Arrival in Mordor.. err.. Sydney

First of all - the two last nights in Estonia were quite fun. On the first one, I went out drinking, first with Sirgi and Elis and then with Miki and his friends.

The last day there was a wedding which, with the exception of a VERY corny official registration, was actually quite a bit of fun. I was given the role of Protector of the bride.. which included a plastic shield and sword and an absurdly small helmet. Some parts of the wedding were somewhat depressing for me - mainly because of my lack of success with finding someone to share my life with, but definitely amplified by factors like lack of sleep and the thesis getting ready. However, in total, it was still one of the most memorable experiences I have had in estonia in quite a while.

I left the wedding at 2 a.m. to get at least some sleep before my 30 hours in transit.

The next morning, I quickly packed my bags and then got a lift to Tallinn in a car of a friend-of-a-friend. They dropped me off at the airport. My mom came to meet me with food there, as I had asked her to make some sandwiches for my long trip. She had, but had also brought a lot of other stuff with her, "just in case". Salad for instance.. some of which I ate but most of which I had to throw away in the security check.

I had a nice long 8 hour wait in Helsinki airport. Enough to make 2 cups of coffe, have 5 hrs of bass practice, to finish up the slides for my conference presentation and to chat with some friends over the internet.

In the plane to Bankok, I got a seat in the front row.. which meant extra legroom.. or even putting my legs on the wall.. literally. I spent most of the flight watching episodes of "Simpsons" and "How I met your mother". The latter actually seemed better than I initially thought.. I now understand my friends who have started to watch it from the start...

In Bankok, I met two australian girls who seemed to be following the same route as me. We walked the whole length of the airport, which was basically one huge shopping street. Afterwards, I pointed out a wall socket and we sat down. The cuter girl started playing plants and zombies, while the other one solved crosswords and I practiced my bass. Time passed fairly quickly.

I managed to sleep a little in the second plane. Mostly movies and comedies again, though. "Better off Ted" seems fairly promising. I got to see very nice things through the window though - clouds underneath and moon above - miraculous. Or Sydney from above in pitch black darkness - looked like Mordor in the LOTR movies - but a very scenic view nonetheless.

In Sydney, they confiscated my supply of rasins and dried plums. The quarantine they have is pretty strict, but at least they were very nice about it :)

When I got to the city (by rail), a few things surprised me. For instance, the GPS in my phone was not particularly cooperative.. and map did not even show Sydney on the map unless you zoomed quite close. However, what struck me even more was how people crossed the streets. Although most places had lights for pedestrians, they were OFTEN ignored, as people seemed to be in a general state of hurry around 7.30 in the morning. There were scents in the air - both coffee and foods.

I went to my hotel and asked whether I could check in a bit early. Unfortunately, my room was not yet ready, but they allowed me to leave my bags there, in their basement, in a room located in the end of what can only be described as a long maze of corridors.

I stopped by a shop to get something to drink and also a phone card. I then continued towards the conference venue. The hostel was 412 Pitt str. Conference was 37 on the same street. Yes, all the intermediate numbers were also present. It was a nice walk, as I was surrounded by skyscrapers with ground floors generally filled with stores, cafes or hotels.

I arrived at the venue just in time for morning coffee. Met a few people from last year too. Strange I still remembered their faces, but I did. Asked one of them (whom I knew to be one of the organisers) about the wifi and got access.

First talk was by Gentry who explained his Fully homomorphic scheme (one of the biggest breakthroughs in Cryptology in the past 2 years). Realistic ciphertexts are 260 mb and each operation takes about 3 minutes. Painful, but very interesting nonetheless. The presentation was surprisingly easy to follow though - I was afraid it would be a lot more complicated.

During the first session I attempted to activate my new SIM card over the internet. Without success. After lunch, I finally called their customer service about that. A man with a noticeable indian accent responded. He had to hold for 10 minutes while I looked up the address and phone number of an acquaintance in Sydney -- as they required an Australian address and land line nr in order to grant me a mobile phone number and told me that was required by law. Strange.

The conference is now ending for today. There is a dinner in the evening, and I still need to practice my talk before giving it tomorrow. I am really looking forward to getting to bed tonight, though.