The ride from the airport was interesting in both bad and good ways. It certainly reminded me of what true traffic congestion could look like as we were at a standstill several times on the freeway. I do, however, still reserve the right to complain about July driving in Soldotna. The good part was that one of the people sharing the van with me happens to be the professor in charge of my group at this residency. We only came to the realization slowly as we talked about where we traveled from and why we were here. He seems quite enthusiastic, and I'd like to think that I made a good impression.
My room is on the 13th floor. I am trying not to take that as an omen. My door also happens to hide behind a pillar, which does creep me out a little bit. Every latch that can be latched is currently latched. On the plus side, even the "slow" internet access which is free with my room is faster than my upload speeds at home.
I went to The News Room for dinner. Google claims it is one of the more affordable places to eat in the area. Google lies. It was not more expensive than the other restaurants around, but it certainly wasn't cheaper (and an 11% tax on restaurant food?!). I did like the decor and the food was good. The place was packed so the service was slow, but they were upfront about it and very friendly.
As my hotel and conference do not provide breakfast, I picked up some yogurt, granola (well, Kind Healthy Grains), and 42 plastic spoons at a local, multi-level Target. The guy at the checkout was very friendly. I was surprised that there were no customers at the checkout lines with cashiers (and there were six cashiers available), but there was a line at the self-checkout (which I usually try to avoid). I wonder if it had to do with how the store was laid out.
For all my years of visiting Minnesota, this short time has already shown me a version I hadn't seen before. Intellectually, I know that the Twin Cities are one of the more populated metropolitan areas in the U.S. (let alone the Midwest), and I have dreaded each time that I had to drive through them. However, I didn't fully grasp the true meaning of that until today.
Look at that. I've already learned so much from this trip and the residency hasn't even started yet ...