Break Chronicles: Day One

It is day one of my last summer break for this summer, and I am currently in a place I have never ventured before. Getting to this place was definitely an adventure.

My day started with sleeping past the alarm and waking up an hour after I wanted to get up. I managed to get out the door 8 minutes after I woke up...in a panic, of course. The rest of the day was spent in planes and in airports with my travel companions having to wait for me for several hours because I had a later arrival than they. By the time I FINALLY cleared customs and made it to the greeting area, I had been traveling for 19 hours. We then had to navigate the train system (not difficult at all), check into the hotel (originally tried to give us one room rather than two), and then head off in search of food. My travel companions ate at an open air bar in the hotel, and then we talked to the front desk about a very strong mildew smell in our bathroom. We had to stay up a little bit more for the shower curtain to be switched out and then started our evening routines. My sister and her best friend from college are staying together and Mom and I are in the other room. Mom and I chatted until it was obvious that we needed to sleep, and we both slept until 6:45ish (8:45ish my time!!).

This morning, we found Tim Hortons and got some breakfast before heading off to the Aquarium on the Stop and Go bus pass. There was lots of walking that we did in about five hours, but we managed to make it. My hips are always out of alignment after being stuffed into an airplane seat, so they tend to burn when I am walking too much. This happened today and made me need to take lots of breaks. I hope that I will get back into alignment pretty soon to make this business trip a bit easier. I am hoping that we can do the entire loop of the Stop and Go bus tomorrow so we can see the entire city. I think I will be able to sit in the bus and not stress the back muscles very much. We'll see. There is so much to do here, and not lots of time to do it all. I can count on my Mom, Sister, and SisterAZ to do much of that without me.

So, we got ourselves to the aquarium and went all around that place. Aquaria are some of our favorite places to visit when we travel, and this one was a good one. It was very informative. I liked the seals and sea lions the best. I got to the gift shop (I am a sucker for an aquarium gift shop for some reason), and I bought a bag to carry things in. The clerk said, "you will have to purchase more than $25 dollars to get the deal." I laughed and laughed because I knew that I already had more than $25 in my basket. The t-shirt I bought alone was more than that! So, I have a new mesh bag that I can stuff in my purse for when we go and do more shopping!! I bought myself the aforementioned t-shirt. a magnet, several postcards for my memory book, and some sea animal shakers - always on the lookout for some instruments, you know!

Tomorrow is my first day at the conference. I will go before the opening ceremony to drop off my file for uploading. I am hoping that they will return my jumpdrive to me in its original format so I can get all the information back. My part of the conference will be over on Wednesday at 12:15pm. I am a bit nervous because I haven't done a live conference for quite some time now, and my topic is not a firm topic - it depends on lots of "what-ifs" to make it work.

Anyway, I start my business stuff tomorrow evening. I will be going to the opening ceremony of the World Congress for Music Therapy. There will be lots of people that I know of and some that I know in attendance. There will be many members of the international music therapy community that I have interacted with during my time with the Online Conference for Music Therapy, Inc, but that I have never met in person before.

This feels like I felt during my first movements into the music therapy world. I remember some of my first conferences. I didn't know anyone and just pretty much kept to myself. I feel a bit like that right now with this conference, and I feel silly for feeling this way, but I am working on allowing myself to just feel...

Well, for better or worse, it will all be over in 72 hours.

I can't keep going right now - it has taken me two hours to get this much out of my mind. I hope that I can write more tomorrow - Aquarium pictures to come, I promise!!

 Wow - look at them buggy eyes!!