Amsterdam Derivatives

I visited the Symposium Amsterdam Derivatives (friend had told me about that). Yes, it was about financial derivatives, not those from mathematical analysis. It was also for the first time I have visited Amsterdam (though this time I didn't manage to have a look around).

They said the stock exchange in Amsterdam was actually the first in Europe, nice. The building, where it took place - Beurs van Berlage - indeed looked ancient :-D There were 5 speakers, 2 of them mathematicians. Wow, it was a great feeling being a mathematician there - a strange kind of respect to you from the others... (I wonder, how the 2 speakers-mathematicians must have felt; but probably they are used to...). I liked the dynamic atmosphere of the event; on the other hand, quite some people seemed rather superficial to me...
I had to learn to tie a tie...I wonder how the result looked like to the other people.

On the way back, I met two Polish physicists (working in Poland in hospitals) staying in Utrecht for a series of lectures in their field (some kind of radiological therapy).