While Dan was on his way back to Thessaloniki, I continued being a dutiful conference attendee. In fact, this was the day when I had to give my presentation and my poster. In a format new to me (and to many others), the conference had scheduled the vast majority of papers to be presented as posters and given the researchers a “speed-poster presentation” time, in which we were to present the general idea of our paper in 5 minutes. Some people were more successful at this than others. (Here’s a general hint: if you have 27 slides, you’re probably not going to get through them all in 5 minutes.)
My speed presentation went well, I thought, and then I had good turnout and feedback at the poster session itself, where I stood by the poster and chatted with interested people. My poster ended up being on the wing closest to the coffee break area, so I got a mix of genuinely interested people and people who were just bored enough to come wandering over.
Dan made it back from Athos in the afternoon (and if you haven’t read his recap of the day, be sure to read the next post!), and we went out to dinner with my friend Rich Randall, who recommended a wonderful little place in a tiny alley in downtown Thessaloniki. He’d been there the night before, so we felt bad making him go back to the same place, but it was worth it! We shared some fantastic roasted peppers and some delicious spicy cheese dip to start, and I had steamed mussels that were amazing. We also had a lovely after dinner surprise when the waiter offered us an ice cream crepe for free.
Statistics:
- Total presentation time: 5 minutes
- Meals involving cheese: 3
- Free stuff: crepe filled with ice cream