How to choose between parallel sessions (+ coffee bars and toys!)

The next set of parallel sessions starts in just over an hour. I was deciding between two of them in which I was interested, with an a priori minor preference for one (call it Session A, even though that's not it's real name) versus another one (similarly, call it Session B). I was mildly more interested in A versus B, but Session A is in a room that is horribly ventiliated and gets fucking hot (as I found out yesterday), whereas the room for Session B is much bigger and has air condition. Conclusion: I'm going to attend Session B. A major reason I've been feeling really tired this conference and not exploring as much as usual has been the hot, humid weather and Hellish lecture rooms are seriously exacerbating the problem.

I am writing this from a coffee bar at the university at which the conference is being held. I had meant to try it earlier but finally go to it today. (In fact, I was going to hang out here last night after the last lecture, but I was tired so I went back to the hostel and crashed.) Their latte is only ok, but I was able to get them to make it iced without a problem! Between that and liking the coffee bar environment, this definitely improves my mood. (Being able to camp in a cool coffee bar is one of the great pleasures in life! It's such a simple thing, but I value it a great deal.)

As for the toys, I'll hopefully have more to say on Friday. Michael Berry was mentioning during the session this morning (as part of his comment to a talk) that there is scientific toy shop near the downtown area of Zurich (where the conference is being held) that he says is really awesome and will apparently do demos of lots of their stuff. In particular, they supposedly have a very good (though very expensive) Chladni plate, which are really hard to get to work in practice. The store is only open on Fridays and Saturdays, but it's something like a 10-15 minute walk from two of the train stations to which I've been going anyway. My flight on Saturday is going to occur before it opens, but I'll make time on Friday to go there. We'll see if I can afford anything they have, but that seems like my best opportunity for me to find a souvenir I actually want. (And I'm all over cool demos whether or not I actually buy anything.)

I hope to be able to write more about scientific toys later...