Engineer in the French Riviera (and no, I still don't speak French)

Well, I made it! I'm here in Agay, in a very FRENCH hotel (ie, hard beds and no shampoo in the bathroom - I'll have to find a convenience store later so I can shower tonight). The conference is going, um, well, I think? Its a mostly French crowd, so even though all the official talks are in English, the chatting in between is mostly in French. People are being pretty accommodating, but its hard to insert yourself into a conversation if you have no idea what anyone is saying. :-P Luckily I've found some people who have been really nice and are keeping an eye out for me. Shoutouts to Pedro (who was the MIT prof who told me about this conference in the first place) and Charles (Sungyon's postdoc advisor who went to MIT for undergrad).

I'll post some pictures later. Agay is really beautiful! We're currently on a "conversation break" for the afternoon which everyone has taken to mean beach break. I'm really not a beach person, so I'm happily curled up on the patio of the hotel, enjoying an amazing view. I'll wander off down the mountain to the sea later and take some pics for tomorrow. And no, the internet was not free, but I decided I couldn't live a whole week without it so I forked over 20 Euros for a month's access. [[Le sigh]].

My flash talk is Wed and my poster session Thurs - wish me luck!