From the trip to the Mensa Annual Gathering, in early July. Warning. Travelogue. Probably boring.
Guy wasn't there.
Red-Shirt was.
Instead of several small hospitality suites, they used one huge ballroom. Noisy. Not comfy, not conducive to meeting people, or group-involving conversations. There was a smaller smoking hospitality room (a conference room), with no food or drinks except what people brought in, where the conversations did flow better, but the ventilation was ... not there ... and one didn't want to stay there long.
Conclusion - the hospitality rooms were not hospitable, making it harder for shy people like me to meet new people. I didn't meet any new people. Except Red-Shirt, and he makes my total negative.
New Orleans had some strong winds the day or so before we all arrived, and signs of cleanup - trucks full of tree branches, sounds of chainsaws - were everywhere. So when it looked at first like Dennis might hit New Orleans, some people panicked. By the weekend, all trains headed east and most flights had been canceled. I heard there were no buses.
People tried to extend their stay at the hotel, but the hotel said a) they would not extend reservations, b) they might have to evacuate those who were booked through already, and c) if they didn't evacuate, there would probably be no "services" Sunday or Monday anyway, that most employees would not be in. They didn't say anything about what would happen to stranded people who would be kicked out, in the middle of the (supposed) hurricane, when their reservation was up. By Sunday morning, when it looked like Dennis would continue its turn to the east, the hotel offered to extend stays. A lot of people did stay longer, because their travel arrangements were a mess. I hadn't planned to leave until Tuesday, so I was ok, but NJ had to stay over an extra day.
Food in the hotel - the awards luncheon Friday, the banquet Saturday, and the breakfast Sunday, was delicious, but way too expensive. The banquet (steak that I cut with my fork!), for example, was $75. As good as it was, it wasn't that good. The evening we had arrived, NJ and I had eaten in the hotel dining room, and decided it was too expensive. Meals outside the hotel, even in the French Quarter, were quite reasonable, and surprisingly good everywhere we went.
The night before I left, I was packing, and about 1 AM I realized I hadn't had dinner. We had all received a $10 credit from the hotel to be applied to food or services, so I ordered a Waldorf salad from room service. Now, one should not expect to pay more than $7 for a Waldorf salad anywhere. In the room service menu, it was $15. Well, ok, I get $10 credit, so that's ok. Long story short - I missed the fine print, where they add x% to the bill for room service, and y% for the tip, and z% for something else, and ... the end result being that I paid $45 !!! for a tiny Waldorf salad (which has not much in it even when it's made right) complete with NO dressing! They forgot the danged dressing! By then I was so tired I just ate it. With my fingers.
I had given myself the free Monday (the gathering ended at noon Sunday) to do other things, like a swamp/bayou tour. All swamp/bayou tours were canceled, in anticipation of high water from the storm.
I was fully aware that when NJ goes to Mensa gatherings, she tends to completely ignore all the Mensa programs, and just use it as a discount trip to whatever city. A lot of people do that. I, however, really did want to go to some of the talks. Of the 200 or so talks and demonstrations offered in the program booklet, I had circled fifteen or so that I was really very interested in - but I somehow ended up ramming around with NJ instead. (Which, understand, was fun, and I don't regret that.)
So on the way home on the plane, I was thinking about how much easier it would be to go back on my own now, now that I know a little about the downtown, and what I would do, and I realized that I could do on my own everything that NJ and I had done, and more, but I would never again have the opportunity to attend those programs. They are gone. They are mourned.
Two in particular that I rue missing were on aspects of the Patriot Act. Another was about subsidence, and about the pumps that keep N.O. dry. Another on Voodoo, and famous priestesses. Another on Cajun culture and customs. Another on Mardi Gras costumes, how-tos. One about where N.O. gets its drinking water. A few political and financial talks. All gone. Gone gone gone. Tsk.
The organizers did a good job decorating. There were piles of beautiful Mardi Gras beads everywhere, in metallic green, purple, and gold. People were putting dozens of strings of beads on, and it was all very festive. However, I was amused to overhear an actual Mensan say, in the hotel lobby, when asked if he wouldn't like to leave the beads in his room before going out for dinner, "Oh, no. I'll wear them, look like a native. Don't want to look like a tourist!" Sigh.
We were issued badges that we had to wear to get into any of the talks, rooms, and events. We were advised to remove them when we left the hotel. When the gathering officially ended at noon on Sunday, most of the attendees were still in the hotel, being stuck until transportation resumed. I think, out of the 1600 or so people still there, I may have been the only one to continue to wear the badge. It seemed like a good idea to me, that since we were all still there it would be nice to be able to identify the people we could easily walk up to, and invite ourselves to dinner with, or whatever.
Or maybe they were all trying to hide from Red-Shirt....
~~Silk
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