What would it take to change US cars and drivers?

In one of my early posts, I mentioned the huge diversity of small, fuel-efficient cars here and how they seem to be designed to be useful - many hatchbacks, lots able to tow trailers, etc... Why don't these same cars exist in the U.S.?

We sold the Accord before we left since it was 15 yrs old and no longer fit our family (you should've seen poor Keya smooshed in the back seat...). Jubin and I have been talking about what kind of used car we'll look for when we return home and there are so few options to us! Criteria: 5 doors, good mileage (which is relative of course, but min of 25 mpg), less than 100k miles, and relatively cheap. Not many makes and models out there... So, why can't we buy these cool UK cars in the US? Market demand and the way that our markets are socially constructed, right? Ok, so what would change this situation? 

There was a used car for sale today on the Belfast a version of craigslist called a Vauxwell Astra 1.6 Twinport, which gets about 40 mpg combined city/hwy (you can click here to see a pick of a new one: http://www.vauxhall.co.uk/vehicles/vauxhall-range/cars/new-astra/overview.html). Note that this car is NOT a hybrid, it is NOT the most fuel efficient car in its class here, and it can tow over 2000 lbs (obviously with lower mileage!). The cars in the US don't even come close to this mileage... Anyway, the Astra's fuel tank is 13.67 gallons = 62 liters. Guess how much to fill the tank here in Belfast? Come on, take a guess!

Ok, I'll tell you...it costs 1.29 GBP per liter. So, that's 80 GBP to fill that tank, which is about $120. That's right, $120 to fill a 13.7 gal tank of gas. 

That's about double the amount I was paying to fill up our CRV every approximately 10 days to 2 weeks in Lansing (about $50/fill up). Now, the CRVs gas tank is about the same size at 12.8 gallons (58 liters) so it would cost me 75 GBP to fill it here, or $112 - more than double what I pay in the US.  Do you think that if gas prices in the US doubled, the consumers would change their behaviors enough to alter the cars being marketed there? I'm thinking maybe yes.

And, our CRV only averages about 20 mpg. So, to drive the same number of miles in the 2 cars, I would need to fill the CRV up almost 1.8X as often as I would the Astra (half the mpg, but a bit bigger tank). 

Let's play a little numbers game. The average person my age in the US drives 1250 miles per month (yikes! compared to my ~700, that is CRAZY!). If we use that number of miles and and the Belfast gas price of $8.79 per gallon, then in the Astra I would pay $275 per month and in the CRV I would pay $550 per month. Wow. Personally, I cannot imagine paying that each month! Do you think that people in the US would stop driving so much and would lobby for public transit if gas was almost $9 per gallon? I know that I would! 

Jamieson is very mobile!

Jamie is SOOO close to walking...Here are some pix of him pushing the toddler chair around the kitchen (he uses it like a walker, either on his knees or walking), standing unassisted, doing the stairs all by himself (up and down, up and down), etc... We thought that he'd be walking in mid-Oct, becuase he was so close to it then, but he appears to be a bit of a perfectionist. He doesn't want to let go and do it on his own until he is really ready. So, it is now mid-Nov and he is still SOOOO close. He spends all of his time walking around the walls, furniture, anything he can put a hand on to steady himself, and then he gets upset when he finally has to plop down and crawl. Soon, soon...

2 minute video of Jamie going up and down the stairs: http://youtu.be/60ZLMrxBTrQ

Where are all of the fat people?

One thing that Jubin and I noticed right away here, and keep being amazed by (and commenting on) is the rarity of obese people here in Belfast. Now, to be totally clear, lots of people here appear somewhat plump and a bit out of shape (think about all of the potato, meat, and beer consumed). But, we have seen very, very few obese people. Granted, we are coming from the U.S. with a 35.9% obesity rate. And, Michigan is ranked the 9th fattest US state, with close to 29% of the population being obese....but still, the difference is striking. Note that I am NOT passing any judgments in this post. I am simply stating what we are seeing and what facts I could dig up relatively quickly/easily.

