Dear ETAPS participant,

Conference Venue

• The lecture rooms of the main conferences and workshops are split between Hotel Thermal (officially, Danubius Health Spa Resort) and Grand Hotel, which are two separate buildings located next to each other (1-2 minute walk). Invited talks of the main conference are organized on Boat Europa (except on Friday), which will be standing 1 minute from the main entrance of Grand Hotel.
• The registration desk is in the main lobby of Hotel Thermal. The registration desk officially opens on March 29th (Saturday) at 8:00, but we will try to unofficially open registration already on Friday evening for participants staying at the conference hotels to avoid rush hours on Saturday morning.
• A map of the conference venue is available from here.
• If you are not staying at the conference hotel, we highly recommend that you depart early enough (especially on Monday morning) to reach the conference venue on time. Please note that access to the conference venue on Margareth Island is typically less crowded if you arrive from the north (from the metro station "Árpád híd").
• A map summarizing the means of public transportation is available at http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://etaps08.mit.bme.hu/Venue/ETAPS2008.kml
• Many participants staying at the conference hotel need spend the night of March 28th in Hotel Hélia (as the conference hotels were fully booked due to a previous major event). A bus transfer will be provided at 8:00 and 8:30 to the conference hotels on March 29th. We kindly ask "early birds" to take the 8 o'clock bus to avoid the peak time at the registration desk.

Internet

• Wireless internet will be available in the two hotels free of charge. Internet access is not restricted to ETAPS hours, but it is available 24 hour a day.
• Please note that there will be no Internet connection during the invited talks on Boat Europa.
• There will be a small computer room in Room Toboz II in Hotel Thermal.

Presentations

• By default, only beamers are available in the conference and workshop rooms. Please contact us at the registration desk if you happen to need an overhead projector. Please note that, we expect that the laptop of the presenters will be connected to the beamer, thus we only provide laptops in the lecture room upon advance request.
• We highly recommend that you try during coffee breaks that your laptop successfully connects to the beamer. Furthermore, please contact your session chair during the break.

Lunches

• While lunches are included for the satellite events, we highly recommend that you have your lunch on site for the days of the main conference as well. Lunches need to be ordered 24 hours in advance at the registration desk or by writing to etaps08-organizers@mit.bme.hu, so please act as soon as possible to secure your lunch.
• For the moment, only half of the participants ordered lunches during weekdays, which might cause unexpected traffic jams when 200 people try to leave the island at the same time. This way, we can only guarantee your convenient lunch time by recommending you to have your lunch on site.

Welcome reception

• While welcome reception is included for all participants of the main conference, additional tickets are available for 25 EUR if you would like to take your spouse with you.

Currency

• The official currency in Hungary is the Forint (shortly, Ft or HUF), and not the Euro. Of course, there are many places where they accept Euros as well, but exchange rates are typically biased against the customer.
• You can exchange currency in banks and at dedicated exchange offices. The exchange mid rate today is 256,64 HUF for 1 EUR (but it was between 250 HUF and 270 HUF within the last month).
• Please note that according to a recent regulation in Hungary, 1 Ft and 2 Ft coins are withdrawn, and prices are rounded up (or down) to the next number dividable by 5. Ft. So, shopkeepers are not cheating if they do not give you back a change of 1Ft or 2 Fts.

Schengen borders at the airport

• While Hungary has officially joined the Schengen borders of the European Union to simplify travel for those coming from a member state, the Schengen borders are introduced at the airport from March 30th. Such a change might cause some disorder at the airport.