Heidelberg

So I managed to make it to Heidelberg at long last, on Wednesday evening. I attended a couple days of lectures and slept long nights, and only now have had the time to get on to the internet for some blogging.

The main reason I haven't been on is that there is no wireless at my hotel! It's terrible! There is internet at the conference and the university, but it's a 25 minute walk that I don't like making with my laptop in tow. But I figured it would be worth it to bring you guys an update so here ya go!

I had a bit of trouble following the lectures at the summer school, since it was building on a lot of material I'd missed in the first few days. Hopefully the talks at the conference will be better.

Heidelberg is really hot, almost like there are actually seasons in this part of the world and this one is the hot one. It's not so bad as Florence though, so I think I'll survive.

There's a big old castle in Heidelberg and I went there yesterday with Alex and Yun, a Belgian grad student we met at the summer school.

Overall it's been neat talking to people and hanging out, but I'm hoping to actually learn some real math next week, and I'm looking forward to getting home.

Barcelona

Hola! Finally, I am in Barcelona, my last destination before the conference on Sato Tate in higher dimension and then my return to California. I'm honestly looking forward to getting home; I've been gone a long time and things are just a bit too interesting here I think :P

But Barcelona is nice; the weather is warmer than France and Amsterdam, but not ridiculously hot like Italy. At night, it's a bit too warm to wear a jacket.

It's also nice to speak Spanish so that when I'm going around town I can actually communicate with people much of the time. Although Catalan and Spain-Spanish are a bit different from Mexico-Spanish which is really what I know. Regardless it seems nice enough and I've got a few days to actually experience the city before I head out.