AMIA - Day 0

Alright, whoever set up the transportation routes between Washington-Dulles Airport and Washington, DC must have been kidding. The civil engineers probably said something along the lines of "Let's make people fly, then bus, then metro, to get into the city". It was meant to be a joke, until the city planners replied "Hey, that sounds like a great idea!", to which the engineers may have responded with "Wait, we were only... oh whatever, at least we'll get a good laugh."

As for myself, this morning I woke up to a cold, icky, rainy Pittsburgh and flew to a cold, icky, rainy (and very humid, but what else is new) Washington DC. After waiting for 30 minutes for my luggage, and another hour of transporting from plane --> bus --> metro --> transfer --> walk half a mile to the Hilton at Dupont Circle, I finally arrived at the Hilton Washington, home of the 2005 AMIA Annual Symposium. The consolation - I truly enjoy Dupont, and it's great seeing all of the wonderful boutiques and shops, especially Kramerbooks... ah memories.

Lucky for me, there's free wireless in the hotel, so my communication capability shall remain quite robust.

Anyway, upon checking into my room, I picked up my conference materials from the registration desk. Today's agenda for the conference consisted of a slew of tutorials and private meetings for which I was not able to attend. However, tomorrow is the competition and the official start to the conference - so there is an air of anticipation. And as always, this conference is huge! The hotel is just filled to the brim with AMIA attendees! Ok, be back tomorrow.