OzCHI – Day 1

So I woke up early at 4am on Tuesday to get ready to for my flight to Brisbane. After quickly eating some breakfast I was off. I drove directly to the Airport Undercover Security Parking to drop off my car. I had to be at the airport at least 45 minutes before my flight – which left at 6:05am. The AUSP shuttle bus dropped myself and the other early passengers off in from of the airport and told us the checkin locations. Luckily for me, I had already printed off my boarding pass so I could go directly through to security, and sit in the lounge. After about a half an hour wait, the boarding call was finally given for my flight.

The flight went well to Melbourne. They provided a light breakfast consisting of some cereal, a banana, some water, and some tea or coffee. After disembarking in Melbourne airport, I had about an hour to wait until my next flight. I took a little walk around the airport during this time, but eventually ended up sitting at the gate where my flight was due to leave from.

Flying from Melbourne to Brisbane took about twice as long. The take-off was interesting; I was sitting closer to the back of the plane this time, and as we took off there was this strange noise coming from the rear of the plane like the back door was ajar. I also felt icy cold air in the cabin during the take-off.. probably just my imaginati0n.

The flight ran a little late and got to Brisbane at about 10:44am local time (11:44am for the rest of the eastern states). After figuring out where the exit was I proceeded to the train. It seemed to take a little while longer than the advertised time of 20 minutes, but I eventually arrived at Brisbane central station and hopped off.

Firstly, I popped across the road to find my accommodation. Conveniently, it was literally just on the other side of the street. I checked in, however needed to come back after 2pm to collect the key. After this, I decided to get something to eat. After quickly looking around, I got a sandwich from a small cafe and a bottle of water from a vending machine. After finishing lunch, I then decided to do a bit of sight-seeing (given that the conference officially began the following day).

First on my list was the museum. With my phone handy, finding my way there was easy. I walked through the city, and across the river to find it located just on the other side. The museum was a bit smaller than I was expecting, but still had lots of interesting exhibits displayed inside. After spending a while looking through there, I went back outside and found a bench to sit on and enjoyed the sunny weather for a while. It was also funny to note that on that particular day, the temperature in Brisbane (~24 degrees) was much lower than it was in Hobart (~30 degrees).

After this, I walked back into the city to collect my key from the accommodation. After dropping some things off in my room, I headed out again to do some more exploring. I decided to head down to the botanical gardens to take a look around. It too was only a short walk away, and not at all difficult to find. While the gardens took up a fair bit of space, there was not a whole lot there, which made it seem a little empty. I walked around and eventually made my way to the Garden Point campus of QUT.

After getting on campus, I deciphered a map to find where I needed to go to find the registration desk for the OzCHI conference. They gave me a name badge and a bag with some useful information in it. There was going to be a welcome dinner held at 6pm, so I had a little while to wait for that. I took the opportunity to explore the campus a bit, before finding a power outlet and plugging in my computer and phone for a recharge.

Shortly thereafter, I headed off the Old Government House building for the welcome dinner. A lot of people from the conference showed up, and it was more or less a social mingling type of event. Nibbles and drinks were provided, and people just wandered around either catching up with old friends, or meeting new ones. After things started to wind up there, I headed off with my supervisor, a few people from UTAS, and some others from universities in both Sydney and Denmark to find some Belgium bar in the city in order to drink some German beer (my supervisor of course being German).

We managed to find the place and spent the rest of the evening there chatting. At about 10ish the group broke up and went their separate ways, and I headed back to my accommodation. Having been a rather long day for me, I basically just went directly to bed.