conclusione del congresso

okay, so I fudged this title too, thanks to the sign I saw outside the cloister today. BUT IT'S OVER!!!!
YAY.

I never thought I'd be so happy to see this wonderful thing end. But the truth is, I'm tired of thinking about 500,000 different kinds of stratified flows, and remembering everything I've ever tried to learn about the differences between the turbulent, gradient, flux, and stratification Richardson numbers, the convergence of vortices, and the appropriate Reynolds number at the transition from 2D to quasi-3D turbulence for Kelvin-Helmholtz billows. I'm over discussing SCAMP processing with every other person who has ever used one. I'm done with trying to sketch out code for derivation of vertical dissipation rate of TKE from ADCP measurements with Joe Schmo, and then realizing Joe wrote the definitive paper on internal wave steepening over continental shelves, so there is no reason to argue with him. Enough, enough, enough. phew.

Oh, and I'm ready to be done with the 100degF conference rooms and lack of oxygen... talk about feeling lightheaded. phew. If I haven't said it before, don't visit Rome in August, unless you have a portable ice box.

Cool thing I learned today: Chloe Winant and her dad, Clint, are in the same field (fluids). COOL. they're both at the conference. I guess fluids runs in families.

So. One more day in Rome. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I've been invited on a biking trip with a couple of grad students and post-docs from Scripps, and a tour with a couple of people around the city. I think I might just head out on my own, though, even if it would be a great idea to "network". I have an intense desire to wander the city alone, though I'm not sure why. Maybe I'll find some more random people to talk to, maybe I'll be spat upon by another crazy lady, maybe I'll stumble upon the most beautiful little place in the city, or walk along the Tiber, or head out to the beach.

I don't care about the tourist places. Rome is lovely, but I think it's more lovely for the city it is now than the city it once was, 2000 years ago. History is wonderful, and I love how it is integrated into the very fabric of this place, every old building still lived in, frescoes randomly scattered among the posters for 'NUOVO CELLULARI' and 'Rent Scooter'. But the ruins... they're ruins. I'm glad they're preserved and still around for the world to appreciate, but what makes a city isn't its tourist destinations.

What makes a city, and what makes each city different from others, is the unique ways its citizens make it their own. No one ever thinks they can own a city. But everyone lays claim to a corner of it, from sheer familiarity if nothing else. And those people change the place while they're there, they change the feel and the use of the space, the decoration and the purpose and the reason it exists.

Even those who visit change a place. I've become familiar with this corner of Via Cavour in the last week, as it has become familiar with me. No longer do I have to think before choosing which side of the street I'll walk on. No longer do the cafe owners offer me 'ice cleam' and 'gelatopizzaflenchaflies' as I walk by. They know I'm not a first time tourist, they recognize me. The guy at the cafe downstairs who cat-called me the first night I was here now nods and smiles respectfully. It's amazing the change a single week can make.

But I won't have a lasting impact on this city. Only those who can claim it as home really will. There seems to be some sort of threshold of involvement, time spent in a place, signing a lease, or something... that decides if you will change it. I don't know what that threshold is. And I think it changes from city to city. But all I can do is sit and appreciate the people who make this city their own, who love the buildings as home, who take every day here as part of their lives, dealing with tourists and making it work.