A Return to Los Angeles (the March 2011 Version)
I fly back from Rome to LA tomorrow. I have been in "old Europe" for 2.5 weeks now and it is now time to return. My mind is clear and I'm eager to get back to work again. I owe work for several co-authors and I apologize for being a bum. To reduce academic leisure, I propose that everyone's tenure should be revoked and we should all have to earn our privileges again.
My dad always asks me; "what have you learned recently son?" So, What have I learned in Europe?
1. In Maastricht, Holland -- the people are tall and the food is good. You will not find a Starbucks there. If you look for coffee at a "Koffee House" you will meet drugged out dudes eager to sell you "weed". I didn't buy any.
2. There are many places to buy beer in Maastricht and the beer is good.
3. Maastricht University has many serious economists and I greatly enjoyed talking to them. You should read the work of Piet Eichholtz and Nils Kok.
At the Green Real Estate Conference, I talked and talked some more. Several of my U.S friends were there (Max Auffhammer, Erin Mansur, Howard Chong, Dwight Jaffee, John Quigley, Grant Jacobson) and old friends such as Henry Overman and Yongheng Deng were also participating in the conference. My favorite wife was also in attendance and without our son around we had the chance to talk to each other. We had dinner together in a cave in an old Castle and we drank a lot of high quality wine.
4. The International Herald Tribune is a pretty good newspaper.
5. There is an airline called "Ryanair" and I don't fit into their seats. When the plane lands, they play a celebration bugle that matches the sound of the start of a horse race and everyone on the plane cheers that they are safe and alive. Pretty strange!
6. At European airports, there is no gate for loading you into the plane; you disembark from a steep staircase that I was worried I would slip on.
We miss Los Angeles. I miss the modern showers and the smells of Spring but I am a big fan of Europe and hope to return soon.
For my friends at UCLA who actually expect that I will do what I promised I would do (and I can't remember what I promised to do), I will be very busy the next couple of months. I am refreshed and ready to work very hard again.
My dad always asks me; "what have you learned recently son?" So, What have I learned in Europe?
1. In Maastricht, Holland -- the people are tall and the food is good. You will not find a Starbucks there. If you look for coffee at a "Koffee House" you will meet drugged out dudes eager to sell you "weed". I didn't buy any.
2. There are many places to buy beer in Maastricht and the beer is good.
3. Maastricht University has many serious economists and I greatly enjoyed talking to them. You should read the work of Piet Eichholtz and Nils Kok.
At the Green Real Estate Conference, I talked and talked some more. Several of my U.S friends were there (Max Auffhammer, Erin Mansur, Howard Chong, Dwight Jaffee, John Quigley, Grant Jacobson) and old friends such as Henry Overman and Yongheng Deng were also participating in the conference. My favorite wife was also in attendance and without our son around we had the chance to talk to each other. We had dinner together in a cave in an old Castle and we drank a lot of high quality wine.
4. The International Herald Tribune is a pretty good newspaper.
5. There is an airline called "Ryanair" and I don't fit into their seats. When the plane lands, they play a celebration bugle that matches the sound of the start of a horse race and everyone on the plane cheers that they are safe and alive. Pretty strange!
6. At European airports, there is no gate for loading you into the plane; you disembark from a steep staircase that I was worried I would slip on.
We miss Los Angeles. I miss the modern showers and the smells of Spring but I am a big fan of Europe and hope to return soon.
For my friends at UCLA who actually expect that I will do what I promised I would do (and I can't remember what I promised to do), I will be very busy the next couple of months. I am refreshed and ready to work very hard again.
posted by Matthew E. Kahn at 8:59 AM
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