Party like it's 753 BC!

So I said I was going to the “social dinner” last night. 

Well, go I certainly did. I arrived at the Hydrology garden (wish we had one of those! Next to the Colosseum!) and ran into one of Mark’s contemporaries, who, surprisingly, somehow knew who I was. We had a chat for a while; he is now a professor at Iowa (doing more hydraulics than EFM, apparently they’re ridiculously good at that, who would have thought?).  But knowing me, I have completely forgotten his name. 

Regardless, after a ten-minute conversation about how I was going to tell Mark I saw him but not that he says hello because he was pretending to be miffed that Mark didn’t show up, we went our separate ways, him to join a group of older gentlemen, and me to join a couple of PhD students. As previously mentioned, I am ridiculously bad at remembering names, particularly those of whom it will be crucial to know their names at a later time (ie, five years down the road at the next ISSF). Alas, I do not have their names, but let’s call them Jean and Rolph. Jean was from France and Rolph from Germany but studying in the Netherlands (or something like that)… within the next fifteen minutes, we were joined by a guy from Germany studying in Canada, a guy from Korea studying in the UK,  the two girls from Jeff’s lab at Stanford, and one or two others. All in all, we had a very interesting discussion of how German would soon be the language everyone in the world was studying (as opposed to now- everyone must learn English! This hit me in a particular way last night… a large group of people from all over trying to convey important information in our different broken bits of English, the only language overlap we all have).  

They announced dinner, so being grad students we rushed up to the buffet and filled our plates with fresh ricotta, pancetta, bruschetta, little puffs of fried vegetable dough, eggplant, hunks of parmesan from a wheel, and slices of fresh braided mozzarella. And then we went back for seconds, because it was 1) ridiculously good 2) not all that filling because the plates were small and 3) free. 

On top of that, they had plopped a bottle of white wine on our table to begin, and came around filling up champagne glasses (we had a debate on which of the glasses was for wine, which for champagne, since none were quite right). In the following hour or so, our table probably went through about five or six bottles. And then dinner arrived, in multiple courses, much to our surprise: cannelloni filled with some sort of fish, followed by swordfish, and ladyfingers soaked in marsala wine with custard and fresh fruit. With every intervening course, the general surprise of the group was vivid; we had spent a week in Italy, but we weren’t familiar with the way a dinner like this would work; and none of us ever ordered beyond the primi on the menus at the restaurants, being cheap grad students who could easily deal with pasta for dinner, again. 

I apologize for the description of dinner; I’m being long-winded. 

At one point in the night, all of the senior research scientists, organizing and scientific committees gathered around one table; these people are the pillars of stratified fluid mechanics. I joined in and took a picture. How could you not? Okay, so maybe it was a little awkward. But I mean really.

The fathers (and mothers) of today's stratified fluid mechanics, aka scientific committee 2011.

After the main courses were finished, I was extremely amused to hear intense joy and perhaps drunkenness coming from the next table over, where J. Nash, Amy Waterhouse, some scared-looking Germans, an elderly Pole, and a couple of other Scripps scientists were. I decided they were having a lot of fun, so I picked up my chair and went over to join in. It was hilarious; we ended up moving our massive formal dining tables together, and generally being stupid and nerds of all ages, cracking jokes about (what else?) fluids.

Then they called for after-dinner drinks, and we all had to try limoncello (like a lemon drop, only alcoholic). Wandering around with Amy, the C. Winants, along with the other Scripps guys, we talked to most everyone (they know EVERYONE!). Larry Armi came back to say goodbye to Clint, and I just felt I couldn’t let him leave without introducing myself. And his reply “oh yes, I know your name, I was at your presentation, very nice! Good luck with your work.” WHA???? Really? He knows my name? This random old guy father-of-fluid-mechanics?

And then we decided to go dancing on the Island (in the middle of the Tiber). I ended up wandering around with the Scripps girls, a selection of European guys, and Jon through Rome to Trastavere, etc., until about 3AM. What an epic epic night. These scientists are people too. 

It was amazing to be in… my own shoes… this week. I’m not sure anyone else would feel quite the same shock and gratitude for this particular company and becoming part of it, but I awoke every morning (admittedly tired) with the knowledge that I was going to be learning and doing something important and meeting important and interesting people. How unbelievable and how fortunate I have been.