Better late than never.

As promised, here I will share here some pictures and a more thorough update of my AGU experience.

I have already told you about how long the drive out was; fortunately, the weather was nice enough that Kevin and I got a few interesting pictures of the sky et al.

We didn't do much besides go to bed on Saturday so that's one day down. On Sunday, we ate lunch at a cool place called Shopsy's where they serve a big menu and one or two beers worth drinking. I ordered a Keith's IPA and am sorry to report that the "IPA" part was interpreted liberally by the brewers. That's okay - I should stick to lagers, pilsners and whiskey in Canada anyway. I should add, though, that Shopsy's offers 1) free wi-fi and 2) an order of wings per couple with the first round of two drinks. I recommend.

We left Shopsy's to check out the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and to orient ourselves with respect to the AGU proceedings. The set-up was such that on one level were the meeting rooms in which took place all the presentations and on a lower level was the giant exhibition hall in which we set up our posters (when the allotted time came). The convention center, though, is HUGE and we only saw a wee part of it. I don't remember doing much more on Sunday.

On Monday, we began our proper learnin' by attending a morning's worth of presentations on "Ground Magnetometers in the New Millennium: Results and Prospects I," which were all way over our heads but interesting nonetheless. I like attending these things because, at the least, I hear some words that I want to look up and I get a feel of how these presentations are done. If I'm fortunate, I actually learn about some of the new science that the people in my immediate field are up to. I like the chance to meet these people, too.

In the convention center, Kevin and I met up with four other UNH students and the six of us decided to explore the city a bit by grabbing a quick dinner before heading up to the top of the 147-story CN Tower. The picture above is the one that came out the best but the following, though obscured a little by the glass, are also worth showing:

What's more is that they have a glass floor on the level just below where these were taken. Even though I claim to not have a fear of heights, it took me a second of hesitation to walk out onto it. Interestingly, I never felt like I didn't want to walk out over the glass but for that second, my body seemed to not let me. I guess that is supposed to happen.

That night we stayed out and visited some bars, paying waaaay too much for beer because we were tourists and let ourselves get trapped in the expensive section of the city. I suppose that no one can expect to walk into a city and know where to go right off the bat. We still had fun. 

On Tuesday, we went to presentations on "New Perspectives on Substorms and Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling I & II," which took all morning. It was in those sessions that I really got a sense of the community that must develop among people who work within the same sub-discipline. I don't mean that they give each other hugs and joke around during lectures; I mean that many work on a first-name basis, they often sight each other's research and a question from one to another usually sparked a discussion among many of the same people time after time. I liked seeing first hand that that sort of collaboration and accountability goes on. Later, when we stood by our posters, I was glad to see those same people showing interest in my and Kevin's work, especially when it became apparent that, as an undergrad, I had more questions than answers for them! I think that those poster sessions went well.

As an overall note, we noted that there was not equal representation among sub-disciplines: Earth science, geology et al. featured a lot of posters while atmospheric science showed fewer and space science had fewer still. I wonder if this is the case at every AGU meeting.

I have said already that the trip back was pleasantly uneventful, though the cloudy weather prevented us from taking anymore pictures of the landscape. Oh well. Here are some more Toronto pictures:

An excellent pilsner (micro-)brewed only in Toronto.

The Metro Toronto Convention Centre's south entrance.

That's the news from Toronto!