The sports media research I was writing about in October was driving me to a conference in Ottawa, Canada at the beginning of November.  My boy and I left temperatures in the 70’s, and landed in temperatures in the 20’s and 30’s.  We chose that Friday to sight see, and we picked the coldest day in Ottawa that year – highs around 21.

We flew up on a Wednesday, and the first thing we learned is that you should NEVER take a cab in Canada.  I’ll admit I am a stupid American when it comes to the metric system, so I didn’t fully understand the price structure.  I did instantly notice how fast the meter was ticking on the cab.  Our 8 mile drive to the hotel – at midnight, in about 10 minutes – cost us about $30.  Ouch.

My boy presented his paper on Thursday morning, and did very well.  He got lots of compliments, questions and business cards, and I was very proud of him.  I had an informal interview with a professor that was there from a University I applied to for a job, and we spent almost 2 hours talking.  We sat in on a few more panels that day, and rapidly decided this should be our ‘vacation’ conference.  This conference has a 1 presentation limit – so even though you can submit more than one paper, you’re only allowed to present one.  This makes for a much more relaxing conference atmosphere than I’ve been accustomed to in the past couple of years.

That, and next year’s meeting is in San Diego in November.  Yes, please.

Friday we decided to tour Ottawa.  As I mentioned, it was in the 20’s.  I had briefly looked at my ski cap before we left B’ham, and thought “Nah.”  Our first stop on our sight seeing tour?  A store to buy hats.

The man at the front desk in our hotel told us to buy “teques” (tewks, aka hats), we should try this uniquely Canadian store called Roots.  Upon entering the mall in which Roots was housed, we quickly realized that the mall was a little out of our student budget.  Then we spotted an Old Navy.  That’s cheap, right?  Not as cheap as the “Cheap for a Buck” store next to it.  We bought two hats for under $5 at the cheap store.  For fun, we stopped at Roots.  Hats there ran about $29 a piece.

Granted, they’re not the sexiest hats ever, but for less than $5?  They did the job perfectly.

We walked the streets, my boy commented that the frozen river was abhorrent to nature, and we ended up at Parliament Hill.

Ottawa is the capital city of Canada, so this is the official place of government for the country.  It was really neat.  We got to sit in on a meeting in the House of Commons, and tour a good bit of the building.

I even sat in Parliament for a bit.  Like it’s hard.

A lot of the inside we were not allowed to take pictures of.  The biggest shame in that was not being allowed to take pictures inside the library.  It was gorgeous.  Beyond gorgeous.  Here is the outside though, as taken from the Peace Tower.

When we were on our way to get our hats, we came upon museum workers who were protesting. They gave us forms to mail in.  When we stopped for lunch, we decided to fill out the form and send it in.  We both selected names of representatives that sounded good, and mailed the forms.

Look!  I’m a protester!

After Parliament, we went to the Basilica Notre Dame.

It was very beautiful.  I wish we had had time to actually go to a mass here.

After that, we wandered over to a market-y, shop-y place, but it was cold, and we’d been outside all day, and I still had to prep for my presentation the next day.  We had some Italian, and turned in early.

As a side note?  Sleep number beds are horrible.  They are a glorified air mattress.  At one point on Friday,  I was playing around, and flopped down on the bed.  The mattress was just soft enough that my flop caused the mattress to lurch, and my boy to literally fly off the bed and land on the floor.  Oops.

My presentation went well on Saturday.  I was extremely nervous, as the person chairing my panel was also the faculty member I met with on Thursday, as well as someone I cited about 16 times in my paper (no pressure at all, right?).  I tried a new technique with my notes, and I think it actually worked really well.  Even I was pleased with myself, and I am never happy with my presentations.  Note made for the future!

I attended a few more panels that day, and then we headed back to the hotel to change for our evening out.  Being in “the land”, we were heading to an Ottawa Senators game.  How could we go to Canada and not see hockey?  They played the New Jersey Devils, which is a team near and dear to my heart.

The NHL apparently has a rule about ‘no cameras with detachable lenses”.  Lame!  My boy got his camera confiscated, but no one checked my bag, so I was able to sneak a couple of shots.

