Blogging to you from the lobby of Hotel Belarus, after a hard day of watching 90-something of the world’s smartest people think their brains out. As I type this, the U.S. team is five feet away, cooling off with a four-way card game of tichu, whatever that is. Wei-Hwa Huang, one of the stars of the American team, seems relaxed, maybe even happy — he smiles for the first time since I’ve met him. Meanwhile, behind them, three Italians push cardboard squares around a card table, still working on the manipulative/spatial puzzle they weren’t able to complete within the time limit earlier today. Two of the Brits I just ate dinner with amble over to the Americans and begin talking “mutant sudoku” with Thomas Snyder, the current World Sudoku Champion.
My computer is once again about to run out of batteries, and so I once again revert to default-lazy-blogger-mode, also known as
- bullet points!
And so, also of note:
- My luggage finally arrived, so I am now wearing deodorant and a clean pair of socks. Other people stand near me again.
- The first day of the 2 main days of competition is complete. They’ve only scored the early-morning round so far; through that first part, American Roger Barkan is tied for first with 2-time World Champ Niels Roest of the Netherlands. The Americans as a team are 2nd, behind the Germans. It is rumored, however, that, like in World Wars, they finish strong.
- (Is it wrong to make a World War joke at the expense of Germans?)
- I still have not left the hotel since arriving. I feel like a Vegas tourist. On the bright side, I haven’t been arrested by former KGB agents for jay-walking yet. I think tomorrow, during one of the long individual pencil-and-paper rounds (which aren’t the most exciting, journalistically/observationally speaking), I’ll do a round around Minsk.
