The flight landed at Heathrow at 6:00 am, having circled for 10 minutes because landing before 6:00 am is not allowed. The AoIR Conference was held at the University of Sussex at Brighton so landing simply got me in-country, significant travel was yet required. After gathering the baggage it was on to the Central Bus Station to catch the National Express to Brighton. In Brighton then I grabbed a cab to the Falmer House on campus. I did the cab rather than the train or the bus since I had enough luggage for a 6'1'' person to stay in the U.K. for 10 days. (If you are tall you will definitely know what that means.)

Logistics were interesting, after pulling my luggage up two flights of stairs to the check-in point I was told that my "packet" had instructed me to progress to York House for accommodations check-in. I replied that I had received no such packet and had been instructed, via to response to my personal email that specifically asked where to check-in, to come to Falmer House first. And so it began. The entire conference was like this - bad communication, worse planning, and lots of excuses.

By the time we got my luggage the five or so blocks back to the dorm I was very very tired. Local time was about 10 am. I decided that a shower and a short nap in my en-suité would help before my 2:00 pm pre-conference session. Would that it had been so.

The bathroom was a very frustrating process. First you had to turn on the water heater at a switch in the ceiling via a pull cord, see the picture at right.

The heater is a box within the microscopic shower. On the box are four buttons, a large series of lights, and a dial. The buttons are; start/stop, high, medium, and low. You start the water flowing then you select the temperature range and finally you adjust the exact temperature on the dial. Oh but wait, this is a "smart" box that has a series of lights to alert the user to the box's decision that the water temperature is too high and the user might injure themselves.

Like a good American I set the temp to High and get into the shower, no small fete that I will tell you more about in a bit. So the water starts flowing, freezing my tush, and begins to warm only to have all the warning lights light up and the heater shutoff, thereby shutting off the water. Of course I jumped out of the shower. *sigh* So there I stand on the paper bathmat, bearing the University of Sussex crest, pushing buttons in frustration trying to get a nice warm shower and being consistently told by a small box that I can't make appropriate decision to bath myself without causing bodily injury - the box knows best.

I finally figured out that the only way I could shower was to set the box on low, the dial to medium, and let the water run so that it was thoroughly heated. This, no doubt, saves electricity but certainly does not save water.

The shower stall itself was the smallest I have ever seen, a conference participant later referred to it as half-a-phone-booth. For me it was just a sub-size zero thing, not proportioned for an average human being over say 6 years of age. Showering in this stall was very much like being locked in a glass coffin. *shivers* After the conference banquet a lively conversation was held about the various ways people were pressing themselves against the wall so they could get the door closed. One day I dropped the soap and decided that there was absolutely no way to pick it up from INSIDE the shower. ***Please note that objects in the picture many appear larger then actual size.

After that deeply frustrating interlude of trying to take get hot water in the micro-shower stall I finally succeded in showering and curled up for a nap and then promptly slept through my scheduled pre-conference session, a very inauspicious beginning for the conference all-a-round.

I had been told on check-in that there were very few eating places open on campus on the weekend...translate very few to basically none. But upon awaking I stumbled out to find some dinner at about 5 pm having not eaten for 12 hours since the morning "snack" on the plane. I didn't find an open café on campus and was trying to decide on an action plan when I ran into a scholar from Florida and we decided to take the bus into town for dinner. That meeting ended up saving the day. It was a lovely evening of dining and chatting.

Following are pictures, albeit a touch blurry in some cases, of my third floor en-suité accommodations at the University of Sussex. All and all the rooms were very nice.

Two of the nicest things about the room were that it faced a rolling pasture complete with calves and cows and had windows that opened. A country girl in another country listening to its night sounds. I got to explain about pasture rotation and calve weaning to several of the academics in attendance, for once being a farm girl came in handy at a conference. Here are a few pictures of the land behind the building. Sadly I didn't snap any pictures from the room and waited until I was on the ground to catch a few before I left campus for the last time, by then I was not interested climbing back up three flights to get better shots. Sorry folks.

Posted by prolurkr at September 18, 2004 09:24 PM

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