7/28/2011 Around Town (or at least the iDrive)

This conference starts at 2pm today. I've never had a conference start at 2pm. For all the folks that live in Florida (maybe 25% of the ~700 participants), that's nice. For us that it takes 9 hours to drive/fly here, that's not so efficient. But it gave us the morning to tour around. Our hotel is on International Drive, nicknamed i-Drive. And there's a trolley service that you can catch that goes up and down the drive. It runs 24-7 and is only $1.25 a ride OR you can get a 3-day pass for $6. (There are other combinations are available for the pass.) We bought the pass and then put it to the test.

Before we could even get out of the hotel driveway, *this* pulled up. It's crazy! It's a Volkswagen Beatle with a lobster on it! It's a promobile for Boston Feast, an all-you-can-eat lobster restaurant in town. Being from Maine, I think I'll pass, but I do like the car. I posted this on Facebook and comments included, "Where's the giant dish of melted butter?" which did sort of sound yummy, but I'm still passing.

We rode the trolley north and then south and just walked around. But only did a little walking around 'cuz it was 89 degrees with 65% humidity and it felt much much hotter than that. We got in a little sightseeing (including Wonderworks, which we did not go in but which sounds pretty interesting) and bought some bottled water and fresh fruit to avoid some of the extravagant prices you'd pay for those items in the hotel. Water here smells like sulphur from about 10 miles out. Even the locals don't drink it much. We made a few stops then headed back in time for the 2:00 keynote by Dan Meyer. What a way to kick off a conference. He was awesome and inspirational. Let the mathfest begin!