Did I mention I came to Europe for business, as well? Anyway, here came the business part of my trip: Interspeech '07 in Antwerpen.
The opening day, as expected, was packed with general information and keynote speeches. To my surprise, they booked a huge place, the Flanders Congress and Concert Centre, conveniently located on the north of the Centraal Station. The main hall of the center needed a dedicated camera to put the speaker live on the screen through a big projector in order for the audience to see her/his face.
Besides being spacious inside, the Centre looked pretty nice outside. The square just in front of it was a busy place for travelers and businessmen. From the conference website, I learned that the FCCC wass part of a larger complex that also encompassed the famous Antwerpen Zoo, allegedly one of the oldest in Europe. But I had to admit that mixing business with animals was a really interesting idea to me.
My presentation was scheduled on the second day in the morning in the Elizabeth Hall, the big one I just mentioned. I wasn't too worried or nervous about it because I had given essentially the same talk at least three times before. So the auto pilot was enough to get me through. The problem with the big hall was that I couldn't see my audience's faces. So there was no interaction during the talk. The Q&A session started with a question from a senior research, whom I respect and admire a lot. He basically asked for more information but I didn't have it at that time. As candid as I am, I answered my first question with "I don't know". (Phew! That was easy.)
After my talk, I stayed for the whole session because it was related to my own research. In the afternoon, there were a lot of posters keeping me busy. But up till then, I barely knew anybody and it was a little bit boring when you didn't have people to talk to during the breaks.
Things changed after I had many glasses of champagne.
The Student Reception was held at Brasserie Horta, a posh restaurant designed by the great Belgian architect Victor Horta. Courtesy of Google and IBM Research, we, the poor graduate students, were served with some pretty good beer, wine and champagne. (Free food!) In the absence of pretentious doctors and professors, we started to act our ages.
So I met a dynamic group of people, including the best Borat impersonator I'd ever seen. We had a really good time.
The following night was the Banquet at Zuiderkroon. Another night of good food, drinks and live jazz! The trio, consisted of a keyboard, a bass and a saxophone, was pretty good. After some of their routines, people started to make requests. I went there as well, drunk, talking to the keyboard player.
"Can you play 'La Vie En Rose'?" I asked.
"...?"
"Sorry my French pronunciation might be a little off. 'La Vie En Rose'?" I repeated.
"...Oh!♪♩♫♬..." He started to sing, happily.
"Yes!" I exclaimed, "That's it! Can you play it?"
"...uh...didn't...you know...too lyrical...no singer..." He shrugged.
"Ok. Thanks."
So I left disappointed. Think of those "..." as his mumbling French, or the background noise, or my blurred memory caused by alcohol, or all of the above!
I managed to squeeze some time from my "busy" conference schedule to see the city. I walked along the main street running from the Centraal Station to the riverbank. Beautiful Flemish buildings were used as shopping malls.
On the top of the buildings, interesting statues could be found.
Right in the middle of the street, you would see a statue of Anthony van Dyck, the second most famous Antwerpen citizen.
The title of the "First Citizen of Antwerpen" undoubtedly belongs to Peter Paul Rubens, the Flemish Baroque master, whose statue prominently stood in Groenplaats.
Before reaching the Groenplaats, I didn't forget to stop by his home, Rubenshuis. I was lucky to have been there on the last Wednesday of a month, when the admission was free. It was a nice house with artistic decor and a sunny garden. He used one of the large room for his own art collections. As a small museum built on an artist's house, Rubenshuis was doing quite well.
There was no way you could miss De Kathedrall, the symbol of Antwerpen.
Beautiful inside out, the Cathedral of Our Lady, or O.L.V., was unique in that it had the hometown privilege of displaying not one, not two, not three, but four Rubens' paintings.
Don't be discouraged by the €2 admission. You would be rewarded with some of Rubens' best works, e.g., the "Raising of the Cross" on the left.
And the "Descent from the Cross", or "Deposition", on the right. (The annoying white on the left was sun light.) The other two were the "Resurrection" and the "Annunciation".
