The Magnolia Denver

So here we are again, the beginning of another trip overseas. I am truly very grateful that my jobs sends me to places that are new to me, and where there are always nice things to do when I am not working. Thanks work! So, I had a ridiculously early start to the day, needing to be at Heathrow at 5am, ready for my 8am flight to Chicago. The flight was remarkably on time and so we headed off. I'd like to point out that American Airlines do the best breakfast I have ever had on a plane - full m...

I awake to the first day of the month to discover bright sunshine pouring through my window. I also discover that breakfast finishes at 9am, and it is 9:10am. Bugger. No breakfast for me today then! I had a look through some tourist guides to see what to do today and decided upon a self-guided walking tour of the city. I set out at about 10:30am and walked first to the Convention Centre to find out where my conference was going to be. As it transpired it was all of 3 minutes walk away, so I n...

Huzzah - today I awoke in time for breakfast, only to discover at weekends breakfast runs until 10am, which did mean I could have spent some more time in bed. However, today I needed to go to the conference centre and get our stand set up so getting up a bit earlier was not a bad thing. Breakfast was a continental affair - cereals, yogurts, pastries, fruit salad etc. Which is a pleasant way to start the morning. I headed straight over to the Convention Centre after breakfast to get that over ...

Sometimes there are days when my job is not as appealing as I insist. Today was one of them. It was Sunday today and to get up, look human and be in a meeting halfway across town at 8am in the morning. It is totally unheard of for me to be up before 11am on a Sunday, let alone be sensible enough to talk work. Ergh. Anyway, I made it and it was a useful meeting, made more bearable by the very nice spread of food that was put on for breakfast. I also managed to catch up with one of my colleague...

Not quite such an early start today, although I still had to start the day with a meeting. At least this time I managed to have breakfast in my hotel before heading out, so I was fed and prepared for this meeting. After my meeting had finished I went and got some Krispy Kreme doughnuts and fruit juice so the three of us at the stand had something to eat. We were pleased to discover it was a little busier in the hall, but it still wasn't anything major. I had another meeting at lunchtime (I re...

get up before 9am and go down there; which sadly meant I was hungry when I rolled up at the conference at 10:30am. Fortunately there was one doughnut left, so that sated my appetite for a little while, at least until lunch. The exhibition was a bit busier today, which meant that the morning flew past - so quickly in fact that we all forgot about lunch! Fortunately, we were allowed to eat the attendees lunch if they left any - the exhibitors hung around like vultures waiting for any spare pick...

Ahh, it was so nice to get up and not have to face a whole day of exhibiting! Today I was going to spend the morning being an attendee, and so after breakfast I headed over to the convention centre to listen to a few talks - the main one being Scott Adams, the creator of the highly funny Dilbert cartoons. The guy is just as funny and dry-humoured as his cartoons would suggest and he was well worth listening to. Afterwards I thought I'd get a bit more sightseeing done, so I caught the free shu...