Day 1: Travel Day - Saturday May 11, 2013

Well, the adventure begins .... Team BASEF-IISEF 2013 met at Pearson for 6:45 am.  As expected, Cathy was there to greet us all.  Boarding passes in hand and surviving the US Customs process, the group did few quick breakfast purchases at Starbucks and prepared for the 9 am flight boarding.  However, I ran into a slight problem ... I learned not to take pictures at the Customs with officers.  I was hauled into a room where they interrogated me why pictures were being taken.

We met Team YSC which had just previously been processed.  YSC chaperones Stephan and Kartik who chaperoned with us last year was there to meet us and introduced us to YSC's third chaperone, Leanne.  But just before boarding the plane, Calvin surprised all by misplacing his boarding pass.  Cathy being Cathy, however put out the fire and gets Calvin on board on time.

The flight was smooth with the scheduled 4 1/2 hour flight landing 15 minutes early.  It was odd losing the 3 hour time delay ... we departed 9 am Toronto time and we landed in Phoenix 10:30 am.

Glad I brought along plenty of shorts ... temperature was 30 degree Celsius

A quick LRT ride (wished we had this in our GTA) took us to downtown Phoenix but on the way, we had an interesting glimpse of the surrounding geography.

Destination: Downtown Sheraton.

Palm trees ... an odd downtown sight for me

The quick arrival at the Downtown Sheraton was offset by a painfully slow check-in.  Eventually, the team was all comfortably placed in their rooms on the 20th and 21st floors.  Cool elevators ... you needed your room keycard to work the elevator to your specific floor.  Embarrassing when you keep pushing your floor button and the elevator goes nowhere.

After settling in, the group proceeded to Ti Amigo for a Mexican lunch/dinner.  Not sure that it was the group's favourite as per food.

The kids were encouraged to sit beside someone they knew and someone they didn't know.  The strategy to promote bonding seem to work ... there were lots of engaging conversation going on and the chaperones had to hurried the kids along out of the restaurant.

While the kids went back for a rest, chaperones headed over to the Convention Centre to get a head start and pick up the students' registration packages and badges.

Nice to see that Cathy thinks highly enough of me to see me as an "Adult in Charge" ... my wife doesn't.

After a late evening outing for some Coldstone ice-cream at the neighbouring Arizona Center (an outdoor downtown mallscape), the group returned back to the Sheraton for Stephan's "Circle".  Each of the chaperones and the students gave a personal introduction of themselves and a brief description of their projects.  Stephan followed up with an inspirational address to remind the students of their responsibility to do their best for themselves and for CANADA.  And oh yes, all were reminded to be responsible (yes, call your Mother tomorrow) and to follow specific ground rules regarding behaviour.  Does that apply to chaperones as well?  Just kidding.

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