Prague
Wow I'm behind. I would say I'm slowly catching up on blogs that I haven't read in the past few months, only I'd be lying. There's no way I can possible read all the stuff that has been written. I just don't have the time. So I apologize and if there's anything I'm supposed to know, please do tell me. Email or comment here.
I've also decided I've been really bad at keeping up with my blog. As FourFeathers pointed out, I've told people that they can look here to find out what I've been up to. And then I haven't written in ages. FourFeathers, I am going to start keeping this more up-to-date. And I'll even write about events that have passed.
I went to Prague for an international conference in mass spectrometry IMSC2006. It's held only every few years. Next time, it's in Japan if anyone wants to go to Kyoto with me. I'm hoping to be able to go myself.
First about the conference. It's significantly smaller than it's american counterpart, having only about 2000 people there. The american one has oh... probably 5-10 x more people. I'm not kidding. The number of posters there is just too much to get through. This one was better. They had a plenery lecture first thing then posters, then four or five talks (and you could chose the topic as there were parallel sessions). Then lunch, more posters and then another set of parallel sessions. Wednesday they left the afternoon pretty much open for free tours that were included in the price of the registration. Never had anything like that at the american one. They had tea and coffee and usually some biscuits or cakes and apples and pears. It was nice. I really enjoyed it. Next time though, more networking has to be done. I didn't really do much of it this time as I'm not really in need of more people to forget. And I was in the completely wrong mindset. But that's alright. Next time.
Prague is beautiful if you ever have a chance to go. I've started with a Flickr account for uploading pictures. I haven't put any of the Prague ones on it yet because I haven't even downloaded my camera with Edinburgh, nevermind Prague. I'll have to get on that.
Prague has two very bizarre 'castles' if you can call them that. One looks more like a palace on a hill and the other looks like a fortification and I was never able to find the actual castle inside. But wow, they're amazing. We even went into a cemetary which holds famous Czechs (although my knowledge of them is rather limited) and even more interesting was the fact that on some of the tombstones, there were many names. Apparently you could buy a plot and then generations of your family could be buried there. I don't know the logistics of how they do that, but it's interesting.
Prague also has a section called the Jewish quarter which for the most part, has historical significance to the times when the Jews were pushed into living in slum areas and were only allowed to do jobs that were deemed 'dirty' like lending money. The interesting thing was that the population of Jews in the Czech Republic is somewhere around 6000. In Prague around 1500. That is, the ones that are known. There is a likelihood that some didn't really want to be known for their religion.
And talk about a tumultuous time with religion. Catholic, Protestant, Catholic, Protestant, Protestant, Catholic, Communist, and now mostly Atheist and Agnostic with a bit of Protestant and the minority Catholic and Jewish. Needless to say they are proud of the fact they threw off the catholic veil before protestants were known as protestants.
The city centre is really beautiful. There are a lot of narrow streets all cobblestone with small shops where you can buy lots of amazing things like marionettes and the sets of little wooden dolls that open up and hide inside each other. I never did know what they were called. There is also a lot of music to be heard and performances to be seen. Most churches had musical performances in the evenings and there were some places that had proper operas in them. Plus, Prague is apparently known for blacklight theatre whch is a theatre style using black lights to do some sort of abstract theatre show, or a normal theatre show (like the 30 min presentation on the history of Prague). It's a great concept which uses the tricks of the eye to make a wonderful show.
The other thing that Prague was good for was food and drink. Wow, delicious and tasty. This coming from a girl who may have German blood but clearly forgot the beer gene. I actually drank beer while I was there. No kidding! And they know how to cook. I mean I haven't eaten that much meat in ages, so I was struggling a bit with digestion but it was AMAZING. They actually can cook and they have a great style of cuisine as well. Goulash, pork, potatoe or bread dumplings, cabbage, bread, salads. And of course a great digestive aid, Becherovka which essentially is a hard hitting, alcoholic drink which is made of herbs (well actually cinnamon and nutmeg were all I could taste).
