Paris and Innsbruck

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We've been traveling quite a bit since we've been here. All of that kicked off (for me) with a work trip to Paris, February 1 – 6. I visited my mentor/collaborator Abdul Barakat who was a faculty member at UC Davis when I did my PhD there. He's been living in France for about five years now with his family. They seem to love it (although the start was admittedly difficult). Now he has a very large research group at Ecole Polytechnique. Ecole Polytechnique is an elite (maybe THE elite) engineering/technical school in France with ties to the military. Technically, all students at the school are officers in the military as well. Students who graduate are obligated to stay in France (and maybe even to do public service), although, from what I understand, this isn't enforced and students quite frequently leave France upon graduation. The school has a long and very prestigious history with many great scientists as its alumns. The school was founded during the French revolution, and there was a pretty entertaining exhibit of the various school uniforms on display, going back to Napoleonic times. (For my geekier friends, Benoit Mendelbrot, the father of the study of fractals studied here and there was an exhibit in his honor. Alumns also include Nobel prize winners, like the physicist Becquerel and many famous mathematicians, like Cauchy, Liouville, Cholesky and Jordan; and engineers, like Darcy... and many others.) The admission into the university is very difficult but when someone is admitted, their tuition is free.



Abdul already had a well-established career when he took a position at the Ecole Polytechnique, and his charge was to build a bioengeering group (and maybe even to build a department? I'm a little fuzzy on the details.) His group is very large now, consisting of lab spaces, faculty members, postdoctoral researchers and students. The focus of their group is to study the circulatory system, blood vessels, hear disease and many related questions. Abdul's work bridges theory and experiments – with some of his students coming from more of a biological background while many others are more quantitative (physicist, mathematician, engineer types). There are also connections to industry – for example, some of his researches work on improving stent design and a couple of the former students and postdocs are actually in the process of forming a new start-up company that is also housed in the lab's space..



My trip was very good but it was more work than vacation. I consider myself a very competent traveler, but managed to leave on this trip like I've never traveled on my own before. To start with, I forgot to bring my adapter (sort of an important piece of technology when you're planning to give a talk that is on your laptop...) and, worse, as it turned out, I had no access to cash. My debit card was getting replaced (this is a long and boring story) but I didn't get the new one before I left Budapest and I didn't realize until it was too late that I didn't have the pin code for any of the other cards I have. At first, I wasn't worried – it seems like in the US you can mostly get by with plastic. Things were going OK initially – I was able to buy my bus ticket from the airport (Beauvais, about 45-60 min outside of Paris) into Paris where Abdul came and picked me up. We spent a very enjoyable afternoon and evening with his family. They made me a wonderful dinner with poached salmon and a lot of yummy vegetables. Then, Abdul drove me to Ecole Polytechnique which is also outside of Paris (again, about 45 minutes) on the Saclay Plateau. I stayed in the guest house with rooms that were essentially dorm rooms. It was a pretty funny little room – definitely not a lot of unnecessary space or comforts. The toilet was in the closet – this took a while to figure out (in fact, Abdul, who helped me find my room ended up asking someone else on my floor about it because we could not figure out where it was).



Abdul had warned me that there wasn't much food to have on campus. He was right. There was a tiny little cafe that served coffee and croissants but yes, you guessed it, it only took cash. I skipped breakfast that day... There was a conference the first full day I spent there called “Biophysics across scales” where there were a number of presentations on biophysics/math bio type talks. It was a great meeting with a lot of really cool science. There was also lunch provided – a lot of really small, very pretty appetizers. (I didn't know what most of it was – but I had a pretty healthy helping of it. Some of it was seafood and at the end there were finger-food desserts too.) When the conference ended, all participants left campus and I meandered around, trying to find food. There was none. I did find some very cool murals all over the place. I also saw a rugby team practice and watched a lot of funny snapshots of student life in the evening (like a club of very geeky guys, sitting around a table in a room full of electronic gadgets, building something; nightlife in an on-campus, fairly dive-y bar, complete with fuzzball tables and terrible techno-type music). I used the last bits of juice in my computer to contact my bank to see if I can change pin codes... but such luck.



I had a really nice trail run the next morning. It was cold but I found a path that winds around campus. It was paved initially but eventually turned to dirt and cut in from the road into a forest. It was beautiful but also pretty deserted. I was very surprised by how late the sun rose (around 8:20), so almost all of my run was in the dark. I guess France is at the Western end of our timezone, so the sunrise and sunset occurs noticeably later than in Hungary. I was totally starving by the time Abdul found me to take me over to his lab. (It took me a few days to get my bearings on campus. I have a pretty bad sense of direction that I compensate for by being patient and not panicking when I lose my way. There were also some huge construction projects on campus which were not helpful in navigating.) I finally confessed to Abdul that I did not have any cash and he let me borrow some – and didn't even make me feel like the complete fool that I was. My adapter problems got resolved too – one of the graduate students gave me one to use. The next few days were mainly about work. Abdul had arranged meetings with people in his lab for my entire visit. I got to get a good sense of the scope of their work. He and I talked a bit too about a potential project and I gave a talk to his lab.



