England

Jörundur was right.  He told me that if I attended the 11th Deep-sea Biology Symposium in Southampton, England I would be hooked on deep-sea biology.  I found a very stimulating and entertaining crowd of scientists and students at the symposium.  I heard fantastic lectures, mediocre lectures, and bad lectures.  Many of the talks and posters were very interesting and informative.  Some were about research that is similar to what I will be doing for the foreseeable future.  I feel that I made first contact with many people whom I will see again and with whom I shall maintain correspondence.  It was exciting to see professionals working their magic.  There were so many there who know so much about the deep-sea and it was a real joy to see them giving advise and discussion current research as well as past experiences.  There was a lot of discussion of innovations in technology that facilitate research that would never have been possible only a few decades ago.  People came to this conference from all over the globe.  I met Russians, Germans, Frenchmen, Taiwanese, Japanese, Italians, Greeks, Englishmen, Scotsmen, Americans, Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians, Brazilians, Norwegians, Belgians, Swedes, Danes, Portuguese, and, of course, Indians (I’m probably forgetting someone’s country).  It was fantastic to be immersed in the atmosphere of varied culture and languages/accents.  I enjoy the diversity of people as much as I do that of the natural world.  
I know that many of my readers are not biologists, so I’m going to keep this brief.  I just wanted to say thank you for the good times and great ideas if you attended the symposium with me.  Photos from my week in England will be posted sometime soon on my travel blog.