Cryptic Meg

Well, it’s been rather a long time since I wrote a blog post. I’m not beating myself up over it – I did finish a PhD in the intervening months! More on that another time.

For now, let me whisk us back to the middle of the merry month of May, at which time you would have found me on a train, bound for an academic conference, with a poster in tow. A familiar scene. But this time the poster was not mine – some colleagues of mine were unable to attend the conference, and offered me the princely sum of two beers to provide transportation for their poster. It was a good deal; I am quite used to travelling with a trusty tube, and might even have felt bereft without one!

The conference for which I was bound was the European Stroke Organisation Conference in Basel, Switzerland. Stroke was a brand new field to me. By this time, I had submitted my PhD thesis, was awaiting my viva, and in the meantime had my eyes set on my exciting new post-doc project: using AI to predict risk of stroke. My expertise is the AI part: the conference was one of my first pieces of education in stroke.

I met some colleagues at the airport, and we boarded our evening flight, which turned out to be one of the most beautiful I have taken:

We arrived in Basel late at night. With the conference starting early the next day, I was relieved that I booked a hotel a 3-minute walk down the road.

The next morning, I took the poster over to the conference centre and found its position in the poster hall, thereby completing my mission. Then I settled in for an enlightening (and only sometimes bewildering) day in which I learned a lot about stroke.

In the evening, my team went out to sample Swiss cuisine: beer and raclette! (Both delicious.)

The next day I was over at the conference again bright and early for a session on stroke and AI – perfect for me! The applications were all quite different to my project, but it gave me a contextual understanding of what’s going on in the area.

After that I decided to have my explore of the city – always a highlight of these conferences. I had downloaded an audio walking tour, and I crossed the Rhine to begin it. (Note the church in the background here – we’ll be seeing that again!).

The tour started in the Martkplatz (a nexus for the tram network), with the very red 16th century City Hall:

It continued past the Key Guild, and the site where a conclave was held in the 15th century and Pope Felix V elected.

After that it was on to the Münsterplatz, and the Münster itself.

I thoroughly enjoyed looking round the Münster. It is where Erasmus, the 16th century humanist/priest/theologian/philosopher is buried.

I also really loved the cloisters, which were quite wonderfully wild:

From the Münster, I had great views of the river. I wasn’t the only one taking advantage of the spot:

After that I walked on to the Kunstmuseum – an art museum (I got in at a discount, courtesy of the Basel Card that came with my hotel booking). The building initially looked somewhat small and unlikely, but this was only part of the museum. Most of it was in another building, accessed by an underground passage. I absolutely adored seeing the works of Hans Holbein the Younger, the 16th century painter who painted that portrait of Henry VIII. I was particularly stunned by his painting of Jesus in the tomb – a very effective trompe l’oeil, which had me fooled for a moment that there was really a body in the wall!

After that it was time to head back over the river, and to return to the conference for more sessions.

This conference was a little shorter than some of the others I’ve been to, so the next day it was time to return home. I finally got to experience the Basel trams (for free, thanks to the Basel Card), as I headed for the airport and then home. It was one of the more unpleasant journeys I’ve experienced – we were kept on the plane at Heathrow for two hours due to a lack of buses. I was particularly relieved to see Devon again when I finally got there!