Such good mathing!

For me, it was the late ‘90s. Probably ‘96 or ‘97- that was the last time I took a math class.  It didn’t go well.  I majored in Literary Studies, and took Algebra for non-math majors.  I didn’t get an A, either.  They had the audacity to teach that class at 8 am, and I was working as a bartender.  Not a real GPA booster, but it did the job… 

Still, today’s trip to the museum of math was very cool.  If math had been presented this way to me in my younger years, I may have actually taken such classes voluntarily.  I may have actually liked the subject.  Cas and I each have our strong suits.  When he has to write a work email, it sends him into frustration, and occasionally, a text message exchange will take his full attention for large blocks of time.  I clearly love writing.  I mean, I am doing it right now!  But put a tricky equation in front of both of us, and my eyes glaze over with confusion, while he looks like a kid who just broke open the piñata.  

Watching someone who sees math as a series of fun puzzles and loves to solve them as he makes his way through a two-story museum of math is kind of great, even if you are lousy at the subject yourself.  I certainly wouldn’t have picked out the National Museum of Mathematics, but going there with Cas is like going to a fabric store with Vera Wang or a butcher shop with Wolfgang Puck.  You just see someone totally in his element, and it is pretty great.  Cas delighted in the exhibits, asked lots of questions of the staff, did a lot of explaining to me and generally had a blast.  We did linger in the gift shop for a while, which is a decidedly un-Cas-like behavior, but I pretty much expected that.  They had math stuff there.  It was a pretty great day.  

We started the day with a sausage roll at an Australian bakery, which was a little unexpected, and certainly very yummy. When you think of Australia, you don’t really conjure up images of pastries, but they do make them in Australia.  The breakfast was very good.  After that, we played with math-y toys for four hours, then we headed to a tapas place.  The breakfast reminded us of our first big trip together, while the lunch reminded us of the last big one before the COVID lockdown took vacations from us for a year.  It was kind of a nice recap.  

We’re stopping mid-day, now for a bottle of wine on our hotel’s 21st floor.  There’s a covered patio up there, and it looks like more rain is on the way for the afternoon.  No worries, though, it is supposed to be clear and pretty by the time we have our 8 pm dinner with Scotty and Lisa.  After that, we come back to the hotel sleep, have a relaxing morning and head to the airport.  We actually changed our flight, as the original one was slated to make two stops.  Changing it cut our travel time in half, though we had to shell out a few bucks for the privilege.  We decided it was worth it- it’s just about time to head back to the house.  Until then, here are some photos.  Enjoy:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/2sYnZaQSheDb6sfJ6