The Devils won (yay!), but the Senators managed to get their shots in when they could.

We also learned that night that the bus is the way preferrable way to travel in Ottawa.  Much cheaper.  We secured the bus schedule for the next day for our trip back to the airport.

But first, we stopped at Tim Horton’s.  This is Canada’s equivalent to Dunkin Donuts, but WAY better.

Then it was off to the airport, through a very easy customs check, and on our way back to the States.  Unfortunately, we learned in Chicago that the flight that was supposed to take us back home to B’ham was grounded in Charlotte with mechanical problems, and we got stuck in O’hare for almost 6 hours.  That was pretty awful.  If I had known that, I would have called our friends to come meet us and have bad airport food.  We finally made it home though.

It was a really fun trip!  I didn’t get many new paper ideas, but I got a couple that I’ll mull over.

And I’ll definitely submit something next year.  Because who doesn’t want to go to San Diego??

Sunday I visited the Oklahoma City Bombing Museum and Memorial.  I can’t even put in to words what I saw.  It was so moving, and so amazing.  The museum did a phenomenal job of putting you right in the middle of that day.   From the timeline of the hours leading up to the bombing, tales of people going about their lives, to moving in to a room where you listen to the only known audio that exists of when the bomb went off, and the utter chaos that followed.  You move through the immediate time period after, complete with sound and video, and videos of survivors and family members.  The rescue efforts, the recovery, the funerals, the mourning, the clean up, the trials, the rebuilding.  It was amazing.  I cried about 4 different times.  There was one room that showcased pictures of all the people that died in glass cases – and the families had donated a personal item, or something that explained who the people were.  That was so hard to look through and see.  It was so well done.  If you ever go to Oklahoma City, go.  It’s a tremendous experience.

I tried to take pictures that would do the outdoor memorial justice.  I could not.  There is no way any of these pictures can come close to mirroring what I experienced in real life.

When you first walk out of the museum (which is housed in the old Journal-Record newspaper building), you see the childrens area.  This wall is a collection of handprints sent by children all over the country as a token of love to be shared with the victims of the bombing.

They’ve left the Journal Record as it looked the day of the bombing (save for some structural fixes for safety).  They’ve bricked over the windows with black bricks to get the look of the windows blown out.  This building was directly across from the Federal Building.

On the wall of the building remains a message that was written by one of the rescuers from that day.

This area is in front of the Journal Record, and is called Rescuers Orchard and the Survivor Tree.  The trees were planted in honor of all the people that worked rescue efforts.  The tree had been in this spot for the past 90 years, and was not damaged in the explosion.

In front of this area is the gates of time, and the reflection pool.  Two black structures on either side mark the times of 9:01 and 9:03.  The pool in the middle marks the minute the bombing occured.  The pool is where the street used to be that was in front of the Federal Building.

As you can see, their is more beyond the pool.  The field of chairs is the memorial to all those that died.  The chairs are in what used to be the Federal Building.  They are arranged in 9 rows, with the 9 rows representing the 9 floors of the building.  The chairs are placed according to what floor the victim worked/died on.  The are big chairs for the adults, small chairs for the children.  The victims names are etched in the glass base.

The field is framed by the original sides of the Federal Building.

What do you tell the children you bring here?

It’s hard to describe the feeling you have while you are there.  You can definitely feel something there.  It’s an amazing place to witness.

To see all the pictures, you can look at my Flickr Stream.

Our last full day of adventures in San Francisco was spent out in Napa Valley, touring the wine country.  I learned that you need more than a couple of hours, reservations in advance are required, and that the best time to be there to see everything in bloom is in late September, early October.  So we saw a lot of naked vines.

After booking a late afternoon tour at the Robert Mondavi Winery, we headed to the smaller, family owned Peju Vineyards.

Gorgeous grounds, and a very fun and knowledgeable Russ to guide us through the winery.  (This is actually my boy’s picture)

We saw where the wine was stored to age…

They had a lot of wine

We also got to sample, and Russ was quite generous, extending our sample way beyond the normal 5 tastes.  I highly enjoyed the Provence…

But a white came out later (Columbard) that was fantabulous.  Yum.  However, everything was quite good.

