2008-08-28

Bidness, Part Too

I woke up ridiculously early on Tuesday morning, having had one of those nights where you wake up every 45 minutes to see how much longer you have to sleep.

It was then I noticed that my window (behind the closed drapes) was...unusually large. And that's because it was, in fact, a double door, leading out to a wee balcony overlooking the gardens and waterfalls below.

Well. Good Morning, Gaylord Opryland!

This was a pleasant surprise. I did not request a room with any sort of view, so to get a view, at the conference rate no less, was a steamy treat indeed.

I made my way down to the conference itself, and checked in. I was handed a binder, my nametag, and a PEDOMETER. This place is THAT BIG. It's really kind of insane. Actually, scratch that: it's COMPLETELY INSANE.

This is all INSIDE THE HOTEL. INSIDE. I am here to tell you that you can spend three days here and NEVER GO OUTSIDE. I know this because save for my excursion to the Opry on Tuesday night, I have not left this building. When you are in these giant greenhouse things, you're exposed to enough natural light to make you forget that you haven't physically been outside. I don't know what to make of this. There's a part of me that finds this all profoundly offensive -- this "one stop shop" business. You get up, you have your complimentary coffee on your little balcony overlooking artificial waterfalls, you go shopping, you eat at one of the billion restaurants in the hotel, you maybe go back to your room and change into your swim trunks to head back out to the hot tub -- after getting a carafe of White Zin if you're making a "romantic" afternoon of it -- then you go back up to your room, change, and maybe head across the hotel to FUSE (and of course it has its own MySpace page...of course it does) where you boogie the night away. And you do all of this without EVER ONCE GOING OUTSIDE.

So at this point, having just departed the last of my breakout sessions, I am rather punchy. I have talked data and tax receipts and querying for 2 1/2 days now. I have poked my head into every strange little shop, including the ones that seem to do a booming business selling ugly "resort wear" that looks as if it's all been on the receiving end of a BeDazzler-wielding "crafter" on angel dust.

Time for another MoonPie. More anon...

lisamcc at 12:57 p.m.



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