The CogSci conference was held last week in Nashville, Tennessee and I spent most of it (July 31-August 5) at the hotel.
The day before I left (July 30) I quickly made my poster for the conference, got it printed, worked on an abstract for a symposium at another conference, and worked on the new project plan to be submitted two days later.
Since I arrived on Tuesday I was lucky since a lot of colleagues were supposed to fly in on Wednesday on an ill-fated flight. The same airline (US airways) that catered my flight told my colleagues that there was some "mechanical failure" and that the flight was cancelled while all of them were sitting at the gate, ready to board the plane.
Since it was pretty much only my colleagues who were on this flight it is likely that US airways figured it would cost them money to actually do this flight and subsequently cancelled it.
My colleagues were forced to chose between two flights and either take one or two lay-overs.
I felt sorry for them but also smiled to myself that I was smart/lucky to fly in the day before the conference started. This is exactly the kind of crap which you want to avoid and I fortunately did.
Good thing for all of us the flight back to Pittsburgh went smooth like butter without any glitches.
I fear it will be hard to explain to YOU who hasn't been there and I figured bringing my camera would be pointless since I was to spend almost all my time just at the 'hotel'.
First of all, after seeing the enormous lobby area and spotting an entrance leading to a large area with palm trees and a bridge over a pond, I got the feeling this 'hotel' would be somewhat different from the usual hotels I've been to.
During checking in I was given a map, to check it out click HERE.
Obviously I got lost once I walked off the main path in the Delta wing and the labyrinthine hallways where the guestsroom where located didn't help much in finding my room.
Eventually I figured it out, just moments before I lost the hilarity of the situation and started to get pissed off.
After getting rid of my bags and installing my stuff in the room I went out to scout the hotel areas. The first impression was of awe, inspired by seeing all those plants, trees, ponds, cascades and the likes. This hotel has also about 6 restaurants, 2 pubs, several shops, a few cookie/sandwich/salad places.
So pretty much it had almost everything one would need to live. Of course this was way too luxurious and expensive deluxe. But being stuck in such a 'hotel' somewhere between airport and the city left me with not many alternatives than to spend money like it was plain water.
Furthermore, the restaurants and pubs closed fairly early so the 'hotel' had a huge impact on our daily rhythm.
Let me tell you that being in a large airconditioned area where you are forced to breathe, eat and drink according to their schedule will make any living being feel awkward.
Besides the obviously hilarious hotel name (seriously, Gaylord Opryland, what the fuck?) the atmosphere of being coerced into sullen obedience in the country music capital of the world gave this entire experience an unreal touch.
It literally did feel like being in "Westworld" (Yul Brynner movie anyone?) and we had several conversations about the absurdity of the situation. We never really knew what those other two conferences were (office suppliers suppliers, what the hell?) and if the participants were actual humans or planted robots.
We also observed some drunken actions, mostly by guys (or robots...), who cornered/harassed women by groping and trying to kiss them. Pretty hilarious really. But also strange since the targeted women didn't oppose as much as one would expect. In one case (at the blues bar, see below) the woman actually went home with the guy after he had harassed, pulled her hair and groped her for well over an hour! Go figure...
After a few days I started to feel a bit freaked out. But I guess THEY noticed and adjusted the air composition in my hotel room so that feeling settled down fairly quickly. Eventually we dared to leave the compound, not in shuttle buses as they wanted as to, but on foot. Yes we were so bold and brave!
And actually found several normally priced restaurants, a HUGE mall (3 miles long if I'm correct) and best of all: fresh outside air. Wow.
We ended up going to the same blues bar downtown Nashville two nights in a row on Friday and Saturday night. A band played both nights with a nice mixture of rock, blues, covers and major guitar wankery. The frontman was quite the showman and walked up the stairs to the upper area of the bar to show off to all the audience members. Still, he had some mad skills and his band played as a tight unit. Though I'm not much of a blues fan it really was very enjoyable.
The last character I wanna mention is one of the cab drivers we had. It was Tony Montana.
Seriously.
He slowly worked on his looseness really. First he told us a story about him being nice to his customer (he returned a wallet with lots of $$$) and the customer scolding him for being late because he dared to pick up another customer with whom he had prior arrangement.
Then he started telling us that we shouldn't use Yellow Cab at any cost since their employees are ill-treated by their bosses, he knew 'cause he had worked for that cab company. But after this he started telling that the Yellow Cab employees are mostly Somalians and that they frequently steal his customers after he got a dispatch call.
He'd see them pull off right in front of him. Since he tried the nice way of talking to them and they always denied stealing his customers so he figured he wouldn't let them take advantage of him anymore. So nowadays every time he sees one of them Somalians he walks right up to them and....
SPITS THEM RIGHT IN THE FACE!!!!
Happens every day, he just walks up to them and spits in their face. That'll teach them to steal his customers.
Ok Tony, thanks for giving us front door service to the blues bar but don't expect us to call you later tonight to bring us back to our hotel hahahaha!
So now it's Tuesday August 7 and I've survived Westworld, weird people, whacky cab drivers.
Frank Capra was right: it's a wonderful life!
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