Love Yellowtail ...

Husband came home with a catch, and everyone was happy! Who cares if he caught the fish or somebody else, just look at these beautiful steaks.

We/he cut up the fish in suitable slices for storage. Then got into serious business, consisting of preparing sashimi slices of the yellowtail filets and sushi rice. We will be feasting on this for a while!

So, when are you going fishing again?

Home Alone

I slept alone in our flat this night, for the first time since I arrived here. Had the bed to myself. I did have a lot of work to do, but I still tried to make a cozy night out of it. Read my book, then watched some TV. The best I found on TV (we only have basic cable!) was Whale Rider, with Kiera Knightley. It had something to it. After preparing myself a simple dinner from a cold chicken breast and a quick little salad, I was looking forward to diving into the icecream I knew we had in the freezer. What a disappointment! I only found two, as good as empty boxes, as C. had visibly indulged in it while I was away. Well, I guess that proves he must have missed me!

So, my dear h. is away 'till tonight. He went fishing with his friend J. and left yesterday afternoon, to take to sea during the night. I'm actually expecting him to be back to harbour now, maybe he even started heading towards home now with his catch. I told him he'd better catch something, or he won't go fishing again ... We can't really afford it at the moment. However, if he returns with some fresh yellowtail for sushi, or even sea bass, I'll be a happy housewife!

Shakespeare in San Diego

We went to the theatre last night. Yet another first time. Actually, I think this is only the second time ever we go to see a play together, due to language obstacles. (The one we saw then was Vesturport's Romeo and Juliet with all the sircus acts and the fire eater. C. enjoyed that, and knew it enough to guess the thread as it went).

So, last night we saw the light hearted Comedy of Errors. Definitely not one of the greater pieces, but it was all so pretty. Took place under the open sky of the Globe Theatre in Balboa Park, and it was colourful, lively and had amusing sound effects.

C. had managed to keep the details of our little night out secret to me, much to my annoyance. Last time he took me out for a surprise like this (it was Cirque de Soleil, completely awsome!) I managed to crack the puzzle on the way, as we were driving out of Pacific Beach ...

After the show, we strolled a bit in beautiful Balboa Park. What a treasure to have within the city limits!

Lamb chops

Last night, C. barbecued us some lamb chops, more exactly lamb shoulder chops from Henry's. Oh, I had forgotten how delicious grilled lamb is. My favorite grill food. And these were American, and they were great. Who would have thought! With this we had "my" old potatoes and some corn on the cob. Happy days!

Late Return

I returned from the tropics late last night. I had planned to be back around noon, and I know C. was eagerly waiting to pick me up at the airport, but no, my flight was delayed. At a quarter to five in the morning, as I prepared to roll myself out of bed, I got a message notifying me that my flight out of Merida was delayed because of crew's rest times. After confirming this, I took a quick shower, then went back to bed and slept an extra two welcome hours. Unfortunately this meant I couldn't make my connecting flight from Houston. I got checked into a later flight instead, for which I had to wait six hours at the airport of Houston! Nothing to say about that. And I thus lost an extra day of work, because I couldn't get my wireless internet connection working while I was waiting. But I did finish Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune. And I quite enjoyed it, especially reading about the birth of California during the brief, but intense, gold rush, and the beginnings of the cities of San Fransisco and Sacramento.

The Aftermath

Everybody but a few have now left the IMO site. I woke up at four o'clock this morning to see my team off, then went back to sleep. I had teamed up with the French leader and his wife, together with the Italian leader, who also is french speaking, to rent a car and go sight seeing today. I had been told that the site of Uxmal was no less impressive than Chichen-Itza and a definite must see. So, we drove out there and spent a good couple of hours walking around the ruins of Uxmal. Or ruins, some of the structures are actually in unbelievably good shape. Access to some of those at Uxmal have yet been restricted, like the main (very steep) pyramid. I don't know if this is more to protect the structures, or the tourists.

We had a good lunch together close to the site of Uxmal, then continued down the Puuc route, to see yet more amazing archeological sites. We visited among others Kabah, Sayil and Labna. Driving through the jungle like that was fascinating. For long stretches there was nothing but us, the straight road, a tropical forest as far as the eye could see and the odd archeological site. C's wife would be a little anxious about us getting lost and she kept trying to locate us on the map, ever so convinced that we should be on some other road with a different number, but there really weren't that many roads to choose from. The whole time there would normally only be one paved road in sight. Out on the road we would often drive through these clouds of big, brightly colored butterflies, yellow, green, orange and white, totally otherwordly. Yet, it was a long hot day. We would get out of the air conditioned vehicule with a sigh and be happy to find it again after dazing through the ruins, and we would seek out shade wherever we could. And the mosquitos were out there for sure. I would spray another layer of insect repellent on my limbs every so often.

