Well, it's actually Monday, but I meant to write this yesterday.
Spent Saturday night at the Heathrow Park Hotel, a rather nice hotel
in the Thistle chain. Of course, I had booked over the net and was
paying a quarter of the price everyone else was paying, which made
it all the more enjoyable.
American Airlines really fucked up the checkin at Heathrow; after
an hour of waiting in queues that looked like something out of
Walt Disney World, the Boston people were pulled out and checked
through separately so we wouldn't miss the plane. The flight was,
well, you know what flights are like.
Met up with John at the airport and took the (very efficient)
metro to Central Cambridge. We took a walk around Cambridge; it's
a very pretty town. Quite big, but still retains that "small town"
feel - not unlike our own Cambridge, I guess.
After looking around Harvard University - which is quite grand
and old-fashioned, we headed down Massachusetts Avenue. We then
went for a burrito, which is a bit like food but not quite. Our
walk continued towards MIT, the home of many great hackers. Though
not as compact and traditional as Harvard, (some parts of MIT look
like a chemical plant, complete with yellow painting on the kerbs
and all.) it's none the less impressive, particularly the great dome.
We came back, and I pretty much crashed out, with jet lag and also
with being tired after the walk. Woke up this morning at 6am to
brilliant sunlight and, even better, working cable modem access!
(The modem had been dead yesterday due to a fault at AT&T; they
seem to have fixed it between 9pm last night and 6am this morning -
damned good service!)
Now I'm trying to sort out all the things I need to do while
away: the P5P summary, this week's article, and then, of course,
how to get to Montreal...
