Decmber 9th: Day one!

Morning for Adam, Webs, and Alexis:

Today began far earlier than a day should start for us Baltimorons (or whatever you'd like to call us). We met at BWI at 5 and, though a bit sleepy, managed to go through the motions without a hitch. Upon landing in Philly, we ate breakfast at a highly technology based establishment. For each seat at the table there was an ipad which served as a menu, the way you ordered, and the way you paid- it even had a newspaper feature to use while you were eating. Pretty crazy stuff. From Philly we flew to Ottawa. Once in the Ottawa airport we zipped through customs, grabbed some maps from the information area, took some pictures of the airport (particularly the holiday setup that included a giant dreidel), and got on a bus that transported us to downtown Ottawa. After some map-reading snafus (oops), we got to the hotel and put our stuff down. Then we headed on over to the convention center. One thing we didn't quite realize was that you walked through a mall to get there, so it took some meandering around, but it is actually very easy once you know where it is and it's about a minute and a half walk from the hotel. We spent some time setting up our posters and looking around at those already set up. Then Webs went to go meet Jill, Bob, and Jessica at the hotel and Adam and I grabbed some Poutine for a late lunch in the mall before attending a presentation called "Cold War or Cold Peace?" that focused on how issues surrounding the Arctic can bring otherwise not so friendly countries together in cooperation. Afterwards we met up with the rest of the gang to make a plan.

-Alexis

Morning for Bob, Jessica, and Jill:

We got to the airport at about 8:30 am to meet and we headed on our way. Our flight was good, and we got into Ottawa on time. We hopped on a bus to the hotel, we may have gone a few stops to many and we didn't get a map so it was a little hard to navigate the streets of Ottawa but we managed and got to the hotel safe and sound. We found Julie having a cup of coffee waiting for us. We went up to the rooms to drop off our bags and to change. We then went to the convention centre and ate some lunch before heading to the sessions. 

-Jessica

From 3:30 on for all:

We started out by sitting around a table in the convention center trying to piece together the massive amount of options and how to maximize what we get out of the conference. The first way we went about that came into action at 4 when there were 3 different workshops being led so we split up so that there were 2 people at each one: Jill and I went to one led by 'Inuit Research Advisors' and their advice for research in Canada, Adam and Jessica went to one about a system used to share data between researchers called the 'Polar Data Catalogue,' and Webs and Bob went to one about the most effective ways to communicate science. After these workshops were our first poster session (5:15-7). We didn't get a ton of people today due to the fact that the actual conference doesn't start until tomorrow and so most people there today were people who were standing at posters and, therefore, couldn't really walk around and ask questions. However, the people we did talk to were great. Afterwards, we stopped at the hotel and went to dinner at an Irish place. On the way back we had quite the adventure. We were approached by a man wearing a Santa hat with a microphone and a camera guy. Adam and Bob both readily volunteered to be interviewed and proceeded to give thoughtful answers about Christmas. Once the interview has been completed it was requested of the group to perform a rousing rendition of We Wish You A Merry Christmas. It enhanced the situation that we were all wearing the same Arctic Science hats that we had gotten at the conference earlier, it was a magical moment. Tomorrow will be a whole new adventure, but that's all for now.

-Alexis

A nice little welcome to Ottawa