To my constant surprise, most of the sites we visited, with the possible exception of Uxmal, were more or less abandoned, and so completely void of the touristic crowds. Whatever the reason, but it may have been that the passing of hurricane Emily the day before was playing in our favour now. As the afternoon caught up on us, we started getting rain showers. But by then we were almost done with our sight seeing. The rain hit really hard while we drove back to Merida, about an hours drive. Back in Merida it looked as if the city had been hit even harder during the day and all the streets were completely flooded, so much that for a while I even doubted whether we would be able to make it back to the hotel. The streets had transformed into torrential rivers. But somehow we made it.

I had planned to have dinner with F. this last night, but having returned somewhat too late from my excursion I contented myself with a little snack in my hotel room and hit my bed early.

Under the Menace Of Hurricane ...

I slept very lightly last night, always expecting to wake up to shattered glass, or shouts, or weather sounds at least. My deputy had left me to stay with the kids, so I ended up being alone. I watched TV where they gave news of the hurricane's whereabouts. Cancun and the surrounding beaches had evacuated tourists as a safety measure and people had been evacuated from Progreso as well, and the area where we had been staying during our first week in Yucatan. From the TV images I could see that the wind was already catching up in Cancun and that light structures were blowing over. Early morning this should reach us in Merida.

I fell asleep eventually, slept in my deputy's bed finally, it was further from the window! Then woke up at a quarter to five. I looked outside and tried to listen for the weather but it was pitch dark and nothing seemed to be going on really. The eye of the hurricane had been supposed to hit Merida by 8 o'clock. Maybe the weather just wasn't there yet. I walked out to the corridor and took the elevator down to the lobby. Was still considering whether to walk myself out to the student's hotel across the street, to stay with them when the hurricane arrived. The lobby was empty, and dead empty. It had even been emptied of furniture. The exits were blocked, nobody was allowed to leave the building. I skimmed outside though through the windows and actually could not see any weather preventing you from going outside. But well. I went up to my room again and tried to find sleep again but stayed awake over CNN for a while.

It was bright when I finally woke up again. And still there was no hurricane in sight. The trees were wagging a little, but that was all. I went downstairs and had a coffee outside the conference rooms, but the dining hall was otherwise closed. A couple of hours later they were also serving sandwiches. Good, we wouldn't have to starve. And finally, people starting coming out of their rooms. Just as I was getting desperate for some company. The rest of the day was just spent waiting, and lazing around. Around three o'clock my deputy returned. It was considered safe to be out on the streets again. Emily had lost a lot of speed as she came inland and was for the moment nothing worse than a little storm. It hadn't even rained all that much.

The closing ceremony for IMO2005 had been cancelled, but now that the world was back to normal it was decided to reschedule it. I think everybody was a little relieved. We would thus get a chance to get together once more and the students would formally receive their medals during a little ceremony. Including our student, giving us a little occasion to celebrate. The ceremony was put up in the conference hall where the students passed their exam. It was very low-key, but efficient. No dinner banquet took place this time and we said our goodbyes quickly and went to bed. Another IMO had come to its end ...

Excursion and Emily

We woke up extra early today. We wanted to leave for the planned excursion to Chichen-Itza very early, or 7:45 in the morning, so that we would get back in time before the hurricane hit land. The organisors had been hesitant whether to go ahead with this excursion or not, considering that Chichen-Itza is on the way to Cancun, from where the hurricane would be expected to come. It was finally decided to stick to the schedule, but to advance it in the day and return early afternoon.

So, we drove east to Chichen-Itza from Merida early morning. The roads were completely empty. The Yucatan country is very flat, although the peninsula is cut off by a mountain range, thus all the roads are very straight. One just picks a direction and drives straight on! The vegetation is thick, so one doesn't see much from the road. It's just trees after trees after trees.

We had a very friendly and funny local guide on our bus. He promised us lots of tequilas and snake and iguana meat for lunch. And explained the philosophy of the Mayan people who unfortunately were basically wiped out from the region. They were probably just way to friendly. Besides, we the Europeans had guns, germs and steel ...

