Udine

Got to Udine in Italy and had to start working! Met up with my professor:

The gruelling work begins

The conference was a week long. Every day we would get up, go listen to a whole lot of scientists talking about the awesome stuff they were getting up to with lots of breaks to drink espresso and eat little cakes and ask each other what that last talk had been about and feel cheerfully bewildered. I had a big poster explaining my research which I had to stand beside and field tricky questions about, which is way easier than giving a talk.

Since physicists also enjoy learning about history, we went to Aquileia, a nearby Roman town. They have a church from about 400AD. The guide said that since people couldn't read they had to learn about Christianity through the mosaics, which turned out to be bizarrely abstract. For instance: A turtle is evil (because it can retreat into its shell) and a rooster is good (obviously?) and therefore, Jesus and all that?

DO YOU GET IT NOW?!

 In order to do science and networking well it was necessary that we eat at really nice Italian restaurants and have a huge cake at the end of the conference.

everyone getting excited about the cake!

Took the overnight train to Beograd in Serbia where the next conference is! The overnight train was great if you like constantly being woken up to have your passport stamped for exotic countries like Slovenia and Croatia. Which, okay, I totally do.