Last Conference Day

Does Nick like math? Just a hair.

My legs seemed to have recovered a bit from the shock of all the hills. I walked to the conference today again and definitely felt better than yesterday. I saw several people waiting for the bus near the hotel and we arrived at the conference venue about the same time.

Today was the last day of the conference. The plenary talks were from Portuguese scholars. One spoke about symmetry patterns in the plane and their associated stamp patterns. He also gave a workshop in the afternoon I attended. During his talk he demonstrated some really neat software designed to create and analyze symmetry groups. In the workshop we used the software. I bought a copy for 5 Euros - quite a deal! I also attended some other interesting talks.

I had lunch at an Italian restaurant in a park near the river. I had a pizza with anchovies and capers. Yes, I did order that intentionally. It was very good and surprisingly fast. I then climbed the big hill (again) in the hot sun back to the meetings. For dinner, I had some odds and ends from the local market.

The view from the bridge looking at Coimbra. The conference was at the top of the hill.

After dinner I took a long walk over the river on the way to the concert. I somehow missed the lower-level pedestrian bridge and ended up walking on the 80 km/hr fast traffic bridge. There was a narrow sidewalk across the river and the views were nice. When I got to the other side, the sidewalk ended at the offramp where there was insufficient shoulder to walk. I opted to bound down the steep hill and through the tall weeds back to a more managable path. I walked along a quieter road with slower traffic until the sidewalk started again. the walkway then became a nice pedestrian lane with a very nice view of the city lit by the setting sun. This was the view I was looking for on my walk.

The finale was a concert from the local orchestra. They kicked off the program with Suite No 1 Abertura C Major by Bach. The next piece was a very interesting piece named Densita II by Albini. The third was a new piece composed for the event by Dmitri Tymoczko based on the concept of cellular automata. The fourth piece was Motzart's Symphony 35. The concert ended with Grieg's Peer Gynt.

Tomorrow I will leave Coimbra and head to Lisbon via train. I have a reservation at a hotel near the train station there. I hope to see a few sites in Lisbon. My flight leaves early the next day. Time has really gone fast, but I am glad to be headed home soon.