Here comes trouble...above and below!

So ironic...Jamieson wants nothing to do with his stroller, but Watson is always happy to use it!

At first, we attributed the apparent rarity of obesity to life style - certainly, we are experiencing a much more active lifestyle here than at home. However, I decided to dig a little deeper because I was surprised that a country with so much rain, cool average temps, and long dark winters could really support that much better of a lifestyle than MI could. So, is there really a difference? I looked up obesity rates and found that 23% of the N Ireland population, as well as the whole UK population, is obese. That percentage is certainly lower than Michigan's 29%, but that isn't exactly a low percentage. So, where are they? Staying inside (the City is much less accessible than Lansing is...)? Living in the countryside (have scientists found differences in obesity rates in urban vs rural settings?)? Weird!

Jamie and I went for a walk last weekend (mid-Nov) when it was raining off and on.
On the way back home, we saw a rainbow.
We could see it end to end when standing with our backs to our house.

I then thought that perhaps it is the 'morbidly obese' who are so very visible in MI who might be absent from Belfast. What are the stats on that? These stats are harder to come by, but in 2011, 1.7% of men and 3.2% of women in the UK were morbidly obese, as compared to 6.6% in the US in 2010 (couldn't find rates for individual states). So, the small differences in rates of both obesity and morbid obesity between Michigan and N. Ireland might be contributing to our experience here. However, if we do a numbers game, and randomly pull 100 people in MI and 100 in N Ireland, we would expect about 35 people in MI as compared to about 28 people in N Ireland to be either obese or morbidly obese. Could this difference of 7 people out of every 100 really account for the difference in what we are seeing here in Belfast? It doesn't seem like it... Really and truly (no exaggeration), I can think of only 3 obese people I have seen since arriving here! So, that leads me to my title - where are all the fat people?

For those interested, here are some of the websites I found:
http://www.noo.org.uk/NOO_about_obesity/adult_obesity/international
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/

Jamieson is ONE year old already!

How is it possible that a year has already passed since Jamieson joined our family? Saturday the 9th, I spent time reminiscing about the Saturday 1 year previous (pre-labor contractions, already over a week overdue, emotional meltdown, etc...). I also baked some cake and cup cakes (called generically buns here) and we had all of the neighborhood kids and parents who were immune to chicken pox over to sing to Jamie. Was cute!

The living room is quite small..but, all of the kids and adults could still fit!

What are those things on fire? Watson helped me blow them out.

Yum...

Watson's 2 best friends here: Grace (left) and Rosa (right).
They gave Jamie some cars and a book, respectively - thanks!

Unfortunately, Sunday night Jamie came down with some horrible ears, nose and throat virus. So, his actual birthday on Monday was a bust. Good thing he didn't know it was his bday! Although we was sort of a mess, we still Skyped with Gramma and Grampa so that they could sing to Jamie. A bigger success was the card that they sent him - he is still dancing to it! Click here to see a 30-second video of him dancing with his musical bday card:  http://youtu.be/U29lKReaJZE

The brothers being silly together - with the beautiful blanket Bob and Kath gave Jamieson for his birthday.

Costa de Sol - the Sun Coast (of Spain)

Schools here in Belfast give the students a mid-term break the week of Halloween. Some schools have 3 days off, some the whole week, and some (like Watson's) have 7 school days off. Wow. Anyway, since Watson would be home anyway, we decided that we should take advantage of the time and do a Europe-hop somewhere. Before coming to Belfast, Jubin and I said that at a minimum, we should experience Spain and France in addition to the UK/Ireland this year. So, to Spain we went. Being on a budget, we booked a resort through our time share. Being short on sun, we booked on the Sun Coast - near Malaga.

Here's a map: http://goo.gl/maps/nkgBz
I've marked the Malaga Airport (Eastern-most marker), Colahonda where our resort was (middle marker near coast), Cobopino beach (Western-most marker on coast), and the historic town of Ronda (Northern-most marker in the mountains).

