A Semester in Fontainebleau, France

Tushar was in Heidelberg for his Thanksgiving break. I visited him for a day and got a chance to meet Karen, his lovely girlfriend. I took the train from Paris Gare de l'est to Mannheim and then from there a short ride to Heidelberg. I arrived there in the evening, after freshening up we went to the Hauptstrasse. It was decorated very beautifully and there were many Christmas markets. Nobody in the world does Christmas markets like the Germans. The vibe was very lively and people were enjoying their gluhwein (hot wine), grilled meats, fries, roasted chestnuts and many other interesting looking delicacies. Below are some of our pictures at the Christmas market. Next day, I went to brunch again with Tushar & Karen, walked some more on the hauptstrasse and had more gluhwein. Then we left for the Frankfurt flughafen as Tushar was flying back to DC. It felt good to see Tushar after 4 months and meet Karen. It felt sad too as I thought I did not get enough time with my

London, November 26-27 Revisited London and then travelled to Cambridge from there. Manoj was giving a talk at LSE and then Cambridge.I did not do much in London as I worked remotely and in the free time decided to go shopping on Oxford Street. My noteworthy observations: 1. We took the Eurostar train to London. The picture below displays the boarding instructions for the Eurostar train from Paris to London. It takes under 2 hours to reach London, the train goes under the English Channel. 2. London is already very decorated for Christmas. In US the decorations go up after thanksgiving. This is the Covent garden Xmas tree and the mall.When we visited London for Christmas in 2017, there were street performers entertaining people in this square, we saw a man performing circus to the famous Queen song  Don't Stop me Now . People looked very happy and the four of us felt happy too, Happiness is contagious. 3. Some beautiful square on the way to covent garden. 4. I wanted