Please allow me to indulge myself with yet another picture of the O.L.V.
Keeping walking through the Cathedral, you would arrive at the center of the city, Grote Markt. Another beautiful display of Flemish façades.
I liked them so much that I took a picture with them. Where were my shoes? Well, you know...
In front of the City Hall, or Stadhuis, there was a weird statue called "Silvius Brabo". Follow the link to learn more about it.
I don't know why the City Hall was decorated with flags from all over the Europe but it looked good.
Richly ornamented, the City Hall had three statues, Justice, Prudence and Virgin Mary, and three coats of arms on the top.
After the Grote Markt, by the Schelde river, the Steen, a medieval castle was used as an architecture museum now.
Now if you looked back, a nice street scene with the Cathedral as a backdrop.
Besides the Rubenshuis, I visited two other museums. One was the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, or the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, where a huge hall was dedicated to the works of, who else, Peter Paul Rubens. I had my share of Flemish art here.
Around the museum was an up-scale neighborhood with art galleries, interesting architectures and good restaurants. I was attracted by the smell from a restaurant but they served only three tables and they were all booked. My instinct told me it must have been really good. I ended up in a less busy café and it was good, as expected.
The other museum was the Diamond Museum inside the FCCC. In case you don't know, Antwerpen is the center of diamond cutting and trading in the world. The museum gave you a comprehensive lesson about diamond but was slightly overpriced, I think.
Since the conference granted us free access to the Zoo, whose admission was quite expensive by the way, I felt obliged to visit the zoo. But I was never a fan of zoos and will never be. Because it's depressing to look at those wild animals unhappily sitting in jail. Need I say more?
So I visited it on my last day in Antwerpen. Lions and tigers were the stars of the zoo, as always. Also on the last day, instead of sending us off with coffee, the Conference did it Belgian-style: with beers! Lucky I didn't have to drive...
Sitting in a comfy first-class chair at 6.00, I waited quietly for my Thalys train to leave for the exciting, exotic, exquisite, extravagant, the young and restless, the one and only, the greatest city in the world, Paris!
The opening day, as expected, was packed with general information and keynote speeches. To my surprise, they booked a huge place, the Flanders Congress and Concert Centre, conveniently located on the north of the Centraal Station. The main hall of the center needed a dedicated camera to put the speaker live on the screen through a big projector in order for the audience to see her/his face.
Besides being spacious inside, the Centre looked pretty nice outside. The square just in front of it was a busy place for travelers and businessmen. From the conference website, I learned that the FCCC wass part of a larger complex that also encompassed the famous Antwerpen Zoo, allegedly one of the oldest in Europe. But I had to admit that mixing business with animals was a really interesting idea to me.
My presentation was scheduled on the second day in the morning in the Elizabeth Hall, the big one I just mentioned. I wasn't too worried or nervous about it because I had given essentially the same talk at least three times before. So the auto pilot was enough to get me through. The problem with the big hall was that I couldn't see my audience's faces. So there was no interaction during the talk. The Q&A session started with a question from a senior research, whom I respect and admire a lot. He basically asked for more information but I didn't have it at that time. As candid as I am, I answered my first question with "I don't know". (Phew! That was easy.)
After my talk, I stayed for the whole session because it was related to my own research. In the afternoon, there were a lot of posters keeping me busy. But up till then, I barely knew anybody and it was a little bit boring when you didn't have people to talk to during the breaks.
Things changed after I had many glasses of champagne.
The Student Reception was held at Brasserie Horta, a posh restaurant designed by the great Belgian architect Victor Horta. Courtesy of Google and IBM Research, we, the poor graduate students, were served with some pretty good beer, wine and champagne. (Free food!) In the absence of pretentious doctors and professors, we started to act our ages.
So I met a dynamic group of people, including the best Borat impersonator I'd ever seen. We had a really good time.
The following night was the Banquet at Zuiderkroon. Another night of good food, drinks and live jazz! The trio, consisted of a keyboard, a bass and a saxophone, was pretty good. After some of their routines, people started to make requests. I went there as well, drunk, talking to the keyboard player.
