Flew back to my home town and family yesterday, at least the rooftops and the ground are covered with frost. Experienced German Feuerzangenbowle on Friday, really nice. Swedish glögg is something special still, with one secret ingredient: nostalgia.
Paris was nice, I enjoyed the "obvious" places a lot, like the Louvre, musée d'Orsay, and the Eiffel tower. I walked for many, many Swedish mil during my 4 days of sight-seeing and slightly ruined my right knee. Getting old already, ugh. Should start running again. Southern Paris, where the conference was held, was quite nice too, seemed calmer than the north. Catacombs symbiosis? Anyway, I'm really not a city-slicker, half-way through the conference I couldn't wait to go back to the edge of civilization in Arheilgen. And why does every young person with an eye deficiency in Paris have exactly the same black thick plastic frame glasses?
Most of my bitterness probably comes from me getting sick for almost a full week after a meal around Montmartre. Yah, I had almost no food at all in my stomach during most of the conference and I still gave two talks. My family has always been very careful and strict when it comes to food, so this was the first time for me. After all food goes out into every part of your body and mind (no I'm not spiritual, but what goes in either goes out or stays, right?). The first few days in Paris were really nice still.
Pix:
I visited a friend of mine while in Gothenburg, and somehow our discussion lead to lucid dreaming. We've tried to document and share our dreams, but I've been way too distracted with work and being sick...
Hum, what else? Playing guitar, watching lectures, doing origami for people, daydreaming, the usual. Will update during the holidays.
EDIT 2014-12-24: Another Christmas soon over. My little 2 year old nephew swept through like a gentle storm; he found all kinds of things to play with in cabinets all over the house, but handled everything delicately and even put some things back. I invited him to brush my teeth with a dish washing brush. And he did. He's still too young to understand the concept of Santa Claus (and Christmas presents in general), but I dressed up a bit like the big fat dude just to ease him into it. One year he'll understand, and with some practice he might not cry too much.
I usually send Christmas greetings every year, today I've been too busy and tired to and I received almost none. Oh well, I sent and received a lot of greetings before today, that should count :p
A few calm days ahead I hope, I did a lot for the NeuLAND -> RIKEN thing already, mainly need to start testing to see what's missing (not working). Will try to make Opera cake for New Year's Eve from my French baking bible. Until then!
