back in Nantes
Well, Paris was fun, and I'm glad to have gotten that out of my system. My sister Jade paid for the hotel room and a lot of the meals (she is basically the best sister ever), so it didn't do too much damage to my budget.
I was warned about gypsies throwing babies (hopefully plastic ones?!) at tourists holding valuables, and I had mentally prepared myself to swat down anything flying towards me. I was actually kind of looking forward to swatting babies to the ground.
There were, however, a lot of "deaf-mutes" walking around Paris pointing at a sheet of paper and asking for donations. There were enough of them at any one tourist attraction that statistically speaking, they couldn't possibly have actually been deaf-mutes. Or just deaf. Or mute. They also all looked suspiciously like gypsies, so...
I contemplated carrying around a whistle or blowhorn to test their deafness. :P But that probably would have cost at least an extra 10-20 euro.
Jade and I spent Saturday and Sunday together visiting tourist attractions and just experiencing Paris in general. While walking along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, we saw a car crash just after the lady behind us complained about how dangerous driving in Paris can be.
*ahem*
And of course we waited in line for 1.5 hours just to spend 10 minutes up the Eiffel Tower. The view was pretty spectacular, and I suppose I don't regret it. But I can think of better things to do than waiting in line to get a ticket to wait in line for an elevator.
Monday was kind of exciting, as Jade had to leave for London in the morning, and I had to meet my friend Andrew at the Louvre at 10:30. There was some confusion as to which painting we were to meet at (originally Vermeer's "The Astronomer," but later changed to Géricault's "The Raft of Medusa"), but I was stuck in line for about an hour and missed the meeting time. I ended up running around the different wings of the Louvre for the next hour and a half looking for him, before I finally gave up the hope of finding one person among tens of thousands.
Through some stroke of luck, as I was following the exit signs to leave, I spotted him in the crowd.
We had a makeshift picnic in the garden in front of the Eiffel Tower. So. Many. Carbs.
Fastforward to today, the first day of the conference. The first speaker was E. Giroux, a blind mathematician. At first, I thought he was just baller for wearing sunglasses to his talk, until Andrew pointed out my error. And then Romero and Jordan both made the same mistake, a few minutes later.
I basically fell asleep during all of the talks and got nothing out of them due to a lack of sleep. If I were capable of learning from my mistakes, I would have gone to sleep about an hour ago. So now might be a good time to sign off. Good night, World! (And apologies for the poorly written entry.)
I was warned about gypsies throwing babies (hopefully plastic ones?!) at tourists holding valuables, and I had mentally prepared myself to swat down anything flying towards me. I was actually kind of looking forward to swatting babies to the ground.
There were, however, a lot of "deaf-mutes" walking around Paris pointing at a sheet of paper and asking for donations. There were enough of them at any one tourist attraction that statistically speaking, they couldn't possibly have actually been deaf-mutes. Or just deaf. Or mute. They also all looked suspiciously like gypsies, so...
I contemplated carrying around a whistle or blowhorn to test their deafness. :P But that probably would have cost at least an extra 10-20 euro.
Jade and I spent Saturday and Sunday together visiting tourist attractions and just experiencing Paris in general. While walking along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, we saw a car crash just after the lady behind us complained about how dangerous driving in Paris can be.
*ahem*
And of course we waited in line for 1.5 hours just to spend 10 minutes up the Eiffel Tower. The view was pretty spectacular, and I suppose I don't regret it. But I can think of better things to do than waiting in line to get a ticket to wait in line for an elevator.
Monday was kind of exciting, as Jade had to leave for London in the morning, and I had to meet my friend Andrew at the Louvre at 10:30. There was some confusion as to which painting we were to meet at (originally Vermeer's "The Astronomer," but later changed to Géricault's "The Raft of Medusa"), but I was stuck in line for about an hour and missed the meeting time. I ended up running around the different wings of the Louvre for the next hour and a half looking for him, before I finally gave up the hope of finding one person among tens of thousands.
Through some stroke of luck, as I was following the exit signs to leave, I spotted him in the crowd.
We had a makeshift picnic in the garden in front of the Eiffel Tower. So. Many. Carbs.
Fastforward to today, the first day of the conference. The first speaker was E. Giroux, a blind mathematician. At first, I thought he was just baller for wearing sunglasses to his talk, until Andrew pointed out my error. And then Romero and Jordan both made the same mistake, a few minutes later.
I basically fell asleep during all of the talks and got nothing out of them due to a lack of sleep. If I were capable of learning from my mistakes, I would have gone to sleep about an hour ago. So now might be a good time to sign off. Good night, World! (And apologies for the poorly written entry.)