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.
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| Typical Dutch train station cafe... | Look! Coffee! |
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.
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| The train station at Eindhoven has a large bicycle parking area... | ...and just a few cars. |
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.
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| I think I have to cross this highway... | Made it! | |
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| How about across the canal? | Over the canal and down the road... | |
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| There it is! | A view of the side of the castle. |
Unfortunately, being Monday, the museum was closed! However, Stacy did get a good look all around the castle and even through the main courtyard:
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| A real castle with a moat! | The front of the castle. | |
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| Inside the inner courtyard, mind the cannon. | Looking up at the castle from the inner courtyard. | |
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| Back outside the castle, looking at the moat from the other side. |
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.
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| Stacy's wheels-about-town. |
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.
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| Steve, Paul and Anne at Dinner in the Main Conference Hall... | Everyone else at dinner in the Main Conference Hall... |
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...
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| This is the face of a man with no more presentations to do today... | The great email fest in the speakers lounge... | |
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| Steve doing his "midnight madness" session (actually 8pm-9pm or so). | Steve after his presentation - one advantage of night sessions is free beer! |
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...