Arriving at Chichen-Itza we got about one and a half hour to walk around. That's not a lot of time for such a big site, but we were trying to keep ahead of the hurricane, right. I escalated the big pyramid in 91 steps. It is pretty steep (and even more so on the way down). It offers great views of the site and gives you a sense of the immensity of the structures that once were, but also of the expansiveness of the surrounding rain forest which seems endless. I was a little shocked at how steep the staircase of the pyramid was when I wanted to get down and I ended up holding M.'s hand all the way down. I think he was a little shaken too ...

It was really hot. I had left my hat and my water bottle in the bus, how smart is that, so I tried to stay in the shade after I had explored the main structures. We had an early lunch at an outdoor's buffet in a park just off the side. We met our students briefly.

As we returned we ran out to the drugstore once more to get supplies in case the hurricane would pass. In addition to the headlights we already had we got extra supplies of water, candles, lighter and some chips. Back at the Hyatt I found people a little fatalistic and solemn, and it suddenly hit me that maybe a degree 5 hurricane was nothing to joke about. People seemed really concerned, not to say worried. Nobody was saying jokes anymore, as if everyone was preparing for the worst. I wondered what "the worst" could be. Would our flights back home be delayed? Would we be locked inside our hotel for a couple of days? Would the roads be closed? Would we have floods? Would we be out of electricity? Would we run out of food? Would we be isolated from the outside world for days? Would the elevators break down while we were inside? Would the windows in our rooms break open and suck us out? Would there be casualities? I had no idea what to expect. Suddenly I felt very small and insignificant. I went and called C. for the first time during my stay. He sounded very excited about the whole thing. He told me to go outside and shoot lots of pictures of the hurricane. I told him I didn't wanta do that! Besides, we would not be allowed to go outside.

At dinner, the outlook was pretty dark. The hurricane had gained in power. It was already being felt in Cancun, but the eye was supposed to hit land at 1 a.m. Again people seemed unusually quite and serious. We had received a notice telling us to either spend the night in an emergency shelter on the first floor or otherwise to stay in our rooms, preferably in the bathroom and not to leave them during the night. I wasn't to thrilled about that bathroom thing, and neither was P. when I consulted him. My deputy was thinking about walking over to our students' hotel and spend the night there. We both walked over after dinner to see how they were doing. It was abnormally calm outside, kind of eerie. Windows everywhere were taped up or hammered up. At the hotel the kids had all been gathered in a big hall on the first floor where they had camped with blankets and pillows on the floor. Actually, they seemed to be having a blast. It was like a mega sleep over they were having with all their friends at the same time and lots of games and snacks. I walked back thinking that they would be fine without me, but my deputy felt safer being with them so she gathered her toilet bag and deserted me for the night. I almost felt lonely as she left, and I turned on the TV for the first time here ...

Second Day of Competition

Today the questions and answers session went better. The questions poured in at a more or less constant rate, and I even got one question. As I could have gathered, the question related to the modification we had made last minute, when we inserted one word in the paper. Anyway, we were done with questions by 10:30. I went to pack my bags. We were gonna be leaving around twelve, so that we could meet with the students as they came out of the exam.

I brought my bags to the bus and checked out. As I stood and waited (and note that the heat was killing, as always, they seem to have a constant 37°C here ...) P. approached me. "Let's have one last drink, dear". And so we did. The last Pina Colada of this trip. And it was not bad.

The buses took us into Merida, straight to the conference center where the students were passing their second exam. On the way I scanned through their papers from yesterday. Well, just like I feared I didn't find much of anything in their, apart from one solution to the geometry problem. I went through it step by step, and it was perfect. Phew!

My students looked fairly content though as they came out of the exam. I tried to gather them together, and get estimates on how well they'd done. Well, one thought she'd made good progress in Problem 3, applying Jensen's inequality. Unfortunately I'd already read through her paper and knew she would hardly get any points according to the marking schemes which were very strict for this problem. Another of my students thought she almost held the solution to Problem 6. Again I was skeptical. It's awfully tempting to assume you have figured out a combinatorics problem when finally all you got is some sort of intuitive sense of the fact that something should work. It often doesn't hold much ground. A third student thought he might have something of value in Problem 4. I hadn't seen his paper yet of course, because they just came out of the exam, but it seemed to me that partial points in Problem 4 might be hard to get. It was sort of an all or nothing problem.