This is what the sky looked like the whole week...the view of roses in our resort's garden from our patio.

The weather was amazing - 75 degrees and completely blue sky every day. Seriously gorgeous. The views were amazing - Sea in once direction, mountains in the other. Neither Jubin nor I had realized that this part of Spain was so mountainous. Our resort was...ok. We booked one place and were moved to another (long story) that didn't have as good amenities and was further from the beach. And, then we moved from 1 resort to another part-way through the week (annoying, but much better place). Importantly, we had mini-golf and a heated pool onsite, which are key for Watson. Even though the mini-golf was only 9 holes and was in not the best repair, Watson reports that to be the best part of the vacation. Guess we should just spend the next week off of school taking day trips to min-golf courses in the area, huh?

Watson sitting on the patio waiting (patiently?) for us to go to the pool.
Notice his look? "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth"...

The area surrounding our resort was not our cup of tea. It was all developed specifically for tourists, mainly from Northern Europe. Lots of pubs with British food, for example. We could not even find a place that served real Spanish food (although we did get to sample some Spanish wine and sangria)! How is that possible? What a tragedy. But, we really liked our day in Ronda, a neat historic town in the mountains.

Looking into the historic part of Ronda

The Ronda bull-fighting arena

Beautiful views in Ronda. A walking path along at the top of a very steep ravine down to a river.
Above, a bridge over the river connecting the newer and older parts of the town.
Below, the path along the ravine.

The view of the countryside from the path along the top.
We WISHED that we had time to do a hike down into the
 ravine and all around the bottom along the river. 

Ummm...note to selves  -it is COLD in the mountains!

A street view in the historic district.

The other side of the bridge.

When we were to go back to Southern Spain someday, we will definitely explore other small towns (and stay in them) like Ronda and Seville and Gibraltar. The beach near us (Cabopino) was beautiful and we would visit there again, but we would stay just a couple of days there or make a day trip of it and stay elsewhere. The pix below are all taken at Cabopino Beach - we had a couple of really nice days there!

Here are some things that happened during the trip that we thought you might get a kick out of (and we want to record for posterity):
1) We rented a car near the Malaga Airport. On the web, the car was only 45 Euro for the week. How can that be? Well, it can be because they charge you for a full tank of gas no matter how much you use at a rate of 90 Euro! Ha! 135 Euro makes a lot more sense for a week of car rental...

2) We picked up our rental car at about 10pm Sat night, and we hadn't yet had dinner (time change, weird travel time), so we asked the man at the desk how to get somewhere with an ATM to get Euros where we could also get a quick bite. He directed us to an open air mall that was super-close to the airport. Like, 5 minute drive. However, it took us about 30 min to get there on account of having to get on and off the highway about 8 times and going around and around and around 2 traffic circles about 20 times trying to figure out which direction we were supposed to go in! OMG - no angst in the car during that 30 minutes, let me tell you! But, we finally got there, got Euros, and got fast food. It was actually a really cool mall - 11pm and tons of people out and about. This should have been an indicator of #3...

3) No one eats dinner in Spain until at least 8pm. The restaurants don't even open until 630 or 7pm. This timeline might work well for singles, couples without kids, and retired folks, but how do families deal with this timeline? Obviously, we cooked in most nights. But, really, not even open until 7pm? Yikes!

4) On our way to Ronda, we discovered that Watson gets car sick. All over himself and the back seat. Poor guy... We were on a very narrow road with lots of switchbacks heading up the mountain, so it was the perfect situation for car sickness. Jubin was able to get to a scenic pull off and luckily I had brought a 2L of fizzy water (used it to clean the seat) and extra clothes (used to clean out the back seat, clean off Watson, and re-clothe him). We also switched locations of car seats so that Jamie's was over the wet part of the seat. Ha! Poor little man got sick on the way down as well, but this time knew what was coming so was able to warn Jubin early enough that most of it landed outside the car. Then we moved him to the front seat for the rest of the drive. Yah, yah...safety...probably isn't that safe to be swerving off the road looking for places to get sick either! How gross, huh? Good thing it was a rental car!

