The Road to Ensenada
(Above, a photo of Ensenada’s harbor, with cruise ships docked, in the persistent light fog that is shrouding all of SoCal and Baja lately — you can click on it to get a larger image).
Yesterday I gave a magistral conference at CICOMP ’07, in Ensenada, Mexico. This was my first time to Mexico, first time driving through Tijuana, seeing Baja California, etc.
The talk was basically a reworking, in Spanish, of material from other talks centered on A Theory of Fun and game grammar. Given the audience of mostly compsci students, it was mostly new to them. It was fun giving a talk in Spanish — it’s been well over a decade since I had reason to speak the language regularly. I only had to fumble for words a few times.
I have many observations about the experience overall:
- Every country’s professors think their educational system is a disaster and fails to promote creative thinking.
- Students are smart and eager everywhere.
- Seeing Richard Stallman pecking away at a laptop at the deserted little restaurant where I had dinner (he gave the magistral conference the day before I did).
- The cold water knob in the shower did indeed give cold water. So did the hot water knob.
- I need a three-prong to two-prong adapter as standard equipment in my laptop case.
- The crossing from the US to Mexico didn’t even involve slowing down at a booth.
- The crossing from Mexico to the US took hours. Dogs searching, the works. The lines are terrible despite there being like 15 lanes.
- I wasn’t hassled, because I answered in English. The guys driving me were, because they spoke Spanish.
- In fact, the lines are so bad, there’s street vendors selling shaved ice, churros, and souvenirs between the cars.
- No, they’re worse — there were shops on the side of the highway there selling duty free items. They proudly announced “we deliver to your car.” People felt free to just park and go shopping.
- The stark line of “money” at the border is incredibly visible. And it manifests in terms of whether there is grass or just dirt. It takes money to water the ground, and this area is basically arid.
I’ll see about getting the slides posted up soon. Many thanks to UABC for inviting me, especially Daniel Gradilla.
5 Responses to “The Road to Ensenada”
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Yeah, I love Latin America. I gave a talk here in Buenos Aires last weekend, but I punked out and only peppered it with Spanish.
And indeed, my hot water knob also delivered cold water. Then I figured out how to use the gas heater, don’t know if there was a similar accoutrement somewhere in your hotel’s infrastructure.
Oh I plugged Metaplace in your talk btw. Dan Benmergui says hi.
I was there went from Tijuana to Ensenada for the CiComp07 conference and all i can say is that its great to know people like you that even when you have accomplished a lot you are a humble person and thats something that not a lot people have, and all i can say is thanks for a great conference and a good advice with the game MULE.
It’s been a while but when I was down there last I recall another sort of money line south of Ensenada, or maybe south of San Quentin. It manifests itself visibly in the form of lack of pavement in many places in the road. Pavement is one of those things that costs money and is easily taken for granted, eh? Loretto and the yellow tails are a helluva long way from San Diego at 20mph. But like I said, it’s been a while, things may have changed (I hope!)
A very beautiful part of the world, nonetheless. I’ve decided the win condition is to be able to winter there and summer in the pacific northwest. An original idea, yes, but a good one.
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