Last day of the conference

I woke up this morning and realized my alarm hadn't gone off. I had accidentally set it to only go off on weekdays, and today is Sunday. It meant I missed the free shuttle to the conference, but I still had time to eat a quick breakfast, take a taxi and catch the plenary at 10:00. 

On my way to breakfast, though, the woman in the elevator with me asked if I was going to the conference. 

Seriously. 

She was another attendee and she and her boyfriend were checking out and then driving over in their car. They offered me a ride. No breakfast, but I wasn't complaining. She was also incredibly friendly and we stopped and chatted a number of times throughout the conference. 

It was nice to be at the conference today without my presentation hanging over my head. I could just sit back and relax. I ran into one of my guides from last night and we chatted for a while. I think she'll be a Facebook Friend soon. 

The conference has been very nice. There were a lot of very considerate touches that I've never seen before. 

For example:

1. The gift bag only had useful things in it. There was a notebook with lots of paper for note-taking, a pen, a high end tote bag, a conference book, a plastic folder,  certificate of participation and a scoring book for the best presenter. We could vote for our 6 favorite presentations and the top 6 were given awards. 

2. There was a room with two tables heavily laden with a wide variety of pastries and coffee dispensers at all times. 

3. There was a hoard of university students trying to find every way possible to be helpful. 

I was very impressed with the whole thing. 

It all ended with a closing ceremony and awards for the conference. There were awards for graduate student papers (there is some fabulous CALL research going on in Taiwan) and the awards for best presenter. There were 6 awards, and #5 went to yours truly. I couldn't believe it! I didn't think that many people had attended my presentation to begin with. 

Yay!

Now I'm trying to decide whether I want to go brave the night market for a delicious dinner - or just grab some food from 7-11 and crash in my hotel room.  I'll probably go out.