Well, I’m back in Amsterdam, having finally gotten out of the Ukraine. I thought I’d post a number of random observations about the country, the people, and the culture, in addition to posting a bunch of pictures.
Overall, I had a very good trip. The meeting in Chernivtsi, Ukraine went extremely well, and I developed a number of important new contacts, planned new collaborations, and made new friends. I was even surprised to have one of the ‘distinguished founding fathers’ of singular optics, who was presiding the session in which I spoke, stand up and declare that my talk was ‘the best of the conference’ (I was tempted to immediately point at a friend of mine who had spoken before me and shout, “In your face!”, but I didn’t think people would realize I was kidding).
The Ukraine is an interesting country in that it is one that is struggling with modernity and what you might call ‘civil society’. Though of course many people there are good, civilized sorts, there is also below the surface for many people an attitude of ‘every man for himself’ which doubtless comes from a society which has been poor and oppressed for a long, long time.
