Miami

Since I work with dental materials, I am a member of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR). Each year, IADR holds one or two conferences for members and students to showcase their work. The conference is usually from Wednesday until Saturday. Each day, there is a keynote speaker at 8 am. Then throughout the day there are hundreds of other shorter oral presentations. There are also many, many poster presentations set up each day.

This year's conference was in Miami, Florida. I had an uneventful flight to Miami. We were scheduled to arrive around 11:40, but we actually arrived a little early, which wasn't really a good thing, because I couldn't check into my hotel until at least 2 pm. The real check-in time for my hotel was 4 pm, but I called a few days before my arrival to request an early check-in.

Since I was so early, I decided to stay and have lunch at the airport to waste some time. I even at at Chili's in hopes that the food would take a while. Well, they were quite efficient and I was finished eating in about 30 minutes, so I still had plenty of time to waste. I walked around the airport and checked out the shops. Finally, around 1:15, I decided to make my way to the hotel. I took a SuperShuttle, which is basically a taxi, but there are lots of people riding. The operator at the airport told me the shuttle would arrive in 10-15 minutes, but really it didn't show up until 2:00! That was ok though, because I was either going to waiting at the airport, or waiting at the hotel for my room.

My hotel, of course, was the last stop. I didn't get to the hotel until a little before 3:00. I tried to check in to my room, but the receptionist said that it wasn't ready yet. She called housekeeping to see how long it would be. They said 20 minutes, so I headed over to the seating area to wait. I gave them 30 minutes before I went back up to the counter. Well, the room still wasn't ready! Meanwhile, two other people checked in while I was waiting. I asked why they could check in, but I couldn't. Finally, the guy said he'd give me an "upgrade" so that I could get into my room. They also gave me three free drink coupons. While I was waiting to check in, another person checked out and left a comment card. Whatever it said, it wasn't good... I think they wanted to avoid more bad comments, so they were bribing me. That was fine with me, as my 2 double bed room was upgraded to a king size, ocean view room. The only problem is that they were doing construction next door, and the crane was right outside of my window. It quieted down at night though. Here's some pictures from my balcony.

Once I got settled, I decided to go explore. There were signs all over pointing to the "41st Street Shopping District" so I figured I'd go there. It was almost dinner time, so I thought that if there were stores, then there was probably restaurants too. Well I walked and walked and walked and there weren't even stores! There were a few little boutique-type stores, a kosher market, and two or three kosher eateries. That was it. It was in the upper 80s and I was so hot! Quite different from the rainy 50s I left at home. Eventually I gave up and turned around, but then I had to walk alllllll the way back to my hotel. These are some pictures from the area around my hotel.

I just went to the hotel restaurant for dinner because there were no other places to eat in sight. I sat outside by the pool, which was also ocean side. It was breezy and beautiful. After dinner I just headed back to my room to relax. It was a long day!

Thursday morning I woke up early and headed over to the conference around 7:45. I went to a session of oral presentations, the plenary lecture, and another session of oral presentations. Next, a few of us headed out for lunch. There is a street called Lincoln Road just a few blocks from the convention center that has lots of shops and restaurants, so we headed there to eat. We ate at a restaurant called Tiramasu. I had the gnocchi and they were really good. On the way back to the convention center we stopped for some gelato. Yum! It was 90 degrees, so that cool treat was great. After lunch my colleague had his poster presentation. I hung out with him for a while since it was his first time doing a poster. He answered some questions from the other attendees and once I saw he had it under control, I left for the day. Woohoo. Thursday night I just headed out to dinner and then stayed up late talking with Kyle on instant messenger, just like the old days.

Friday was pretty much the same as Thursday, as far as the conference goes. More talks, more posters. Friday night I headed to the University of Miami for a baseball game. One of my co-workers went to Miami, so he wanted to catch a game while he was in town. They were playing Florida State. Unfortunately (for my co-worker, at least) Miami got whooped. It was still a nice night out though. The weather was gorgeous and what I saw of the campus was pretty nice too. I wish I went to school where palm trees line all of the streets!

Saturday morning I was pretty tired from staying out late the night before. (I am so old!) I had to be at the conference before 8:00 though, because it was my day to present my poster and I had to hang it up early. I didn't stay long though, and headed back to my hotel to grab a quick nap. Then I went to lunch and back over to the conference for my poster presentation. Almost everyone had already left the conference, so there weren't many people around. That was fine by me though. Less questions to answer!

Sunday morning around 6:00 am, the fire alarm in my hotel went off. I was groggy when I woke up and confused as to what the noise was, so I peeked my head out into the hall to see if people were leaving the building. Well, the guy in the room next to me was standing out in the hall wearing only little Speedo-like underwear. Um, gross. So we chatted for a second and tried to figure out if we had to leave. I called the front desk and the lady answered with, "Yes, it is an active fire alarm. Please vacate the building." So I put some clothes on really quick since I didn't really want to be outside in my pajamas. When I got outside there were 2 fire trucks, 2 ambulances, and a police car. I wish I grabbed my camera! We had to stay outside for 20 minutes, but then they let us back in. Turns out an electrical motor somewhere had burned out. You could definitely smell smoke on a few floors of the hotel. Then, the fire alarm wasn't even turned off until just after 7 am, so I was awake with this crap for over an hour.

I left for the airport around 9:30. My flight was at 12. It was pretty uneventful. I was so happy to be home!! I missed Peyton SOOOOOOO much. And Kyle too, a little ;)