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Subject: Logistics for June SAML F2F in Toronto


As previously discussed, the meetings will be held at Hewlett Packard's Toronto office at:

901 King St. West
Toronto, ON M5V 3H5

This is at the corner of King St. and Strachan Ave. (pronounced "strawn", like "lawn")

We'll be meeting in the "training room", room 6064. This is outside the security perimeter, so we don't need to escort people to the bathroom or anything silly like that. While we don't have direct Internet access from the room, there are phone lines you can use to dial out.

We will provide the usual pastries, coffee, etc. for breakfast, morning and afternoon snack, and lunch.


I need a list of all attendees before the event, to keep the security folks happy. Perhaps we could set up an attendee poll on Kavi, with a comments field for dietary restrictions on the lunch.


Money:

The Canadian dollar is worth roughly US$0.75 these days. Almost everyone will take US cash, though you may not get the best rates or service. All the usual credit cards work, and you should have no problem getting cash from machines using US (or other) bank cards. All prices below are in C$.



Hotels:

The nearest major hotel with all the necessary services is the Holiday Inn on King Street West:

http://www.hiok.com/

There's also a brutally trendy new boutique hotel less than a mile away in the other direction:

http://www.thedrakehotel.ca/home.asp (only 19 rooms, ranging from 150(!) to 300 sq. ft., and a yoga studio...)

There are lots of other boutique and main line hotels in the downtown core. In roughly increasing order of distance:

Soho Metropolitan, Renaissance (by Marriott, at Skydome), Hotel Le Germain, Intercontinental, Fairmont (Royal York), Hilton, Sheraton, Westin (Harbour Castle), Meridien (King Edward), Marriott (Eaton Center), Delta Chelsea, Sutton Place, Marriot Courtyard, etc.

The Soho, Renaissance Skydome, and Le Germain are only a couple of blocks farther away than the Holiday Inn, roughly 15-20 minutes walk. The others are getting up into the 30-40 minute walking distance, and 45-50 for the Marriott Courtyard.

If you're talking to a travel agent, you can tell them to look for the Entertainment District.



Transportation:

From the airport, flat rate taxis should be about $40.00 each way. There is an airport shuttle bus that does a circuit of the downtown hotels; I think it's about $18.00 each way. Car rental rates are comparable (or slightly lower) than typical US rates.

If you haven't already noticed, I tend to walk or use transit in downtown Toronto. Subway, streetcars, and buses are $2.25 ($1.90 if you buy tokens in advance). A streetcar runs directly across King street past many of the listed hotels and stops in front of 901 King. Taxis are plentiful (bordering on a plague) and relatively inexpensive ($6.00 - $10.00 for the distances we're talking about).

There is very limited parking at the HP facility; if space is available, visitors can park for $5.00/day under the building. There is both a parking lot ($4.00) and street parking ($6.00) a block away. Many downtown hotels also charge for guest parking.



Food and Drink:

Just about anything you could think of. Anyone who's interested in going off their expense account and trying something exceptional, let me know and I'll point you at the right places. I'll find somewhere in the $20-$30 each range for a group dinner on one evening, and we can play it by ear for the other evening.


Entertainment:

There are plenty of shows running in Toronto right now, and many of them have tickets available. http://www.torontolife.com/thismonth/subcategory.cfm?subtitle_id=319 is a good place to start. There is also a very good science centre: http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/ and the usual art galleries, museums, etc. The Blue Jays are out of town that week.



If you're staying in town and looking for other activities, or have any other questions, feel free to contact me directly.

Irving Reid <irving.reid@hp.com>
Phone:  +1 416 309 5223
Mobile: +1 416 877 3815


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