AZORES! DAY 1 and 2

I am in the Azores!  I know it has been a while since updating, but all you need to know is: 1) The Scientific Dive Course is over and went well, despite my getting deathly ill and being useless for the last two weeks of it. 2) I'm at the World Congress of Malacology Conference in the Azores in Ponta Delgada where I just presented a talk about my research this morning.

I did my talk about octopus mating behavior and possible evidence of sperm competition. It went... alright. I got there early this morning to make sure that the videos I prepared were functional (given that they made up about 3/4 of my talk). Well, the computer did not like them very much. Apparently they were too large and the computer kept slowing down.  It may also have been because they were making us do our talks on a tiny notebook computer with very little memory. I spent a while with the AV person trying to coax this little computer to stop freaking out but eventually I went to the opening welcome talk, where I sat and thought about my options of acting out every octopus mating behavior individually... I got back to the "amphitheater" (I put it in quotes because it was a small classroom affair that unforgivingly echoed every sound of shuffling, squeeky floor and chair movement) I had about 10 minutes to get my presentation ready to go and just hope for the best.  The videos did end up working for the most part. There was a bit of a delay before each video started, which was probably a good thing since I only managed to fill 12 minutes of my allotted 15 minute speaking time. When I first began speaking, there were about 10 people in the room, max. As I spoke, more and more people came in, making as much noise as possible, shuffling around, whispering to each other, belatedly turning off cell phones. Meanwhile, I started wondering if this was some special test for the students of the conference who had asked to be judged for a presentation award.  It was so outrageously distracting that I thought it couldn't be accidental but as the session went on, I realized this was just the way people seemed to migrate from one talk to another.  They give us 20 minutes and we need to be sure to stick to that schedule. At the end of that 20 minutes people are free to go watch other talks in other seminar rooms, but clearly, since we are on tight schedules, by the time someone gets to the next talk they are inevitably a minute or two late for that talk and then enter in the most disruptive way possible. It's like people have been given a specific challenge to break the presenters concentration. And then, during the question and answer session, everyone in the room starts talking and looking at their cell phones instead of listening to the answers! Since I was the chair of my session, I had to periodically yell at people to shut up since the presenter was answering questions and I couldn't hear. I was really confused. It seemed so disrespectful. Here you are, presenting research you have inevitably spent a long time on, and everyone is behaving as if you are just up on the stage for fun, talking to yourself. Oh well, not the best experience, but it's over.  I got through it but I'm pretty sure there is no presenter award in my future... I did get a bit tripped up by the distractions and I think it was pretty clear I had confused even myself during my talk.

The rest of the session was great though--I really enjoyed every one else's talks and felt like I learned a lot, including what I should probably include in my talk for next time...

But, on to the amazing AZORES!! The people are terribly friendly here and so passionate about their beautiful islands. The couchsurfer I am staying with is extremely kind and generous and has already shown me so much of the island. I played hooky after my talk and got a tour of some of the most beautiful places on the island.

DAY ONE

When I arrived Sunday (after travelling for approximately 36 hours), I took a walk around the Centro of Porto Delgada to orient myself.  The streets are narrow and labyrinthine and lined with white buildings.  Some of it reminds me of what I imagine Greek villages look like. I just love the architecture everywhere.  Dad, I think this may be the church Mark Twain spoke of, but there are so many churches, one can't be positive...

 There is street art everywhere. I love it. You'll see lots of pictures...

 These are called the "gates of the city" and I have framed the tower in the background.

One of the pieces of street art on my walk the University.  If you look in the center, you'll see a painted skull on the wall. This is a typical street--a city street. Very narrow road wide enough for one car and a curb for pedestrians to try not to get killed.

DAY 2

Madalena took me to Nordeste and Furnas! We spent a lot of time in her cousins car, taking in the landscape. She has an Italian couchsurfer here named Angelo and he and I were treated to an amazing tour! 

Madalena is a documentary film-maker in the making and is teaching me about photography along the way. Please forgive the gratuitous number of macro flower photos. The flowers are incredible here. The whole island is generously peppered with hydrangeas, and every lookout point is a veritable garden of Eden.

 This is the town of Nordeste.  They had lights all strung up along the streets for a religious festival. We apparently just missed the festivities the day before where the streets were all littered with flower petals. I remember a similar celebration in Peru. I was sad to miss it, but still, it was impossible to be sad when I was so grateful to be taking in the beauty around me.

 More Churches, Dad! So many! They all have similar architecture and every hour the bells go off creating a chorus around the islands.

Here we are in Furnas where you can see the sulfer escaping the pits of bubbling springs.  Madalena told us that people are sometimes murdered here (!!!) when they are pushed into the pits.

Farther up, there are hot springs where you can swim in the sulfurous water and relax in the healing properties (instead of being burned alive, which would have happened if we had wanted to get into the spring pictured above). This was at 9 pm! The springs are open until 11pm and we had a lovely evening relaxing in the water and taking in the surrounding nature.  I am so surprised how late it gets dark here, but it gives us so much time to enjoy the surroundings.

Earlier in the day we were touring the island (for some reason my pictures uploaded in a weird order and I am feeling too lazy to move them around chronologically) and we got to this mountain village by beautiful lake.

This is Madalena below and her friend Diogo behind her. He's helping her do some work for her documentary.

 On our way to Nordeste, we stopped at one of the incredible "Miradouro" spots--or look outs.

The islands are volcanic, like Hawaii and you can see a lot of similarities in the geography, but the flora is so different, it's so interesting.

Alright, I am off to the second day of the conference, ready to take in some science! I'll be done around 4 and it will be off to explore more of the island again! Lots more to come :) 

I feel like I have already learned so much, I'm so grateful to be here.