Mediterranean France has all the promises of the Mediterranean - Sun, the Beach, Good Wine...
A chance workshop at the IBM office took me to
Montpellier - a small French town off the coast of the Mediterranean.
The town just has 200,000 inhabitants but it does feel a lot more than that - with all the around.
The town predominantly is a University Town - but also has some large companies. IBM had this huge Center where they conduct Research, used to do some Production work and now have large facilities for Benchmarking etc.
We were taken around the Center and our host - a super die hard fan of Super Computing had words of praise
everytime he took us to show a new server. He would walk us by a Z series server and mutter - 'Very Impressive, Very
Imressive' in a most French manner - and mumble 'How Beautiful' on and off. One would think that the young
frenchman was referring to the French Women that we got to see later in the evening!
And of course - he pointed to the Blue Gene and said -
thats the one that beat Gary
Kasparov - with a look of a proud father...and he
couldnt have been more than 25.
After our meetings on day one, we got to go out for a bit and I managed to do my touristy thing - of taking a few pictures.
Here's where they are all uploaded.
A smallish town - not too crowded - you could really enjoy the
Mediterranen town in a most relaxed manner. The people are friendly, beautiful and pleasant.
One of the town's attractions is the 18 century Aqueduct that used to supply water to the town's populace. I managed to catch the main Aqueduct in the evening sun - and it looked so beautiful...
We did have our customary beer at the Plaza next to the Palace of
Comedie - and to have the warm Mediterranean sun graze your skin was a welcome change from the Cold Finnish days (!)
We finished the day by going to Dinner to a restaurant by the Beach - hmmmm - and it just
couldnt have been better - Wine, the warm sea air and the beautiful sun set - reminded me so much of Goa actually!
Dinners are always the most interesting times after a meeting with clients - because it is the time for people to let thier hair down - not that the Finns do it much ...especially with work - colleagues...but we did.
I had some interesting conversations with some of the folks who were there. There was a Finn lady with a 21 year old son and we talked about marriage, living in and settling down - how like a mother to say that - but it just goes to show - parents around the world share the same feelings, concerns and hopes about their children! We were talking about Living In and it was interesting to hear that she would be concerned if either of her children (son or daughter) were to tell her that they were getting married without having lived with the companion for a while!
I also discovered that the Summer House culture is very big in Finland.
Everyone has a Summer House!
It's usually away from the city, is by a lake...every Finn is proud to have one! And like I read by a famous Finn Architect - "
Summer houses are very personal - they are like journal entries."
:)
Another interesting gentleman I met at the workshop was ...lets just call him Steve.
Steve is a mid 30's professional in IBM. Conversation led me to find out some interesting things about him - Studied Chemical Engineering in graduation, Computer Science in his masters and
his PhD in Speech Recognition; Not to forget that he worked in a bar between courses, has been tinkering with bikes and has built many of them by hand - and that he loves Indian food (Go Curry!) and cooks well!
Here's to more traveling - and I hope to visit Montpellier again - its a very beautiful place and I wish for each of you to be able to visit it sometime!
Mediterranean France has all the promises of the Mediterranean - Sun, the Beach, Good Wine...
A chance workshop at the IBM office took me to Montpellier - a small French town off the coast of the Mediterranean.
The town just has 200,000 inhabitants but it does feel a lot more than that - with all the around.
The town predominantly is a University Town - but also has some large companies. IBM had this huge Center where they conduct Research, used to do some Production work and now have large facilities for Benchmarking etc.
We were taken around the Center and our host - a super die hard fan of Super Computing had words of praise everytime he took us to show a new server. He would walk us by a Z series server and mutter - 'Very Impressive, Very Imressive' in a most French manner - and mumble 'How Beautiful' on and off. One would think that the young frenchman was referring to the French Women that we got to see later in the evening!
And of course - he pointed to the Blue Gene and said - thats the one that beat Gary 
We finished the day by going to Dinner to a restaurant by the Beach - hmmmm - and it just 
couldnt have been better - Wine, the warm sea air and the beautiful sun set - reminded me so much of Goa actually!
Dinners are always the most interesting times after a meeting with clients - because it is the time for people to let thier hair down - not that the Finns do it much ...especially with work - colleagues...but we did.
I had some interesting conversations with some of the folks who were there. There was a Finn lady with a 21 year old son and we talked about marriage, living in and settling down - how like a mother to say that - but it just goes to show - parents around the world share the same feelings, concerns and hopes about their children! We were talking about Living In and it was interesting to hear that she would be concerned if either of her children (son or daughter) were to tell her that they were getting married without having lived with the companion for a while!
I also discovered that the Summer House culture is very big in Finland.
Everyone has a Summer House!
It's usually away from the city, is by a lake...every Finn is proud to have one! And like I read by a famous Finn Architect - "Summer houses are very personal - they are like journal entries."
:)
Another interesting gentleman I met at the workshop was ...lets just call him Steve.
Steve is a mid 30's professional in IBM. Conversation led me to find out some interesting things about him - Studied Chemical Engineering in graduation, Computer Science in his masters and
his PhD in Speech Recognition; Not to forget that he worked in a bar between courses, has been tinkering with bikes and has built many of them by hand - and that he loves Indian food (Go Curry!) and cooks well!
Here's to more traveling - and I hope to visit Montpellier again - its a very beautiful place and I wish for each of you to be able to visit it sometime!
