The 21 hour door-to-door trip is past us now as we focus on the start of the conference tomorrow. We arrived at the hotel early on Sunday morning after a quick connection in Chicago. The whole trip from Heathrow to New Orleans went quite smoothly, except for the need to change planes in Chicago after we were all seated and ready to go – apparently there was a problem with the braking system, so I wasn’t complaining to change planes. It was also on the flight from Chicago that it became apparent that there were possibly many physicists on-board, most of them armed and ready with poster tubes.
Today, we had our first chance to see some of New Orleans. We had a brief walk around the French Quarter and along the Mississippi river where most of the hotels are situated near to the convention center. Though it was not immediately clear from these areas the devastation that was inflicted by hurricane Katrina in 2005.
I popped into the convention center itself, and already saw a mass of physicists queuing up to register. Coming to the center is the first time the scale of the APS March meeting hits you – containing massive halls where the exhibitions are held. Some people already have their hands on the thick conference book, meticulously studying it, though no doubt looking for the location of colleague’s talks.
After a few too many shrimps this afternoon, we are ready for the conference tomorrow and look forward to keeping you updated on all the in’s and out’s of the 2008 APS March meeting.
