Re: [72attendees] Dietary restrictions

On Aug 1, 2008, at 3:37 PM, Randall Gellens wrote:
> I thought Mary had some good suggestions, such as salads where  
> pretty much everyone can find something to eat.

If you try to live on nothing but typical salads, you will begin to  
notice symptoms of starvation fairly quickly.   Vegetarians are not  
saladatarians.   Not trying to be negative - just a point of  
information.

This was the most challenging IETF for me food-wise.   I wound up  
switching away from the conference hotel and staying in Tallaght,  
where I was able to subsist on bread and hummus from the local Marks  
and Spencers.

Having said that, I quite enjoyed the visit to Ireland.   I'd never  
been before.   As Mary has said on a number of occasions, those of us  
with food issues tend to be resourceful about it.   If there is any  
one thing that could have made things simpler for me, it would have  
been more information.   Ireland is a relative information desert on  
the Internet, so I had to learn much of what I did about the venue and  
environs simply by going there, or by looking at satellite photos and  
trying to guess what I was seeing.   Which, I have to admit, was a lot  
of fun.

Rather than demanding that we always have venues that suit every need  
perfectly, it might make sense to come up with a list of heuristics  
that can be used to correctly obtain the information we need about a  
local area in advance of our arrival.   I say "heuristics" because  
people tend to answer questions like "is there XXX kind of food  
available" with "yes, that's no problem," which often isn't the case.

And as for hot water, if you get a room at any venue where the staff  
are unable to solve a plumbing problem or HVAC problem, it's perfectly  
reasonable to say "look, I can't stay here, please help me to find a  
suitable place to stay."   If you're calm and reasonable about it, it  
would be astonishing if the hotel staff were unwilling to accommodate  
your needs.

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