The student who had actually solved the geometry problem the previous day was nowhere to be found. I was curious to know if he made any attempts at today's geometry. The kids went looking for him and found him. He had just come out of the exam. Turned out that he had worked on the geometry almost the whole time but hadn't cracked it. What a shame. "I think I almost solved the number theory question", he told me though. "But I only realised it last minute, there was not enough time ..." I'm slightly disappointed. There's a chance of winning a medal if you manage to solve two problems, but it sounds as if my student just missed that chance. Again, I am not expecting many points for partial progress in the number theory problem, because it's solution is so elementary that once you've started solving the problem you've basically finished as well. Hmm, so much for our expectations. Honestly though, we didn't have high expectations. Our team is very inexperienced. Apart from the student who solved the geometry, it would have been unfair to expect much of any of them. The good thing is that they all seem in good spirits. They sound happy, and thrilled to be here in Mexico. For the next two days they're gonna have some fun activities, while we grade the problems.

We are now taken to our hotels. I am staying at the Hyatt. Some leaders are staying at different hotels, Villa Mercedes, Holiday Inn, Fiesta Americana, Conquistador. All hotels in the neighbourhood, but it's still a little disappointing to see them each head to their own place, after the convivial atmosphere at The Reef.

I meet my deputy leader in the lobby of the hotel. We are sharing rooms and she accompanies me to the room where she has already taken quarters and we then head for lunch. After lunch we read the students' papers together and she doesn't find any more in them than I did on my first brief read in the bus. We then go check if we can get access to internet. There is a room on the 1st floor with 5 or 6 computers, but they are all taken already and long queus for availability. So we return to our rooms and work some more 'till dinner, after which we receive the copies of the second day. There is this "solution" of several pages to Problem 6, we decide to save it untill the morning after when we will have rested.

First Day of Competition

Today was the first day of the exam. That's sort of a test day for us leaders too. I was going to find out soon if I made some stupid error in my translation. Jury meeting started at nine. Soon thereafter it was announced that the exam had started and we waited for questions from students to be faxed to our meeting room. Students have half an hour to ask questions about the problems (like if something is unclear to them, they think the wording is ambiguous, or they don't understand the question). The jury then treats those questions and sends answers back to the corresponding students. This should normally go fairly fast. It is also important that the students get replies to their questions fairly quickly so that they can start tackling the problems. There appeared to be difficulties today however. A couple of questions arrived and they were projected on slides for the jury to read them and decide on appropriate answers. But then, nothing further happened. We waited and waited and no further questions came, which is quite unusual. It turned out there was a technical problem somewhere. It was more than an hour before questions started coming again, and finally, it was probably half past eleven when all the questions had been answered. Luckily, my students didn't have any questions. (That's usually a good sign!)

After this, we got to discuss the marking schemes. There was general contentment with the marking schemes for problems 1 and 2, but the scheme for problem 3 caused some stir and discussion for it was finally ajourned untill after lunch. Lunch is really late here, or from 2 to 4 in the afternoon. Having a little time to kill I stopped for a drink at the outside pool bar with some leaders. Tried one of those Strawberry Daquiris. Asked for one without alcohol, but my spanish failed me and I probably got one with extra alcohol. But, my stomach problems seem to be behind me now. Maybe I just haven't been drinking hard enough. The alcohol is supposed to keep the critters away too, and I could do with a little help fighting the mosquitos off here! But luckily I haven't had any big misadventures with them sofar. Except for last night during our dinner on the terrace where my right leg was eaten pretty badly. I have been able to keep sunburns away as well, but I am very meticulous in applying sunblock too, and I so wear my hat during the middle of the day ...

After lunch, the coordinators had made some adjustments for problem 3 and eventually all the marking schemes were accepted without apparent disagreement.

I went in the sea again in the afternoon. Then watched leaders and coordinators play football on the beach. Don't know who won or if anyone was keeping scores anyway. At dinner I found that my appetite was now back in force! Had some delicous grilled skewers, with rice and cilantro and salsa and beans. And a big plate of fruit afterwards. Heavenly.

After dinner I went with I. to see if any copies had arrived, meaning our students papers. And actually they had. I got mine, got copies of the marking schemes and a coordination schedule, then sat down to see what my students had written. Well, not much, so I closed the folders again. "Den tid, den sorg", like they say ...