Some might say we had too good of a time…

We had a picnic lunch at V. Sattui (really, is there not a place here that isn’t gorgeous?)

Sitting out on a picnic table in the warm afternoon sun with good company…now that’s a good Friday afternoon.

Back to Mondavi then, for a highly educational tour.  It was about an hour and a half, and very, very interesting.  I highly recommend it.  Except for the nakedness.  That was kind of a bummer.  Oh well…guess it means we’ll have to go back.

So the final review of the week in San Francisco?

Two enthusiastic thumbs up!  I highly recommend the city for a visit if you ever get the chance.

Now, only one more week until we’re back in Savannah – hooray for spring travels!

Thirteen things I saw/did last Thursday in San Francisco

1. The moon setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge

2. Saw the night give way to the day over the city

3. Saw the first rays of light hit the Golden Gate Bridge

4. Saw the sun finally rise over the city

5. Posed for a picture!

6. Went to Lombard Street (the view from the top of the street, then the view of the street)

7. Went to Telegraph Hill (Lombard from the distance, View of Alcatraz)

8. Went to Baker Beach at sunset

9. Turned cartwheels in the twilight

10. Spent some time with mom, and tried to caputre a good picture of the surf crashing on the rocks for her

11. Got caught in the act…

taking this shot…

12. Snuck up behind my boy and Rick for this shot…

13. Was happy!

Bonus: The end!

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Wednesday was our only day of bad weather – we woke up to cloudy skies and cool breezes.  Temperatures were in the 50’s, which wasn’t terrible.  It’s odd to think of it being cool and needing jackets in California – I think we are so conditioned to think of L.A. we forget about the rest of the state!

We spent a little time down at Fisherman’s Wharf in the morning, where we found the sea lions (much to the dismay of a local vendor.  When we asked where they were, he proceeded to tell us with much disdain where to find the ‘biggest tourist trap in San Francisco).

They were so cute!

Most of them were laying and sleeping, or posing, but some of them were playful…

Disturbing others from naps…

These two were quite fractious, constantly jockeying for position on the dock…

One finally was forced off, after much tussling…so he (she?) went to bother a new friend…

After that, it was time to head back to the hotel to prepare for the conference.  I sent everyone else on to lunch, saying I had to prepare, but mostly because I felt like I was going to throw up.  It’s interesting – I’ve studied Communication since undergrad, I teach Public Speaking…yet I detest speaking in public, and get horrifically nervous.  I usually beg my boy to ask questions for me if it’s a strange person – like if we are in the grocery store.   I’m weird.

We got to the conference, I found my room, I sat down and chatted with the panel chair.  The first person got up, and I was not nervous anymore.  He was terrible.  He raced through his presentation, did not speak clearly, and gave a talk about a decade old television show.  The 2nd girl got up, and while you could at least understand her, she was wearing jeans.  Jeans.  I was in a suit.  I figured at this point, even if I blew my whole presentation, I’d still be better.

While this section could be construed as tooting my own horn…well…I guess I can just say that I learned the difference between my Ph.D. program, which is ranked #6 in the country, and everyone else.  The people that came to watch said that I was by far and away the most professional and my presentation was the best.  Cool!

Despite that being cool (and a huge ego boost), I figured out during that panel that I probably will not return to this particular conference again.  Call me an academic snob, but I was really unimpressed with the presentations of my fellow panel members, and dismayed at how casually they presented their material.  The material presented seem to be largely qualitative, and I think I may be more of a quantitative researcher (oddly). If it was closer to ‘Bama I might consider it again – but definitely not in a TV division.  I don’t watch enough TV to be able to join in those conversations.

So we left the conference for the day, and headed up to Telegraph hill.  We had just stepped out of the car, and I was raising my camera for my first shot when I heard gasps, and a horrified calling out of my mom’s name.  I looked around, then down, and saw my mom laying face down about 4 steps below me (large stone steps).  Long story short, she fell, has no idea how, but as best as we can figure, she landed on her face somehow.  Thankfully she walked away with only an impressive knot on her face and a couple of cuts, which turned into an impressive knot and huge black eye.  I still get nauseous when I realize how much worse it could have been.

