Bochum

This week I was in Bochum. Bochum is an old mining town a little bit south and a lot west of Berlin. Before I went, as I said, all I knew about Bochum was that the university looks like a spaceship, and that it's famous for musicals. The uni does look like a spaceship, but it's only famous for 1 musical (Starlight Express). It's been playing there since 1989 in the same theatre. There was even a statue of it in our hotel. There's also a subway station that looks like a coal mine. That's pretty much Bochum, not an aweful city, but nothing very exciting, either.

What was exciting, though, was the microbiology conference I was there for. This was a huge conference (compared to the other 2 conferences I've been to) - 1300 attendees, more than 600 posters, and something like 130 talks all up. There were sometimes 7 different programs in parallel, so nobody could possibly go to all the talks! It was pretty full on, so I didn't even get to work the trade exhibit for freebees, just a couple handfuls of pens. I also went into the wrong lecture hall at one point, and had to sit through the annual meeting of some society (in German), complete with voting for... something... or someone... Another highlight was the organ (like in a church) in the lecture theatre. There's something very strange about combining microbiology and organ music.

 

After all that excitement, I came back to Potsdam on Wednesday on a superfast train (250km/h). I've been hanging out for this weekend - need to catch up on quite a bit of sleep from the last 3 or 4 weeks.

Hope you are all well.

Adam

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Hi,

I'm sorry I've been so slack with keeping in touch, I'll try harder next week. But now I've got to try to remember the last 3 weeks. I'm having trouble putting them in the right order, so I'm just going to put everything out of order, if that's OK.

I went sledding with a couple of friends the other day. It had s

nowed quite a lot for the week, but the Friday we decided to go had warmed up a bit, and it had rained quite a lot so the snow was quiet slushy. Slush is not acceptable for sledding, so we waited till about 10pm when it cooled down enough for the snow to become a bit more solid. We went to the biggest mountain in Potsdam/Spandau (a suburb of Berlin) (took about 10min to walk to the summit). 

Then proceeded to spend the next 3-4 hours walking up and sledding down. Needless to say, I felt it the next day!

Also went to a movie in the Berlinale (big, famous, film festival). Saw a kiwi movie called The Strength of Water - was very cool to hear thick "Northland accents". The director was there, and had questions and answers afterwards. A bit bizarre walking out of the theatre after watching Northland scenery for 2h into thick falling snow. Highly recommend the movie if you get the chance.

But the snow's days are numbered, I believe. It's definitely warmer, all the snow on the ground has melted. A few of us from work went iceskating last weekend, and the ice was kind of melting a bit,  I think it was the last weekend that ice rink was open. There are even buds on the trees, so spring must be just around the corner.

What's also just around the corner is a presentation I'm giving tomorrow morning (just to out lab group). I'm going to conference on the other side of Germany (in Bochum) next week, and giving the same short talk there. All the Germans look a bit sorry for me when I tell them where I'm going - but I have been told that the university looks like a space ship, and that it's the place to go in Germany if you like musicals, so it can't be all bad... Anyway, I'd better go to bed to get a good night's sleep before my presentation tomorrow.

Hope you are all well. Love hearing what you're up to! Yes, really!

Adam