goal

I just got back from the Holland Club. This is the Imperial College pub, on campus and wildly popular. It's a nice change from Grenoble and, especially, Utah where socializing was not on the official agenda. It's a place for students, staff and faculty to mingle and have a few cheap beers. So cheap, in fact, that when I paid for the gang earlier, I was convinced the chick at the counter had mad a mistake. She hadn't – Imperial had subsidized my drinks.

Most have probably realized that cheap is relative. In this particular case it means that the beer is cheaper by far than anyplace else (except the Shepherd's Bush Green pub). It is unfortunately not any better. That's something that has been bugging me for a while. I have discovered that English beer doesn't slide down my palate like an otherworldly delicacy. Instead, I tend to order Czech beer, which is widely available. No matter where you get it, it is inevitably worse that what you can buy in Germany or the Czech Republic. It always tastes sweet and far from fresh, as if someone had tapped it through a hose coated with caramel. Yuck.

Nevertheless, when it's beer drinking time, it's beer drinking time. Today, it started after an in-house symposium that ended with plenty of beer and wine. We were in the building where the talks were held when the fire alarm sounded and shooed everyone outside, straight onto the Queen's lawn. As it was a nice day, we just grabbed another beer before leaving the building and continued the party outside. I had abscond for a moment to finish a few things in lab before rejoining the merry crowd right before it readied itself to move to the Holland Club.

We went to see the Champions League final. Manchester United was playing Chelsea. Some other team against the locals, for those with benevolence in their hearts. Others mights say new money (raiding Russia in the 90s – Abramovich and Chelsea) against old money (Glazer and ManU). Whatever it was, it was a good game. The things Cristiano Ronaldo does with the ball are stunning. If he learned to score penalties, he'd be a great, and if he played for another team but Portugal, he'd have a good chance at winning in a month. He missed what seemed like a decisive penalty, but ManU still won, because Chelsea missed even more. Someone should tell them that it takes more than one German to be safe in penalties.

In any case, I didn't care much about the score. It was just nice to be out with friends, have a few beers and discuss random things. We'll get serious when the Eurocup starts on June 7th. And then I really need the Germans to score.