Jonas's travels: Borovets
Pictures that will be removed in a few weeks!
I put some high quality bowling and conference dinner pictures and a large collection of smaller pictures here temporarily. They will be removed when I need the space for my latest pictures (Japan here I come!).
Pictures from RANLP'03 are also available.
Sleep is for the weak
Bulgaria, the land of eternally bad weather, hours long passport control lines and restaurants that never manage to prepare even a salad in less than 90 minutes. One of the best places to have a conference in, it turns out. The RANLP conference is very nice, and this my second visit was one of the more enjoyable conference trips so far. Also a good place to learn how to say cheers in 20 languages.
Slight stress set in when the computer I was planning to use for my presentation turned out to be password protected with nobody knowing the password nearby. When finally this was solved only 15 minutes remained to my starting time. This is when I found out that my camera, while working as a regular USB mass storage device perfectly in tune with almost every computer in the world, did not speak comfortably with this computer... A quick run to our hotel room later, I notice that Martin's computer, where my presentation slides are also to be found, is also password protected. And me without my "remove windows passwords CD" (which I actually happen to have one). Another run later, I find myself appropriating some poor helpful schmuck's computer and transferring my presentation from camera to another USB memory. More running and I managed to get my slides onto the computer only five minutes after my announced starting time. Luckily, the invited speaker captivating the rest of the conference attendants used 20 minutes more time than alloted, so I still had no audience...
Images in darkness become blurry...
The very orange hotel room, where I and a Martin that was
getting sicker by the minute spent our sleeping time. Also
notable because of the interesting toilet paper.
Bulgarian weather. When it doesn't rain it
looks like this. People tell me they also have good weather, but
I have never seen any in my two trips. This is because I am
cursed, I have been told. Typical.
The reliable elevators of our hotel, where you
could pull steel bars from the wall with one hand. The elevators
also emit a (very) piercing sound whenever they plan to stop at
a floor. Enough to wake the dead.
The conference dinner,
where even yours truly got caught in a picture. Excellent place
to find people that know both Bulgarian and English, which is
useful when you are looking for food. Also a good place to find
talented instructors of Bulgarian folk dancing.
Dinner number two. Scandinavian presence at
the evening meal, both Finland and Sweden sent representatives
to teach the Scandinavian versions of "cheers".
Dinner number three. A
place where you can order "Knuckle with papper"... and see the
official Bulgarian soccer outfit. Here the food arrived roughly
two or three ours after we placed our order, though this was all
the fault of other computational linguists that order a whole
large animal to be served before our food.
The disco where most of the time was
spent (the main reason for sleeping only three to four hours per
night). Where else can you find conference organizers giving the
PhD-students the bunny ears? Strangely enough, practice does not
seem to help my quite pathetic dancing abilities. As someone
kindly reminded me yet again in Bulgaria, "Do you remember the
girl from Britain that was here two years ago? She used to
laugh at you, another Swede and a Danish guy and say that
Scandinavians have no feel for dancing"... At least my Bulgarian
folk dancing skills have improved.
More from the
disco in the basement of the hotel. A Bulgarian girl
(always good to have around in Bulgaria, especially when in need
of food) and a French guy (also good to keep one
around). Followed by another Bulgarian girl and a French
girl.
My roommate Martin
outside a not very high class looking establishment. They don't
even have real walls... We never went inside.
Presentation
Since Martin did not get well it was decided that I should
take the presentation of our paper instead of him. With slides
made by someone else, several nights of less than four hours of
sleep, a slight cold everything was set up for a less than
glorious presentation. Brainstorming over lunch produced many
good ideas for distracting the audience from noticing that I
had pretty much no idea what to say. They all failed because of
a lack of live penguins, more slides than articles of clothing
leading to a too quick strip tease etc. I at least took a before
and after picture. The one on the left with the happy audience is
the "before", the one where people are looking away and sneaking
away towards the door is "after"... A good pair to show my
students so they will not have unrealistically high
expectations.
Bowling
After having been
resoundingly beaten in bowling by a small Japanese girl on my
last trip (and to be fair to my lack of skills, first ever try
at bowling) I felt I needed some practice. When a couple of nice
Bulgarians mentioned they were going to try bowling I invited
myself to the event. Since my experience from two years ago
indicated that it is always good to have a French guy along in
Bulgaria I managed to find one to bring along too. At first we
planned to have a Bulgaria vs. everyone else showdown, but since
the Bulgarians were 50% more numerous this was deemed unfair. It
turned out that with one bowling game as experience I was not
far behind the most experienced players... The place was set for
a distinct lack of high scores. Through no fault of my own,
except possibly because I was totaling up the scores, I ended
up giving Sweden another win against Bulgaria, which it was
later explained to me, is a fine old tradition, though mainly in
soccer. As one kind British gentleman put it, "Sweden did not
so much emerge victorious, but ended up the least pathetic". As
can be seen on the scorecard, Sweden and France together managed
to beat Bulgaria by three points, despite the lack of players.
Sofia
With two hours to kill
before our plane left the ground, me and a still dizzy Martin
decided to see some of the sights in Sofia. People kept clinging
to me and asking for money, while largely ignoring
Martin. Possibly because I look like a kind, weak willed sucker,
possibly because Martin looked like he was high on drugs. Later
at the airport in Frankfurt everyone was still clinging to me,
though this time with automatic rifles and a more aggressive
attitude. So much for the "looking kind" theory, more of a
"crazy terrorist" look.
Sweden
Finally we left the
sunlit parts of Europe and returned to Sweden, the land of
eternal darkness (at least in the winter).
On a related note,
this is what Sweden looks like in January, slightly before lunch
time... even in Stockholm, which is quite far south.
Complaints should likely be sent to Jonas. If you would like to have a high resolution copy of one of these images (or some other you suspect I have), please feel free to let me know.