Once more hurtling through the night in the flying meat wagon. Woman next to me is chaperoning 4 kids (not all hers). Watch a Jim Carey movie (Fun with Dick and Jane). It’s actually not too bad. I laughed at the ficus scene (I guess you had to work somewhere where they couldn’t afford to rent the potplants anymore). Kids are screaming on the way down as they’re having ear repressurisation problems. Woman asks the girl if her brothers have had this problem before. She says yes. “Would have been good of your mum to tell me”.
Arrive at the airport at the insanely early hour of just after 5am. Have realised that I have no idea what the address of the hotel is, only its name. I notice the international ‘Train’ symbol, which looks like a pretty good bet for getting into the city. Fortunately the shuttle bus info stop has a tourist map with the Ibis marked on it, and it’s not particularly far from Central Station. At this hour of the morning however the train station is closed and you get to climb up a long flight of stairs just to find that the gates are shut (fortunately I heard someone else say this, I didn’t have to discover it for myself). The displays indicate the next train will be leaving shortly, so I climb up the stairs and wait with everyone else. Some man asks me how we get to the train station, which is tantalisingly close on the other side of the walkway, behind the locked gates (is there a helpful sign saying the gates will be opened before the first train leaves? No.)
Eventually someone does come and open the gates and we tramp across to the ticket booth. AU$12 for a train to the city or $22 for an open ended return ticket.
I catch the train into town and then start walking down Anne St towards the hotel. All the coffee shops are shut! It’s only later that I realise that this is in fact Good Friday and it’s not likely that the coffee shops are going to be open at all.
Eventually wind up outside the Mercure, which I know is in the same complex as the Ibis as it’s where the conference is actually being held. I discover the “Rabbit hole” which links the two hotels.
I turn up at the front desk, ready to be told that I can’t check in until 2pm. But they check me in right away and I head on up to my room.
After a bit of a nap and a freshen up I head down to the Mercure to check in. I’ve walked past the fanzine and gaming rooms, and what are probably the main conference rooms. But finding registration is a bit more difficult. I head into the Mercure foyer which directs me to the second floor. Here I find coffee, and food (pies and sandwiches 
and the Conjure registration desk, complete with exceedingly useful daily programme sheets.
I notice a guy with a Canadian accent chatting with some of the author folk. He’s got a laptop covered in stickers, including EFF ones. So it must be Cory Doctorow. He’s got a few copies of Make magazine to show around.
He heads off to find some lunch in the mall. I poke my head into the current sessions and discover there’s nothing much that grabs my fancy so I wander out to check out the mall too. Walk down it and then back up to grab a coffee at a random café. Cory spots me and asks if he can join me. “This is Bruce”. He’s got Bruce Sterling with him. They’re about to have lunch with me. This is insanely cool
It’s interesting comparing the two of them, Cory is somewhat of the young Turk, Bruce a more semi-jaded visionary (is he an optimist or a pessimist? It’s hard to tell). Cory seems to be focussed on the currently emerging trends, Bruce the long term impacts of them. I get the feeling that Cory has the passion and Bruce has the vision. I hear about the Flickr takeover, Red v Blue, Feral Robot Dogs (recurring all weekend :), the EFF schism, and “I, Rowboat” (although I note that The Onion beat him to it back in 1998), along with some interesting ideas from Bruce.
We head back, as it’s just about time for the opening ceremony (as an ex-convenor I know they’re panicing about where their guests have got to about now ‘Fortunately’ technical difficulties have delayed the start.
Then in true con tradition it’s off to the hotel pub to spend the complimentary free drink token and start in on the hotel’s Easter alcohol supplies. Get to buy some drinks for the guests and wind up making some new acquaintances from such exotic locales as Brisbane, Sydney, and Falmouth, home of the Kraken
