It was a bright and unusually warm morning today. I made it a mission to find a church so I can attend Sunday mass. I looked it up online and there was St. Mary's Cathedral .6 miles away from my hotel. Excellent. I decided to take a longer route there so I can see what downtown Austin was like in daylight. The historic 6th street was filled with lots of bars and saloons. As I walked by the bars, I can smell the sticky scent of spilled drinks on wooden floors. The buildings are really old and you can find a lot of dive bars in this place. I also came across the state capitol building!
Other interesting things worth noting: dt Austin is like a ghost town on Sundays. No one is around and even the CVS is closed. Where in the world does CVS ever close any day of the year!? Here apparently...and it's every Sunday. The cathedral I went to was an old Gothic cathedral. What I like best about Gothic cathedrals is although they look like they're about to crumble on the outside, the inside is completely the opposite. It's glorious.
So later in the day I went to the first session of this conference. I did my best to comprehend the material, but it wasn't registering in my head. Just smile and nod right? That's what I did. Night time, we had a social event at a local restaurant. Open bar and appetizers. One of my objectives for this trip is to network and make contacts with at least 5 vendors. I failed horribly. Standing at a bar, being the only female, and the youngest one was intimidating. So here's the problem: 1. Half of the people I met, I couldn't carry a conversation with them because they knew too much for my own good about the industry. 2. The other half that I met were only trying to creep. Gross. After realizing all of this, I gave up and left. Is this what I have to report back? It's a good thing that my manager was supervising from a distance. He saw that I tried! But to me, I failed. Here's to hoping that tomorrow will be better! Gnite.
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