Last Tuesday I took leave of my French lessons and home-cooking for a couple of days, as our project headed off for a 3 day seminar at Piriac-Sur-Mer, a small town on the South coast of Brittany between Nantes and Vannes. On the Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday Morning and Thursday morning, we had technical sessions with talks, of which I presented one and co-presented another. They were good, but everyone except me spoke very rapid French, much of which I didn't catch. This was especially true for the subsequent discussions, which were predictably active, with speakers and contexts switching rapidly. It all made for a pretty tiring time, but still interesting.

On Wednesday afternoon we did some tourism, visiting the mediaeval town of Guérande, apparently famous for its salt production, going for a walk along the coast, and stopping for a beer at some town whose name I didn't catch. The evenings were filled with games of babyfoot/fußball/table-soccer (as dictated by your mother-tongue). Babyfoot is easier to understand than discussions of computer system modelling, so were good for relieving translation-fatigue.