Travel/Transportation

So I'm attending a conference in Arlington, VA, staying with DM in Washington, DC. For the first evening of the conference, I decided to take DM's bicycle, El Companero, and ride the 7.5 miles out to Marymount University. Maybe a half-mile in to the ride, I became aware that wearing jeans was probably not a good idea, considering the rain. I should have worn spandex and changed upon arriving. Later in the ride, the rain got thick enough that I had to stop multiple times to clean off my glasses. I didn't take any major wrong turns, but it felt like a long trip. Upon arriving, I wrung out my socks, my hair, and the bottoms of my jeans, and attended a plenary talk and poster session before checking my readiness for the ride home.

The light I brought along to serve as a headlight was dead - malfunctioned. Under other circumstances, I might have tried extending the adventure by taking the bus, but it was late at night and I had to be back fairly early in the morning, so I called DM and had her pick up El Companero and me.

This morning, bus adventures. I should have taken the bus yesterday. Buses are a great way to get to know unfamiliar cities (when it's raining heavily). Not nearly as disorienting as subway rides. I only took one wrong bus, for a very short trip, and only missed one bus stop, leading to another short walk. Of course, the buses (three of them) took an hour and a half whereas biking took under an hour, and the missed connections meant I missed the first 20 minutes of the first talk of the day, but still. I'm happy to be dry for the full day of talks today.

In other news: mathematicians are strange.