I kept a paper journal during my travel to, stay in, and return from Moscow. I’ll be reporting here excerpts from that journal over the next few days and weeks. I intended this to be a report on the personal experience of international travel to a critical conference, as well as my own perspectives on Moscow and the physics presented at the conference.
July 24, 2006 9:22 p.m. (PST)
I hate to travel – which may seem odd for a particle physicist. We spend our lives traveling, to conferences, workshops, seminars, the lab, and back home again. I think traveling bothers me for two reasons: the origin and the destination. I love home, and I love my work. To leave the origin is to abandon these loves, if briefly. I also love conferences, time with colleagues and dinner in foregin cities. What I hate is the travel.
I used to like airports, planes, fast food – emphasis on “used to”. Now, they are just a sad means to an end. I know that, as a scientist, the process – the journey – is what I crave. As for travel – I just hope, unlike research, I can sleep through it.
July 25, 2006 7:14 am (EST)
I have arrived in JFK, a little hungry and tired. Now I just need the rental care to go see my folks.
3:20 pm (EST)
Ah, a meatloaf sandwich – cures what ails ya! And how did I come by such a sandwich, you ask? Well, a visit to one’s home brings such goods as these. I have just returned from my too brief sidetrack to Connecticut, refreshed (and with clean clothes and a healthy dose of caffeine). My parents and I got to spend a few hours together today, in what have become more infrequent but cherished visits. I took the two-hour-long journey in a rental car, with little heavy traffic in either direction. I felt pretty bad when I arrived in Killingworth, tired and a little ill. Three cups of coffee, a plate of eggs and pancakes, and a shower later and I was feeling fine as I talked with my folks.
Now I am back at JFK, checked in and ready for the 10-hour flight, with a slightly heavier heart than when I arrived.
4:32 pm (EST)
Not long now until we board. I’ve also now met up with the other BaBar physicists on my flight. They came in on a later Delta plane than I did. At leastI now have an assured posse in Moscow!
4:54 pm (EST)
I don’t know how, but I ended up in Group 1, meaning I got to board first. Not bad! Lotsa room for luggage and my feet. I’ve called Jodi and my parents, gave them my love,and am ready to embark to Moscow.
When I was younger, immersing myself in Russian novels, Russia seems so distant in time and space, the world so vast and old. Now, as I ready for a physics conference in the heart of Russia, it seems not far at all, nor the world so vast.
