Thanksgiving

This weekend is, of course, Thanksgiving. My family will again be at Silver Bay, where we've been celebrating Thanksgiving for close to 15 years. We now get over 80 people for the weekend. Here I am in London, where people have been asking me, "what do you do for Thanksgiving anyway?" Mostly, we eat. Great food, all day long. There's usually a table set up with a jigsaw puzzle, which people work on throughout the day. Some people try to get in a few hikes to balance at least some of those calories and to appreciate the beautiful setting. And, of course, it wouldn't be a family event without loads of music.

Our event has been so successful and has grown so much that Silver Bay is now trying to convince its regular members to follow our lead. Hopefully our family will get to continue to use the space, but if they're successful in getting others to come, it could certainly change the dynamic.

Directions

I must look like I know where I'm going now; people have started asking me for directions. I'm always really happy when I know. "The London Eye? Just go down next to that tunnel to the path along the river and turn left." "Yes, the Old Vic is just up this street on the left... don't worry, this street will turn into The Cut at some point."

I got stumped tonight though. Now, looking it up, I feel really stupid. I guess the "royal" threw me. Someone asked me where the Royal National Theatre was. I pass this hideous monstrosity every single day, but all I could think of was the ornate Her Majesty's Theatre. I had to just shrug and apologize.

Go Stuff For Sale

In my meanderings about London, I've been happy to see that Go-related materials are available for sale. I found a games shop ("Playin' Games") around the corner from my office that has both equipment and books. There's the Chinese book store in Chinatown that also had equipment and a few books. Up on Euston Road, I passed a Chess & Bridge store. I saw chess boards in the window and immediately went over to investigate. I saw the name of the store was Chess & Bridge and was prepared to be disappointed, but then saw what I was looking for: a Go board (with "Go" written in Go stones on it) in the window! The store was closed when I was there, so I'll have to check it out some other time.

I've also recently found a few more potential local players. There's a mathematician here at King's on sabbatical from Spain who emailed me to say that he plays and is looking for clubs. So hopefully I'll get to play with him soon. I also found out last night that a couple of guys in one of the other postgrad offices here have recently started playing.

Oui oui

Paris is so beautiful. If you have the means, I highly recommend going.

When I arrived at my hotel around 2 pm on Sunday, the receptionist called a colleague of his to confirm the arrangements for the room that was reserved for me. As he waited for said colleague to answer the phone, he pulled a glass of wine from under his desk and took a swig.

My room on the fifth floor had a balcony (actually two--one from the main room and one from the bathroom), which looked out on all the other beautiful buildings on the street.

Mostly I spent my time (the time not spent at math talks) walking around. I stopped in at Notre Dame and walked through the courtyards of the Louvre. I didn't go into the Louvre because it was only going to be open for another hour, rendering its €9 entry fee out of my budget. I walked up the Avenue des Champs Élysées, which, dominated as it was by megastores, was made worthwhile only by the Arc de Triomphe at the end, which was indeed impressive. Wandering back across the Seine, I followed the glittering lights to the Eiffel Tower.

Yesterday was the first meeting of the London-Paris Number Theory Seminar. My advisor gave a talk about the paper of his that I'm reading and there were two other talks also about generalizations of Serre's Conjecture. Jean-Pierre Serre himself attended the seminar.

Afterwards, I wandered around a bit more, getting mildly lost in lovely cobblestone back streets, discovering beautiful little bookstores that made me wish I knew French and a tiny Japanese import shop that I was allowed to peruse even though they were closed and had delicate pottery scattered everywhere.

I walked up past Moulin Rouge, which was surely the least interesting bit of Paris I saw while I was there, and then headed back to the Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar back to London.