Gala indeed!

The conference dinner last night was at the Hotel de Ville of Nancy, in Place Stanislas. It is I think the best conference meal I've ever had:

* Starter: a shot glass layered with broccoli foam, carrot puree, and cauliflower (I think) cream, topped with a sprout.
* Entree: foie gras on a painter's pallette with a dollop of red stuff, a dollop of green stuff, a salad of sprouts and a pansy, a little dusting of red pepper corns with sea salt, a piece of bread, and a tube of mango marmalade with a paintbrush. We were told to play with our food! Very fun.
* Main course: Quail three ways -- with paprika, sesame seeds, and pistachios, and a mozzarella and smoked pepper stuff tomato half with gravy.

After the main course we all had to leave the hotel and go out to the square, because they had to turn out all the lights inside the building because there was going to be a lightshow outside on the building. That was pretty awesome; it was roughly the history of Nancy from the Middle Ages to modern times with music and artwork. I got some pretty good pictures.

* Dessert: Three dishes in a little wooden box, one was the best creme brulee I've ever had, another was a stewed fruit of some kind, and the last was cinnamon cake. I was too full to finish it all, but it was amazing!

catching up: Sunday

Sunday morning fosveny, amykb and I had our roadshow, my first, their second. I'd forgotten how interactive roadshows are; I found it a bit frustrating. In many cases, if people had just let me say my entire piece before interrupting me, they would've found I'd already answered their question or addressed their point. I guess I've gotten too used to giving academic presentations, where except for minor clarification questions, which are rare, everyone knows that they need to save questions until the end of the person's presentation.

After that we went to the British Library, where Duchess Nerissa gave us a tour of the "treasures" room. Wow, treasures indeed!

* One of the four extant copies of the Magna Carta, and other associated texts which had all of the scribes pointing out all the errors and how they were fixed. :)
* A signature of William Shakespeare.
* A letter of Elizabeth I.
* De re metallica by Agricola.
* the ship's register of a Napoleonic ship (this was something that was more interesting to Joel, he knew the significance).
* A Jane Austen MS.
* maps, neat maps.
* Milton's commonplace book.
* A Galileo book with a diagram of the milky way.
* A leaf from a da Vinci notebook.
* A Gutenberg Bible.
* The Beowulf MS.
* Original music scores by Beethoven and others.
* The Codex Sinaiticus.
* Other things I don't remember now.
* And.......

The Dering Roll and The Balliol roll -- the oldest extant roll of arms from England and its close contemporary. OMG. Hedgehogs! The Dering Roll has hedgehogs! So cute! We should've been told to bring hankies with us so that we could wipe up nose prints on the glass as we all tried to get a really close look.

After the BL trip, most everyone else went on a walking tour of London but Joel and I went back to Astor where we ended up in fosveny's room to use his internet; I fell asleep for about two hours. In the evening the Laurel team went out to dinner at a good dim sum restaurant, where my fortune cookie had the best fortune, made me laugh: "Your modest will shame those with lesser knowledge." amykb and shaunacarrick's were also appropriate for them.

More work happened in the evening but we weren't up too late. And that brings us to Monday, and Monday was Hamlet....

It's a small world...

Yesterday at dinner my table had 11 people all born in different countries (US, Germany, Italy, Sri Lanka, Latvia, England, Denmark, New Zealand, Belgium). The guy from New Zealand, who is now in Australia, is a member of the SCA.

Hamlet, Prince of Plays

The plan for Monday had been to go to Oxford with Ælfwynn and Conrad and to show Joel around some and meet up with Jill, one of his ex-girlfriends. However, a few days before we found out Jill wouldn't be there because she hadn't gotten her work visa yet, and when we got to the Oxford train station we found that they had no lockers for left luggage (!). So Joel and I continued straight on to Stratford, where we were able to with no problem get a room at a B&B across the street from where belmikey and his party were staying. The B&B had free wireless (very nice!) so we both got caught up and then went to a Thai place on the river for dinner (cheap, yummy, extremely quick service, and we had a wonderful view of the swans).

We met belmikey, pixel39, Edwin, jpgsawyer, and Margaret at the box office (and if we'd been walking on the street rather than along the river on the way to the Courtyard Theatre, we would've seen the Prince of Wales...). And then not too much later, the play began.

( Cut for length and possible spoilers )

It's probably a good thing that I'm not living in the UK, because I'd probably be going back at least once a week if not more often to see this. It was utterly fantastic.