Nobel 2014 10: PARTY!!!!!

Night 3: The Nobel Awards Banquet – Wednesday December 10, 2014

City Hall is a large stone building surrounding a large courtyard.  When we arrived we queued up outside, having not yet made the turn into the courtyard.  There was a small press contingent outside.  One TV reporter saw Robert and Andrew and made a beeline for them, hoping to get their/our agreement to appear on TV.  This wasn’t something we were interested in doing, so we politely declined and the reporter respectfully backed off.

Standing behind us was a small contingent of Japanese guests (likely there in support of one of the Physics Laureates).  The Japanese press has been a HUGE fixture of these awards.  They have been camped outside the hotel practically 7x24 and whenever they saw anyone vaguely Japanese in appearance there was a minor feeding frenzy.  This time was no different.  One or two cameramen dove through our line, literally pushing Andrew out of the way, and stuck their cameras up the nose of this poor woman.

As we turned the corner into the driveway leading to the courtyard a number of cars bearing the symbol of the Nobel Committee drove past us.  Each Laureate was assigned both an attendant, who is supposed to manage all their scheduling details and accompanied them everywhere, and a car+driver.  We weren’t sure if these were the Laureates arriving or not.  More likely it was other VIP guests, like prior year winners.  In the courtyard we could see lines of children carrying burning torches who were apparently there to light the way for honored guests.  By the time we got inside the courtyard they were apparently done – we saw the torches being collected and the kids trooping away.
We missed seeing the torches lit up, so I grabbed this from the Nobel web site.  If I hadn't told you that, this would have been plagiarism.  Now that I cited it, we can call it research.

As we finally reached the entry doors we once again handed over our invitations and passports as ID.  The Banquet invitations included a barcode which was scanned, and finally we entered City Hall, deposited our coats, made what might be the last bathroom stop until the end of the evening, and found our seats. 

To find your seat, you picked up a small booklet from one of the tables on other side of the lobby.  The booklet was above 50 pages and about the size of those annoying subscription cards that fall out of every magazine you ALREADY subscribe to.
The front section of the book is an alphabetical index where you would find your table and seat number.

The back section had diagrams of each table, showing you exactly where you were located along the table.
If you successfully found your place you were rewarded by finding your place card sitting on your place setting.  If you failed to find your place everyone around you was obligated to shout "NEENER NEENER NEENER" loudly.

We were at table 11, along with Daniel and Stef, Jeff and Lise, Randy (cousin) and Burr and Barb Stewart (Burr is Weo’s best friend from college – they were Best Man at each of the other’s wedding. The table seats 30, so there are others present.

Now, a bit more about the seating.  Table A is the so-called “Table of Honor” seating 100 and it runs down the central spine of City Hall, at the base of the grand staircase.  There are twelve 30-person tables at right angles to either side of the ToH (for a total of 24 more tables).  Finally there are another 40 tables of varying sizes (smallest is 10 people) placed throughout the hall ultimately seating 1300 people.

To serve these 1300 people are 200-250 waiters.  Our table had 4 waiters assigned to it, two on each side.  The waiters closest to the ToH each handle 10 guests, while the other two waiters each only handle 5 guests.  For each activity, whether serving or clearing, the staff all come out in large lines and take their places and wait.  Half of them are facing the Grand Staircase and watching the Head Waiter, the others have their backs to it and are therefore watching the waiter across from them.  At some point the Head Waiter, like a conductor, raises both arms and separates his hands, which is the signal for the waiters to begin serving or clearing.  As a result of this, the timing of service is impeccable.  The waiters move down their line of guests in almost perfect synchronicity.

Given the way we were seated, I’m convinced that the seating team made an error in our case.  Our family of 2 parents and two kids was seated “wrong”, in my opinion.  Andrew, the youngest of our group, was placed across the table from Eileen, me, AND Robert.  At a minimum, I believe they should have (and probably intended to) put the youngest kid between both parents instead of what they did.  But even if they accidentally transposed the names I think they should have put Eileen and I on opposite sides of the table, with one of the boys next to each of us.  Fortunately, even at age 9 Andrew was tremendously comfortable sitting where he was assigned so we decided not to rock the boat and swap the boys around.

At each of our places when we first sat down was a small plate with two kinds of bread, lots of silverware, a small waterglass, 3 wine glasses (ultimately for a champagne with the appetizer, red wine with dinner, and dessert wine), and a covered soup bowl.  The tables also featured some flower decorations and candelabras on the ToH.  We were served champagne – the boys are instead served Pepsi – and we chatted amongst ourselves for a few minutes.  According to the Nobel Banquet website, the “more than 60 tables comprise no fewer than some 7,000 porcelain pieces, 5,400 glasses, and 10,000 items of silverware.”  You know, a typical Tuesday night at our place.

