Wind and Wine

I was in the South of France for a week-long conference about a month ago.

The nerdy math fan-girl in me was super excited because everyone who had ever done anything extremely important and interesting in my field was there. And you could chat with them. And they were just like normal people! And then I got tongue-tied and couldn't think of what to say to them about their work. So I just explained over and over what I am working on. They listened politely! It was soo cool!

There were also a bunch of grad students I could talk math to. There's only one other guy here at my school who does sort of what I do. It gets a little lonely. So I was really happy.

And then a bunch of the other grad students went with me on an adventure of death, where we became good friends, and it was pretty much the best thing, ever!

It started out with an idea to hike from the little town-in-the-woods where the conference was being held to the nearest town-by-the-sea. We had heard that people did this. Or at least we had heard that other people had heard that it was possible to do this. Before we headed out, I checked a map. There was a red path and a yellow path. Simple enough. Away we went!

We had a party of 7 mathematicians. T- was an avid hiker who had been hiking several times in the Himalayas. R- and F- were gregarious Italians; F- couldn't see too well. V- was my Swedish roommate. Rounding off the party were Ro- who I especially talked math to, and S- who's a nice quite guy who helped F- up the rocky slopes of doom.

As I said, I had directions that I'd memorized. We were to take the yellow route. Well, if we were on the yellow route, then that was the right one. What? We're on the red route? Oh, that's good, too! . . . I may not have inspired the most confidence.

So V- and R--, who were up ahead, asked a man for directions. He was most discouraging. He kept giving dirty looks to our shoes. It's a very difficult path, he said. It would take 5 or 6 hours. It's better to take the main road. If not . . . do you guys have a climbing rope? You'll need it!

But he was an older gentleman with a hearing aid. What could he know? we said to ourselves. And we continued on bravely.

It started off in a promising way. The sun was shiny, it was warm, albeit windy. Our path was wide.We had great views of the nearby city as we climbed higher and higher up the hills.

And then all of a sudden, the path turned. It got more narrow and steep. Then it got rocky. V- and R- were fast climbers, and we soon lost sight of them. F- was obviously taking it slow. And then I got to the spot of doom. The wind had picked up, and was blowing me fiercely into the mountain. The path was steep and barely wider than I am. And then, for the space of about a foot, the path had dissappeared completely. So I hid behind a nearby tree, and contemplated my next move. With no wind, it might be ok. But as it stood . . . and besides, if I was having trouble, how about F-? On the other hand, V- and R- were up ahead somewhere. We couldn't leave them, either.

T- was walking along with us, but now he volunteered to run on ahead and scout out the terrain. So off he went. We waited for him for 15 long minutes. 15 minutes is rather a long time to contemplate life and death. No, I thought, I should go back. But then T- came back. "It's amazing up there!" he said. You can see the town in the distance. "And the wind?" I asked. "Well, it's bad, but it's only 5 minutes to the top. I'll help you," he said.

I let myself be convinced. And so, T- brought me up to the top. As soon as we got there, the wind literally blew me off my feet, and I had to cling to the ground in order not to be blown away. Such a feeling! Such a force of nature! It was incredible!

V- and R- were huddled behind a tree. I crouched and ran over. T- went back for the others. For what felt like an eternity, we had no word of them. The worst was that the wind was so strong that it was impossible to get to the edge of the ridge and look down. I tried, twice. I was very worried, especially about F-.

Finally, finally, they made it up.

And away we went. Our path led along a ridge. The wind was too strong to walk upright most of the time. The others formed a chain. I did a ninja crouch, and felt super cool. At one point, the wind was too strong to even walk at a crouch. The best we could do was to hug the ground, and close our eyes against the dust being blown up into them.

There was a point when we took a break in a clump of trees. The others were getting tired, worried. So I gave them a speech that basically went like, "Look, we'll be ok, the worst is over. We'll rest here a minute and then keep going." Not that it was obvious that we'd be ok. But you've got to think that, or else you put yourself in more danger.

Slowly, the ridge took us down below the tree line. And we were safe! The only problem would be if the descent became rougher.

After walking for over 4 hours, the path got narrow and began to descend. It wasn't so bad. We were almost at the end. And then, in front of us, we saw another hill rise up, with a path full of switchbacks climbing up. We all looked at this with wide-eyed horrow. I couldn't stand the suspense, so I ran down at full speed. It took me just two minutes to get the rest of the way to the bottom. To my great relief, the real path turned away from the hill, and the tortuous path was marked with an x.

We had finally made it to the city! And we were starving. After searching for a while for an open restaurant, we found one in an alley. But let me say, the food there was absolutely amazing! The plating was beautiful, too.

We got done with dinner around 9:30. It was time to catch a taxi home. So we went to the taxi stand. There was no one there. So we called the number. The phone rang in the taxi stand. No matter. There was a hotel right there. I went in, and was told that we should have ordered a taxi in advance, but he would see what he could do. 45 minutes later, a single taxi pulled up. In the end, this one taxi had to do two trips!

It turned out that in the entire city, there were exactly 5 taxi drivers, and another 5 drivers lived near by. All but one of them were fast asleep.

In any case, the last of us made it home safe and sound by midnight. We celebrated with a bottle of local wine.