So there I was, Wednesday morning, stuffing the last of my clothes and toiletries into my backpack. I rechecked around the room to make sure that I had everything and then hefted the pack onto my back. After checking out I got lucky and caught a shuttle bus just a few minutes later. Arriving at the conference I made my way to the "bag check" where I was told that each bag would cost me $5. Really?! The conference isn't making enough money off the 30,000+ attendees! I coughed up the money and handed my bag over to the people manning the desk. They literally wrestled it into submission and I stowed my pickup ticket in my shoulder bag.
I somehow had enough time to stand in line for Starbucks before finding my way to the minisymposium that was addressing the neurobiological basis of food addiction. Settling in for the talks I managed to juggle my breakfast and tea while taking notes. With my poster session behind me and it being the last day of the conference I was feeling pretty light. About halfway through the talks a thought struck me like a lightening bolt. You know all those books detailing everything that was happening each day at Neuroscience? The ones I threw straight into the garbage the night before? Right, that's probably a bad idea after I had taken some precious notes on the black pages at the back of each book!! With a mental head slap I waited for the current talk to finish then quietly snuck out the door at the back of the room. I called the hotel to see if my room had already been cleaned. They said they would check so I figured instead of waiting around I would just shuttle back to the hotel. Upon arriving one of the ladies from housekeeping was kind enough to find what had been in the garbage can next to the desk in my hotel room. I was able to extract the notes while thanking her profusely and feeling like an idiot for making such a silly mistake!
With the notes stowed safely in my bag I caught the next shuttle back to the convention center where I said to myself, "I'm calling it!". Neuroscience 2014 had been AWESOME but it was time to get going. So I retraced my steps to the bag check, hoisted my bag onto my back, adjusted all the straps and set off for the Metro. There I swiped through the gate with my nifty SmarTrip card and was lucky to nab a whole seat for my bag and I. We settled in for the ride up to Silver Spring. I consulted my Metro map to make sure I knew where I would be disembarking. I didn't need to check as I already had the details firmly etched in my mind but with riding the Metro for the first time I wanted to be extra sure I wasn't going to make a mistake. Without incident we arrived at Silver Spring and I hiked, well it felt like hiking - I don't know how people actually hike with these packs! - the three blocks to my mom's hotel. I could see it as soon as I emerged from the Metro station and it's always a relief to know that you're in the right place when you're traveling somewhere new. I walked through the doors and started looking around. That's when my mom came running up to me with a huge smile on her face. We hugged and laughed and took my stuff up to the hotel room. I unpacked everything and then we went downstairs to grab lunch at the hotel's restaurant.
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