Had a little Bahama Mama and sat with I. and F. for a while and chatted. Tomorrow we leave for Merida, and I am going to miss The Reef ...

Opening Ceremony

Today was the opening ceremony. My team was supposed to have arrived late yesterday. However there were news (or no news) of other teams having gone missing, like the south african team that didn't seem to have made its connecting flight and hadn't been heard from since, and the mongolian team which was returned when transiting through the U.S. for reasons of visa. Apparently lots of teams had had problems with connections in Mexico City, and I was sort of relieved to have chosen the Houston route instead.

I took my new translations (with the little fix from yesterday) to the organisers early in the morning. I then went to have little swim. We didn't have jury meeting untill eleven o'clock, so there was plenty of time after breakfast. I took a few laps in the sea and must say that I'm beginning to like sea bathing more and more. The beach was very peaceful this morning, hardly anybody in sight.

The jury meeting was brief. Basically, all the translations were approved. Marking schemes would be discussed tomorrow. We had lunch, then went to change for the opening ceremony. I was back to the entrance, from where the buses for the ceremony would leave in time, but then realised that I didn't have a paper slip of a ticket that we were supposed to carry with us. One of the organisers stressed the importance of having that ticket to me, so last minute I decided to run off to my room to get it. Lack of chance it suddenly burst out with rain and thunder as I did the sprint to my room, and some tropical rain! I was completely soaked with water as I returned to the buses. Inside the buses it was freezing of course. P. saved my life and lent me his jacket. We then headed for Merida.

The opening ceremony took place in a theatre/cinema in the old part of Merida. It was long, as always, yet pretty efficient. But I believe nobody would miss it if we cut the number of speaches from officials down by half. (Or skipped some of the translations, for that matter ...) All the teams (except for those that hadn't arrived yet, and those were quite a few ...) marched on stage, one by one, while pictures from their countries were projected in the background. That was neat. I saw my team.

After the ceremony we had dinner in the governor's building right next to the theatre. An impressive building in architecture, it was definitely a nice setting. We dined in open air, on the balcony. It was really hot and humid, even after the sun went down. I don't know if it was the heat, or what, but again, I could hardly put anything down. I ate the appetizer, but couldn't touch the main course, then gulped down the sorbet we got for desert ...

It was late when we got home. I had a drink with P. but couldn't even finish it. Went to my room and studied the geometry problems a bit before falling asleep.

Exam Paper and Translations

Wasn't feeling great at all today. Was tired and weak and my stomach was unsettled. Don't know if it's the diet, the water (or the ice) or the humidity and heat. Luckily, the work isn't too strenuous. In fact, the problem selection went super fast. Maybe a bit too fast at the end, in any case I was a little disappointed at the outcome. I guess I wished that a second combinatorics problem had been selected for once, especially as I liked so many of them. Also, a paper that where the four most accessible problems come from only two subject groups: geometry and number theory, doesn't seem like a very balanced paper to me. But, anyhow.

The morning started with a meeting of "the English Language Group" of which I'm not part, so my presence was not needed (meaning I got to nap for a good hour). In these meeting the anglophone leaders decide on the wording of the paper, i.e. translate it from a mathematician's lingo into good "Queen's English". Then they argue for a while about dots, commas and semi colons.

The meeting dragged a bit, so it wasn't 'till after lunch that we could approve the official english version and proceed to have other language groups start work on the other four official versions: french, spanish, russian and german. When those were ready we met again to approve those. I noticed some disparities between the wordings of the english, french and german versions, but saw that this could facilitate my own translation work. However, it was decided yet again to change the wording slightly and again we waited for official versions. Official versions approved we now waited for computer access, or in my case, for an electronic version of the paper, because I was going to do my translation on my laptop, to avoid all foreign keyboard issues. I don't know why it took so long, but we had to wait yet an hour before they would open access to the computers, luckily though I was able to get a personal copy for my laptop fast and once I started working my translation went pretty fast. I finished, turned in print outs of my translation and walked back from the conference room. On the way back, alas, I learned that an error had been discovered in the paper and that an emergency meeting would take place after dinner.

Dinner tonight took place in the discotheque area of the hotel, we were supposed to have some sort of a show under dinner. I sat with the Romanians this time, chatted and joked with F. under dinner, but really did not have much appetite. Some singers/dancers performed medleys of old songs, including The Beatles, and some well known latin american hits. It was somewhat fun. The Romanians sang along, nice and loud! They smoked a lot too, I was actually feeling kind of sick towards the end of the meal.

