Due to a rather bad headache I opted to stay in my room for the first part of the day. Not sure what triggered it but I'm willing to bet the sudden change in my diet from rice and vegetables to sodium and lard had something to do with it. I missed the
Spore panel with Will Wright but it wasn't all that important. Later in the day I made two trips to the exhibition hall, taking a slightly different route each time so as to see more of the city. And a fine city it is, too, clean and neat, sporting a variety of architectural styles and trimmed with trees and other greenery on almost every street. Both trips to the exhibition hall were primarily for the purpose of taking pictures, and I did get a few good ones. I also took quite a few around the city itself, away from the convention center, mostly of skyscrapers and local businesses. The real fun for me didn't come until around 8:30 PM, which was when I headed out for dinner. The city has a delightfully bewildering variety of restaurants to choose from, and nearly international cuisine you can think of; Afghani, Indian, Polynesian, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, you name it, it's probably around here somewhere. My first choice was Boca de Beppo, an Italian place about a half a block away from my hotel, but unfortunately there was a line waiting to get in. Not for me, thank you; if I want to stand in line for food I'll do it at the golden arches and get a Big Mac. From there I wandered up a random street, rather aimlessly, seeking nothing in particular other than a chair and a meal. Any place I looked at, I tried to get a view of the patrons, to see if the place might have a dress code. If it seemed to, I wrote it off, partially because I'm not dressed like they probably want, and partially because I consider dress codes to be an elitist activity and I don't support elitism. One's outfit has little to do with one's character, nor is it necessarily an indicator of wealth. Anyway, the search continued. My next stop, I don't even know what the place was called, nor did I have any idea what they served, but I didn't really care; the idea here was to try something new and different, not the same old familiar stuff. No room, unfortunately; whatever it was, it was popular. The hostess told me it'd be 20-25 minutes but I didn't want to wait around that long. She also told me that they're less crowded earlier in the evening so I may swing by later in the week, assuming I can find the place again. My third stop was at the Dakota Steak House; success! I was promptly seated at a sidewalk table, given bread and Coke, and soon thereafter I was dining on a perfectly cooked steak and the best scallops I've had in years, accompanied by a good sized potato, green beans, and mushrooms, all of which came with descriptive adjectives on the menu that added to the price. Money well spent; it was an excellent meal, and my location gave me an excellent view, too. Dinner and a show, sort of. It was getting late by then so I thanked my server, paid the bill, and headed for home. Problem was, I wasn't too clear on exactly which direction to go; I hadn't really been paying close attention to landmarks or anything else during the journey. Whatever. I set out towards what I believe was East, turned here and there, and a half-hour later I said the heck with it and hailed the next bike cab I saw. Adding to the fun was him taking me to the city's
other Comfort Inn (oops), and getting into a race with another bike cab. Yep, my life is one big adventure, isn't it?
In any event I finally made it back to the right hotel, gave my Frankie plushie a hug, and sat down to write this. Another long but interesting day; not a lot happened that was Con-related but it was certainly fun.
