Back to Posts HLS Recap Part 1
Apologies for my late recap posts! I have been holed up in my room for the past three days, trying to sleep away a lovely bronchitis + sinus infection combo, but more on that later. I am here to tell you about my weekend at the Healthy Living Summit!
I have a nametag - it's official!
In case you missed it, here's my post about my pre-conference nerves. Though these nerves would quickly fade away when I arrived in Boston, my day didn't go exactly as planned. Due to weather, my plane ended up being grounded for an hour and a half after boarding, leaving me and my fellow passengers with a total travel time of 5 hours! That's not a lot of time compared to say, 10 hours, but it was still enough to produce a tired, crankier, hungrier me at the end of the day. After skipping a real lunch in favor of plane snacks, and then talking myself out of said plane snacks because of my braces, I didn't end up eating lunch at all on Friday. After catching a cab from the airport and grabbing a [terrible] pre-made salad from my hotel's convenience shop, I finally felt much, much better.
The Hyatt Regency in Cambridge turned out to be a pretty great location! Situated right next to MIT (ermahgerd) and along the Charles River, we had a beautiful view of the Boston skyline and easy access to lots of tourist spots via the hotel shuttle and the T, Boston's metro. Though most of the others shared a room, I waited til the last minute and ended up rooming by myself. I didn't mind too much. ;)
Sadly, the only photo I took of the hotel! (View from my room.)
Following my pitiful dinner, I changed into my party dress and headed down to the first HLS event, the Rebootizer Cocktail Party. I was a little nervous (again) but relaxed immediately when I was greeted with a big hug from my friend, Meghann. Next up, I met Grace, a local healthy living blogger from Central Florida! After (hopefully) convincing her to come check out the Central Florida Lady Bloggers meetup, we met Megan, Margaret, and Lauren. After bonding about Maine and how weird it is to be a healthy living blogger, we took THE BEST photo booth pics and branched out to meet even more bloggers. Towards the end of the party, I met Johanna and Aundra who ended up being total kindred spirits and my Saturday night adventure pals!
It was interesting how the night went on because it seemed like we were all nervous to randomly introduce ourselves to a group, but it was much easier to meet other groups AS a group. And ultimately as the night went on, more drinks were had, and we all loosened up a little. :)
Photo by mealsandmiles.com
I decided to leave the party on a high note and went to bed breathing a huge sigh of relief, feeling overwhelmingly positive about what the next two days would bring.
Stay tuned for HLS Recap Part 2!
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