So mom and I spent some quality time together in her hotel room that night, as I became the nurse and tended to her, and she spent the better part of the night with ice on her face.  I was not going to take pictures of that!!!

There was a plan to get up bright and early Thursday for some sunrise pictures, so I’ll be sure to share those tomorrow!

(On a personal aside, one of my papers for the semester can now be labeled as “done”, and the other two are not far behind!!)

Continuing with the recap of the week….

Tuesday morning we all woke up and headed out to Muir Woods. On the way out, we were treated to a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge shrouded in fog…

We were actually sitting in traffic, in the car, and decided since we were going so slow, it would be fine to throw open the sliding door of the mini-van (yes, vacation with the parents in a rented mini-van, how cool am I???) and take pictures as the car was moving. Safe? Maybe? Smart? Probably not. Did I care? Nope – I had my seatbelt on, and we were going about 10mph.

We stopped to view the scenery on the way out…and took a self portrait…

Then one of mom and I, rockin’ it in the mini-van.

There’s no way to describe the awesomeness of Muir Woods – words pale, and pictures don’t do it justice. Not that I didn’t try…

My boy and I pose for pictures…

He supports me in everything I do…including holding on to me as I climb up on a fence post to take a picture. After my mom said something to the extent of “Oh God, be careful!” she nicely pulled out her camera to take this picture.

Yeah, yeah, the trees…

Working for my art…

There were all these spider webs spun into the trees, which was pretty cool.

Then I had to take a break, because someone had to hold the trees apart.

I figured I’d get a Pilates workout in. Why not?

This is still my favorite shot from that day.

We headed to Sausalito for lunch, where we grabbed sandwiches from a little deli, then wandered across the street to eat with this as our view…

Not much there to complain about.

I had to take a break from the action then to go back to the hotel and work for my upcoming presentation the next day. Sorry, no pictures of that.

However, Mom took this one of me, which has become my most recent favorite-ist picture ever!

And a little bit of spring to hold you over until tomorrow….

So last week I posted pictures, and considering I took almost 800, there’s plenty more to share. Since in my normal life I’ll be finishing up 3 papers for my April 1 deadline date, it just seems more fun to actually talk about last week.

We arrived safe and sound on Sunday night after a looooooong flight. 2 hours in to the 6 hour flight and I was done. We flew on AirTran, who I normally love, but I have to complain about their plane choice to fly people cross country. The plane had 3 seats on each side of the aisle, but man, was it cramped. The planes I fly from Atlanta to Connecticut have more room on them. My boy and I watched a movie on the plane on my laptop, but the battery crapped out right at the ending. So I read. A book. For pleasure. For more than 15 minutes. It was awesome.

Our hotel was so cool. We stayed at the Adante, and despite driving through a neighborhood of massage parlors and XXX stores, the hotel was clean and quiet. The best part? The rooms. While some were very tiny, the Adante did not decorate in the traditional manner of so many hotels. Each room had a unique paint job and mural bordering the top of the walls. This was mine:

The hotel was super clean, and really cool, so I give it a very high recommendation.

Monday we headed out. We got distracted on our way to the cable cars by this church, which we went inside of for a little while. It was beautiful, but I don’t like how any of my inside pictures turned out.

We then rode the cable cars, got a free ride, and stopped in Chinatown for a bit.

I could so pull off this look….

We had lunch, and discovered that Chinese writing looks very much like how our super pie day waiter Ward writes…

We wandered the streets after lunch, and found this interesting medical place…

Hmmm.

Back to the room to change and bundle up, then it was off to our night tour of Alcatraz. Which was really cool.

View from the boat.

Inside, looking down a hall of cells

A cell

The best part of Alcatraz? The view of the city. The prisoners said this was the absolute worst part of being in the prison.

We took an audio tour, learning of the prison history, the escape attempts, the inner workings, and what life was like. It was fascinating.

On the boat back across the bay, we got to watch the sun set behind the Golden Gate Bridge.

Awesome day. Tuesday? Come back for pictures from Muir Woods and the amazing Redwoods.