I went into Paris two nights - once on my own and once with an American PhD student called Brennawho's been living in France for a few years. I had been to Paris two or three times before, so I had seen most of the famous/important sights. I felt OK about not seeing that much during this trip. The night I went in on my own, I took the train (RER) to Notre Dame, and walked around there. It was already dark when I got to the city (and fairly cold). The moon was huge and Notre Dame looked mysterious in its light. I walked around without a specific goal. To accommodate my directionally-challenged ways, I did a few big loops from Notre Dame, always circling back. I found a very fun neighborhood with a lot of narrow, pedestrian only streets and old churches, many-many restaurants and little stores. I had dinner in a Basque restaurant (some sort of salmon dish again) with some really nice wine. I also bought some food in a grocery store to take back to my room. The second time I went, Brenna and I went to the Pompidou center and went to see the Museum of Modern Art and had dinner at a really good Thai place. It was definitely the funner of the two evenings. She told me a lot more about the lab (and the personal aspects of it too) and her boyfriend – and just her life in Paris and her impressions on France vs the US. I also had a little time the morning I left and did some more walking around the same area of town.



Soon after my trip to France, we look a ski trip to Innsbruck, Austria, from February 17-20 (Tue-Fri). We shamelessly took the kids out of school for this – there was definitely a sense of annoyance in the teachers and staff at this point. We rented a car and left pretty late in the day (around noon), so it was dark by the time we got to Innsbruck. The trip was fairly uneventful because you drive a pretty big interstate that stays away from towns and cities. We did seem to trigger an automatic speed trap – at least we assumed that's what the flash of light meant (although we never did receive the ticket for it). The highway goes from Hungary to Austria, then through Germany for a bit and back to Austria (to avoid going through the Alps, I assume). So that was fun for the kids (and adults), - 3 countries in one day. I still can't get over how seamless the borders are – there is no passport control, customs, anything. A slight change from my childhood with the barbed wire fences and armed border patrol.



As you get close to Innsbruck, you are in a valley (of the Inn river), between huge peaks. But the mountains were actually hard to see and since it was dark. As we were going into the mountains, it seemed surreal to start seeing the huge, snow-capped peaks. For a while, we weren't sure whether were really seeing mountains (they seemed absurdly tall) or if the white patches were merely clouds. Along the roadthere were also a number of castles and churches illuminated, so that was very enticing. I'm sad to say that I was by far the most excited in the family – Tyler did the driving and the kids are apparently just too worldly to get worked up by a few castles and things.



On Wednesday all four of us went skiing at a resort that had some family-friendly slopes too because it was Iza's first time on skis (and my first time in years too). There are ten or more ski resorts from Innsbruck and many miles of runs at each - huge infrastructure! There was a lot of frustration at the beginning of day. Iza struggled with her skis and Miska, after some easy runs, got really bold and went down a blue run. It went fine the first time but he wiped out and hurt his hands the second time and then had a hard time getting down. We only saw him once he was off the mountain and he was having a total fit - I think he got really scared but he was incoherent. He had a really good day after he pulled it together and totally mastered that run. Tyler helped Iza a lot on the bunny slopes and then I hung out with her too. She was also pretty grumpy for a long time because there were tiny kids who were just whipping around (going down on harder things than Miska) and I think she felt embarrassed by not being able to do the same. But she also improved a ton during the day, so by the end, she did have a sense of accomplishment. I spent most of my day at the totally easy, kiddie slopes and then went down one of the blue runs a couple of times. The first time was terrifying and I fell down a bunch but the second time it got much better and felt like I had control over my skis. I'm glad I ended up trying the run a couple of times - it ended the day on a good note for me too. Tyler hung out with the kids a lot but also went further up and did some runs that were harder and more fun for him. The day was pretty grey at first but the sun came out and it became beautiful - blue skies and huge peaks everywhere. That night we had really good, authentic Italian food. Several of the waiters spoke Italian with each other and not a word of English.



The next day Tyler and Miska went skiing and Iza and I hung out in town. In the morning, I went on a run that was meant to be short but I totally got lost and ended up meandering around town for a long time. I actually rarely get completely turned around – I often lose my way but will be fairly clear on the general direction I have to go. Not this time. I finally ended up paying for roaming charges, so I could look at my phone to get back. (This was after I had already struck out asking for directions at a bakery where the staff didn't speak English and I realized that I didn't have any idea what the bigger roads near our hotel were called.) So, Tyler and Miska went to a glacier called “Stubai” and had a pretty epic day, with Miska getting faster and more secure on his skis. Those of you who are FB friends with Tyler got to see a lot of pictures from their day. Iza and I started heading for town after Tyler and Miska left. We found a little cemetery on our way. (In case you think I'm morbid to take my 9-yr-old to a cemetery, this was an accident. There was a playground next door but from the swing you could look over the fence and see inside the cemetery and Iza got interested. But visiting cemeteries has become sort of a thing for us, so I'll have to come back to this in another blog.) It was very peaceful and Iza really liked walking around there. The first spring flowers were out and it was a beautiful, sunny day. After admiring the graves and picking our favorite headstones, Iza and I made our way downtown. The center of the city is a beautiful square, with views of the snowy peaks behind the old buildings and churches. The buildings were very colorful (bright pink, yellow and orangey-coral) and old - some dating back to the 1450's. Some of the cafes had set up tables in the middle of the square, so a lot of people were having coffee there too. This seemed pretty premature to me – it wasn't really warm enough weather yet to be sitting outside. People were huddling under blankets that were provided by the cafes and vying for the tables in the sun. It was very-very beautiful.



