Well, it has arrived and I have to say, it was a great start. The check in process was really smooth though I think that some of the volunteers were overwhelmed with the volume of people and the myriad of questions they were asked.

I walked to the venue from my apartment and this was not such a great idea as it was drizzling (and the rain got heavier as the day progressed). It took me about 20 minutes with the last part a walk across a quite high pedestrian bridge followed by a long trek from one end of Excel to the other.

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Moored at the end of Excel is this luxury boat called Seaborn and some RootsTech attendees are staying on it as you can book it through AirBnB. Looks wonderful. The first presentation I went to was on research logs. I was a little disappointed with it as it was short (31 minutes) and very low level with some images unable to be read. There was a break of an hour followed by the first keynote from Dan Snow. This was good, much better than expected. Lunch was at a Persian restaurant in the venue and I then went to Kerry Farmer’s presentation on Migration to Australia. She had a virtually full room and covered so much stuff that I feel sure that everyone would have felt they got their money’s worth. The last session I went to was Jonny Perl’s on DNA matching. This was great but by now I was really flagging.

I was supposed to be at a dinner that night being hosted by the Guild of One Name Studies but decided to give it a miss. I headed back to the apartment at 5pm, grabbed some fruit and collapsed into bed at 6pm. This was a big mistake as I woke at 1.30am and could not get back to sleep, so the same cycle will happen again today. I will need to push myself because I want to be rested, bright eyed and bushy tailed for tomorrow morning. My legs are reminding me constantly that I have done lots of walking – muscles that have not been used for some time have come to the fore. The Excel venue is massive and one criticism is that there is nowhere to just sit for a bit. People with mobility issues but not in wheelchairs will have found it a hard slog to go from the presentation rooms to the lifts as the conference is spread out over 3 levels.

This morning I am going to see if I can test my presentation in my room during one of the breaks. I have a tech check tomorrow but am worried that it will not be long enough.

Roll on 9am Saturday morning!!!