Occasionally Interesting, often not

I wanted to add that we had two amazing people to help us during Nobel Week. Dad had two people to help him during the week: Lena, for driving him around, and Eva, to help organize everything. We found out some interesting professional info about Dad's driver for the Nobel Week, Lena, when we had the opportunity to socialize a bit with her and Eva when we had dinner with Minister Lee, on the evening before the Big Day. The restaurant the Minister's people had picked was, of course, a chinese restaurant. It wasn't too far, but more on the outskirts of the city. We drove in the limo, with the others in taxis that had been arranged to pick everyone up from the Nordic Museum after the reception there (all thanks to Lena's organization). Because it was outside of town, mum felt like we shouldn't make Lena and Eva hang around and wait for us, so she invited them. Minister Lee was quite happy to have them included, and in fact, his driver sat at our table too, sitting next...

The Swedish Embassy in Washington DC invited dad to be at their Nobel Day, held the week before the Stockholm week. The exact day wasn't known until the visit to the White House cleared; it turned out to be Dec 2, 2009. We flew off on the Monday, and got a taxi to the hotel. We stayed at the Four Seasons, in Georgetown, apparantly, the best hotel in the city. Slept well but had to be up early for the bus to the embassy. The program for the day was: a symposium featuring all the American Nobel winners talking a bit about their work, and taking questions, followed by a light lunch, followed by a visit to the White House, followed in the evening by a black tie dinner hosted by the Swedish ambassador. Breakfast at the hotel was very nice, but also very expensive. Can you say $60? But dad ate ok, and that's the important part. On the bus by 8am-ish. Drove to the Swedish embassy where we hob-nobbed a bit before the symposium. I had talked to Alan Leshner on the phone beforehand to fi...

Thursday December 10th is the big day. It's the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. We had the morning free, and did a boat tour of Stockholm. We had meant to catch the 10:30am tour, but due to lateness getting up, and needing to eat breakfast, we ended up on the 11:30. This was to have repercussions later, in terms of time to get ready. After the boat docked, we went into Gamla Stan again, to pay a short visit to the Nobel Museum. They had tuxedo'd guides that day, and we looked around a bit more and bought some souvenirs. Then we thought we'd get some hot chocolate at a place just on the square, that the guidebooks raved about. Time was running short, so we got take-out sandwiches and hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was very good. Not as sweet as US style hot chocolate, and more chocolatey. By the time we got back to the hotel room, we had less than an hour to get ready, and we barely made it, being the last ones on the 2nd bus. Everyone looked good in their finery ...

Packing up now to go home. But to continue the travelogue, the last post only got up to Sunday afternoon. In fact, the whole week was still ahead! Sunday dinner was at a restaurant on Gamla Stan called Martin Trotzig. The limo drove us out there, and the driver helped us find the restaurant, just a few steps away from where the car parked. We found out later that during those couple of minutes, someone stole the "Nobel Prize" livery that was magnetically stuck to the limo for the week. Dinner wasn't bad, but not the best of the week, but I did learn how to pronounce the word for "cloudberry", which is spelled as "hjortron" and pronounced "your-tron" accent on the 2nd syllable. While we're at it, the other words learned during the stay were very simple: hej (pronounced "hey") for hello, and "hej do" (pronounced "hey door") for goodbye, and "tack" (prounounced with more of a short "ar" sound...

After the Nobel Museum visit, we got back into the limo. At the Swedish Embassy in Washington DC's Nobel Day on Dec 1, one of the after dinner speakers was Steve Chu, the Energy Secretary, a prior Nobel winner. He regaled us with various funny tales, among which was a story about a Nobel winner who went home, needed to go somewhere, and got in the back of his car. Having a driver and car at one's beck and call (but we only took it twice non-officially, once to dinner and once to tennis) is quite the luxury. I'm not sure I'd mistake my car for a limo though. Anyway, we got driven back to the hotel from the museum (a 5 minute walk otherwise), but ended up back in the area slightly later (walking there minus dad) because in the square outside the museum, there is a Christmas market ... a bunch of little stalls selling various holiday related merchandise and consumables. First though, was lunch. We went to a place called the Livingroom, and had Swedish meatballs (yes, again...

Getting to the end of our time here in Stockholm for Nobel Week 2009 honoring my father and the other 2009 Laureates, most of whom I met. I arrived here with dad on Friday afternoon. We had flown out of Washington DC, and had had a long-ish layover at LHR, time enough to pass through immigration and visit mum's sisters for a quick lunch. It was good to see them after a number of years. Then it was off to Stockholm. On arrival, we were met by the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy of Science, Gunnar Oquist, and our Nobel attendant (attache) for the week, Eva Wiback. They met us right outside the airplane door, and we walked down the stairs to the tarmac, to get into a limo that drove us to the VIP arrival lounge. There, we chatted a bit while immigration and baggage collection were done for us by others. And then we were whisked into the city, and the Grand Hotel. We arrived a day earlier than most, but the press and autograph seekers met us at the hotel. We got out of the c...

Here's a quick thumbs-up to a new-ish restaurant in Stockholm (Sweden) called "Rue du Pont Nouveau" (www.pontnouveau.se) It's bookable online at http://www.bookatable.com/se/109289/rue-du-pont-nouveau/index.en-US.aspx. Went on a Saturday evening at 8pm. This is relatively prime-time eating, but there were a number of tables available. The restaurant is an offshoot of a patisserie/bakery, to which it adjoins. It's done up in pretty modern decor, with glass-topped tables and lucite chairs, but still subdued in the Swedish way. The tables are actually quite clever: there's a glass top over a sort of cabinet, so that one can see the menu displayed underneath. A good way to keep the menu on the table without using up tablespace. Anyway, more importantly, the food. Very nicely done. Excellent taste, and playful presentation. Had in particular, a liver pate to start, a halibut and a lamb dish. Both came with seasonal vegetables. The former paired with a crayfish riso...

