Thousandapologies

Blegh…I’ve only been back three days and I already long back to the good ole times we had in the Summerschool. If it weren’t for the French food I most probably would be checking for planes back there….Alas, the people that made the summerschool such a success are no longer there. In this wee brake from journal paper writing madness I’ll try to write up a small summary of the events in Fréjus.

It all started early in the morning in at Sunday the 27th of May, when the cab driver was picking up me and the namesake, both tired but excited for the long journey ahead. Approximately one and a half hour later we arrived at Brussel’s airport and had to wait for some time enjoying our favourite type of coffee of the Latté Macciato type (mit Haselnuss geschmack bitte!). At 14.50 the flight finally left, arriving approximately one and a half hours later in Nice airport. Not only was this the first time for me in an Airbus plane, it was also the first time I really enjoyed the landing. What an awesome landing it was, making a big curve above the mediterranean sea, watching the waves and the boats on top of it becoming bigger and bigger, and finally touching the air stripe made on the sandy beach of Nice; it left both me and the Namesake totally flabbergasted!

At the airport we went for a wee bit of lunch, the namesake breaking his usual veggie habits or just considering chicken as vegetables for the occasion. Some time after, we met two of the people also attending the ProLearn Summerschool and also trying to find the arranged bus. Hannes and Daniel, joined us in our quest for a bus to Fréjus, which involved lots of calls to Katherine Maillet and us literally getting lost in translation; bus drivers in France only speak French…grrrr… Hesitating and citing EuroTrip’s “Berlin, nie wieder Berlin”, we finally decided to take the bus anyway and see where it would take us; luckily to Azuréva, Fréjus, our home for the coming summerschool.

The first evening already started promising, or maybe a bit too promising….not being used to free wine at dinner, most of the summerschool participants enjoyed their share of the red divine fluid which resulted in most interesting conversations later on the evening. Martin for example explaining us the Estonian way of picnics and one of my fellow countrymen forgetting his native language altogether. Suffice it to say we already made a lots of new contacts the first night or enkindled some old bonds made at the Winterschool in Innsbruck! Bellow you can see a picture of all participants and the organising commitee taken at the last day (Spot the looney!).

The second day started with a joint breakfast and the first courses at 9.00. I think these were the most interesting courses of the summerschool, or maybe it was just because the other days I was just to darned tired to pay much attention. At the end of the second day, again we had something the French call dinner but might be described otherwise in the civilised countries. Again there was plenty of wine (red and rosé) and the kind request of the employees not to bring glasses and bottles outside anymore; like it had happened the day before. It was a shrill contrast with the Winterschool, were we basically got the keys to the bar and had more freedom booze-wise. Of course, the thing that happened was everybody having a sheer amount of wine before the end of dinner. Namesake and I were in the überhappy mode again, apparently wine has that effect on us. Luckily for us the bar at the campus stayed open this night and a dj was playing some music for the other visitors of Azuréva. These visitors, however, got easily scared away by a happy bunch of PhD students conquering the dance floor. In what aspect Ambjörn’s creative, Saturday Night fever inspired, dance moves were helping in doing so, I’m not too sure. Again a picture for your voyeuristic pleasures.

Well let me conclude this post in saying that I had a most amazing time in Fréjus, and only because of the “gezellige” people I met there. I hope to see most of them soon again and maybe we have made them enthousiastic enough to join us next year at the Winterschool. To advertise some more, next Winterschool will be held 18th till 22th February 2008, again in Innsbruck, Austria. If you’re interested do not forget to check out my flickr account either, it’s full with pics… Schnellkurse österreichisch are available on request, but not included in the fee. Hope to see you all there!!!