The place settings.  You have to have some place to dump the slop we're going to be served.

The main feature in the room is the Grand Staircase.  There are about 8 steps leading up from the floor, a large landing, and then the stairs turn ninety degrees and continue up from what I’d guess is another 16 steps or so to the upper balcony.  Two trumpet players appeared at the landing and played a fanfare, which was one of the less subtle signals that it was time for all to rise.  The grand entry of the ToH now began, led by the King (who was escorting Medicine Laureate May-Britt Moser, the only female Laureate).  Then the Queen (escorting another Laureate) and so on.  Weo arrived on the arm of Princess Christina, the King’s sister, while Sharon was escorted by the Prime Minister (who, apparently, had just suffered a crushing defeat at the polls within the last couple of days).  The parade was accompanied by orchestra music (live? recorded?  not sure…) and the two trumpets.

The day after the banquet, one of my co-workers had sent an email to my colleagues with a couple of photos of the event that had already been posted to the Nobel website.  I annotated those photos and sent them back to both my family and co-workers so they could get a sense of just where we were.  The first shows the entry of all the Table of Honor folks down the Grand Staircase, while the other shows most of one side of the hall.

The honorees enter, escorted by various members of the royal family and other assorted dignitaries.  C'mon folks.  Sit down.  We're all getting hungry.

Finally, all sat down.  Two traditional toasts were offered.  The President of the Nobel Academy stood and offered a toast to the King.  He literally said “I propose a toast to the King” and then said nothing more.  We stand for this…and stand…and stand.   Not for very long, but basically, we’re all waiting for someone to say “To the King!” or “Mud in your eye!” or something so we can drink…but this isn’t how it’s done.  Having proposed that we toast the King we’re apparently supposed to simply take a drink.  After 8-10 seconds of feeling awkward (and seeing the same thing reflected at other tables) we sheepishly finally all took a drink and sat down.  Now the King rises (and this is the ONLY time he stands and we remain seated) and he proposed a toast to Albert Nobel.  We get how it works now and quietly clink glasses with each other, drink, and sit.

Just chillin' with the gang.
There are a few more minutes of chitchat and then the lights dim.  Two members of the Royal Ballet have appeared up on the landing of the Grand Staircase and perform a modern dance number.  There are 3 such numbers on the program, and it turns out that one will precede each menu course.  We will all debate later whether or not we liked the dances and whether or not we “got them”.  (I liked the last one, not sure I “got” any of them).  The first two dances are set to Beethoven, the last to Van Morrison (!).  Sharon later tells us that one of the ministers at the ToH – clearly someone with opinions about dance – very pointedly turned his back to the second (and only the second) performance and refused to watch.  There were some parts of the second dance which could have been interpreted as symbolizing violence.  Whether that was the reason for the disgusted reaction of that guy or not is unknown.

Dancers from the Royal Ballet perform for our amusement.  Dance, peasants!  Dance!

The first course was “Cream of Cauliflower Soup, mosaic of red king crab, peas and lemon-pickled cauliflower florets”.  Service began with the waiters removing the tops of the covered soup dish to reveal the liquid-less collection of ingredients carefully arranged on the bottom of the bowl.  Then steaming pitchers of cream of cauliflower were poured into each bowl.  My table neighbor Barb was vegetarian, which was one of the dietary restrictions guests were asked to submit several weeks in advance.  As a result of this, her bowl contained something else in place of the “mosaic of red king crab” and she actually got mushroom consommé instead of cream of cauliflower.  We decided that vegetarians were being given a full vegan meal.   The soup is generally judged as “meh”.

All the food photo are courtesy of the Nobel web site.  We were generally too busy eating and enjoying ourselves to take pictures throughout most of the evening.

Despite the high standards of service, there was actually a bit of a mixup during this course.  You may recall that I said that the two waiters supporting our 15-person side of the table split up the work such that one waiter handled 10 people and the other handled 5.  I was the 10th person handled by the first waiter, and when he finished pouring liquid into Robert’s (9th person’s) bowl he left – without giving me any broth!  I quietly mentioned this to the waiter serving Barb when he came out with her mushroom consommé, and eventually I ended up getting mushroom consommé (not the intended cream of cauliflower) poured into my bowl.  I consoled myself with the thought that I probably had a totally unique first course.

The main course was “Spiced loin of red deer, carrot terrine, salt-baked golden beets, smoked pearl onions, potato puree, and game jus”.  The potatoes were brought out in a bowl and were passed around the table, along with sauce bowls.  The rest is served up off a platter to us individually.  Barb’s “meat” is, of course, something else formed to look like the meat filets.  Overall, the main course is excellent.  By the way, we are encouraged to believe that the King has personally hunted and shot the deer for our enjoyment, as this was apparently a tradition at one point.

