Last week I went to Rome for the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (known as ICRA to those who have reason to abbreviate it). This was my first international conference, and only my second time ever to Europe, so it was pretty exciting for many reasons.
I can't possibly summarize my whole trip in one post, but I would be remiss to post nothing until I have time to write it all up. Here are a few snapshots from the trip, and I will hopefully have time to fill in the details later.
First, here's a shot of me with my snazzy new suit and cool new camera! I wasn't sure what to wear to this conference, and all my coworkers assured me that they'd be wearing suits. Later I found out that all the Japanese people wear suits, to make up for their bad English. (Honestly, most of the Japanese presentations were pretty painful to sit through. I feel really bad for them... even though I sort of understand the reasons for it, it's still unbearable to watch somebody standing up there awkwardly struggling to read his own powerpoint slides.) Among the non-Japanese, the dress code varied wildly, from suit-and-tie to old jeans. One dude was even wearing a Whitesnake t-shirt!! :)
By the way, the camera's pretty cool too... 10x optical zoom among other features, and I love the blue case!
One of the things I really enjoyed was wandering down random streets on the way from my hotel to the conference. I spent the evenings walking around the city, too. Here's a shot of one of the old cobblestone streets (kinda rough on the feet after walking on them for a few kilos).
And everywhere you go in the city, there are statues of gods and angels watching over you. It's like the entire city is one big open-air art museum. Absolutely overwhelming.
I'll try to process and post some of my night photos over the next few days. There's so much to write about. I've got an a cappella rehearsal tomorrow at my apartment, though, so I need to clean the place up a bit tonight. :)
3 comments:
Hey seems I missed you announcing the dates for your trip to Rome. If I had known earlier we probably could have arranged a meeting - compared to the distance to Japan, Rome is right in my backyard after all ;). Speaking of which, has the postcard I sent from Stockholm arrived yet.
Seems like there are a lot of アンちゃんs in Japan lately, so if you're wondering about which one is writing - it's number 1. ;)
By the way: when are going to be more specific about that "special someone" of yours? Oh and... nice suit, dude! :)
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special someone?
when i read that part about the cobblestones and the kilos, i almost laughed out loud...don't most ppl associate the word "kilo" with kilogram...i just had a vision of you lumbering around in khaki shorts and hawaiian shirt with an old leica camera...typical american tourist (which of course you're not). i'm glad you enjoyed yourself.
Looks like a great trip! And I loved the observation on conference attire and PPT presentations... ;)
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