Day One Snapshot

So I spent a good part of the day traveling here from Syracuse which was your typical airplane/airport experience and then we arrived here in Austin. SXSW was in my face the moment we got into the van to head to the hotel. Members of the Japanese band natccu (a J-Pop band)were in the van with us and the van driver was giving us the inside scoop on what to expect at the hotel during SXSW. From what he said and from what I've seen so far there are a lot of bands/promoters/other music related folk right here in our hotel and all over the city. After checking in, I went downtown with the rest of the Colgate group to register and pick up our badges. The convention center is a sort of labyrinthine complex and getting to the registration desk required doubling back more than once to find the damn thing. However walking about the convention center was kind of illuminating. With all the SXSW interactive stuff still going on there were impromptu interviews going on all around us and many more people were working on something. Basically an ever buzzing hive of activity. Once we did finally manage to get our badges we were then presented with a bag full of free stuff ranging from stickers to magazines to CDs to gum to welll.............. I actually haven't actually finished going through it all yet but there is alot of stuff. Right now though, I'm going to go chill poolside and try to talk to some bands.