A multicultural experience, and I meet some of my heroes

At breakfast I sit with some girls from my dorm room. There is a lovely lady from Sri Lanka, who gives me her card and I see that her name is Hitihamy Mudiyanselage Anoma Pushpa Kumari Gunarathne. Imagine writing that on your IRD form. I ask her how to pronounce it and she says she goes by Anoma. That I can pronounce! The girl sitting across from me is from Toulouse so I get brave and practice my French. It can't be too bad because she understands what I am saying.

Riding to the conference centre, I feel very European indeed. The route is becoming second nature and I'm no longer having to constantly remind myself to stay on the right. The first session of the day is an extremely interesting talk from an English professor of veterinary epi, Derek Smith. His talk is about the case for and against global warming, and how climate change affects the spread of animal and human diseases, especially vector borne disease. They have sophisticated habitat mapping and seaport climate dendrograms which are capable of predicting where vectors are likely to establish next, so that targeted surveillance can be implemented.

Outside one of the rooms while waiting for a lecture, I get talking to Tim Carpenter, the professor in charge of Massey's Epicentre. A tall friendly man with glasses and a Canadian accent comes over and Tim introduces him to me as Ian. He asks me some questions and I explain what I do, and then I start to ask him what he does. Then I look down at his name tag and I realise I am talking to Ian Dohoo. "Oh my goodness," I gasp. "You wrote the book!!" Veterinary Epidemiologic Research, the standard text used by veterinary epidemiologists all over the world. He is probably the best known epidemiologist in the world. I feel all shaky, like I just met my hero. It would be like going to a conference and talking to a man called Steve and then realizing you are talking to Steven Covey.

As the jet lag and tiredness recede, I'm getting more confident in talking to people. I spot Francisco Olea-Popelka outside a conference room, while waiting for a talk. He is another of my heroes - he has done some good work in the area of my research and I've cited him all over the place in my literature review. So I get brave and introduce myself. He is a nice big friendly man and we have a good discussion on bovine TB research. I get even braver and give him a copy of my poster summary with the web reference and tell him I'd appreciate his feedback if he has time to look at it. He tells me to keep in touch and I'm definitely going to take him up on that.

I've booked for the conference cruise so after the programme is finished at 5.30 pm I head downriver to where the ferry takes off. It's a huge boat with 3 levels and a full restaurant on board, and an open deck where you can sit. Everyone is talking and I don't recognise anyone, so I'm not sure what to do, but during the evening I end up talking most of the time, to two guys from Thailand and the Netherlands, a girl from Canada, a man from Ethiopia, a man from California and a lovely lady from Cornell University. The network of rivers and canals is amazing and the scenery is beautiful. We go under a bridge built during Roman times. Much of Maastricht was bombed during the war, so some of the buildings are newer, but there are still a lot of beautiful old buildings. A Dutch man near me tells a very funny story about when he spent three weeks at a Franciscan monastery. I wish I could tell it like he does. Maybe I will try when I get home.