until we boarded.
This was my first flight on American Airlines but it wasn’t much different from any other airline except the stewardesses seemed a little less superficially polite than usual. To pass the time and save my book for later, I read the inflight magazine “American Wayâ€. The magazine was alright. There were a lot of ads for luxury condos whose mortgage would probably bankrupt an entire country and I think I found that the most surprising. The cool thing to do seems to be to live in a luxury condo at the top of a very high tower in some warm place like Miami or Las Vegas where you have almost everything you need (i.e. pool, tennis court, Zen garden) in your building – there is almost no need to leave!! Yikes.
The flight went quickly and I arrived at Chicago O’Hare soon. I went down two gates and waited for the next flight. Feeling a bit hungry for lunch I bought some vegetables and dip and juice at a restaurant/pub near my gate. This guy was having a conversation with someone on a cellphone but he was using earphones and a headset and it was very strange because everyone including myself thought he was taking to them when he was not. There were quite a few overweight people in the waiting area for the next flight, which wasn’t helped by the fact that everyone except me and a few others ate McDonald’s for lunch.
The flight was long and uneventful. We watched “Beyond the Sea†which was a movie about Bobby Darin, whom I had never heard of before, but whose singing I recognized (including the song with the same name as the title). No meal was served, but a “snack pack†for $3 was offered which I did not try.
I saw the lake and the Reno downtown when I landed. Reno is a larger city than I thought! It seemed to be spread out forever.
When we landed in Reno, I was three hours in the past, so to speak. It was about 8:30 PM local time, which meant it was past my bedtime. I picked up my luggage (hooray, another trip without my luggage getting lost) and went to the No Stress Express shuttle drive where I checked to see when the next shuttle was. It was not until 10:30, so I decided to go have supper. I ate at a pub thing in the airport. I was surprised how expensive the food was. Maybe it was just because we were in the airport, but I didn’t expect a pre-packaged Caesar salad (at the café beside us) to cost $7. I thought generally the cost of US food was quite low, so I think it must be due to the captive market. Anyway I had some chili which was not that great and was about 10 times more than I could eat. Again, the service was not great, but it is funny how the waitress called me “honeyâ€.
I left and waited in the arrivals area for a while, then bought my ticket on the shuttle. The shuttle was late (11:00) and I was the only passenger. A friendly lady who has lived in Newfoundland was the driver and we went out to the car, which was an old 6 door GM something-or-other. It reminded me of my Mom’s Monte Carlo. It was like a boat!! She remembered that she forgot to get gas money so we drove back to the arrivals area and picked up the money and then off we went. We drove across a freeway that seemed to be lined with endless malls and outlets and then started going up the mountain. It took at long time to get there, probably 25 minutes or more. This is only one stop in the shuttle route and now I see why the shuttle only runs every 3 hours! We seemed to be going up the road for ever until finally we reached level ground and then drove along that for a while before turning in to the road leading to the resort. By this time I was absolutely exhausted, so I was looking forward to getting to my room. Local time was about 12:10 AM when I arrived, which would mean 3:10 AM for me. I noticed a casino across from the check in counter and people were actually playing at midnight! I checked in and found out the conference was only 80 people. 80?? This is an ASM conference and I was really surprised. I was expecting something like 800. I think this is going to feel very strange.
Day 2 Monday April 18:
I woke up with a headache, probably related to jet lag, lack of sleep and not eating well the day before. I made coffee in the in suite coffee maker, but didn’t drink much of it. It took me a while to get the coffee maker to work because the outlet it was plugged into wasn’t working. I went to get ready to find out with some dismay that there was no bathtub in the suite, only a shower! After showering I discovered the built-in hair dryer would not come out of its holder, but fortunately I had brought my own and was able to use that. I went to the restaurant for breakfast and was horrified to find the buffet cost $14 USD so I opted for orange juice and an English muffin which were only $7. Off to the lectures all day. At the suppertime break Tim and I went to Austins, a “down home†cooking restaurant and my food was quite disappointing. The cream of mushroom soup was ok but the cornbread was sweet and the greenbeans were greasy and not very green and they tasted horrible. Tim had better luck with a chicken burger and salad. We walked to the lake and I took a few pictures before we went back for the last talk. After I came back to the hotel room and fell asleep almost immediately. Dad phoned at 9:30 and we had a short conversation.
Day 3, Tuesday April 19:
I woke up at 6 AM and went swimming. The hotel has a number of pools and Jacuzzis and the pool I went to is outdoor but heated and has a swim-out access. I was the only one in the pool (which I really appreciated) and so I practiced different swimming strokes. The pool is no deeper than 4 feet and non-linear in shape (it is meant more for sitting and playing games than serious swimming, I have to say) but nevertheless I managed to do some laps of it. With my asthma and the low air pressure, I wasn’t able to swim for too long without being short of breath, but I did get a good workout. I have noticed that my skin is looking very red here, and I think it must be due to overproduction of red blood cells trying to take up as much oxygen as possible.
I had breakfast at the restaurant again and this time opted for the continental, which included coffee, juice and “three breakfast bakeries†for $9. I got a bran muffin, a scone and croissant. I would have preferred non-sweet food, but everything with eggs and potatoes was quite expensive. Perhaps tomorrow I will upgrade to the make-your own omelet option for $11 which looked good.
