Oh Canada!

This post comes from the mothercountry-- I am in Canada this week at a conference on Mobile DNA. I have blogged once before about transposable elements (the things I study) but I promise not to bore you with too much on that this time. Mostly it is just fun to be back in Montreal, were I lived as a child before moving to Chicago. My first memories are all from here, and before the conference started, I went back to the old neighborhood and visited my oldest friend in the world's mom, Angie. It was great to be at her house (same one where I used to hang out 32 years ago) and see old pictures and talk about old stories. Then I came downtown for the conference, but it happens to be about 3 blocks from McGill University, which is where my old advisors (from grad school in Florida) are now, so I got to have a fun picnic with them before really digging into meeting mode (which involves non-stop 15 minute talks, occasionally separated in time by surreal, nearly identical coffee breaks during which you simply clear enough brain space to go back into a heavily carpeted, windowless room and resume being talked at-- all of this for four days straight until you are in a near-coma-like state, at which point you are released back into the wild, presumably better off, ...but I am not so sure). Anyway, it was fun to see them too, and I have also gotten to partake of the quebecois culinary delight known as poutine (fries drenched in gravy and cheese curds; pictured here) and tomorrow I will go for smoked meat. So, the confines of the conference haven't completely reined me in, but in collusion with the weather (which went from 70 degrees and sunny to 30 degrees and snowing in one day), the powers that be are trying. Speaking of which, the second half of the afternoon session starts in a few minutes... more from Texas soon!