Going to give props to the outfit through which we rented our apartment at 41 Quai de Bourbon, on the 6th floor: www.parisaddress.com. There are a number of sites that offer short term apartment rentals. Parisaddress's site is by far the best, and their prices are pretty good, though in one case that we saw, the same apartment was listed on another site and was cheaper. I was asked, how do you trust these guys? After all, you're sending them a lot of money. It's true that it was blind trust, but everything was fine. The payment can be made online (the deposit is mandatory online, but you have the option of paying in person on arrival). One thing to note is that you might need to clear your US credit card with your issuer before attempting the online payment -- I had to do this; it was declined otherwise. The payment is via Societe General, a major French bank, so in terms of security, that seems fine. Their communication was prompt and professional, and they were pro-active...

And so Tuesday rolled around, our last full day in Paris. This day was reserved for shopping and chocolates. We wanted to visit some additional outlet type places and we wanted to visit some of the chocolatiers listed in NY Times travel article we had read. (http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/travel/14journeys.html) We first stopped by a couple of shops near the apt. One shop is particular has a very nice selection of scarves. It's interesting to see that google street view is pretty out of date in terms of what's on Rue Saint Louis en L'Ile, as this particular store can't be seen. One of the discount outlet streets is Rue Alesia, conveniently located at the Alesia metro stop. We stopped for a quick bite first, at one of the ubiquitous "traiteur asiatque" places that seem to be all around Paris. I guess that in the old days, asian immigrants started laundry places and restaurants. These days, it is these asian deli places that they start (and also a number o...

Now it's Sunday. Up somewhat early to visit the marche at the Bastille. Lots of stalls and quite crowded. Mostly food stalls, but a bit of everything. We bought from: (a) some costume jewelry, (b) fruit, (c) flowers, (d) honey, (e) some turkish delight, (f) some organic juice, (g) some moroccan fried stuff, (h) some asian fried stuff. Then it was off to the Opera Garnier. Got there early enough to wander around a bit. It's really quite grand inside -- lots of gilt and ornamentation. The auditorium itself is relatively intimate compared to larger modern venues. Our seat was the last row of the main orchestra, which we got to via a tunnel and some stairs. Interestingly, our seats were only accessible by walking through the row in front of us. The view onto the stage, and the acoustics were very good, and the ballet, Cranko's Eugene Oneguine was very good too. Turns out it was the opening performance of the series. After the ballet, we were hungry, so we made a quick trip to Q...

After the big lunch, we got the metro to the Opera Garnier to take a look. Then we decided to see what might be available to get tickets for and ended up with two orchestra tickets for Sunday to see the ballet Eugene Oneguine. We then took a quick stroll through the Galeries Lafayette, which was full of Asian tourists. Things, of course, were very expensive too. We decided to go to the discount area in Montmartre, and found success digging in the discount bins of a chain called Sympa. The 2nd day of our trip was May 1, a French public holiday. We got up somewhat late, and took the Babobus to the Eiffel Tower, site of large lunch #2, at Jules Verne. We hadn't anticipated the size of lunch #1 the previous day at Guy Savoy, but we hadn't eaten dinner the night before, nor breakfast, so were reasonably hungry. It being a holiday weekend, the crowd at the Eiffel Tower was Huge! Long, long lines snaked everywhere. Jules Verne has its own elevator to the 2nd level, and there was even ...

Just got back from a wonderful week in Paris. Walked a lot, ate fantastically, shopped, cultured ourselves, and to top it off, had pretty decent weather (i.e. it didn't rain!). Let's do the highlights: a very expensive lunch at Pierre Gagnaire, a wonderful ballet at the Opera Garnier, some successful shopping expeditions. We arrived on the only day we had any rain to speak of. Met at the airport by Shuttle Inter, who got us into Paris and back to the airport efficiently. We used parisaddress.com to book an apartment on Ile St. Louis, and after coordinating with them on the cell driving into Paris, were met outside the apartment a couple of minutes after we arrived. Gabriel settled us in, and after we had done some unpacking, we went to the flower market on Ile de la Cite. Then it was about lunchtime. Went to Itineraires on Rue Pontoise just across the river in the 5th. Very good start to the trip; the meal was excellent, and capped off with a fantastic souffle for dessert (Cafe...

This weekend, went up to Tahoe to ski for a day, and the following day, drove back down 80 to Auburn and then down 49 to Angels Camp to go to Moaning Caverns. The drive down 49 was nice. We stopped for a short hike at an abandoned railroad bridge across the North Fork of the American. There are railings on the bridge, but with big enough spaces so it's easy to imagine falling through! Stopped off in historic downtown Jackson to see a dying business district. Most interesting though, to the point of this blog entry title, we were driving back on 4 towards the Central Valley, and got caught behind a long caravan of cars led by a slow driver. After a while, I was pretty tired of the following, so I suddenly decided to turn off at a random turning onto a rural road. It turned out to be a very scenic detour on a little travelled road that wound it's way through farmland and forest before eventually rejoining a more main road. Took a lot longer, no doubt, but a much more relaxing dri...