Paris, the end
I have now experienced the wonder that is simultaneous interpretation. The UNESCO interpreters were amazing. Although they switched off a couple of times per hour, there was only one interpreter working at a time, translating French into English and English into French. Of course, out of the 20 people present, there were only four of us wearing the earpieces: one who didn't speak English, and three of us who didn't speak French. Everyone else was easily switching back and forth.
After giving my little talk about graphs, I really didn't have anything to contribute the rest of the meeting. The goal of the meeting was to merge three working groups, so they had to come up with an organizational structure, new mission and objectives, etc. So I mostly just listened, but I made some good contacts. If my next business trip is to Africa, I will be very excited (I think I would rather go to Africa or South America than to almost anywhere in Europe, although someday I'd like to visit Spain and Italy).
I got back to frigid DC yesterday afternoon. It's interesting--I didn't have problems with jet lag at all. My theory is that I'm much more sensitive to whether it's light or dark than to whether I've gotten a normal amount of sleep. Of course, it was only a 6 hour time difference.
I've uploaded some pictures from the trip to Flickr. I'll just post a few here. Mostly they are of the interiors of dark, old (and beautiful) buildings, shot from weird angles because I couldn't use a flash, and needed to hold my camera against something steady. I went to Notre Dame, Saint Chapelle, and Musee d'Orsay, and on cloudy Monday evening, I went up the Eiffel Tower. Mostly I just walked around (and occasionally got lost). The weather could not have been better--I think on Sunday it got up to 70. The Orsay was fantastic, and I wish I'd had more time there (and I'm not usually a fan of art museums). It contains so many famous paintings that were familiar to me from art classes long ago. It's amazing that these masterpieces still exist, and that you're allowed to stand inches away and look at the shadows cast by the blobs of paint.
If I were planning a vacation to Paris, I probably wouldn't have picked February, but because I got so lucky with the weather, I think this was better than a spring or summer trip would have been. I've heard that the line for the elevator at the Eiffel Tower can be hours long. I waited 5 minutes. There didn't seem like any shortage of tourists, so I can't imagine how bad the crowds at other times of year.
Oh, on Monday night after seeing the Eiffel Tower, I went to another seafood restaurant and had fish soup (very good), and got served another unwanted appetizer--this time it was a bowl of little shrimp with their heads and legs still very much attached. The tiny bit of meat inside was hardly worth the trauma of pulling tiny legs off of tiny bodies. But I did eat some.
I think if I were advising someone going to France on what phrases to learn, I would recommend learning to order a carafe of water at restaurants, to avoid paying for bottled water all the time. I didn't learn that until Tuesday.
After giving my little talk about graphs, I really didn't have anything to contribute the rest of the meeting. The goal of the meeting was to merge three working groups, so they had to come up with an organizational structure, new mission and objectives, etc. So I mostly just listened, but I made some good contacts. If my next business trip is to Africa, I will be very excited (I think I would rather go to Africa or South America than to almost anywhere in Europe, although someday I'd like to visit Spain and Italy).
I got back to frigid DC yesterday afternoon. It's interesting--I didn't have problems with jet lag at all. My theory is that I'm much more sensitive to whether it's light or dark than to whether I've gotten a normal amount of sleep. Of course, it was only a 6 hour time difference.
I've uploaded some pictures from the trip to Flickr. I'll just post a few here. Mostly they are of the interiors of dark, old (and beautiful) buildings, shot from weird angles because I couldn't use a flash, and needed to hold my camera against something steady. I went to Notre Dame, Saint Chapelle, and Musee d'Orsay, and on cloudy Monday evening, I went up the Eiffel Tower. Mostly I just walked around (and occasionally got lost). The weather could not have been better--I think on Sunday it got up to 70. The Orsay was fantastic, and I wish I'd had more time there (and I'm not usually a fan of art museums). It contains so many famous paintings that were familiar to me from art classes long ago. It's amazing that these masterpieces still exist, and that you're allowed to stand inches away and look at the shadows cast by the blobs of paint.
If I were planning a vacation to Paris, I probably wouldn't have picked February, but because I got so lucky with the weather, I think this was better than a spring or summer trip would have been. I've heard that the line for the elevator at the Eiffel Tower can be hours long. I waited 5 minutes. There didn't seem like any shortage of tourists, so I can't imagine how bad the crowds at other times of year.
Oh, on Monday night after seeing the Eiffel Tower, I went to another seafood restaurant and had fish soup (very good), and got served another unwanted appetizer--this time it was a bowl of little shrimp with their heads and legs still very much attached. The tiny bit of meat inside was hardly worth the trauma of pulling tiny legs off of tiny bodies. But I did eat some.
I think if I were advising someone going to France on what phrases to learn, I would recommend learning to order a carafe of water at restaurants, to avoid paying for bottled water all the time. I didn't learn that until Tuesday.
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