Hi everyone!
Well, it's the third day of the neuro conference, and I've finally got email working on my computer :). Edith and I had a really good trip from Toulouse via Frankfurt, and arrived here in Vancouver on Saturday afternoon (local time). The time difference here is 9hrs behind France, so the aternoons have been the worst for jetlag with it being Europe's wee hours of the morning, but I think maybe I'm almost accustomed to the new time zone.
It was so great to see the people from my NZ lab here - Alison, Vanina and Kyle. But at the same time I'm with people from the lab in Toulouse, so am speaking french and english about half the time each and finding it really weird to have the two 'science lab' worlds I have been a part of (France and NZ) mixing in yet another country - Canada! I'm really enjoying the conference - it being the first scientific conference I've been to. Every day I'm meeting many really interesting and friendly people. Some of the presentations are fascinating too. One in particular that we heard on the first day was about long-distance migration in sea turtles (loggerhead and greenback) from north america, and how the turtles use the earth's geomagnetic field to orientate themselves and determine the direction they swim in. Not only was the presentation of the research really really well done, but the way they did the experiments!! SOOOOOOOOO cute - baby hatchlings, if you suspend them in a wee sling (like a swimsuit) and move them through the air, they think that they're in water, and they "swim"!! In the air! Oh, it was gorgeous. They even stop every so often to lift their heads and "breathe"!!! It was fabulous. One other one I went to yesterday was also really interesting and had found some fascinating things about neuronal processing in Xenopus (frogs), but the manner of experimentation made me understand just why there is the reputation of 'mad' scientist; the protocol was called "Singing brain in a dish" preparation. Really, it was EXACTLY as the name suggests!! Incredible, but TOTALLY bizarre!!
The past two days have been non-stop conference, even evening sessions, so I haven't even left the UBC (University of British Columbia) campus since arriving in Vancouver. Not that the campus isn't well equipped - there are even 2 Starbucks places on site! But I'm looking forward to seeing a bit of this beautiful place too. It had been grey and rainy since we arrived until yesterday when suddenly the sun came out and the clouds lifted - and we could see the mountains! I'm really loving being back by the sea and in a place with mountains, and am getting more and more excited about returning home to NZ's stunning scenery next week.
Last night a group of us went down to the beach after the evening lecture, and saw the end of the sunrise. I went paddling too - back in the Pacific ocean. It strikes me that Scientific conferences are just like Science camps I went to during high school - particularly Genesis in Auckland for 2 weeks; you meet people very randomly, stay up late talking about all sorts of things (usually NOT science), people often sleep through the lectures, and we all get to wear nametags :). The level of science is of course worlds above high school, but the similarities are striking! I love meeting people randomly like that though. The group of us at the beach last night were all people I'd known for max 1 day, minimum 2 minutes!! Sayako from Japan, Mark from California/Panama, Kim from Texas, Matthew from England, and myself.
Yesterday I caught up with John Hale as well - a friend from Ceroc in Dunedin who is here doing a postdoc in Microbio at UBC. It was great to see him - hopefully I'm going to go check out Vancouver Ceroc on Saturday night. This afternoon there is no conference stuff, so we're going to do a bit of sightseeing, and tonight there is an international competition of fireworks over the harbour.
I'll let you know more of the fantastical things I'm learning about here over the next few days.
Love and God bless,
Lisa
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