My flat in Munich became a mere hotel room, in between my Dutch adventures and the next trip to a conference held in Steamboat Springs in Colorado, USA. I didn't expect to be going on this conference but my departmental head, who was one of the organisers of the conference, asked me to be a conference assistant as the original person had pulled out. I only received the news after booking my trip to the Netherlands, and the conference was supposed to start on 6th January, just 3 days after returning from the Netherlands. The secretaries to the departmental head joked that I was living the life of the big boss. Steamboat Springs is located in the Rocky Mountains within Colorado, and I have long expected it to be under some cold weather and a cover of snow. Little did I expect to feel the full force of the elements even before I reached the town! After arriving in Denver at 20:00 on 5th January, I found that my connecting flight to Hayden Airport, the closest one to Steamboat Spring