We also meandered into a park that had a very cool wooden castle. It looked like there was a school there too. There was plenty of snow and it was pretty funny to see how comfortable kids were rolling around in it. They were definitely used to having a lot of it around, you could tell. There were also some horses just outside the park too, to Iza's great delight. They were getting fed and watered and we admired them for a while. We found a little “cukraszda” and had coffee and cakes. We tried going skating (there is an olympic stadium that was built for the '76 winter olympics) but it turned out that the skates were pushing on Iza's leg exactly in the same spot where the ski boots had been, so she was uncomfortable and didn't skate. I skated a little bit – partially hoping that she'd get in the mood. She didn't, so we went back to the hotel. You'll be happy to hear, I'm sure, that we didn't get lost once! The four of us went to a hockey game that night (of a local team called “Sharks” or “Hai” in German and a team from Graz). I don't know much about hockey but it was a really enjoyable, really fast game. The Innsbruck team won – which of course, was of no consequence to us but made the audience loud and very cheerful. We got to watch some local teams's very drunk fan section drum, sing and generally make fools of themselves. Another memorable part of the game was that during the breaks there was an unbelievable locker-room stench we couldn't understand. Finally, we say that we were sitting right above the place where the players put their gloves on some heat ducts to dry them out. Impressively stinky!



Then, on Friday we headed back to Hungary. We took the whole morning and early afternoon to leave the valley of Inn. We stopped in a really cute old town called Schwaz that had a beautiful old church downtown with a big enclosed garden (full of snow and kids playing there) that was bordered with a walkway with gothic arches. It looked like the walkway may have been part of a larger structure in the past. We only saw the church from the outside but it had a cool sundial on it and an interesting facade, with small, rectangular towers decorating the top. We also drove up to a very old looking monastery in town, perched on one of the peaks but this was closed too, so we only got to see it from the outside. The other place we stopped with Kufstein, where there is a really cool fortress. This castle/fortress was very pretty - with the earliest parts of it built in the early 1200's. Then, it was expanded and rebuilt and passed from hand to hand through the centuries. There was a castle museum with an interesting summary of the places' history and an exhibit on all the awful torture devices that had been used (not necessarily here) in the past. One of the most interesting parts of the castle was a HUGE cylindrical tower whose walls were super thick (4-7.5 m or 12-23 ft thick!) that had worked as a prison. Apparently, many Hungarians (especially nobility) were imprisoned here after the various uprisings against the Hapsburgs. The place was particularly notorious after the (failed) 1848-49 national revolution for Hungary to gain independence from the Astro-Hungarian empire. There were a few things (eg a documentary and various texts, copies of letters of former prisoners, etc) that were in Hungarian. This was a rare treat – Hungarian is not exactly a language I frequently come across while traveling.





The rest of our trip back to Hungary was fairly uneventful but long. It was funny to see the kids be so happy to see Hungary and be on “familiar grounds” again. I realized that although they definitely didn't speak the language yet, they really were becoming experts at navigating Budapest (and maybe Hungary in general). I'm particularly happy that they're seeing a lot of Eastern Europe – my sense is that they are beginning to “get” a lot of the culture I grew up in more than I could explain on my own. Miska is quite curious and asked a lot of really good questions about socialism (and how it differs from capitalism) and about the time and age I grew up in. Hungarian culture and Hungarian psyche is very determined by the long string of military defeats, failed uprisings and revolutions; the trauma of WWII and the communist dictatorship/regime that followed. It makes people very prone to dark humor, often pretty pessimistic and hopeless. But there is also a resilience – because people learned the hard way that life goes on. I also think it's a great side-effect of the dark historical past that most Hungarians don't believe in military solutions or large militaries in general. But, I think I'm getting too philosophical – it's probably time to wrap up my musings.

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Photos

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Arriving in Paris!

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My room.

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Venturing into Paris at night - Notre Dame.

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Paris streets at night.

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Mystery church.

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Bottom part of mystery church.

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Remains of an old building (near Notre Dame).

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Sorbonne

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Hotel de Cluny (I think....)

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Meandering around - a fun square I.

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Meandering around - a fun square II.

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Meandering around - a fun square III.

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A tea shop in Paris.

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The great assembly hall at Ecole Polytechnique.

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Women's uniforms at the Ecole Polytechnique.

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Mens' uniforms.

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Mens' uniforms.

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Mens' uniforms (I think this might be the oldest).

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Another exhibit - scientific instruments.