en Roma, Senatus Populusque Romanus

Thus commenceth ISSF2011, or, the 7th International Symposium on Stratified Flows. We have ridiculous backpacks (Audric managed to escape that fate) and four days of lectures to look forward to. Today was the 'master classes', meaning they broke up the grad students according to research topic (kinda) and had us present our work to each other. The main issue being, there was no real organization, so nobody really knew what to present. I threw together something last night, primarily from the presentation I gave to EFM in April (and heaven knows how things have progressed since then). By a horrible twist of fate, my presentation was eaten by PPT2003, and in a rush I had to convert it to a pdf (bye bye effects, hello confusing images). And about ten extra slides that I had hidden from the original presentation about Batchelor theory. gah. what a nightmare.

So something I learned today: when Larry Armi is going to be in the crowd, DON'T MESS UP. [dang.] That man doesn't like to listen to things he is bored by.. and he was bored by a lot of the presentations, and asked me to cross off which ones had been given already (he came in late). Fortunately, though, Clint Winant came over and introduced himself afterward, and said he liked my presentation (ha! yeah right). That was nice, at least.

I must say, I love the Italian way of doing things... rather slow, methodical... with lots of coffee breaks (though the accent isn't the same, I hear Andreas in my head every single time one of the organizers announces it). In the States it'd be.. well actually, it would probably be similar, except every coffee break would be accompanied by five-day-old pastries. At least here it's espresso and cookies.

So random list of memorable things that happened today: found a real Salumeria (this one); was spat upon by a signora pezzasca (crazy lady) in the Piazza Navona, who a minute later proceeded to start yelling across the square; had pizza bianca from Forno for lunch, on the east bank of the Tiber; was complimented in Italian on my tiny sketch of gothic windows, and tried (but failed) to have a conversation with him; realized that not only is my poster the wrong size, it is the wrong direction (is hamburger, not hot dog orientation), and found a solution (one of the Stanford students did the same thing, so we'll put them together on two boards); met Lynn Gelhar over pizza; wandered around the city for the night and watched traffic, and buses, go by the piazza.

I don't know why, but I've always loved cities at night. I'm not sure what it is about them, but somehow they feel more alive than during the day. All of the ugly bits become fuzzy, all of the stark sadness goes away. There is a special kind of energy, particularly on summer nights, particularly in cities where people stay out until all hours... eating at cafes on the street, wandering around with a gelato, or just wandering in general. You can feel the city's heartbeat in the background, thump-thump-thumping to an unknown band, a set of accordionists playing over each other to form a beautiful inharmonious symphony.

And a guy playing the accordion is sitting below my window right now, at the restaurant that closes at 1am. (he just struck up 'when the saints go marching in') Via Cavour is still busy, even now. But the shutters on my windows open up onto the corner, and all is well with the world.

To appease those not on facebook, here is one picture to go by so far:

yeah, Coloseo.