The view from the scenic pull out where Watson was sick on the way up the mountains.

5) Jubin did an AWESOME job driving in Spain. They drive on the same side of the street as in the US, but the signage is really different, there are traffic circles everywhere, and of course it was a stick shift (most cars in Europe are). We are both comfortable with manual transmission, but it has been 5 years since we've driven one, and of course we haven't driven a car at all since July. Our only issues really were with signage and having to go around and around traffic circles trying to figure out where we were headed. We also got a little off-course on our way back to the airport because of bad signs, but luckily we made it in time - again, thanks to Jubin!

6) We loved Cabopino Beach - super-soft sand, nice calm areas and areas with waves, just beautiful. Watson and Jamie were so funny there, though! Watson kept wanting to clean himself off of the sand (oh man, he really really hates that texture!) while Jamie kept wanting to eat sand (what is this stuff, Mum?). Ha! But, with all of the time out at the heated pool and the beach, Watson got VERY tan and even Jamie got a little farmer-tan from his beach suit. So cute!

There is a resort/hotel right on Cabopino Beach where we would love to stay someday for a couple of nights. There is a marina, shops and restaurants, everything you would need for a couple days of relaxing bliss (well, at least fun!).

 

You could throw bread bits into the water at the marina and tons of fish would come.
Watson enjoyed this activity!

7) We were in Spain for Halloween. There is trick-or-treating in Belfast, so Watson was a little disappointed to miss that. But, our resort had some Halloween activities scheduled. On Wed, we carved pumpkins. Then, on Thurs, they had costumes for kids and a whole series of events for the kids, culminating in trick-or-treating. Watson decided that he didn't want to do these activities since he didn't know any of the other kids...but, then was a little sad about it that night when we saw other kids doing so. Fortunately, when we got home to Belfast, Rosa and Elsa had saved him a bag of candy and that seemed to make him happy.

8) Jubin and I spent some time musing about the state of our vacations at this point in our lives. We spent a good 10 years traveling prior to having children, and think fondly of times spent relaxing at a cafe or pub with a cappuccino or glass of wine... Of course we love our kids and are so very thankful for them, but during this week in Spain we hardly had a moment of relaxation. And, we never even got to sleep in the same bed! It is certainly not the easiest thing ever to travel with 2 young children (how do people do it when the kids are only 2 years apart in age? how do they do it with more than 2 kids?). So, I decided that what we experience this year while living in the UK will be an education - For Jubin and I, we will learn all about the places that we want to return to when we retire, and for the kids, they will (hopefully) learn the value of other cultures, taking risks, and traveling. We'll see!

Can you hear me now? Added some random pix 18NOV13

I'd say that the hardest aspect of the move from MI to Belfast was the lack of communication and resulting isolation that we felt during the first few weeks. We had no landline, internet to Skype with, or cell phones (except for Bob's old one - thank goodness for that!) for the first 2-4 weeks of our stay. Can you imagine, in this day and age, what it would be like to not be able to look up anything on the internet or call anyone? It was worse than you are imagining.

Jubin did all sorts of research into different cell phone plans and companies here in Belfast, but none of them would take our money and sign us up until we had a local bank account. How to get a local bank account? Bring them a letter from your employer, your Passport with UK Visa, and an utility bill that shows your name and local address. Well, I had signed us up for paperless electricity billing...which means no bill sent to the house! And, you don't get your first utility bill until you've lived in a place for about a month! So, we requested a printed bill during week 2, it never came, we called and requested it again, and finally it arrived on day 21. Thus, we were able to get a local bank account (at Ulster Bank) about 3 weeks after we moved.

