SLSA Wrap-Up First attempt

I say first because I suspect I will have more to say about thoughts provoked by this conference as time goes on, but I have to start (or rather end) somewhere.

After the last plenary we all agreed there should be food and much drinking and we agreed to eat at Flatbread, the best pizza place in town. --They are a very small chain, maybe 6 places in ME, NH, and VT. Then we'd find a comfy bar and settle in, since the weather was getting nasty and no one was up for pub crawling. As we walked from the museum, it was cold, rainy and some of the party decided we need to swing by the Holiday Inn, so we did. At that point Istvan and Sherryl said they need to go right on because they were meeting people, but they didn't know the way. And here I was just stupid; I didn't take them into Holiday Inn to call a cab for them. Instead I decided to walk them over, and the others said they'd catch up soon...

Well, it was of course a longer walk than we'd expected, it started to sleet...we made it at last though and I handed Istvan and Sherryl safely to their party, and happily I ran into Anthony and Christian and crashed their plans. --And met more nice people, including Mark Marino. So I had the amazing uncured fennel sausage pizza--one of my favorites from Flatbread. But, I was rather irritated at not reconnecting with everyone else for drinks because I liked them a lot and this would be a lousy way to conclude our meeting. Finally, I managed to track down a number and find out that they were all just parked at the Holiday Inn (which I still think was just silly. ;-) ) and Christian and I decided to trek back over. So we did, and had more drinks and when the bar closed at 1am it still felt too early and rather anti-climactic, but we made our farewells and went off.

And then those of us all in the Portland Harbor Hotel (me and some of the SFRA folk) agreed to meet for brunch, which made me feel a bit better.

Brunch was delicious (lobster Florentine omelet) and we talked more, this time about what we were working on back at our respective schools, and even started talking about possible collaborations, future conferences and so on. And then I guess we still didn't want to split up because we all went to the airport together, even though our flights weren't that close. --But maybe it was just me; hard to tell when you've only just met someone.

So that's my first attempt and judge from it being such a bare-bones chronology now, I know I'll have a lot more to say later.