More Sienese posting

Monday

Well yesterday I think I probably hit rock bottom.

After the plenary session yesterday there was a ‘welcome reception’ with nibbles and drinks. For various reasons I felt weighted down, and had only managed to really talk with one person. After a few forays up and down through the crowd looking for a conversation I could join the miseries got the better of me and I headed off to find Chris for dinner.

This morning we had a mix of sunshine and mist, with a clean coolness to the air. Despite vows otherwise, we ate breakfast at the hotel in the hope of meeting other participants in the meeting. At least they managed real rolls this time, however we appear to be the only ‘victims’. If they do it again and I DO come next time then I’ll try the Alexi where everyone else seems to be.

Yesterdays talks were good, especially Teresa Woodruff from Chicago talking about ‘oncofertility’ the damage cancer treatments cause to female fertility and techniques for maturing primordial follicles in vitro after cryopreservation. Today was full of gonadotrophin receptors, testosterone metabolism, hormone antagonists and molecular causes behind oligospermia. So far it’s been a reat course with little of the jargon molecular biologists often love to throw in that so often clouds what they’re actually attempting to achieve. No-one has mentioned SMAD at all.

I was hugely relieved to be able to make some better contacts (or renew contacts) today. Nerves are the enemy of ‘nobbing’, yet a major reason to be here is for me to ‘nob with the nobs’ as it’s delicately described, and failure to do so would make the trip very much less fruitful than otherwise. Despite knowing these are just *people* that have to eat, sleep and use the toilet like everyone else it doesn’t stop me being hideously nervous. With a touch of the grace of God contacts have been made with key people and hopefully some interesting work will come out.

We went to the dinner last night, held in ‘the most expensive restaurant in Siena’ to quote one of the local guys. Bueno. Enoteca Italiano was good, especially the range of wines which you might expect as it’s a winery. We were feeling a little lost (Chris wanted a table inside as the night was cool, but tables there were scarce) when we were invited to Join Teresa and Tom – that’s prof. Teresa Woodruff and her husband, who I suspect is a professor somewhere too. They both had invites to lecture here at the same time – now how unlikely is that? So a very pleasant evening, and I’m quite proud of Chris, holding her own in such company.

*edit* heard that the wine we enjoyed last night sells at 50 euros a bottle. Glad I only found out afterward.

And so this morning.

Cool and misty again, we abandoned the ‘delights’ of plastic food in favour of a small café up the road. For less than 6 euros we enjoyed fresh food (Chris had a filled pastry, I had a small panini filled with cured ham) and a couple of caffe latte that were good. Now it’s 8.45am and I need to walk down for the morning session.

TTFN.