Conference Update & Cool Website (With Sound!)

I am actually pretty impressed with this conference, now that it is finally coming together.

I just got an email confirming that there would be a visa and a conference reception desk at the airport where we'd get our documents and transportation to the hotel, and it also had a cool website!

I have just gotten off the phone with the Qatari embassy in DC to confirm that my visa is waiting at the airport (any American can buy one, but I'm poor right now, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't coming out of my pocket lol).

We'll be staying at the, Sheraton Doha, which wasn't my top choice (I think it's hideous, actually -- why design something that REMINDS us of Egypt? A PYRAMID!?), but internally the hotel maintains the pyramid structure so from what I've seen of the internal atrium it's pretty stunning.

What I'm really excited about, though, are the actual speakers at the conference. You can check out the cool website (I'm totally into the music! lol) and see the schedule of the ceremonies and working groups and stuff. I don't see anything specifically dealing with transitional justice or human rights, so I'm not totally certain what I'm supposed to contribute (if anything), but I guess we'll soon find out!

This is really exciting. I'm also going to really love walking along the corniche, which is supposed to be the most beautiful in the Gulf region, and just enjoying being out of the US and back in really gorgeous surroundings (Central Park has been great the past week, but there's nothing like crystal waters up against severe desert, and Islamic architecture up against gigantic modern shopping malls! lol).

VC