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!