Marseille, November, 2007

(A rudimentary account, made over two years later)

Ayşe and I travelled to Marseille for the Atelier MODNET de Théorie des modèles des corps, November 12–16, 2007. The site of the meeting was the Centre International de Rencontres Mathématiques in Luminy, east of city center, near the coast. We had been there before; it is an old manor house converted to a sort of hotel for mathematical meetings.

In fact we flew into Lyon and took the train to Marseille: as I recall, this was cheaper. At the train station in Lyon, the ticket seller told us we had reserved seats, and since we were in a rush we didn't confirm this by looking at the tickets. We were assigned to a particular car, I think, but not to any particular seats. Somebody made me move from my chosen seat, because he had reserved the seat for himself. I found a seat elsewhere.

Ayşe's student Şükrü and my student Özcan were there. (Özcan was spending the year in Germany.)

Wednesday afternoons in Luminy are free. Several of us hiked up the bluff next to the research center.

The weather was not cold, but windy.

One can also just from the center to a rocky overlook of the coast. One can descend from there to the water for a swim; we did that another year, when it was only October. While going down then, we noted that the next cover over featured a nude beach.

Train workers went on strike while we were in Luminy. Fortunately (for us) we had colleagues from Lyon; they rented a car to get back there, and we rode with them Friday afternoon.