Formal Methods 2006

Hamilton, Canada

August 21st

After some small and usual delay using the railways, I checked in and passed all customs, which took me over two hours. Some time later, we were allowed to board the plane. I was lucky to have a window-seat in the airplane (almost the last one in my section), which gave me a nice view of Amsterdam while take off. When the coast line appeared, there were six hours of blue ocean and white clouds in front of me. 
Once we had reached the coast of Quebec, the sky was clear and the view was quite spectacular. Large lakes and barely connected pieces of land alternated each other. A long straight road was the only interruption. It did not seem to go anywhere and did not seem to have an origin. Turns were apparently useless when nothing was in the way. 
The landing went smooth and apart from some fruit I had to throw away at the customs, everything went fine (never tell Canadian customs you have something eatable in your bags).

A small taxi bus drove us to the university in Hamilton. On our way, the most important difference between the Canadian and Dutch way of living became apparent: space. Everything seemed to have been build bigger. Especially the roads. Unfortunately, due to some work on the road, there was a lot of traffic jam. With an hour delay, we arrived at the McMaster university.

August 22nd

Waking up extremely early in the morning due to the time difference, I had plenty of time to get up and join the 'continental breakfast' that was part of the conference when staying at one of the residences. The main ingredient of the breakfast appeared to be some kind of donut-shaped bread, which was quite tough and sweet. Thankfully there was also plenty of fruit and croissants to allay my hunger. 

Although technically the conference had already started on Monday (21st), the technical symposium was not to start until Wednesday, which allowed me to join an excursion to the Niagara Falls, that was set up by the conference organization. About twenty people joined the excursion. A small group, which made it a very informal and pleasant trip. We first visited the whirlpool, which was fed by the water from the falls. Then we went to see the falls themselves for the rest of the afternoon. They were very impressive. Especially the one on the Canadian side (the image on the right shows the fall on the US side).

In the evening I went to the reception at the university 'faculty club'. The food and drinks were nice, but the atmosphere was still a bit static. I guess the conference hadn't really started yet for most people, or most people were still tired of a long flight.

August 23rd

Today was the first day of the technical symposium. The so-called industry day. So the focus was on formal methods in industry. This gave quite a lot of nice talks. Especially the invited talks were very nice (Tom Henzinger and Ernie Cohen). I was able to understand all of the talks, despite of (most likely) some lacking technical background. The conference itself and the lunch and coffee breaks were very informal. One can easily start a chat with anyone else on the conference. No formal introductions or formal clothing. That made the atmosphere very pleasant and relaxed. And of course enabled me to meet a lot of people.

To the left I have put an image of one of the lectures. This one was given by Peter Lindsay (who was staying in the room next to mine). The lectures on the conference were given in two lecture rooms of which this is one (or at least part of one).

After the technical symposium (17:30) I went to see some of the falls in Hamilton. I decided to walk there, which was about 16 kilometers, but well worth it. I think I have visited more falls in one evening than I had seen for the past few years. During my walk I was able to get a good look of Hamilton and its surroundings. Some Canadian people I had a conversation with even wanted a picture together with me, since they had never seen a Dutch guy before.

August 24th

Today was the second day of the conference. The talks were still very interesting (not all of them of course, but most talks). The focus was much more on research. After the lunch break, there was only a short program left, since there was an excursion and a banquet afterward. These were not included in the student registration, so I decided to visit some more falls (there were still plenty more to see). What surprised me most when walking in Canada are the wild animals. There are so many more of them, that you practically see a squirrel, chipmunk, deer, badger or woodpecker every few steps you take. Especially squirrels are extremely common in all sizes, shapes and colors. They ran across the campus, popped up in parks where they ate left-overs and they sometimes even ran past you in groups while chasing each other.

The image on the right is one of the falls I have visited.

August 25th

Today was the last day of the technical symposium. Again a lot of nice lectures. Around the lunch break I took some time to 'fine-tune' the sheets for the presentation I have to give tomorrow and then went back to hear the last presentation and the closing remarks.

After the symposium I joined Marcel (Verhoef), Peter (Gorm Larsen), Shin (Sahara) and John (Fitzgerald) in a nice Canadian-Lebanese dinner. 

August 26th

Today was the big day for me. The workshop was divided into 30 minutes time slots in the morning and 15 minutes time slots in the afternoon. My presentation was scheduled second in one of the 30 minutes time slots. Which was very nice, since then you can enjoy the rest of the workshop, instead of being nervous all day long. The workshop consisted of about 20 to 30 people. My presentation went well, judging from the positive responses I got. So I was able to enjoy the rest of the workshop that posed some surprising solutions for formal method teaching.
After the workshop I had dinner with Kees Pronk in an Italian restaurant. But the only Italian there, was the fact that they served pizzas and pasta. The dinner was nice though, but far too much food for a person like me.

To the left and to the right are two images taken by Marcel Verhoef during my presentation

August 27th

Today was the last day of the conference. Or in fact, most of the conference had been finished. So I joined the last talks and quickly visited the Royal Botanic Gardens, which were said to be the largest of Canada. And indeed they were extremely large (far too much to visit on one day).

August 28th

I had already packed my bags yesterday and so I had enough time until a mini van would pick us up and bring us back to the airport. At 10 am, the van arrived and we drove back to the airport, being sorry we had to leave Canada behind. On the airport we had to wait for about five hours until our flight would depart. The custom checks were even more strict than in Holland, but we had plenty of time anyway. The flight back went smooth.
Back home again, the cold weather and a lot of rain welcomed us. If I could have taken the plane back, I would have done so.

I would like to thank especially Frits Vaandrager for making this visit to the conference possible. I would also like to thank my fellow students in Analysis of Embedded Systems, with whom I have written the paper.