I'd planned a liesurely walk back to the hotel to meet Brian Sunday night. But I killed a lot of time with email and such after registering for the ietf meeting, so as I walked back I increasingly realized I was going to have to walk quite fast to make it back to the hotel on time.
A sensible person would have taken the metro at that point. But in the end I made it back to the hotel only 10 minutes behind schedule. When I got to the hotel I found they'd already gone, but they'd left the name of the restaurant with the receptionist.
Gaspard de la nuit, right around the corner from the hotel, was small and crowded. When I got there they teased me for being late, and for walking so much. But the food hadn't actually arrived yet.
Brian treated us to an 8-course meal that took hours and was very good. There was also wine with every course, which I probably should have started turning down at some point--when I finally got back to my room, I collapsed only to wake up a couple hours later and not be able to sleep most of the rest of the night--I wasn't sick, I just couldn't sleep.
So I eventually got up late Monday morning, took the metro to the Champs Élysée and picked up a nice sandwich on the way to the Palais de Congress.
I checked my email and noticed a message from Trond, sent last night, telling me that Brian and friends were waiting for me to show up for dinner. Though I did feel a bit bad for showing up late, I was suprised they were concerned about 10 minutes.
It wasn't till later, when I noticed people coming back from lunch an hour earlier than I expected, that I realized my problem--I'd adjusted my watch five hours forward when I arrived at Heathrow, but I'd forgotten to do it again when I arrived in Paris. I hadn't even realized they were in different time zones.
Oh well. Trond, Andy, Marc and I had a useful meeting Monday afternoon, and then a bunch of us had dinner together again at night. I turned down the wine this time.
The NFSv4 working group meeting this afternoon went pretty well, and there were some useful conversations afterwards.
I'm staying in room number 605. I could take the elevator, but the hotel has such cool stairs.