Interesting side bit: there is much more of a cash economy here. People don't use credit cards much, many local stores and restaurants don't take credit cards, and many larger stores and websites charge you a fee if you do use a credit card. Everyone has a debit card linked to their bank account (called a chip card) and uses either that or cash. It is interesting to think about the repercussions of the fees associated with credit companies being passed onto the customer using them rather than the businesses...And, the repercussions of it being the cultural norm to use cash to purchase things - thus, not spending more than you have. How might the US be different if these practices were the norm there too? Crazy.

Bob and Kath set this porta-crib up for us before we moved in.
The only time it was used was in situations like this, unfortunately!

Anyway, back to the issue at hand - communications. Before we got our bank account, I decided to explore the option of pay-as-you go mobile phones from a grocery store. One day I ran to Sainsbury's at Forestside (about 2 miles), did our food shopping, and asked for help at the customer service desk about the phones. The very nice US ex-pat there showed me how it all works - phone was about 10 pounds, then you get a sim card for another pound, and then you buy 10 pounds worth of calls/texts. So, for just over 20 pounds ($30), I was able to text and call again (within Europe - one rate for UK, a bit higher if outside of the UK)! To "top-up" the phone (when the 10 pounds runs out, you top it up), I can add more money at Sainsbury's or call a number and put it on a debit card. So far, I've only had to top up once (as of Nov 17!) - definitely a cost-effective way to communicate. UPDATE: topped up with another 10 GBP 3 times since then - so, have put 50 GBP on the phone so far! Taxi home from Forestside (also has a Dunnes that is like a mini-Target and a Mark and Spencer that is sort of a cross between Trader Joe's and Whole Foods but it also has clothes and home goods) was about 4 pounds. Not bad. About a week later, Jubin also purchased a phone and plan from Sainsbury's, although he ended up getting a smartphone and using a monthly plan rather than topping up whenever low (made more sense for the smartphone that needs to include data, but still ridiculously cheap). So, about 3 weeks in we finally had cell phones (called mobile phones here).

Of course, we still had no real way to call the US. Landlines and internet lines are owned by a company called BT (they will also do cable tv). Before we had left the US, Jubin had called to set up our landline, internet and cable through them, and we were appalled to learn that there was a backlog and we wouldn't get our service until Aug 14. Well, anyway, we called to double-check the day of our appointment and they said that they had no record of our order. We were now going to have to wait until Aug 23. Seriously, try living in a brand new country without internet, especially with a baby taking two naps a day and nursing frequently! This situation was especially hard the first 2 weeks when we only had one mobile phone between the two of us... Yikes.

So Cute, right? 

You might be thinking something along the lines of "why not go to one of those amazing European cafes?". Certainly, there are plenty of coffee shops around that have free wifi. However, it is not exactly possible to hang out for very long at a coffee shop with kids...especially a 10 month old who wants to crawl everywhere (gross, gross)... We would make it maybe 30 minutes before having to leave. So, Jubin would walk up the hill from the house once a day to do email and web research on house stuff, Belfast stuff, etc... while I stayed with the kids. But, then, he would run out of juice - many of the coffee shops here do not provide customers with electric outlets to plug into (in general, people here are much more energy-conscious/ frugal, and the shops aren't going to support your energy consumption). Just a little frustrating... Seriously, this all might sound like not that big of a deal to you - I challenge you to live without internet at your home AND while not working for 3 weeks. We were going CRAZY!!!

We are LEGAL - added some random pix 18NOV13

You might recall that when we arrived on Aug 1, we flew into Dublin, Ireland and took a bus to Belfast, N. Ireland (UK). Well...we assumed that once in Belfast, we'd we able to go to some immigration office in Belfast and get our Visas activated so that we'd be legally in the UK. Wrong. It turns out that the only way to get your Visa activated in Belfast is by arriving by air from outside the UK to the Belfast International Airport (note that there are 2 Belfast airports). Duh. We were now in the country technically illegally. Great...

Funny how with Watson he didn't look like this until his 1st bday...
With Jamie it is a pretty regular occurrence! 

