Lille Day 5 and departure
The final day of the conference I woke up extra early to finish my talk. This is probably the worst I've ever been in terms of preparing ahead of time, but considering the short notice I had about knowing I'd be going for sure and also the number of things I had to do before I left, I don't feel all that guilty. Especially because I did get it done in time. The talks before mine were by a Belgian about algebraic coding theory, and Alain about barycentric sequences, which I feel I appreciate a bit more. Then came my talk, the last one of the conference. Unfortunately, due to its timing and late addition, about half the conference participants had to leave to catch their trains/planes. Still, I had about 10 people in the audience, which was okay. Having an hour made all the difference in this topic, because I could really get into the problem and show some of the techniques, and I got in a dabbling about the finite class group case too. In the end, I was academically happy I attended the conference, since I got a lot out of the talks and met a bunch of new people.
My talk ran into lunch, so by the time we got to the cafeteria, we had very slim pickings of what to eat. I started feeling crappy -- much worse than I had been feeling in previous days from allergies. It turns out that all the lack of sleep, the jetlag, my allergies going nuts, and the stress had all caught up with me: I had come down with a cold. I talked with the final participants and then went with everyone to the train station in the center of town. We decided to sit in a cafe by the train station to wait for people's trains. Even though it was a cool day, people wanted to sit outside. So I ordered a vervain tea with honey (they had honey!) to try to counteract the sore throat and raw sino-nasal passages that were developing. Of course, this being France, since we were outside, we got bombarded by all the smokers walking by, of which there were huge amounts because everyone was trying to get one last smoke before hopping on the train. And then these two businessmen sit down next to us and start smoking cigars. CIGARS! My throat was in agony but I didn't want to be rude and leave early, since everyone knew I was spending the night still. Finally the hour ticked by and we all split up so people could board their trains. I ran off afterwards and tried to do some souvenir shopping. There were some French-only releases of Blu-Rays that I wanted to bring home, but I only found one on my list after searching two media stores. Since it wasn't one of the top ones and it was Region B-locked, I passed on it.
In the end, I was happy there was no one around to have dinner with, because I felt like crap. I took a nap, then got up and ate the remaining piece of baguette and some cheese. I didn't have any tea with me, but I boiled up some tap water in the microwave and that really helped my throat. I packed and went to bed early.
The next day I woke up still sick. Had a few remaining pieces of cheese and checked out of my hotel. I had planned to walk the 30 minutes to the train station, but it was raining, so I walked the 8 minutes to the metro and took that to the station. My train to Brussels was uneventful and I grabbed a proper breakfast in Brussels airport for more than twice it would have cost in Lille. I didn't do much on the flight to Montreal -- little sleep because my seat didn't recline and the guy next to me was the height of a basketball player, so his legs had to bow out to fit. I watched a movie. My connection to Newark was delayed by 2 hours, so I had miso soup and sushi. Then it got delayed another two hours so I had another miso soup. I got in late to NJ and was happy my mom had made some chicken soup from scratch to help me with my cold. Carmen was happy I was back too. By the next morning I was feeling far better, so I headed back to to New Haven.
My talk ran into lunch, so by the time we got to the cafeteria, we had very slim pickings of what to eat. I started feeling crappy -- much worse than I had been feeling in previous days from allergies. It turns out that all the lack of sleep, the jetlag, my allergies going nuts, and the stress had all caught up with me: I had come down with a cold. I talked with the final participants and then went with everyone to the train station in the center of town. We decided to sit in a cafe by the train station to wait for people's trains. Even though it was a cool day, people wanted to sit outside. So I ordered a vervain tea with honey (they had honey!) to try to counteract the sore throat and raw sino-nasal passages that were developing. Of course, this being France, since we were outside, we got bombarded by all the smokers walking by, of which there were huge amounts because everyone was trying to get one last smoke before hopping on the train. And then these two businessmen sit down next to us and start smoking cigars. CIGARS! My throat was in agony but I didn't want to be rude and leave early, since everyone knew I was spending the night still. Finally the hour ticked by and we all split up so people could board their trains. I ran off afterwards and tried to do some souvenir shopping. There were some French-only releases of Blu-Rays that I wanted to bring home, but I only found one on my list after searching two media stores. Since it wasn't one of the top ones and it was Region B-locked, I passed on it.
In the end, I was happy there was no one around to have dinner with, because I felt like crap. I took a nap, then got up and ate the remaining piece of baguette and some cheese. I didn't have any tea with me, but I boiled up some tap water in the microwave and that really helped my throat. I packed and went to bed early.
The next day I woke up still sick. Had a few remaining pieces of cheese and checked out of my hotel. I had planned to walk the 30 minutes to the train station, but it was raining, so I walked the 8 minutes to the metro and took that to the station. My train to Brussels was uneventful and I grabbed a proper breakfast in Brussels airport for more than twice it would have cost in Lille. I didn't do much on the flight to Montreal -- little sleep because my seat didn't recline and the guy next to me was the height of a basketball player, so his legs had to bow out to fit. I watched a movie. My connection to Newark was delayed by 2 hours, so I had miso soup and sushi. Then it got delayed another two hours so I had another miso soup. I got in late to NJ and was happy my mom had made some chicken soup from scratch to help me with my cold. Carmen was happy I was back too. By the next morning I was feeling far better, so I headed back to to New Haven.