Prague - Home - Back to Oz

Finally some time to post about the conference of the European Association of Sports Management in Prague from the 15th to the 19th of September.

On Wednesday morning I took the plane in Eindhoven and one hour and 15 minutes later I arrived in Prague. I took an airport transfer with the airline company so I could do some sightseeing. One hour after arriving in the conference hotel I had a meeting. After the meeting we took the metro to go to the city centre for the opening ceremony. After some keynote speeches there was a reception. We drunk something and had some finger-food and then we went to a restaurant to finally have our dinner (at 9pm).

On Thursday there were presentation all day so I went from one room to the other to listen to the presentations that I was interested in. I heard some good things and have new ideas for my PhD :-)
In the evening we went to the city centre again for the conference diner. It was very good food in a nice setting and excellent service. After the dinner we went with a little group to the old town centre for a little evening walk and we had a beer at the old town square.

We we came back in the hotel it was time for bed!

On Friday morning I still had to prepare some things for my presentation.  During the day there were a lot of interesting presentations again. In the afternoon session I did my presentation about the relationship between international performances at young ages and later success in tennis. The presentation went very well and I could answer the questions well! So this was done!

In the evening I practiced a bit for another presentation I had to do on Saturday about a sport policy framework and its application on an Australian context. Friday night I had diner in the hotel restaurant with some VUB colleagues. Then it was time for bed... Busy days!

On Saturday morning I woke up early to practice the presentation a bit more. I first went to some other presentations and then it was my turn again. The presentation went well. I had two questions, one I could answer well... for the other one I had to ask some help from Australian Colleagues... After an exhausting last conference day, I went for a walk in the old city centre with a friend I met on the same conference the year before in Amsterdam. We some some beautiful things:

At 7pm we were at the special clock on the old square and on every hour there is a "show". There were a lot of people and we enjoyed the 5min of music from the clock!

Then we walked to the "Karelsbrug" were we took some nice pics!

After the walk we went to the Ice skating arena for the closing banquet of the conference. Halve of the skating field was covered with a wood floor for the reception/standing dinner and on the other half we could do some ice skating. When we arrived some kids were showing their tricks on their ice skates. Then we had some food and then I tried to skate myself. It was so long ago! I had to practice...

After the reception I went back to the hotel to pack!

On Sunday morning at 7am the pick up bus arrived and I went to the airport. I slept the whole flight! I was exhausted from the conference!

But it was worth it!

After the conference I had 5 more days back home... but they went so fast! Visiting family and friends, the eye specialist, shopping,... It went to fast...

On Friday night I was back at the airport to go to Australia. Saying goodbye to the family :-(... but knowing that I could go back to Australia, sun, nice university and Philippe :-)

The first flight (Brussels - Abu Dhabi) was ok. 7 hours which is not too long. The second flight was horrible! 14h is toooo long! But I survived it. Then I had to take a domestic flight (Sydney - Brisbane) and then Philippe picked me up. Back home. The Australian home.

It took me a while to get used to work again... especially with the jetlag! 

Now it is Sunday night! It has been raining the whole weekend! But really, raining like crazy, non stop! So no trips this weekend. On Friday night I went to a soccer game in Robina with Jenna, another PhD student. The Gold Coast was playing against Wellington. Jenna got free tickets as her boyfriend was the referee of the game! I enjoyed it! But it was freezing and the atmosphere was not special with only 3000 people. 

So for the rest we have spent the weekend in the house: cooking (time to try new recipes!), filling out my tax forms ( I have spent at least 3hours on filling it out! At least, I am getting some money back :-)), laundry, watching a movie,...

That was it!

xxx