Geneve --> Berlin --> Tallinn --> Paris --> Geneve

(Geneve, Switz.) - Life has been good recently, but busy. Too busy living, to blog about living. Among other things, I've been getting ready to - unfortunately - leave Geneva and head back stateside and so blogging has taken a back seat to a world of work before I go. But it hasn't been all work...

Got back late last Sunday night from Paris from a friends wedding. Paris was a really good time. The wedding was beautiful and Andrew and Celine are so perfect for each other so I was happy to be able to make it.

Also, got to see many many other old friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in years. It is always a disconnect seeing people who you associate with a certain time and place in one's life (SF Bay Area, mid-90s) transplanted halfway around the world to a totally different context and surroundings in the present day (Paris, now). Many of them have had amazing big lives and it was great to catch up.

And what a lot of characters! As Jack (ex-marine Recon and current financial type living in Munich) commented of the eccentric interesting eclectic mix... "Lewis is a collector... that's why there are so many freaks here." If true then I am happy to counted among the freaks.... An ex-Navigators teammate, a war correspondent from Baghdad who is about to become the Beirut bureau chief for NBC, a blind Muslim scholar, and some Stanfordites and bike racer types I hadn't seen in a long long time. Also a guy named Sam who really looked familiar and then I realized that he used to work in Helen's bikeshop in Santa Monica when I was racing for the team there. He moved to Paris about a 1.5 years ago with his girlfriend Melanie and they and my friend Andrew are friends now. Despite how it feels, the world is a tiny tiny place.

We had so much fun that the wedding went on and on with dancing and gabbing until the wee hours of the morning. We stayed out so late that we had trouble finding a taxi and so about 10 of us decided to wobble back across the city by foot to our hotel. It was quite an experience hiking across the streets of deserted beautiful predawn Paris with old and new friends. The next day was a (very) late brunch and then in honor of 'les bleus' later that night we had a football match with the wedding party in Bois de Vicennes. Even 2 days later, I was still sore. Then it was the superfast TGV train back to Geneva, where I am taking some final data and packing and sorting etc. before leaving for the states Saturday morning.

I came to Paris via Estonia where I was at for a conference for a week. Estonia is a country about the size of the Nederlands, but with 1/20 the population. And since most of the people live in the capital it leaves the countryside a wee bit ...well, country... which is where our conference was, well outside the capital city of Tallinn. I gave a talk that was well recieved and learned alot overall.

It is nice to travel to these things, but the conference really was work work work. Overall it was interesting and nicely organized but that much concentrated physics with difficult talks all day long 8 AM - 6 PM with only a one hour lunch break and nothing else to do leaves me feeling a little over/understimulated. Still, we got out into Tallinn on two occasion.

Tallinn is billed as one of the best preserved old medieval towns in Europe and it delivers on that promise. It is interesting how communism was good for many of these places in preserving the old buildings in face of the evil of 1970's modernism and international styles. I have found the same thing in Croatia and Bulgaria where there was no money to rip down the old in the quest for progress. So Tallinn is still exquisitley beautiful with its formidable city wells set off by sentry towers, striking gabled roofs, exquisitly painted tiny houses pushed into tiny spots where no house should be, meadering little streets, and cobblestones all set on a hilltop overlooking the Baltic. I am sure it was rundown 20 years ago, but now with an infusion of tourist money it is freshly painted and spic and span.

I really liked Tallinn, but it is funny to see it right now suffering the beginning throes of its awkward embrace of touristic economy capitalism. And although beautiful and striking at times the whole place seems a little contrived and a bit forced. It is hitting the the medieval town aspect in its marketing hard. So the beautiful main town square is rimmed with restaurants serving real 'medieval' food with staff outfitted in tights, leather singlet jackets, page boy haircuts and big goofy pointy elf shoes. The food is good, but this aspect is a bit silly. And they have 'knight' fights on the square on the weekends. It all ends up being a bit much, and with the picture perfect archetecture and spiraled steeples it feels a bit like Disney world. I think they are evolving though and I bet in 5 ears you'll have alot less of this stuff.

Estonia itself is an interesting mix of Slavic/Baltic influences. Imagine crossing the Czech republic with Sweden. A little bit funny, with whitewashed Danish looking houses, thatched roofs, mixed with Russian style wooded Orthodox churches etc. But I liked it. Some other very interesting personal experiences, but those might be for another blog post at another time.

We traveled to Estonia via Berlin where we were for the night of the last German WC match victory. My colleague and I had a layover (traveling discount airlines to Tallinn). After dropping off our bags at the airport hotel, we took the metro into the city center, just after the match had ended with German victory at the Olympic stadium in Berlin and the revelrly had just started. We finally got in at 3 AM, but the street parties were still going on. That was a wild time, let me tell you.

So that was it. Geneve --> Berlin --> Tallinn --> Paris --> Geneve. My life is hard you know. When I am home, I work my little fingers to the bone, but this physics stuff is not all just saltmines on bread and water.

(apologies to friends who already got some of this post as parts of emails)