Brussels: days 7, 8, and 9

Thursday started with the usual conference stuff. In the evening, though, there was a reception at the Town Hall, which is the historic building you always see in photos for Brussels. It was rather nice inside, although smaller than I expected.

After that was the banquet at the Hotel Metropole (a four star hotel). Food was good. Spent it with some of the Colombian students from VUB (there is a sort-of exchange program for grad students with a Colombian university). As with every night, after the banquet I was exhausted and went back to the hotel to sleep.

Friday had an entertaining keynote from Philip Wadler. He did his Lambda-man t-shirt gig just like at OOPSLA 2006. I also had my second demo which had three grad students in the audience. Turns out they couldn't decide which demo to go to, but when they noticed my room was empty they chose mine. Turns out they were happy with the choice; one of the guys said it was interesting and seemed like good work.

After the conference closed, I went with the organizers (including the Colombians as they were the bulk of the student volunteers) to a pub on campus. Ended up drinking for six hours with them. I had to fend them off giving me more drinks since it was on a tab.

Saturday I met up with a fellow student volunteer from Thailand and went to Ghent. It was interesting taking the train in a country where you can't read what everything is written in. Made taking the tram to where we wanted to go a little difficult.

We went to the Castle of the Count to start. It was somewhat interesting. They had a video that tried to explain some history by having a movie inside a movie with some corny drama tossed in for entertainment.

Afterwards we went to the top of Belfry which had a great view. Once we got down to the bottom, though, my compatriot was tired and so he decided to go back to Brussels. I stayed and took a historic walking tour around Ghent. I then walked from the old part of town to the train station and then came back to my hotel room.

Beyond going for dinner at an Italian restaurant (really good pizza), I also picked up some chocolate to bring home.