"Can you play 'La Vie En Rose'?" I asked.
"...?"
"Sorry my French pronunciation might be a little off. 'La Vie En Rose'?" I repeated.
"...Oh!♪♩♫♬..." He started to sing, happily.
"Yes!" I exclaimed, "That's it! Can you play it?"
"...uh...didn't...you know...too lyrical...no singer..." He shrugged.
"Ok. Thanks."
So I left disappointed. Think of those "..." as his mumbling French, or the background noise, or my blurred memory caused by alcohol, or all of the above!
I managed to squeeze some time from my "busy" conference schedule to see the city. I walked along the main street running from the Centraal Station to the riverbank. Beautiful Flemish buildings were used as shopping malls.
On the top of the buildings, interesting statues could be found.
Right in the middle of the street, you would see a statue of Anthony van Dyck, the second most famous Antwerpen citizen.
The title of the "First Citizen of Antwerpen" undoubtedly belongs to Peter Paul Rubens, the Flemish Baroque master, whose statue prominently stood in Groenplaats.
Before reaching the Groenplaats, I didn't forget to stop by his home, Rubenshuis. I was lucky to have been there on the last Wednesday of a month, when the admission was free. It was a nice house with artistic decor and a sunny garden. He used one of the large room for his own art collections. As a small museum built on an artist's house, Rubenshuis was doing quite well.
There was no way you could miss De Kathedrall, the symbol of Antwerpen.
Beautiful inside out, the Cathedral of Our Lady, or O.L.V., was unique in that it had the hometown privilege of displaying not one, not two, not three, but four Rubens' paintings.
Don't be discouraged by the €2 admission. You would be rewarded with some of Rubens' best works, e.g., the "Raising of the Cross" on the left.
And the "Descent from the Cross", or "Deposition", on the right. (The annoying white on the left was sun light.) The other two were the "Resurrection" and the "Annunciation".
Please allow me to indulge myself with yet another picture of the O.L.V.
Keeping walking through the Cathedral, you would arrive at the center of the city, Grote Markt. Another beautiful display of Flemish façades.
I liked them so much that I took a picture with them. Where were my shoes? Well, you know...
In front of the City Hall, or Stadhuis, there was a weird statue called "Silvius Brabo". Follow the link to learn more about it.
I don't know why the City Hall was decorated with flags from all over the Europe but it looked good.
Richly ornamented, the City Hall had three statues, Justice, Prudence and Virgin Mary, and three coats of arms on the top.
After the Grote Markt, by the Schelde river, the Steen, a medieval castle was used as an architecture museum now.
Now if you looked back, a nice street scene with the Cathedral as a backdrop.
Besides the Rubenshuis, I visited two other museums. One was the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, or the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, where a huge hall was dedicated to the works of, who else, Peter Paul Rubens. I had my share of Flemish art here.
Around the museum was an up-scale neighborhood with art galleries, interesting architectures and good restaurants. I was attracted by the smell from a restaurant but they served only three tables and they were all booked. My instinct told me it must have been really good. I ended up in a less busy café and it was good, as expected.
The other museum was the Diamond Museum inside the FCCC. In case you don't know, Antwerpen is the center of diamond cutting and trading in the world. The museum gave you a comprehensive lesson about diamond but was slightly overpriced, I think.
Since the conference granted us free access to the Zoo, whose admission was quite expensive by the way, I felt obliged to visit the zoo. But I was never a fan of zoos and will never be. Because it's depressing to look at those wild animals unhappily sitting in jail. Need I say more?
So I visited it on my last day in Antwerpen. Lions and tigers were the stars of the zoo, as always. Also on the last day, instead of sending us off with coffee, the Conference did it Belgian-style: with beers! Lucky I didn't have to drive...
Sitting in a comfy first-class chair at 6.00, I waited quietly for my Thalys train to leave for the exciting, exotic, exquisite, extravagant, the young and restless, the one and only, the greatest city in the world, Paris!
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