Off to Toronto July 14-28, Archcon

As mentioned earlier, I'll be at Archcon in Toronto in a few weeks.
It's a very small conference, and the first of its kind. At the last FrOSCon we have been playing with the idea to hold an informal Arch conference in Europe, but those were just ideas. Dusty and Ricardo beat us with an actual implementation.
This is great, and one of the milestones in Arch Linux history. Which is why I want to be there and help making it better.

Archcon schedule. I'll be talking about AIF and uzbl.

My schedule:

  • wed. July 14: departure
  • July 14 - 21: hanging around in downtown Toronto. Not sure yet where I'll stay. probably some hostel.
  • July 21 - 28: bed and breakfast pretty close to the conference location, outside the city center
  • July 22 - 23 are the conference talks days, July 24-25 are the conference tourist days, where we'll do some touristy stuff with the conference participants
  • wed. July 28: flying back

There are many things to do in and around Toronto. We still need to make the planning, but the Niagara Falls are definitely on the list.

Finally, big thanks to Elysium Digital, a technology oriented consulting company for legal matters. Apparently they use Arch Linux for many things: on the desktop, in the server room, and in the forensic lab. They emailed me to propose sponsoring my plane tickets, and they did.

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Submitted by Dieter_be on Sun, 07/04/2010 - 11:34. categories [ ]

Have fun in Toronto. I

Submitted by Philip Paeps (not verified) on Mon, 07/05/2010 - 09:19.

Have fun in Toronto. I always enjoy going there. :-)

Unless you really like casinos and a tacky Vegas-wannabe fairground, there's no reason to plan more than half a day to see Niagara Falls. There are plenty of interesting things to see on the Niagara peninsula though. They make wine there.

Have fun.

I see. I looked at

Submitted by Dieter_be on Mon, 07/05/2010 - 13:03.

I see.
I looked at http://www.niagara-tours.ca/TourInfo.html (the "chariots of fire" tour) and it looks like they include the most interesting things.

The person who does my B&B also does her own tour, which also includes:
the butterfly conservatory, botanical gardens, a walk along the raging rivers with 7-9 foot high waves, jet boats at niagara-at-the-lake (I assume she means jetski's), and meal at the skylon tower or at the jordon road, overlooking the lake.

Any further recommendations? My list (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Archcon_extra_activities) is just a dump of what I found and read. I'll definitely check out the Linux Caffe, though :)

That tour looks reasonable I

Submitted by Philip Paeps (not verified) on Mon, 07/05/2010 - 16:33.

That tour looks reasonable I suppose if you're into tours. The 'maid of the mist' may be worth doing exactly once in your life (I did it too). Not sure about the 'observation deck'. I have a natural suspicion of such things (think: 'tourist trap'), though I'm a cynical bastard and your mileage may vary.

Last time I was in Niagara Falls (in May, as it happens) I had dinner at "The Keg", which also overlooks the falls. I'm told there are two of them, your favourite search engine should be able to point you at the one that overlooks the falls. I also had breakfast at The Flying Saucer on my way out of Niagara Falls. That was extremely tasty (not to mention filling).

You could just take the train to Niagara Falls (frequent service from Union station, can't remember quite how long it takes) and work out your own trip. If you like the town, there's a youth hostel right across from the train station and busses to downtown and the falls are nearby. Or if you're a bunch of people and at least one of them has a driving licence, you could just rent a car and drive to the Falls and take a scenic route back. Remember, fuel costs practically nothing in North America.

The Linux Cafe in Toronto is fun. It's a bit out of the way though. You should try to have breakfast at Cora's in Toronto.

If you're near Leuven, you could come over and borrow my 'Lonely Planet' and 'Rough Guide' to Toronto. Send me email. (philip@paeps.cx).

Thanks, I'll keep it in

Submitted by Dieter_be on Mon, 07/05/2010 - 18:24.

Thanks,
I'll keep it in mind. Although I don't plan to spend more then a day in the falls area, i.e. staying over at a youth hostel there seems like overkill to me. But some of the Archcon guys are more familiar with the area so I'm sure it will be fun.

Not near Leuven anytime soon, alas.

Dieter

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