All in all the experience was fantastic. I was really glad to come home though. I thought I put on at least 5 pounds in one week. I was afraid of what might happen if I stayed longer.
I've also decided I've been really bad at keeping up with my blog. As FourFeathers pointed out, I've told people that they can look here to find out what I've been up to. And then I haven't written in ages. FourFeathers, I am going to start keeping this more up-to-date. And I'll even write about events that have passed.
I went to Prague for an international conference in mass spectrometry IMSC2006. It's held only every few years. Next time, it's in Japan if anyone wants to go to Kyoto with me. I'm hoping to be able to go myself.
First about the conference. It's significantly smaller than it's american counterpart, having only about 2000 people there. The american one has oh... probably 5-10 x more people. I'm not kidding. The number of posters there is just too much to get through. This one was better. They had a plenery lecture first thing then posters, then four or five talks (and you could chose the topic as there were parallel sessions). Then lunch, more posters and then another set of parallel sessions. Wednesday they left the afternoon pretty much open for free tours that were included in the price of the registration. Never had anything like that at the american one. They had tea and coffee and usually some biscuits or cakes and apples and pears. It was nice. I really enjoyed it. Next time though, more networking has to be done. I didn't really do much of it this time as I'm not really in need of more people to forget. And I was in the completely wrong mindset. But that's alright. Next time.
Prague is beautiful if you ever have a chance to go. I've started with a Flickr account for uploading pictures. I haven't put any of the Prague ones on it yet because I haven't even downloaded my camera with Edinburgh, nevermind Prague. I'll have to get on that.
Prague has two very bizarre 'castles' if you can call them that. One looks more like a palace on a hill and the other looks like a fortification and I was never able to find the actual castle inside. But wow, they're amazing. We even went into a cemetary which holds famous Czechs (although my knowledge of them is rather limited) and even more interesting was the fact that on some of the tombstones, there were many names. Apparently you could buy a plot and then generations of your family could be buried there. I don't know the logistics of how they do that, but it's interesting.
Prague also has a section called the Jewish quarter which for the most part, has historical significance to the times when the Jews were pushed into living in slum areas and were only allowed to do jobs that were deemed 'dirty' like lending money. The interesting thing was that the population of Jews in the Czech Republic is somewhere around 6000. In Prague around 1500. That is, the ones that are known. There is a likelihood that some didn't really want to be known for their religion.
And talk about a tumultuous time with religion. Catholic, Protestant, Catholic, Protestant, Protestant, Catholic, Communist, and now mostly Atheist and Agnostic with a bit of Protestant and the minority Catholic and Jewish. Needless to say they are proud of the fact they threw off the catholic veil before protestants were known as protestants.
The city centre is really beautiful. There are a lot of narrow streets all cobblestone with small shops where you can buy lots of amazing things like marionettes and the sets of little wooden dolls that open up and hide inside each other. I never did know what they were called. There is also a lot of music to be heard and performances to be seen. Most churches had musical performances in the evenings and there were some places that had proper operas in them. Plus, Prague is apparently known for blacklight theatre whch is a theatre style using black lights to do some sort of abstract theatre show, or a normal theatre show (like the 30 min presentation on the history of Prague). It's a great concept which uses the tricks of the eye to make a wonderful show.
The other thing that Prague was good for was food and drink. Wow, delicious and tasty. This coming from a girl who may have German blood but clearly forgot the beer gene. I actually drank beer while I was there. No kidding! And they know how to cook. I mean I haven't eaten that much meat in ages, so I was struggling a bit with digestion but it was AMAZING. They actually can cook and they have a great style of cuisine as well. Goulash, pork, potatoe or bread dumplings, cabbage, bread, salads. And of course a great digestive aid, Becherovka which essentially is a hard hitting, alcoholic drink which is made of herbs (well actually cinnamon and nutmeg were all I could taste).
All in all the experience was fantastic. I was really glad to come home though. I thought I put on at least 5 pounds in one week. I was afraid of what might happen if I stayed longer.