On Monday night, when we just arrived at the Radisson Blue Latvija hotel and got into our room, I sat down on the bed and listed out loud everything that was wrong with it: no drawers whatsoever, no shelves, no space in the bathroom for any of the toiletries (even nothing under the sink!). The fitness center is a part of the Spa, and as such is open only from 7 AM to 9 PM. No dial to set up a specific room temperature (just a dial with “more” and “less” arrows).

And then I started laughing, because I remembered how Boris and I used to joke about “people are getting spoiled very fast.” I thought about the first conferences we attended together, including all the fun of not being able to be in the same room if you can’t show the marriage certificate (or a stamp in your internal passport, which affirmed that you indeed have one). Also, I remembered all the weird places we stayed in over many years of travel. I should start lining up new blog posts about it 🙂

And aside of not being open when I needed it, the fitness center was amazing:

And that is not even half of it; there were even more machines, a separate room for yoga, TRX, yoga balls, and countless other things.

Speaking about the hotel, though, it was a great conference venue. I do not know what they did differently in the rooms with placing the podiums, but it was easier than ever to see the speakers and follow their presentations. There were almost no lines for food and plenty of coffee on every corner :).

There was also a bag of dry fruit, which I’ve already consumed :).

Otherwise, I am using this weekend to email people with whom I didn’t talk at the conference, or didn’t talk enough 🙂