Well after another testing Greyhound trip (hot, busy and jam packed with weirdo's and societies misfits) I arrived into Indianapolis. Via a pure twist of fate I was in Indianapolis at the same time as a group of fellow ex PhD-ers from my old dept back in Bham who were in town for a medical conference. My friend Gaz who is now working with GSK had a spare bed in a plush hotel room at the Westin, slap bang in the centre of town. After log cabins in the middle of nowhere and crammed hostels full of snoring Japanese tourists this place was heaven. I took advantage of all amenities and hit the pool at every opportunity.
Now....as all Dr's will know, conferences are actually just excuses to go to sunny destinations and get very drunk - this was no exception. I basically parties non-stop for 5 days and took in no culture or sights whatsoever. This was purely an opportunity to catch up with friends (some who live in the USA and I hadnt seen for years) and indulge in pure beer driven debauchery.
I dont really think I can sum it up any better than my good friend Tom (aka The Angry Weetabix) did in the following email he sent out after our week in Indy. Please find it below. Enjoy...
Well, i just about made it home alive from Indianapolis... I've heard reports of a tornado sweeping through the region hours after i drove away on Friday?? Can anyone shed light on that? But the mayhem that must have unleashed could have been nothing compared to the debauchery that i witnessed on Thursday night... I remember finally crawling into bed at 5am after seeing Dr Bell stuffing flowers into a champagne bottle to try and woo his Mrs with upon returning to his hotel room, 8 hours after seeing her last... ha. By this time i had lost contact with Dr "Molehands" Wallis and Dr Hollow? (Where did you go?) The night prior to this saw all of us esteemed Brummy-bred academics hitting it marginally hard at the Wild Beaver and Ike&Joneseys bars, but most the evening was spent gawping at the local white trash mixing it up with the conference trash on the dance floor... a drunken but relatively civilised night. On the way home we were all like "man, gonna have a hangover, we'll take it easy tomorrow night, before our drive back to Cleveland"... oh the lies...!
Following night, we rounded up all the troops... including Dr "Rock" Carter who is now an Arab residing in Abu Dhabi, and the master of mayhem Dr "who tried to gouge my eyes out?" Bell, a fine Scottish gentlemen from the rolling hills of Paisley. Everything seemed calm for several hours, until we entered the Wild Beaver Saloon... A kind-of toned down version of Coyote Ugly, but with 50 cent beers plus really stupid scantily clad bargirls ahoy... oh dear. Everything erupted! Five respectable gentlemen regressed into drunken lager louts, quite resembling of their hooligan-infested origins. Beers were ordered 10 at a time, with cherry bombs aplenty, and attempting conversationally winding up as many bar maids as possible was the order of the evening. It was also a favoured pass-time to see how many monkey nuts could be thrown on the floor until the management got annoyed. As it turned out, all the nuts they had could be thrown on the floor before they even noticed. In fact, only upon leaving the place in a mess in the wee hours did the manager say "did you throw all my nuts on the floor?". The only reply we could muster, was "Yes Sir!". Idiots?
A magnificent night! But, as the ying-yang dictates, followed by the mother of all hangovers the next day which accompanied my 6 hour drive back home 
It was fantastic to see some ole Brits, and even better to see some good pals from Uni days. So, this is a big thanks to you Doc's for enlightening my stay in the states with a bloody brilliant night out!! On the downside it has made me miss home an awful lot... on the plus side, i am hoping we can re-create the mayhem at ACSMs conference in Seattle's version of the Wild Beaver next year!!?? See you there...
I think you probably get the idea?!
Onto Chicago....
