Arrived in Bloomington (IN)

This week I am in the well known and lively town of Bloomington (Indiana, US), near Indianapolis. I am here for a conference about Participatory Design (it's about methods to involve end users in the design of new products and to use their experience and ideas to collaboratively create new products). Bloomington is a rather small town (a little less than 70.000 inhabitants), and since it is home to Indiana University, probably more than half of the people living here are students.

I arrived yesterday after quite a long and hasty trip. I had to get up quite early to go to Liege to take a train to the airport in Brussels, but in the end I was a little bit too early. Because I was one of the first passengers to check in, and since I was traveling alone, the guy at the check in desk refused to give me a seat number (so families and people traveling together could be seated next to each other). I would get assigned a seat at the gate. Which was true, but the problem was I only got a seat number after ALL the other passengers already entered the plane. Which means that all the overhead luggage cabins are taken. Not so convenient when you've decided to take cabin luggage only....

Apart from the cabin storage problems, the decision not to check in any luggage probably was the reason I made my connecting flight at Chicago O'Hare airport... The aiport website said that 90 minutes would be plenty of time for transferring. Yeah right. I don't know which part they forgot to include in their calculations, but a 10 minute walk to customs, a more than 60 minute line before passing customs, an 8 minute procedure at customs (including taking 10 fingerprints), 5 minutes waiting time for the train to another terminal, and a (very short) 15 minute line at security caused me a run which almost got me into cardiac arrest... But, fortunately, the plane was delayed, so I made it after all.

So, after a 19 hour trip I arrived in Bloomington, in Indiana Memorial Union Hotel, right at the Indiana University Campus. The campus here is beautifull, lots and lots of green, trees, parks, water, etc. Some of the buildings are also quite nice, most of them are rather large and ugly (neoclassical) though. The building that hosts my hotel is the worst of all, it's hugely colossal, featuring it's own Starbucks and Pizza Hut!

Today, I had had an extra day before the conference starts, to get rid of my jet lag, and I spent the day wandering through Bloomington and visiting the IU Art Museum. Bloomington is quite a friendly town, but also, as I said, rather small, so half a day was more than enough to explore the city center. I did some shopping (bought a gallon of drinking water because the tap water is even more disgusting than 'normal' American water: it not only tastes like a swimming pool, it also smells like a mouldy cave). The museum was quite nice, displaying world art (both old & new).

For more photos please go to my flickr stream!