Richard & Stacy's Round the World Trip 2001 |
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Monday, May 14, 2001. The first day of the conference! While Richard had to work at the conference all day, Stacy headed out into the country side (with the camera). She took the bus to the Eindhoven train station and then waited in a cafe for the tourism office to open.
After coffee she went to the tourism office to get directions to some of the sights, which led her to take the train to Helmond.
Without much help from the tourism office, the Helmond City Museum (which is a castle) remained elusive, but after some wandering around the city, Stacy found it.
Unfortunately, being Monday, the museum was closed! However, Stacy did get a good look all around the castle and even through the main courtyard: After traveling back to the hotel from Helmond by train and bus, Stacy rented a bicycle so she could ride around the village of Veldhoven near the hotel.
Stacy searched clothing stores in Veldhoven for a particularly European style of pant, zipped at the bottom of the leg and slightly short - showing the ankle and lower calf. Shorter than a regular pant, longer than "capri" style pants. And after much searching (and trying on clothes) she found them in a store in Veldhoven... only to discover that they didn't take credit cards and the debit card didn't work. By then it was 4:30pm, and the store closed at 6pm, so she rode back to the hotel as fast as possible, left her bike with the attendant (to get a bike, you have to hand over your room key) went and grabbed some money and then rode back to the store to buy the pants. Pants bought, she returned again to the hotel to have dinner with Richard and the rest of the conference folks.
After dinner there was "midnight madness", where additional conference sessions are presented. Richard didn't have to work, but Steve did. But before the sessions started, there was time to pick up some email and update the web site from the speakers lounge... After the late sessions, there was still more fun to be had in the Main Conference Hall, but by then it was getting late, and there was still more speaking to do in the morning... |