Day 1 of Conference

I slept for about 5 hours yesterday afternoon, and then was wide awake last night from starting about 10 pm (this time) until about 2 in the morning, killing time, watching various things on my computer. I wasn't really even tired then, but knew that if I didn't get SOME sleep, I would be a real mess in the morning. Then, of course, when it was 8 in the morning and I wanted to get up so I could find my way around town (to try and find this mysterious conference and see if I could find things to buy for he kids--Thomas gave strict instructions to buy him lots of things, "And they had better be good!" were his last words to me before I left, perhaps to never see him again) I was exhausted. Nonetheless, being the trooper that I am, I soldiered on and made my way around town and managed to find the bus station that I landed in yesterday (it stank more than I processed yesterday) as well as the conference site. We were given strict instructions to NOT show up early, so I went BACK into town and did find a few things to buy, none for Thomas (I am sure he will be happy to know). Finally, the hour tolled and, as when the gates of Wonka's magical chocolate factory open, excited, specially chosen academics from all over the world were allowed into this place, Mansfield College:

You can look at that grass, but don't even think about touching it, as some found out when they walked across and an old biddy came flying out of a secret recess, screeching, "Keep off the grass!" Very twee.

These friendly reminders of how to navigate the road crossings have already saved my bacon at least 8 times and I've only been here 24 hours.

How many foreign corpses had to be scraped off the roadways before someone got the bright idea for writing these words into the road?

Yesterday I mentioned that this is a city of tourists; no one actually lives here. Today I entered the culture of resident tourist and began giving out directions to lost people as if I knew what I was doing. One couple, I suspect Chinese, asked me where the river was. I had no idea, never having seen a river since being here and tried to talk them out of trying to get to a river. I had seen a greenhouse that I had just walked past and thought that was a nice thing to see and talked about that. But they insisted on finding a river. I did figure out that they were holding their map upside down, and did tell them that I knew where my hotel road was, and suggested that, if they walked in that direction only farther, perhaps they might run into some water. Who knows? They seemed happy with that possibility and set off in that direction. The conference went well enough, though by halfway through I did get very sleepy. My one serious complaint is that the "gents" get access to a rather spacious bathroom and the women (who outnumber the men in the conference by 4 to 1) have to share a single-seater, which is also the only handicapped access bathroom in the entire college. (On a side note, I did come back to my hotel room and found a pair of strange, gray gloves--or are they bizarre socks? I can't tell) laying in the room on one of the chairs. They look like woolly opera gloves. Or, as I said, socks. What's that about?) Postscript, 1 hour later: I just looked over to my left at the bedside table and noticed two little gold butterfly earrings on it that were not there when I left this morning. I would wonder if I went into someone else's room except that (1) I see all my stuff in it and, of course, (2) my key got me into it. What went on in here while I was out all day?