We asked for help at the QUB human resources office and were told that our best bet was to fly somewhere in Europe for a weekend, that we should do so soon, and were given a letter to show that we were, indeed, at QUB and had arrived early in Aug - sort of a letter of support. I spent hours in queue on the phone before I got through to the US Embassy and they agreed that this was our best course of action (alternatively we could mail our passports to London, but then we'd be without passports). I also called and emailed with the UK immigration office in Belfast trying to find out how soon we needed to do this, what the repercussions might be, etc... They basically said that we couldn't get paid for working in the UK without the Visas being activated (not actually a problem since we aren't getting paid here), and that we should bring our Dublin to Belfast bus tickets with us when we travel as proof that we came in Aug. Oh, and they said that this was our only option, that we couldn't mail passports to London. Scary! Seriously, hours of worry and time spent trying to figure it all out. It isn't like it is easy or cheap for a family of 4 to 'just pop over to Europe for a holiday'!

Cooking together in the kitchen...

During September, I was on an NSF panel in DC, so we decided that I would be the test case. I flew in and out of Belfast and thru London Heathrow. My Visa was stamped without even a blink or query in London. Phew. One down, 3 to go.

Yep, I really was in DC in Sept! 

Next, all of us went to England to see Emilia and her family. We flew from Dublin Airport to Birmingham, England and back - 1 non-UK to a small, regional, UK airport. So, there should have been immigration in England, and in fact the stewards handed out landing cards for us to fill out (yippee!), but upon landing, we strolled right past a closed, unmanned UK immigration booth....no stamps.

Finally, we decided that we had to deal with this issue once and for all. So, even though it was more expensive to fly out of Belfast International to go to Malaga, Spain for mid-term break, we booked our tix for that airport rather than Belfast City or Dublin. Upon our re-entry to the UK in Belfast, we filled out landing cards, and Jubin and the boys were registered and stamped. They didn't ask us why we hadn't been stamped earlier, didn't ask to see a letter from QUB or the bus tickets, nothing. Just read the guys fingerprints, filled out the p'work, and wished us good day!

Jamie LOVES this little kitchen set that was given to us by Bob's family. 

Phew! But, what an anti-climax really!  I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but what was all the hullabaloo about? I suppose if we were supposed to be working for pay here, we would have had more of an issue. Or, maybe if there had been a 6 month lag between when the Visas started and when we entered legally? Biggest lessons learned? 1) If immigrating to N Ireland, fly into Belfast Int, regardless of cost. 2) Don't fret. Relax. Worry doesn't get you anything or anywhere! End result? We are LEGAL! :)

Spots! Pic and update added 14NOV13

Well, it is official...sort of. Jamieson has the chicken pox! Jubin saw a spot or two Monday night, then Tuesday morning we saw 3 spots on his thighs that we took for bug bites (thought there were no biting insects in NI?), and then Avril (his childminder) pointed out Tuesday afternoon that there were now more - on his face and arms...and, suggested that perhaps it was the chicken pox. Duh! He must have picked it up in Spain last week.

Anyway, he doesn't seem at all bothered by the spots. I took him to the UHC this morning and the doctor said something along the lines of "Yep, it is probably chicken pox...It is hard to tell for sure because it appears to be a mild case and the spots are so small, but it probably is...so, keep him away from other kids for 5 days and call back if he starts to feel unwell". Pic below of his "spots" on face - only ended up with ~20 spots like that, and never really seemed bothered by them at all. The mildness of the case might be in part due to the fact that he is still nursing, so is getting some of my antibodies through my milk. Phew!

Kind of ironic since we waited until this summer to get Watson the vaccine, thinking that he might get the disease and then have natural immunity. Oh well. In reality, I am glad he got the vaccine this summer because he would be miserable if he had the chicken pox this week and had to stay home all week from school. And, it would have been much harder to have BOTH kids home all week together... It is interesting, though, how the chicken pox vaccine appears to be a U.S. thing. No one (except doctors) here seems to know that it even exists (the vaccine), and most of the families around us have all had the pox already. In fact, the parents of the 2 other babies at Jamie's childminder's house were hoping that they would get it from him! 

