TOOLS 2009

This time it was the TOOLS 2009 conference in Zurich, Switzerland. Adrian and I arrived on a Saturday, without any particular plan for the evening. Many locals suggested us to go to Lucerne because of the first edition of the Lucerne Festival. Adrian managed to convince me to go there, and I have to admit it was a good idea. Plenty of people, plenty of music, plenty of local food and drinks. And right after the sunset, the best fireworks I have ever seen: 25 minutes of pyrotechnic show with lights coming from both sky and lake… Amazing!

All the stereotypes about Swiss precision and efficiency were destroyed in one go on the way back to Zurich. We were supposed to take the train from Lucerne at 2:30, but probably too many people shared with us the same plan. 🙂 The result was kilometric queues on the ticket machines and people packed in trains like in India. The train we took did not even arrive in Zurich, and despite the promises of the railway’s personnel there, no further train came before one hour. In the end, tired of waiting, we took a taxi back to the city.

Well, despite this “original” start, the conference went well. The ETH, which hosted the conference, is located on top of a hill with a spectacular view over the city. The event was well organised and composed by several co-located conferences and workshops. Adrian made a brilliant presentation of our last work “A Diagrammatic Formalisation of MOF-Based Modelling Languages“, and many asked questions. I feel like the goals of our participation in the conference have been all fulfilled. The city was lovely and welcomed us with a great warm summer weather. The food was also great; to eat once more authentic Fondue and Rösti was a pleasure. 🙂

I left Zurich by train on Saturday, and my destination was not Bergen but Tortoreto, my hometown in Italy. The trip home was a sort of odyssey. The train I took in Milan had broken air conditioning system, and I had to stay inside it for five hours with no chance to open the windows. If this was not enough, the catering services of the Italian railways had a strike the very same day, i.e., it was not even possible to buy water! Italy is somehow able to remind me every time that the choice of moving abroad was the right one.