On Fri, Jul 18, 2003 at 11:46:58AM +0200, Michael Richardson wrote:
I actually have no problem with having my room further from the conference
centre. When there is an official hotel, I find it annoying to not be in
the conference hotel - but with everyone having to travel, it is much
more equitable.
I think at any IETF there will be some who prefer to sit in a hotel all
week with everything to hand, and others who will prefer to make thir own
(cheaper) booking and explore the city a bit (yes, there was open WLAN in the
city too!). The San Francisco venue allowed both very well for example.
The lack of a bar with nice seats that would be open to reasonable hours
(i.e. midnight) really hurt. Things seemed to close very early downtown,
or at least open places were hard to find.
The Vienna venue "encouraged" us to explore the city :) But with the U1
line this was quite easy, and a lot of fun. You could get unlimited metro
travel for 24 Euros for the week, although noone in Vienna ever seemed to
check tickets!
Regarding late night bars, the Swedenplatz (excuse spelling?) which was 5
stops south on the U1 had many good bars and places to eat open very late,
well past the last metro, but were also very well served by taxis (which in
Vienna were quite cheap, less than 10 Euros from anywhere back to my hotel).
I think what some people missed was the ability to buy food or coffee between
the afternoon and evening session. I don't quite understand why the bar that
served food and drink and lunchtime was shut in the evening break. But
that encouraged exploration :) With the U1 line you had time to get to a
restaurant and back in the break. But for the "all in one" people who like
the SFO or Minneapolis style hotel it's less well suited.
Yes... it just worked. Thank you to Telekom Austria.
Yep :)
Tim