Kicking off Kendra's sabbatical year with a European trip in July

I kicked off my sabbatical year during July 2013 by attending the Symposium for European Freshwater Scientists (SEFS) in Munster, Germany. For those of you who don't know where Munster is, here is a map: http://goo.gl/maps/7OSkl. I had a great time at the conference, although I really, really missed Jamieson - 8 whole days apart! Oh, and almost the very 1st thing that I did? Fry my breast pump by plugging it in without the correct adapter! Luckily I had brought my hand pump with me for the plane, but you might imagine that using a hand pump for 8 days was not exactly fun...

Munster city street

Lake near the Movenpick - park all around it with trails

Munster "skyline"

Here are some highlights:
1) The presentation quality was extremely high. Check out the program: http://www.sefs2013.de/.
2) The venue was amazingly posh, with comfortable lodging, easy to navigate session rooms, and very good food. Check out the Movenpick Hotel: http://www.moevenpick-hotels.com/en/europe/germany/muenster/hotel-muenster/overview/. Seriously nice hotel. The breakfast buffet was like none I've ever seen - amazing breads and cheeses and fruits, omelets and cappuccino on order, etc...Not a cheap place (you might have guessed), but absolutely lovely.

Beautiful cemetery right near the Movenpick

HUGE lilly pads in the Botanic Gardens - Kath says that they are strong enough that
there are pix of toddlers sitting on them.

3) The conference was a really nice size. It was smaller than what I've attended the last few years, which meant that it had fewer concurrent sessions and I didn't have to jump between sessions that often.
4) The diversity of plenary talks was excellent. They had a really nice balance of early-career, middle-career, and late-career speakers, male and female speakers, speakers with different disciplinary expertise, and speakers from different countries. Here they are: Simona Bacchereti, Emily S. Bernhardt, Ulrich Brose, Claudia Dziallas, Carol Eunmi Lee, Judit Padisák, Robert W. Sterner, and Diego Tonolla. Often at conferences, I am disappointed at the lack of diversity in plenary speakers - often there is only 1 woman, for example. So, this was quite a refreshing departure from the norm. It made me wonder if the Europeans are more conscious of minority retention issues than Americans.

A really cool clock in a really cool church (modern-style stained glass windows seen below)

5) My oral presentation was titled A conceptual framework for understanding multi-scaled cause-effect relationships between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and it was in the special session titled Organic carbon and nutrient dynamics in freshwaters under global change. The room was completely full during my talk and it was well-received. Unfortunately, I ran a little over, so there wasn't time for people to ask me any questions. Oh well!
6) The city of Munster was really nice. It is dubbed the bicycle capital of Germany, and the people there are proud that they have not had a mugging in over 20 years. The Movenpick was right near a beautiful park with a nice-sized lake that was surrounded by trails (middle pic below), as well being walking distance to the Botanic Garden (map here: http://goo.gl/maps/dD6DG).

Talk about some heavy food in Germany! Lots of beer and pork with Katherine and Caroline!
Caroline is a postdoctoral researcher at Trinity in Dublin with Kath.

My only real conference disappointments were a) that the majority of attendees study moving, rather than still, water (i.e., rivers and streams rather than lakes and ponds) and b) that the area for posters was really small so I couldn't really engage with the poster presenters much. But, there were certainly enough interesting presentations for me to learn from and I was happy to start the year at SEFS. And, I was really happy to spend the week with Kath before moving to Belfast a month later. In fact, on the way home from Germany to MI, I did a 30-hour layover in the UK so that I could meet our soon-to-be landlord, see our soon-to-be-home, and handle a few logistics. Even though it was tiring to add that on to my conference trip, I was so glad to see where we would be living in less than a month!