Tuesday, May 9, 2000

Feeling much better than yesterday.

Working on ACPI policy inter-daemon communication. Also working on ACPI policy mailing list communications. sigh.

This afternoon, the 7th graders who live in the dorms here decided that it would be amusing to drop large quantities of water on everyone passing by. This is rather distracting even when you are not one of the drenchees.

* * *

Ah, that's the difference between these university students and 7th graders. 7th graders get tired of one form of stupidity much more quickly. 4 hours later, these university students are still entranced by their form of simple entertainment. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than loud drunken soccer at 1am, or shouting loud animal noises at 2am, or ringing random doorbells (the loudest I have ever heard!) up and down the corridors at 4am...

And I thought that American college students were immature. I find I had no clue what the word meant, but these Dutch students are doing their best to educate me.

* * *

We left to go to supper, absurdly wearing raincoats on this lovely, cloudless day, and then managed to dodge all the water successfully, so the raincoats were superfluous--but we did not then return them to our rooms and run the gauntlet twice again.

Dinner was at Le Soleil, a (surprise!) french restaurant near the Dom. Good food, wine, and atmosphere. No wine list, though. The idea is that you tell them whether you want red, white, or rosé, and they then choose a wine for you from what they have that will go well with the food you have chosen. They chose well; a soft, very lightly peppery red that went both with Kim's eggplant and my lamb. They thought that the weather was so hot that a rosé would be better; we didn't get into a long discussion about how it felt, to us, like a moderately cool spring day... Kim finished off with chocolate mousse (no shock there) and I with crème broulée.

We returned a bit after 10pm, and found that the 7th graders had finally gotten tired of their simple pleasure. When we asked a housemate about it, he told us that it wasn't as bad as this winter, when they emptied all their garbage out the windows. I guess that people normally emptied trash and other more disgusting forms of waste out their windows all the time a few centuries ago, but not from 16 stories up, and goodness, I thought we had learned something about hygiene since then. European civilization begins to sound like a good idea that should be attempted some time...