On the Move Again

This morning, I packed up all of my stuff and got ready to move to yet another hotel. I was disappointed to leave 'The Establishment' since it has been such an awesome hotel, but I needed to head west to Darling Harbour because today was the first day of the ICONN 2010 conference.

So, I checked out of the hotel, leaving the awesome phone that controls the lights behind. I decided to take a ferry from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour. The ferries here (and also in Brisbane) are considered an essential part of public transportation (due, largely, to a lack of bridges). It was a little weird to be hopping on the ferry with all of my luggage, but I certainly couldn't beat the price and it was definitely a lot easier than walking. It also turned out to be an awesome decision as far as sightseeing was concerned. The ferry left the Circular Quay wharf and made a left turn to pass under the Harbour Bridge. The views of the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, and city skyline were pretty awesome - especially since the weather was great! I sat on the back deck of the ferry to get the best angles on photos of the surrounding scenery.

The ferry made a few stops along the short trip to Darling Harbour and, before I knew it, I was getting off the ferry to make my way to the hotel. I had a reservation at the Novotel Darling Harbour and I found it very difficult to get to the hotel. I eventually found out how to cross the light-rail and monorail tracks to get to the hotel and managed to get inside. Novotel is a French-owned hotel chain and I have stayed in a couple of them during my trips around Australia and New Zealand. I haven't been super impressed yet and today was no exception. I would rank Novotel up there with your typical bigger American hotel chain (not the budget hotels, but not the luxury ones either). So, they do things pretty well, but they aren't great. Anyhow, after waiting in line behind some stupid American who didn't seem to understand that the hotel couldn't give him change in U.S. dollars (and we wonder why people don't like us around the world), it was my turn in line and I managed to get checked-in and taken care of.

Next, I found my way over to the conference center to register for the conference. After picking up my registration packet and nifty shoulder bag, I attended an afternoon workshop on neutron scattering. This is an area that I know nothing about but I found the workshop to be very helpful and now I know a lot more about the ways that neutron scattering can be used. I also learned that the technique has been used to monitor the interaction of water with DNA, watch polymer chain interpenetration between nano-scale polymer layers below the glass transition temperature, and confirm (from a solid state physics perspective) the magnetic mechanism that allows data to be stored on hard-drives without having the magnetically stored data simply 'drift away'. So, the workshop was very interesting (to me at least).

During the coffee break, I caught up with Mikel Duke (president of the Membrane Society of Australasia). We had met at the MSA conference in Wollongong, but it was good to talk with him a bit more. Mikel introduced me to Chris Fell who apparently used to work in membranes and knows Dr. Paul rather well. Apparently, Chris will be in Italy with us at the conference in May. After the coffee break and the rest of the workshop, I went to the welcoming reception and enjoyed some really great finger-foods and a few glasses of champagne. I met up with many of the CSIRO students (Anita brought almost everyone in the group to the conference) and I also met other CSIRO students and talked with people I recognized from the MSA conference. After talking with some folks for a while, I was approached by a girl who immediately picked me out as an American. It turns out that she is doing her PhD between CSIRO and the University of Melbourne. She grew up about an hour north of New York City and apparently never wants to go back to America.

After the opening reception, I caught some awesome photos of the Darling Harbour area. The harbor has a rather tourist-oriented feel to it as there are a lot of restaurants and shops surrounding the water. But, at the same time, it just feels like a fun place to be and I'm looking forward to being here for a few days! Well, I think I'm going to call it a night for now since today was a big day and tomorrow will also be a big day!