Chicago Skyline from the Hancock Tower

The last day of the conference started at 7.15 am so I had to be up and around even earlier than usual. They did have strong coffee to get us all going.

I did quite a lot of tweeting from the meeting and, at one point, realised I was having a twitter conversation with the guy sitting next to me. I decided to introduce myself and we had a really good chat about the conference and the state of open access publishing in general.

Had a good conversation over the lunch table with a group of people who were very interested to find out about my journal - lots of follow up needed when I get home.

The conference wound up at about 5.30 pm. I headed out later for a walk and to possibly find somewhere to eat. I decided to go up the John Hancock Tower. I arrived at dusk and spent over an hour looking out of the windows and watching the lights come on in Chicago. There was an interesting video that told you about how the tower was built. I liked the hundreds of spiders on the outside of the building ( 1,127-feet tall) who were busy making webs over in the corner of the windows. I wonder if any of them have every been on the ground or if they are born and die up in the air.

I found a place to eat. The guy on the front desk seemed to want to try and ignore me (not sure what time they were open until) but once he saw I was not going to go away unless he actually refused me entry, he showed me to a table. The server was great - really helpful and sensitive to the fact that I was eating on my own (he gave me the wifi code without being asked when he saw me with my little tablet).

Went back to my hotel via the park. I was hoping that the Crown Fountain might be lit up but it didn't seem to be working properly. The fine mist was very refreshing though and there were lots of people enjoying the cooling effect of the spray.