Leuven
I am a bit tired.
Thursday night, I went to bed too late (packing) and had to get up early (meeting), so I didn't get enough sleep. Then, on Friday night Kate and I stayed up late watching Bad Santa (fucking hilarious) and had to get up at 5:30 so I could make my flight; I slept, all in all, about four hours. I boarded a 7:50 flight to Dulles, caught 45 minutes of napping. I caught another hour or so on the flight to Brussels, arriving at 7AM (10PM Saturday night, my time). Caught the train to Leuven, wandered around for an hour before finding the hotel, which told me I couldn't check in until 2PM. So I wandered around the city for three hours or so, before checking in and crashing for a few hours before the evening reception.
A lack of sleep aside.
Leuven is a town just east of Brussels. The town center is perhaps a mile and a half across, is fastidiously clean, has nice sidewalks, and very little car traffic. In wandering, I found a gaming store, a few good pastry shops, and a real French cheese shop (tm), which was absolutely awesome except for the fact that they only have French cheeses. They have several goat cheeses I've never seen before, though, so I may need to try them out.
The workshop itself is in a small city-within-the-city, where an order of mystical nuns used to live. Cobblestone streets, small gardens, the works.
I chatted with a few people from ETH Zurich at the reception.
I am going to sleep now. I need to practice my talk a few times. I'll do that when I get up.
Thursday night, I went to bed too late (packing) and had to get up early (meeting), so I didn't get enough sleep. Then, on Friday night Kate and I stayed up late watching Bad Santa (fucking hilarious) and had to get up at 5:30 so I could make my flight; I slept, all in all, about four hours. I boarded a 7:50 flight to Dulles, caught 45 minutes of napping. I caught another hour or so on the flight to Brussels, arriving at 7AM (10PM Saturday night, my time). Caught the train to Leuven, wandered around for an hour before finding the hotel, which told me I couldn't check in until 2PM. So I wandered around the city for three hours or so, before checking in and crashing for a few hours before the evening reception.
A lack of sleep aside.
Leuven is a town just east of Brussels. The town center is perhaps a mile and a half across, is fastidiously clean, has nice sidewalks, and very little car traffic. In wandering, I found a gaming store, a few good pastry shops, and a real French cheese shop (tm), which was absolutely awesome except for the fact that they only have French cheeses. They have several goat cheeses I've never seen before, though, so I may need to try them out.
The workshop itself is in a small city-within-the-city, where an order of mystical nuns used to live. Cobblestone streets, small gardens, the works.
I chatted with a few people from ETH Zurich at the reception.
I am going to sleep now. I need to practice my talk a few times. I'll do that when I get up.