America. August 1998

Written by Helger Lipmaa

In August 1998 I had a gorgeous trip to Canada and California. While Canada was not very different from Estonia in nature-wise, California was really exotic. And beautiful. Given that and the fact that I (and my friend and colleague Ahto who joined me in Santa Barbara) met some really wonderful people, I could not have liked it more.

I may add more pictures in the future. And may be I will also add more spice into this story. Just stay tuned :-)

My first stop was in Canada, Kingston where I participated in a workshop Selected Areas in Cryptography (had a paper there to present). It lasted only two days and I didn't see much. The weather was really humid for the first day, it was impossible to breathe. It reflected from the glass buildings in the town that were really wet. The campus was... homely, to say. Everything there was built from limestone. And the campus parks were full of black killer squirrels. After the end of this workshop, I also had a nocturnal excursion in Ottawa, downtown of which is full of skycrapers and fake medievial British castles.
This picture here is taken in Kingston.

The next conference was in Ventura. I travelled by plane from Ottawa to LA. In LA City Bus Center I was confused which bus to take. A random guy picked me up, showed me the correct bus, invited me to his home. Afterwards we went to visit his sister in the hospital and then he gave me a short excursion in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. To finish the long story, he drove me to Ventura. Many thanks, Tim!
In Ventura I lived in a Doubletree hotel in a room with a very good view (see the picture). Once when I went to the backyard, I found the Pacific to be just a hundred meters away. There was the second conference, the First AES Candidate Conference which was organized in a very relaxed manner.

I got to Santa Barbara by a van. The third conference, the conference: CRYPTO '98, where a paper of our people was presented by Ahto who joined me directly after my arrival to SB. We slept in the UCSB campus in a room without bathroom (like everyone else), but the campus itself locates in a very nice place directly next to the Pacific. We had dinners on lawn and some nice excursions and shoppings in Santa Barbara. If you know the soap opera, don't expect to hear the theme melody of "SB" in this city. But the initial picture of "SB" (fake Spanish style villas amongst the palms) will persecute you there 24 hours a day.
After the end of this conference we stayed in SB for some more days to work and relax with Stuart Haber. We also went hiking to the neighbouring mountains (see the pictures).

After that we moved to Orange, a suburb of Los Angeles, to visit Ahto's relatives (Jaan Taagepera and his wife Leann). There was a heat wave in LA at this time, during the first day there it was 40°C! We went to hike in a local wilderness park, had a look at the Balboa island and spent a whole day in Disneyland (see the picture).

After being in Orange for a bit more than 2 days we went further south to San Diego, to visit Jaan's sister Salme Taagepera (a biomed postdoc in UCSD), her husband Bill Ricketts (another biomed postdoc) and their cats (Kullakaru and Kiisu Mints). They live in a really cute, small suburb of San Diego called Del Mar; their appartment is only one block away from the ocean. In this place, we really relaxed (sunbathed, read books), but also saw some beautiful places: the Balboa Park (see the left picture), the old town (the second and the third picture) and La Jolla. I really, really enjoyed my being there; the place was cool, and the family was even cooler.
And we get some excitement. A park we had been hiking in Orange on Monday, burned down on Wednesday (we were in Del mar at this time) --- very hot and dry weather had caused big fires in LA area. In San Diego it was raining during one night, a very rare event in this part of the word in summer, we were told. Weather was affected by a hurricane that was in Northern Mexico, some hundreds kilometers away, at this time.

My first stop was in Canada, Kingston where I participated in a workshop Selected Areas in Cryptography (had a paper there to present). It lasted only two days and I didn't see much. The weather was really humid for the first day, it was impossible to breathe. It reflected from the glass buildings in the town that were really wet. The campus was... homely, to say. Everything there was built from limestone. And the campus parks were full of black killer squirrels. After the end of this workshop, I also had a nocturnal excursion in Ottawa, downtown of which is full of skycrapers and fake medievial British castles. This picture here is taken in Kingston.
The next conference was in Ventura. I travelled by plane from Ottawa to LA. In LA City Bus Center I was confused which bus to take. A random guy picked me up, showed me the correct bus, invited me to his home. Afterwards we went to visit his sister in the hospital and then he gave me a short excursion in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. To finish the long story, he drove me to Ventura. Many thanks, Tim! In Ventura I lived in a Doubletree hotel in a room with a very good view (see the picture). Once when I went to the backyard, I found the Pacific to be just a hundred meters away. There was the second conference, the First AES Candidate Conference which was organized in a very relaxed manner.
I got to Santa Barbara by a van. The third conference, the conference: CRYPTO '98, where a paper of our people was presented by Ahto who joined me directly after my arrival to SB. We slept in the UCSB campus in a room without bathroom (like everyone else), but the campus itself locates in a very nice place directly next to the Pacific. We had dinners on lawn and some nice excursions and shoppings in Santa Barbara. If you know the soap opera, don't expect to hear the theme melody of "SB" in this city. But the initial picture of "SB" (fake Spanish style villas amongst the palms) will persecute you there 24 hours a day. After the end of this conference we stayed in SB for some more days to work and relax with Stuart Haber. We also went hiking to the neighbouring mountains (see the pictures).

After that we moved to Orange, a suburb of Los Angeles, to visit Ahto's relatives (Jaan Taagepera and his wife Leann). There was a heat wave in LA at this time, during the first day there it was 40°C! We went to hike in a local wilderness park, had a look at the Balboa island and spent a whole day in Disneyland (see the picture).
After being in Orange for a bit more than 2 days we went further south to San Diego, to visit Jaan's sister Salme Taagepera (a biomed postdoc in UCSD), her husband Bill Ricketts (another biomed postdoc) and their cats (Kullakaru and Kiisu Mints). They live in a really cute, small suburb of San Diego called Del Mar; their appartment is only one block away from the ocean. In this place, we really relaxed (sunbathed, read books), but also saw some beautiful places: the Balboa Park (see the left picture), the old town (the second and the third picture) and La Jolla. I really, really enjoyed my being there; the place was cool, and the family was even cooler. And we get some excitement. A park we had been hiking in Orange on Monday, burned down on Wednesday (we were in Del mar at this time) --- very hot and dry weather had caused big fires in LA area. In San Diego it was raining during one night, a very rare event in this part of the word in summer, we were told. Weather was affected by a hurricane that was in Northern Mexico, some hundreds kilometers away, at this time.