I still had some extra time, so I went for a walk outside. It had snowed overnight and it was below 0, so I wore my jacket and mittens. I walked along the road out of the resort and along the highway a bit, but did not find anything interesting. I picked up some of the really large pinecones they have here and will try to take them into Canada when I go through customs in Chicago and see if they let me keep them.
Attended talks as usual, etc. At one of the breaks I was able to access a computer terminal and do a bit of email. For supper Tim and I went to “Tomatoes†which is “light Italian†food. I had linguine with marinara sauce and it was good. We walked to the lake again and then attended the evening talk.
There sure are a lot of smart people here!
Day 4, Wednesday April 19:
I went swimming again this morning at 5:30 before I got ready. I was the only person in the pool again, which was very nice. The robotic pool cleaner was in the pool though. I saw this long floating rope and thought it might have been leftover from last night (there was a large and loud group out there) so I tried to pull it out to get it out of the way. It soon became clear that it was attached to something rather heavy and I thought it was a life preserver. What I found instead was the “Ultra Max†pool cleaner whom I had interrupted from doing its work. I let it go and swam around it for the rest of the time I was there. Swimming was still hard with the low air pressure. I went for a walk down by the beach and saw an Episcopalian (read Anglican) church near the multimillion dollar homes on the lakefront. I had the omelet at the café today and it cost $14 with coffee. Highway robbery!!
We attended lectures early today and the day went by quickly. We had a banquet in the evening which was quite nice. I saw Tim drink alcohol for the first time (Scotch, of which he only had a few sips) and I was able to have good conversations with several people. The food was a buffet and decent. I went back and finished reading my Isaac Asimov book and went to sleep.
Day 5, Thursday April 21:
I woke up early and got ready, then sorted out my hotel bill (the cost for calling home was ridiculous, something like $6 a minute, and they took half the price off once I asked them about it) and then I grabbed a bagel at the small coffee bar in the lobby and read the New York Times (delivered to my door daily) while eating it. I must say after eating Montreal bagels, this one was quite disappointing. I checked out and waited for Tim in the lobby, since we were both taking the same shuttle to the airport together. The driver was tremendously confused about whether I had a reservation or not and temporarily lost my ticket, but finally everything got sorted out and we were on our way.
The car they sent to pick us up in was, to my surprise, a black limousine! This is the first (and probably last) time I rode in one. There were glasses in the bar, but alas, we had to supply our own champagne and given it was 8:30 AM on the last day of a scientific conference, we had to go without. Nevertheless we had an interesting conversation with the other 4 people in the car. It look a very long time to get to the airport (probably an hour) because even though the driver did not pick anyone else up, he went the entire distance of the route. We went in and out of California, so now I guess I can say I have visited there too.
Finally we arrived at the airport and I checked in without difficulty. I tried to find Tim in the waiting lounge (there was only one) but didn’t see him. Instead, I waited at my gate (with a total of 8 seats) and read while half listening to the others nearby. One lady was talking with another, the former worked for WalMart as the food court architect and the latter who shopped at WalMart. I found their conversation very interesting, as the architect said she would never shop there after having worked for them. The other lady said “Oh really? I love WalMart!â€. Well, at least this goes to show that there are a few other people out there who think WalMart is as evil as I do.
I finally caught my flight and we watched “Ocean’s Twelve†on the way back. I couldn’t really get into it though as it was hard to see. I sat next to two businessmen from Toronto who (from what I could gather) were in the wood business. They were chatting on their cellphones and writing reports and emails on their laptops whenever possible. In fact, I was surprised that as soon as any plane I was on landed, people would whip out their cellphones and call their co-workers, bosses, spouses, etc, all resulting in a annoying background chatter of half-heard conversations. I am quite certain that in Canada (or previously) this was forbidden.
In Chicago I only had half an hour, but was able to get to my gate ok. I bought the veggies and dip from the same place as previously and didn’t even have time to eat them before we boarded. The flight to Montreal took about 2 hours and we landed on time at 8:30 PM. I was in the new arrivals terminal which had recently been built or renovated (it was looking very nice) and going through customs was relatively painless. They let me keep the pine cones and I was on my way after they inspected them. I tried to call Dan, but the phone was busy and once I exited the airport I had no choice but to go directly outside since the lobby was closed off and a hockey team was cheering for their new goalie, who had just arrived, in the lane outside. I hopped into a taxi and got home at 9:30 and had a nice chat with the driver on the way.
I should make an observation about obesity. I noticed throughout my trip, that there were a fair number of overweight and obese people, particularly in comparison to Montreal. I think this has something to do with the fact that in every airport I waited in, people were eating McDonald’s and drinking super-super sized Cokes or Pepsis from there. Given that I was feeling unwell to my stomach, I didn’t eat much while I was traveling, although I did note that McDonald’s was not the only option. I do not understand how someone who is clearly overweight can continue to consume French fries and pop without making the connection between the two events. So I guess going on this trip has given me a boost in my body image; it was the first time in a long time that I actually felt thin compared to the people around me!
PS My skin is back to its normal colour.
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