Tuesday was the day everyone seemed to turn up to the conference. However, Adeola and myself flew in on Monday, hoping that the extra day would help us get over jetlag and give us time to see some things before the conference started. Sadly it rained for a large chunk of the day and we couldn't find anything that, to me, resembled a city centre. Still, riding the Metro was interesting.
We turned up at the dorms at 5, quickly found ourselves in our rooms, connected to the internet (that was nice), found the dorms had showers in (that was nice too) and went down to meet the other folks. Ingy recognised me (which was also nice) and a guy called Steve drove some of us to Wash U (as they say here) to register (which was very nice of him).
A whole bunch of people were milling around during and after registration, and we were soon herded towards a bar called, I believe, Blueberry Hill, where we proceeded to drink alcohol (except, of course, the under 21s [0]). As you'd expect, this being my first non-European YAPC, there were lots of new people to meet, with faces placed to nicks and email addresses.
Keeping the London.pm reputation up, I was one of the last people to leave, with the aforementioned Ingy, who seems to be the dumrats of this side of the pond. (People who were in thye hotel in Amsterdam last August will *definitely* get that reference.)
So we're all set for the conference, with our vast ringbinders of notes, our free pens, lanyards and name badges. (I'm one of those people with a nick on mine.) Now, if I can squeak some more sleep....
[0] This is my second time in the US and I think the culture shock has hit me harder this time. I've certainly begun to be a little monomaniacal in conversation, I fear. St Louis is certainly less metropolitan than NY, funnily enough, and perhaps that's a factor, and maybe it's being around other people more this time.
In any case, I was carded, twice, tonight, which is a profound shock to me as it's never happened in the UK, and I'm ten years over the (British) legal drinking age. Thankfully I had my passport on me. Perhaps those guide books are worth reading after all.