Yum.  Not shown in this photo were the mashed potatoes that were passed around the table.

Following the clearing of dinner and the 3rd dance interlude, it was time for dessert. The traditional dessert parade began.  The lights go down and the wait staff started a giant two line processional down the Grand Staircase with silver platters on their shoulders.  Each platter, in addition to holding our desserts, also has a giant sparkler on it (an homage to Nobel dynamite) throwing off a shower of sparks.  In an incredible display of timing and showmanship, each sparkler goes out within a couple of steps after the each waiter steps off the last step onto the main floor.  The parade ends with the 4 main chefs, giving all a chance to applaud the food.

Dessert makes a dramatic entry.

We were served “Mousse and sorbet of wild dewberries from Gotland, saffron panna cotta and brown butter sponge cake”.  The sorbet was slightly larger than a golfball, the two mousse balls and two panna cotta balls were all about large melon-ball size, and the two sponge discs were about nickel size.  Dessert was judged excellent.

I'm sure this was all really healthy...but who cares, really?

 Finally, coffee and tea were offered, along with brandy or punsch (some kind of punch-like liqueur) and the Laureate toasts were offered.  This started with a parade of college students, each bearing a flag from their university.  They lined the top section of the Grand Staircase and wrapped around the top section of balcony,  so they were overlooking all the diners.  A toastmaster introduced each speaker.  The toastmaster is a student who holds the role for four years.  This year it was a young lady who had SERIOUS linguistic skills – during the night we would hear her use English, Swedish, French, and Japanese will ease.  As each toaster was introduced, they were escorted by another student up the bottom section of the stairs to a podium on the landing, and were later be escorted back to their seat at the end, during which time the student shook their banners with enthusiasm.

Each discipline had one of the winners offer a toast.  I don’t know how the Chemistry guys decided, but ultimately their toast was be offered by Stefan Hell.  I think tradition says the oldest winner does it, but Weo didn’t feel like he had to insist on doing this.  The Physics guys go first.  Their Japanese-American winner handled the duties, but he still had a thick accent.  His toast was a bit stiff in format – he thanked the Academy and then gave a short “this is why blue LEDs are important, they are great for the environment, they can powered via solar power…so we can bring light to 1.5B people w/o electricity” speech and finally thanked “their colleagues and sponsors”.  Chemistry was next, and Stefan gave a nice little speech that recalled a comment by Schrodinger made 80 years ago during HIS speech that declared that no one would ever be able to see a single molecule “…until one of us, W.E., proved him wrong”.

Then came Medicine, which was delivered by John O’Keefe.  We had been introduced to him a few days prior at breakfast.  He gaves a charming speech, including thanks to the chefs for configuring the dessert in a hexagonal pattern reminiscent of something in their award-winning research.  This evoked a nice laugh…and left us wondering whether the plating of dessert was, indeed, intentionally referring to this.  Frankly, none of us doubted that this was a distinct possibility.

John appeared to be laboring slightly in his speech – his breathing appeared a bit strained.  It turned out that he had a horrible upper-respiratory infection and his participation in the next day’s “Nobel Minds” TV taping and the private dinner with the King and Queen was questionable.  (In fact, he would miss both of them due to illness).  His week of post-award travel around the country had already been cancelled as he was too ill to continue and would, in fact, fly home a week earlier to receive additional medical care.  A shame!

Finally, both the Literature and Economics winners spoke.  They both spoke in French so the details were lost on us.  I assume they were telling dirty jokes.

Dinner and speeches done, the music started up again, all rose, and the ToH retreated up the stairs.  For the Steins, the night was over.  We were not going to go upstairs for dancing.  Instead, we picked up our coats and boarded the bus (we were now back to our luxury buses) for the ride back to the hotel.  Had we been able to stay we could have gone upstairs for a couple of hours of dancing.  S&W and other Laureates got a quick private audience with the King.

All the Chemistry winners with wives, plus King and Queen.  I think they're going bowling after this.

Several in Weo’s group (including S&W, Daniel and Stef) also attended the post-Banquet “Nobel Nightcap”, which is a private (i.e. no press) party hosted each year by a different university.  I’m not sure the details of this year, but as a student-organized thing booze and loud music figure prominently.  S&W had intended to spend no more than 20 minutes there, but it turned out that a friend of Daniel’s from college was part of the organizing committee and was assigned to them as their “Ambassador”.  That definitely made the experience more enjoyable for them and they ended up getting back to the hotel around 230A as a result.

What happens next?  Tune into the next episode by selecting another page from the "2014 Nobel" menu, above.  These instructions cheerfully supplied as a public service for those who haven't won a Nobel Prize.

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