Hiya all,

Some of you may know that I have just spent a week in Warsaw rubbing shoulders with European agricultural economists (in addition to some stray Americans and Japanese!!). I have never been in favour of week long conferences, and this one did not make me change my mind. I am, to put it bluntly, knackered after talking 'shop' and socialising from 7 am to at least 11 pm every day/night - Tuesday through to Sunday. Now I'll wear you out with a long report on what I have been through..............

My greatest challenge was to transport my very inconveniently packed poster! How was I to know that the graphics people needed to be told that I wanted a poster that could be rolled up, rather than a flat-packed 90 cm by 120 cm monster??? Well, now I know. If nothing else I did provide my travel companions with discussion topics for the whole conference, and they are still talking about it.... It was especially stressful for them as they couldn't see me set off in the local bus from the Warsaw airport in to town on my own (my poster was not welcome in the taxi cabs). So it ended up with me trekking over to the bus stop with 10 male agricultural economists trailing behind me (good think I grew up herding sheep). And they thought they were helping me! In fact all through the week I was carefully looked after as the general impression was that I was not capable (grown up enough?) of looking out for myself. If only they knew? (and I think they were educated through the week :-) ). At least I saved them some money as the bus costs 8 PLZ in stead of 60 PLZ + in a taxi.

The hotel was nice although their preference for dark brown colours was a bit dreary. The Europejski hotel was first opened in 1887, then flattened during WW2 only to be reopened in 1962 and refurbished in 1996. We were only 250 meters away from the conference venue and all other participants were seriously jealous at those of us who had secured a room at Europejski.

Food in Poland is something else all together (at least if what we were served is anything to go by). Breakfast was the safest as there was plenty of choice such that I could steer away from the 12+ egg omelettes with everything in them! Had I gone for one of them I would most certainly have fallen asleep in the first session every day. Lunches were not all that nice with pork in every dish and boiled cabbage or carrots or onion with potato dumplings wherever you turned. And if you weren't alert they would give you a big scoop of beetroot salad too. Together with dry bread, butter and bean salad we were on a roll - out the door. One day the pork sausage was even supplemented with what we call 'korv' in Norway. It is basically the edible (?) intestines from a sheep/pig/cow mashed up with the blood and fried - yummy!!! When we were kids the well off families could afford lard and would add a bit to make it stick together more and be more filling. Now Warsaw University must be very rich because large bits of lard could be found all the time (estimate of 30% lard). The welcome and good-bye dinners were much nicer, or maybe I had just learnt to pick the right things.

The welcome reception brought us to the Warsaw concert hall where two very capable 18 year olds performed for us on their piano and violin. Wonderful music by Chopin and some other composers. Since it is the 150th anniversary for Chopin's death (does anyone else celebrate deaths?) we also got to go to his birth place which is now a museum with a lovely garden full of pretty flowers, lots of trees and some ponds with serious nutrient imbalances. I know, not very artistic view on things, but I am an environmental economists and am paid to observe and think about these things. However, I did stop before I went and suggested how they could solve their pollution problem. After having wandered around the gardens we were herded into a restaurant where a 3 piece band with 3 dancers were welcoming us with Polish traditional dancing. Those of us who weren't alert enough were highjacked on the way into the restaurant and had to join in. I myself very sneakily hid behind a large Austrian gentleman, ducked under a table and slid along the wall in the shade in order to reach the innermost chair where they couldn't get to me. The rest of the evening was spent trying to have a sensible conversation with my fellow munchers - by shouting to be heard above the 'ompa-ompa' music. Don't get me wrong, they were entertaining for the first 15 minutes but after 2.5 hours smiles were wearing thin.

I can not survive a week long conference without exercise and I had expected this to be a challenge in Warsaw. But I managed to find a gym in a neighbouring hotel where they would let outsiders join too. After clearing up some language difficulties with the reception staff I was shoved into a lift and told to press the -1 (minus 1) button. I have never been in a lift where there is a 'minus 1' button so this was already exciting. Outside the door on floor 'minus 1' stood a very handsome young man ready to be at my beck and call. He showed me the facilities which included the gym with bikes, stepper, weights and all sorts, then there was a swimming pool, sauna, steam room, nice change rooms, artificial sun and massage too!! Well, I declined the offer of a massage as I hadn't done enough homework about the place to decide if it was appropriate (if you catch my drift). He gave me to towels, a huge bathrobe (room for three), little dinky slippers and a key to a locker. So for the rest of the week I shuffled in my slippers between the gym and swimming pool finishing off with the all important sauna. Most of the time there was no one else in the sauna so I could build up the temperature and moisture to my liking (has to be as close to 100 degrees C as possible). And at that stage those who entered the room left quite quickly, except one Korean Pole who was very chatty. I learnt that I was born in the year of the Pig and that this year would be good for business for me and that I should marry someone born in the year of the Rabbit (fancy that - Rob is born in the year of the Rabbit). He himself was from the year of the Tiger and was looking for a Rabbit too - well you know what I mean.... A woman entered the sauna in mid-conversation, and for some strange reason she left very quickly.

