Post o' trip: Part 1

Be alert, not alarmed
Plane boarded, waiting for take-off. 5 mins go by, then 10, then 20. Captain announces "Sorry for the delay, but someone has got up and walked off the plane. Hopefully we can take-off in a few minutes." An official suit walks by holding a boarding pass, checking seats. He gets to the last row, talks to a man sitting there. Man shrugs shoulders as the suit opens the overhead compartment and removes the only piece of luggage it contains, a brown briefcase. Suit indicates to man to get up and follow him out. Both walk out with the briefcase. I say to the passenger next to me, "We will be getting off the plane." Five minutes later, the captain asks all passengers to gather all their belongings and orderly leave the plane. I think to myself, this is going to be a long trip. Two hours after the plane was supposed to leave, it finally does. Needless to say, the plane successfully landed.

A pot will look so small
Beer. Pint or 500 ml glasses. So tasty no matter what the container. Two weeks of the amber fluid. So many memories. Like the time in a bar in Lindau when beer opened the door to free shots. Like the time in a different bar in Lindau, when after lunch, instead of going to the afternoon session of the conference, we sat around said bar and drank more beer. When it was time to go to a concert organised for us, it began raining and so we remained at the bar for more beer. Nearly 12 hours straight at the beer, sorry, bar. Beer. Cheaper than coke (the drink). Beer. London, a guy taps us on the shoulder. It's Byron. An Aussie who did honours in Physics last year in optics. He's working, you guessed it, in a pub. We visited his pub for beer. If I have one memory for this trip it will be beer.

Silver Foxes
Dirty old men? Not all of them. There are exceptions. Should this be my impression of men (there was only one female out of around 50) who have won the most coverted of scientific honours, the Nobel Prize? Picture this scene. Two women are about to have their photo taken with a Nobel Laureate. One has put her arm around him while the other stands half a metre away. Quick as a flash, his arm extends out, grabs her waist and draws her right next to him. Photo is taken. He holds on for longer. Maybe he is anticipating more photos? Another scene. Dinner is orgainsed where you can sit with the Lauteate of your choice and have dinner with him. As the sycophants gathered round to listen to these men, you could not help notice that some of these men seemed to be more interested in the breasts (or as Kate called them, "Just fat pads") of the women around them. Not that some of these women didn't mind it, some played up to it.
Did these guys say anything of great value? I'll say something about that later. I think Sandra summed up the meeting when she quoted Milhouse from The Simpsons episode 'Lemon of Troy', "Hey everybody, and old man's talking!".