Back from Vienna!

I'm back home, and back at work. There's tea, there's the very helpful cat (who has now moved to her cat bed again and stopped putting her paw onto the touchpad at the most inopportune moments), there's things with deadline to take care of. 

But first - let me tell you that Vienna was glorious, and wonderful, and really exhausting. It was so good to meet with colleagues again and discuss things in person, with hands-on materials to try out what cannot just be described, and to mingle and chat and have all the extra networking opportunities that you just cannot get over online get-togethers or online conferences.

The organising team did an utterly splendid job at filling our three days with exciting and stimulating tasks. There was discussion of the papers and articles that we all had read in preparation; there were presentations putting those theoretical aspects into context of our own research and projects; there were clothing reconstructions that we looked at (and tried on) from different aspects, and two excursions to see garments - some secular ones preserved in a crypt underneath St. Michael's church, and some very spectacular old ecclesiastical garments still in use in St. Stephen's Cathedral.

There was also an entirely adequate number of coffee breaks, with coffee and tea and biscuits and chocolate and cake. Plus the continued discussions, and extra discussions, in those breaks. There might also have been some hanging out together in the evening, getting food and some drinks.

On the last morning, I felt like there's not enough coffee in the world anymore to get my brain up to the wakefulness and speed that I'd have liked it to be at. There was enough, though, to get me through the day and thoroughly enjoy it up to the last minute, when all those of us who were dead tired did do the adult and reasonable and sensible thing and went home, or into the hotel room, and to bed.

I spent my last morning in the beautiful city having a relaxed breakfast, buying food for the journey home, and getting a bit of bouldering in (there's a gym very close to the main train station) before sitting on my butt for several hours on the train. Where there was wi-fi, and theoretically the possibility to catch up on work, but - see above - there just wasn't enough coffee in the world anymore.

So let's see if I can catch up today, and actually get all the things on my list done...