back from New York

A greatly enjoyable [if a wee bit tight] visit to Columbia University for my  seminar last Monday! (And a reasonably smooth trip if I forget about the screaming kids on both planes…!) Besides discussing with several faculty on our respective research interests, and explaining our views on replacing Bayes factors and posterior probabilities, views that were not strongly challenged by the seminar audience, maybe because it sounded too Bayesiano-Bayesian!, I had a great time catching up (well, almost!) with Andrew, running for one hour by the river both mornings, and even biking—does not feel worse than downtown Paris!—with Andrew a few miles to a terrific tiny Mexican restaurant in South Bronx, El Atoradero where I had a home-made tortilla (or pupusa) filled with beans and covered with hot chorizo! (The restaurant was selected as the 2014 best Mexican restaurant in New York City by The Village Voice, whatever that means. And also has a very supportive review in The New York Times.) It was so good I (very exceptionally) ordered a second serving of spicy pork huarache, which was almost as good. And kept me well-fed till the next day, when I arrived in Paris. And with enough calories to fight the cold melted snow that fell when biking back to the office at Columbia. I also had an interesting morning in a common room at Columbia, working next to graduate students and hearing their conversations about homeworks and advisors (nothing to gossip about as their comments were invariably laudatory!, maybe because they suspected me of being a mole!)