I supplemented intensive workouts with walks around Warsaw. In particular I went to have a look at the Wisla River (pronounced Wiswa). It was a huge river which strong currents and many early morning fishermen on the banks. They seemed to catch fish too! I watched them for a while but was a bit put off when they pulled the fish out of the water, blew off the brown froth (yuck) and secured today's dinner. I just hope it was for the cat. Later on I came to one of the many parks in Warsaw. Any park with respect for itself has a war memorial and this one was no different. The war is no laughing matter in this city as it was completely flattened, and all the buildings which look so old are all rebuilt in old style after the war. But this monument has stuck in my mind as the most unfortunate I have ever seen. It appeared to be one which should honour soldiers whose jobs were to clear minefields. It showed a soldier kneeling on the ground at a hole in the ground holding a landmine. However, when stepping back and viewing the situation there was no way of telling whether he was digging the mine up or burying it!!!

The 'Old Town' and 'New Town' are good tourist spots and also have several nice restaurants some of which we tried. One of our waitresses was particularly friendly and taught us all the customs connected to polish weddings. Of course, she didn't offer this information out of the blue but one of my colleagues charmed her off her feet and she didn't stop talking after that. It was also Saturday night and half the Warsaw population were attending one of the 30 weddings we saw. This meant that I was really busy because the ag. econs. Professor at Copenhagen Agricultural University had given me strict instructions to restrict these Danish hooligans I was travelling with. I had to work hard to prevent them from joining the long line of people waiting to kiss the bride and congratulate the groom. And I thought Norwegians were crude! At least we learnt that if you wanted to kiss the bride (or groom) at the reception you would have to pay up. This was to help finance things like fridges and cookers.... The Danes were most distraught to learn this as in Denmark they have the same custom, but it is all free. I guess capitalism has developed a bit further here in Poland. Another rule says that the father of the bride pays for the reception, nothing new there, but the groom pays for all the vodka! Now that is harsh. In fact we spotted the groom and his best-men at the neighbouring table, scribbling on a piece of paper - bashing numbers on a calculator and tearing their hair out. In fact, the bride left on her own and we never saw the groom again - I guess he was in the kitchen doing the dishes to cover the vodka bill (Poles are definitely heavy drinkers).

There were two main highlights of the conference (apart from the very rewarding sessions on economic theory and policy analysis of course). One was the arrival of the President of Poland (Kwasniewski) and two was the dancing at the farewell dinner. Now I did say that it was interesting when 'il Presidente' arrived, but I would have to be honest and say that it was the circus around him that was interesting: TV cameras, press people, photographers, women with clipboards bossing little men with glasses around and last but not least: the bodyguards!!! (I tried to get a couple of them nominated as 'hunk of the conference' but they fell outside the eligibility rules). It was all hilarious and they took their job very seriously. I tried to pick which of them were right handed and which were left handed - from the bulges in their ...... jackets :-). Thinking about it, we were probably quite a security hazard as they had no time to frisk us upon entry to the hall (shucks) and we all had big shoulder bags to hide guns in and plenty of time to do something nasty. But we all grew to like this jolly man in a grey suit (hardly distinguishable from his henchmen), particularly when he announced that his daughter just passed the entrance exam to the university and that he hoped she would do well (upon which he gave a serious nod toward the vice chancellor who was quaking in his boots).

Back to the nominations (non-official organised by a small group of people after a few vodkas). The only one we got to agree on was best presentation: Alan Swinbank from Reading University. The rest of the discussion faded into oblivion as too many glasses were emptied. The men (me as only female representative again) had problems agreeing on the 'sexiest woman' mainly because they couldn't refer to their nominees by name. I guess other attributes were more important to them than names! (say no more). My nominations for 'hunk of the conference' were disallowed because there was no other woman to verify them. Now that is discrimination, I reckon. I can never win in this crowd.

It was definitely a fun conference and I got to catch up with the English and Finnish people who I have had long-distance contact with during my stay in Perth. And then I also got to know a lot of other people from Norway, Germany, Holland and several Eastern European countries. After such a full-on week it was almost sad to leave it all, especially as this conference is a tri-annual thing. Next time it is in Spain so I'd better start writing now to secure a spot on the conference list.

Phew - that was a long long chat, hope I didn't bore you.