Dinner finished sort of abruptly as we had to have this extra jury meeting. Fortunately, the error was easy to fix, some marginal cases just had to be eliminated from the problem announcement. This still meant that everybody had to redo, or insert the modification into, their translations, before jury meeting the next morning.

I was tired and really only wanted to go to bed. Walking on the beach was tempting though: feel the sand between your toes and put your feet in the luke warm water and stroll in the moonlight. But, well. I sat with F. in the hammaks on the beach for a while, then gave up and went in. Hope to feel better tomorrow.

The Beach and the Gulf of Mexico

I'm beginning to like it here! It's pretty, it's relaxing, the staff is friendly, we have delicious food, my colleagues are good company, and the work is simple. Jury meetings have been fairly short an efficient, no big issues have come up and we spend most of our times hanging out or waiting, if not for the next meeting, then for lunch or dinner. Talking about work!

I. and I tried the sea. It's amazing, it's warm as bathwater. I'm guessing it's close to air temperature which is I think around 37°C. But this is what the tropics are like, I guess. After all, we are bathing in the southern part of the gulf of Mexico here. Anyway, the beach is very flat, so the sea is shallow way out. The sand is white and fine. Very pleasant to feel it between your toes, and much to my surprise it doesn't turn frying hot in the sun, like it does on the beach back home in San Diego. There is an almost constant breeze that's really refreshing. Actually, it was almost windy by the end of the day. And another discovery I have made is that the drinks here are free! That's refreshing as well. I have tried the Margaritas a little bit. Found them a little on the sweet side, but one I had tonight after dinner had lots of punch though!

We had dinner outside tonight, on the lawn up off the beach. Again, a buffet, with some dancing. It was funny. Hooked up with F. after dinner, hadn't really talked with him yet. Had no idea what sort of a man he was by now, last time I saw him he was 17, sweet, romantic, (too much) but a little melancolic and lost. Amazingly we had a multitude of things to talk about, including how silly we must have been as kids. He's very cheerful, accomplished and confident today, in it sort of made me feel warm to see him like that. And then, how often do you see a man who 20 years later has managed to keep all his hair intact!

First Day of Jury Work

The first day of jury work wasn't too strenuous. In fact, all we had to do was look at the problem shortlist and form ourselves an opinion of it. We had a brief meeting in the afternoon, where representatives of the problem selection committee spoke about the problems, and leaders commented on them. Two problems appeared to be known already. I went back to my room to study all the problems better and then found out I had a room mate. While I was gone, they had squeezed an extra bed in. And it was not almost blocking the exit to the exquisite balcony that I had just discovered (the one with the smashing view and the pleasant breeze!) Oh, well.

I worked on the problems a while, saw that I really liked some of them. Then filled out the popularity contest before I went to dinner. I must say that the food they give us here is not bad at all. We have a buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner, always with an open grill, and those delicous salsas, onions and cilantro. There's lots of variety as usually you can choose from fish, porc, beef, a great number of prepared vegetables, mexican or international. And the fruit section! Mmm, papaya, melons, pineapple, grapefruits ...

I discovered this morning to my biggest delight that P. is here. One more friendly face and lots of chats to come ...

Arriving at the Reef

Late last night I arrived at my destination in Mexico. I had a fairly pleasant flight from San Diego through Houston to Merida, with not too much waiting to do on the way. My destination was the International Mathematical Olympiad 2005, or what usually goes by the term of IMO. Held in Merida, Mexico, this year, and attended by young students from over 90 countries. And us, the "Team Leaders", who as representatives of our countries prepare the exam together, then mark our students' solutions.

The first few days, as we are working on selecting the problems and putting together the exam, we work in isolation in a (usually) secret location. The secret location this time (and I'm not revealing anything here, as I won't be able to put these notes online untill after my return back home; we are in fact cut off from internet for the length of our stay here, so that we can't communicate with the outside world and spill secrets or hints or exam questions) is the Reef Yucatan hotel, just outside the port of Telchac.

As we arrived here late last night, I couldn't really get much of an idea of the site, because it was pitch dark. I only noticed that it was very hot (I'm guessing, well over 30°C) and very humid! It hit us as we walked out of the air terminal. Luckily, we had air conditioned buses waiting for us. On the other hand, we then had to wait in the bus for a good hour, as we waited for colleagues to come through mexican immigration. (Not exactly as simple as crossing the border at Tijuana, I tell you!) I had already spotted some colleagues at the airport of Houston, waiting for the same flight, but didn't speak to them until we arrived in Merida (You see, I had a good book!) but arriving there I was really glad to see Indra from Trinidad and Tobago and Jan from Estonia. From the airport, we then turned out to have an hours drive to the hotel.

