SFN @ San Diego

At 11pm on Thursday we got back home, still enjoying the Bruins game, but also saying goodbye to each other for a while again, cause the morning after I had to leave for SFN in San Diego. Looking forward to numerous things: seeing my beloved colleagues from Belgium again, enjoying a nice sunshine and 80F (25 degrees Celsius): it will feel like summer again!, have some drinks, party's, good food, dances, ...

So at 8am I got up, went for a quick run, packed my bags and left for my flight at noon. I had a Big Mac menu for brunch (havent had one in months!), found my seat, sit down and relaxed for a flight from Boston to Dallas. It was suppose to take about 3 and a half hours, but then after about 3 and a half hours the pilot announced the following: because of a quite heavy storm we have to wait to land in Dallas, we have to circle around for a while until we get the go signal. This took about 30 min when finally we flew again in the right direction: to Dallas. The only disadvantage: we had to fly through this bad weather with causes enormous turbulence. This was so heavy the guy in front of me flew with his head almost against the ceiling. Me, myself, was also lifted out of my seat, like all the other passengers. People screamed and were scared, but nothing terrible happened. Although for the next 20 minutes I held on very tight onto my arm rest.

We arrived safe and sound, the flight to San Diego was also delayed because of the storm, as was any other flight from and to Dallas. This made me arrive in San Diego at 6pm instead of 5pm, with another 20 min wait in line to get a taxi. The other 30.000 people for the conference all arrived and needed a taxi more or less at the same time I guess...

Entering the hotel was another very 'special' experience. The hotel was located in Hillcrest area which is known to be the gay area and I must say: this hotel was as gay as a gay hotel can be! I was very happy not to be a man for once ;-).

And then followed 5 days of an overwhelming amount of scientific information, walking, listening to talks, walking again, from poster to poster, trying to get a good closer spot, asking questions, getting answers, talking, having lunch meetings, dinner meetings, drinks meetings.... it was good, very good.
I had a nice bbq at a beach house of very nice people, I played beach volleybal after the bbq and after some glasses of wine, margarita's,... I had a very good lunch meeting organized by myself (*proud*), I had way too many tequila shots, I ate a lot of very unhealthy food, I went to the beach, I saw dolphins from the beach, I ate pizza and humus, I went for a 9 mile run in the dessert, I got a bit of a tan, I ate breakfast on the hotel roofdeck, outside in the sun, I photographed palm trees, I took a sweatshirt with me to wear inside because they really don't understand how much to use AC inside the buildings, I had mojito's on a very fancy roof deck of the marriott, I made sure to wear ID on me every time after a colleague got refused to drink a mojito or beer, I had sand in my shoes for days, I joked with cab drivers, I presented my poster for 4 hours after sleeping only 4 hours, I discussed sports games with strangers at the bar, I was the most horrible singer at the karaoke bar and still enjoyed myself (read again: I had way too many tequila shots ;-)), I drank wine and mojito's and more tequila and appletini's and mixed up the letter J (jay) with the letter G (jee) but come on it sounds so much the same! ;-)

It was a good...good meeting :-)