Recap from Rome

I'm blogging on this a bit belatedly, as is my habit. (I was going to be prompt, but then the whole laptop incident occurred.)

I've already posted the pictures my friend took. I still don't have a digital camera (I'll get one eventually... I'm being very bad about this) and I haven't developed my pictures yet, though the ones I showed you covered most of the visual stuff I wanted to pass along anyway.

My memory of things is a bit hazy at this point, but such is life.

General: While in Rome, I unsurprisingly had lots of good pasta and gelato. Mmmm... gelato. There was a really good gelato place near the hotel (which was somewhat in the boonies, as I mentioned). It had good, thick whipped cream and one of the people working there one time gave me double with the official portion was.

Italian driving: Basically, you have to just cross the street and hope they don't run you over. Right of way doesn't exist. If you stand on the sidewalk waiting for them to stop so you can cross safely (even if the traffic lights favor you, in the corners where there actually are traffic lights), you'll be waiting there a very long time. This was quite a nerve-wracking experience, and for an Angelino like me, walking in front of a car while it's moving counters multiple decades of muscle memory, intuition, and survival instincts. I definitely didn't like the de facto driving habits in Rome.

Attempts to get iced lattes/capuccinos: As I had been warned, this didn't work particularly well. I ultimately figured out how to get cold coffee drinks, but getting them truly iced (and hence ones that would actually stay really cold more than a trivial amount of time) didn't work very well. My shining moment of "awesomeness" came at lunch on one of the last days. A couple of days before I had accidently gotten an iced espresso and unlike in the US, one can't just add the milk oneself at a counter if one screws up that way. (At that place, one had to order in a different spot than one picked up the drink, and I didn't want to wait in line again, so I added some sugar and sucked it up.) However, I had learned from that experience that the Italian word for cold is "freddo" so I was thinking that I was getting somewhere. The next time I tried, I wanted to make sure my cold espresso drink wasn't actually an espresso, so I very confidently ordered a "latte freddo" and the waiter just as confidently gave me the cold milk I had ordered. Oops. I was so used to saying "latte" as a shortcut for "cafe latte" (as that is what's done in both the US and UK) that it didn't occur to me that without the "cafe" in Italy I would be taken literally. Bloody Hell! After that I just ordered capuccinos to be safe, but even on one menu that described the damn thing as "iced" it never got more than cold (and then not for long). Thankfully, gelato provided a nice way to get something that was truly cold and refreshing.

Day 1: This was my tourist day in Rome. My friend and I went to the Colosseum, where I managed to get very slightly bloody (there was a very sharp piece of plastic in an unfortunate spot). Sadly, I didn't have any of the 4th edition abilities that gave me bonuses in that situation. At least it was poetic. After this we walked to the city center and explored a lot. I learned my lesson from Zurich in summer 07 (and heeded the warning of how hot and humid Rome is in the summer) and made sure that I stayed hydrated. (I had a rough time in Zurich because of that.) Occasionally, this meant really overpaying for cold drinks, but sometimes you do what you have to do. I took either all (or perhaps nearly all) of my pictures on this day, and I covered lots of ground. When I travel to an interesting place, one of my pleasures is to just walk around a lot and see what's up. I like to get a flavor for the city and soak things in. Usually I get lost along the way, but at least I can also do some exploring as I try to find myself again. During this exploration, the sites included "Via Propaganda" (with the McDonald's sign, as I showed you pictorially) and a zombie mime. (What's the sign for "braaaaaaains...?")

The conference: It was productive and interesting, as expected. I actually went to the activity group's business meeting this time. I had considered going on some previous occasions, but I always had something else to do---either a meeting with a collaborator, dinner with friends, or whatever. (I didn't consider going when I first went to conferences, but after I had established myself a bit and become a regular, it started making sense to go to that stuff.) Anyway, one of the ideas I proposed was a resounding success, though it will need to go through the regular hoops to become official. Namely, there is going to be a nonlinear waves dissertation prize. Hopefully I won't end up on the committee that actually has to read these, but I believe in the cause sufficiently that I needed to risk that to try to make it happen.

Interesting factoid: This blog entry is 1337. I'm just awesome that way, and I'm not sure when the next interesting number is coming along.