After I checked into my room, in a house at the (what seemed to me to be) sort of outskirts of the site, I just ran out for a glass of water and came upon, of all people, my ancient penpal-and-more Florian, from Romania. We exchanged a few surprised phrases, I then got the shortlist of problems from him (as he heads the problem selection committe), then went back to my room, had a quick look at the problems, worked a little on the combinatorics and the number theory, then went to sleep in my nice big bed and slept straight 'till morning.

I had quite a surprise as I woke up this morning. I looked out from my balcony and realized that my room gave right onto the beach and I had just the greatest view of a pearly white beach, the turquoise ocean and the coconut trees. Not bad at all!

Don't Wanta Go

I'm leaving for Mexico tomorrow morning. I don't have a good feeling about it, for some reason. To be honest, I have a rather bad feeling about it, and it worries me. As if something bad was going to happen. I don't need more tragedies.

I feel as if I don't really have the time for this. What I should be doing for the month of July is working, there is still plenty of catching up to do. I feel bad about just leaving like this, with uncompleted assignments, when I'm not even going to have internet access during my stay down there to even check if things are ok in my absence. Then, there are other things. I mean, it's a lot of work, and who says I shouldn't this year take vacation instead of engaging in voluntary work one more time. Plus, I'm sort of beginning to doubt if there is any point in this. It's an eternal struggle to prepare students with insuffiecient background for such an exam and the results are more often than not a disappointment. Sometimes I even wonder if the students really want to be doing this. (And then why am I?) Sic!

Plus, none of my favorite colleagues is probably gonna be there this time, the group is thinning. And the climate is awful down there, inhumanly hot and humid, my favorite! And finally again, I have this bad presentiment. Don't know what to do with it. What does it mean? Is my plane gonna be hijacked, or something?

Fourth of July

It's the big holiday weekend of the summer. I'm working all weekend, and can't really take any time off, considering that I'm leaving for Mexico at the end of the week, so we're not taking part in celebrations, but it's interesting to watch people and what's going on.

I asked C. several times what people usually do on this weekend and what there is to see or take in part in. He said "hang out, chill, barbecue, hang out with friends, hang out ..." So, "hang out" seems to be the keyword. Judging from what I've seen you could probably also add: go to the beach, wear flags and flag colored ribbons and balloons, drink beer, party, be loud.

I happened to walk down to the beach yesterday afternoon (and mind you, it wasn't even the 4th of July yet), as I took a breather from work, and I must admit that I was a little offput. The beach was packed with people like I've never seen it, and then I mean "packed". It was like walking into a rock concert. There wasn't anything special going on, people were just standing there (and sitting wasn't an option, it was too crowded), hanging out and watching the other people. On the boardwalk, traffic was very slow. I got the feeling the crowd was somewhat rowdy, and a little agitated, as if waiting for something to happen. It was packed with police officers too. Police trucks would be parked at every other street intersection, plus there were officers on horseback, I guess to be able to see over the crowd ...

Yeah, people were fairly agitated, and pretty drunk. It's a big drinking weekend, I guess. All killing time, waiting for today to come and the fireworks at dusk. Everything was blocked in Pacific Beach, the traffic was so overwhelming. Drivers were desperately looking for parking space up by our house even, seven blocks from the beach. I walked up our street back home, on a corner of a street some guys were trying to sell parking spaces for 20 bucks. Lots of people were outside their homes, had tables out with flags and beer. A festival atmosphere, I must say. Some were even dressed in the american flag. Something a bit foreign to me ... In fact, I found some of the jubilations a bit over the board. I mean, their boisterous cheers and the happy grins on their faces made me think of guys celebrating their football club winning the championship for the 10th time in a row. And that's kind of the situation for Americans, I guess. They're used to being the biggest and the best, and they know it!

All the way up to my house I saw people walking around half naked, topless or in bikini. I almost felt uncomfortable, being fully dressed. Now remember, these are the same people that fined CBS network half a million dollars for having exposed the public for half a second to Janet Jackson's nipple on TV. I don't understand America ...

Happy Independence Day!