The Venue

The Hotel

CppCon is held at the Gaylord, Rockies, in Aurora, Colorado. It is an absolutely massive place. So large that while CppCon was on there were 2 other conferences being held at the same time. Besides being massive it is also a lovely place to stay. While I am writing this, this is my view.

And right behind me is this fantastic bar

While here, I have made sure to try most of the restaurants and also the water park.

The lazy river was cool, but I did find it odd that you were required to go around it in a ring. Slides were great fun. I ended up losing my glasses briefly when going down the fastest one.

While walking around the hotel, it is quite hard to not spot bouncing around. They seemed to be pretty used to people and wouldn’t just hop away at the first sight of someone.

One other thing of note about the hotel. I think the lifts at this hotel were the fastest and smoothest I have ever been on… I was on the 7th floor, and I was always amazed by how you barely felt that you were in a moving room going up and down between the ground floor and mine.

Aurora

I honestly did not get time to explore outside the hotel at all (aside from the field trip). But from the views of the hotel, and field trip bus, Aurora seemed like it was largely just a residential area with not much else to explore. Perhaps, if I go again, I will try and explore a little more.

It’s worth noting that Aurora, despite being so flat, and there being massive mountains out in the distance, is still, over a mile above sea level. To put this in perspective, Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the UK, is only 0.84 miles above sea level. Being on a plateau at such a high altitude was (and still is) a weird concept to me!

One of the more noticeable consequences of the altitude was how strong the sun was. It was like being at a ski resort… except instead of there being snow-capped mountains all around, there were swimming pools and bunnies. Again. Weird. It also made the setting sun exceptionally strong. Sitting in some of the restaurants with the setting sun coming through the windows was almost unbearable.

Colorado

Prior to CppCon, the only state that I had visited was California, so my view of America was very biased towards California. One of the differences between Colorado and California that really stuck out to me, was one of their laws around alcohol. Obviously, it is well known that America is a country where you have to be 21 to drink, but Colorado takes it up a notch. On entering the main restaurant and bar area of the Gaylord, you will see this sign:

In the UK we have a vaguely similar law which is “Check 25”, which I find to be fair. But establishments in Colorado will ID you if your hair isn’t white or grey. And they do not accept driver’s licenses as ID if it was issued outside of USA or Canada. So if you are traveling from Europe or elsewhere, and you want to be able to buy a pint after a long day of talks, you basically need to be carrying your passport around with you. There was not one time while at any of the bars or the restaurants that I was not IDed. Luckily for me I have two passports, so carrying one of them around with me at the bars wasn’t too scary of a prospect.

I found out that they did not take driver’s licenses while at the Tee Shirt Night before the main conference began.

Thankfully it only took me 5 minutes to go up to my room, grab a passport, and find my table again. It wasn’t much trouble at all, but to say sorry for the mild inconvenience, the waitress gave me a free starter… And like all things in America, that starter was quite large, so I shared it with the whole table. So, me being unprepared for this “Check 50” law in Colorado, got me, and my table, a free plate of loaded fries. Can’t say that I can complain :)