Tag Archives: kasc

Holidays in Copenhagen, conference in Aarhus

Five years after the hugely successful Third Kepler Asteroseismology Workshop, the annual KASC meeting (or to be precise, the KASC8/TASC1 Workshop) was held in Aarhus once again. Before going to the conference, we had taken a few days off to visit Copenhagen. We had very nice weather (especially compared to what I had had to endure later in Aarhus), and a nice airbnb apartment (if you don’t count the lack of dark curtains in the bedroom, which can be a bit annoying around the summer solstice in Denmark) not too far from the centrum. Most of our time was spent walking around in the city, especially on the 2nd day which we finished with more than 36000 steps, so we could spend all the money we saved by not using public transportation on nice food here and there (Luna’s Diner for breakfast, PapirØen for all the different kinds of street food, and Bertels Salon for the best cheesecakes). At the end, I think Clio liked the Tivoli Gardens the most, while I really loved Grundtvig’s Church.

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Then while Clio flew home, I took the train to Aarhus. It was a long ride, but comfortable, and there was also free wifi, so I guess I have no reason to complain. Then in Aarhus I had the most cozy and clean airbnb apartment ever for less money than what the most crappy hotel (which I have already tried 5 years ago) would have been, and only a 5 minute walk away from the conference venue. The meeting itself was good as usual, and I again got the opportunity to present my (and my collaborators’) results in a 15 minute talk (‘Scanning the seismic barcode of SPB stars – Asteroseismic fingerprints of rotation and mixing in the slowly pulsating B stars viewed from space’), which went also fine. Due to the horrible weather, I did not attend the excursion (to climb one of the highest ‘mountains’ in Denmark), but as soon as the sun came out (and the temperature climbed to 14°C) I went for a 10k run. The conference dinner was served in The Old Town, a nice open-air museum of old Danish buildings.

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Since the coffee breaks were filled with cakes, I gained a bit of weight (almost 2 kilograms to be precise), but with all the cycling (and running), this should not be a long-lasting issue. For even more pictures, click here.

Conference in Toulouse

Last week I have been to The Space Photometry Revolution – CoRoT Symposium 3, Kepler KASC-7 joint meeting in Toulouse (France), to present the results from my latest paper. My talk was very well received, many people came to me afterwards to congratulate and/or have a discussion. But I don’t really want to talk about the scientific program (which was great, by the way, except for the once-again useless wireless connection), since this is more of a personal blog, so let’s see what happened outside the conference-room.

Memorable moments from the week: 1) torrential rain upon arriving in front of our hotel, which made us wait ten minutes not more than 100 metres from the reception. It’s been a while since I saw such a thunderstorm, the roads immediately turned into 10 cm deep rivers… 2) Germany trashing Brazil 7:1 in the semi-final of the FIFA World Cup, which was just shocking. I watched it from my hotel room, and at 5:0 I really started thinking if I was just dreaming. That was definitely sports history in the making. Every football match which does not have 5 goals in the first half hour feels boring since then… 3) Since Belgium lost the quarter-final against Argentina (thus finishing the tournament at 6th place), I did not get to give my talk wearing my original Belgian jersey with a blazer on top. Such a pity, it would have been very cool. 4) Conference-excursion to the city of Albi and to a local vineyard: the UNESCO heritage episcopal city (see pictures below) and the cathedral were all very nice, but it’s a pity it was a guided tour and not a free-for-all three hour stay, since I could have seen so much more by myself (or with a few people).

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The vineyard was a bit boring, but the wine we bought there (I don’t want to say names, but it was not me) was quite nice (to enjoy on the bus on the way back – also by me). 5) The conference dinner was fancy (live music, pretty location), with great food, nice wine, and pleasant people around the table. 6) The pizzeria (La Pastasciutta) suggested by the local organising committee was simply perfect!

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