It's the second day of my solo European trip, and since yesterday, it really has been an interesting experience. Leuven, the town where the workshop was held, is a nice little university town brimming with students, bikes, stony roads and outside-eating-places. I was surprised to see so many unpaved roads that were made of just neatly-arranged-stones. The university seemed to be the central point of the town, with many university buildings spread around the city. I went around the town, visiting the monuments that were tourist spots.
But more than the buildings, I think it were the people that I met that made the trip more interesting. On my first day, I was going around with a map in my hand, trying to figure out the workshop venue. I was just asking randomly to people around. And I met a Nepali man, who immediately responded in Hindi in reply to my question! Both of us were equally amazed to find someone belonging to Indian subcontinent. I felt nice to just have talked to him. At the workshop, we had round-table lunches which would help you to network with people. Yesterday, on my table, I talked to a Spanish man who was residing in UK and was in the university. Today, I met German students studying in Germany. We mainly talked about each other's research or our countries etc. Not that these talks would be helpful in "networking" part of my PhD. But, just the realization that its not really difficult to get started with talking to people was a good find, specially after my initial resistance to join an unknown group. I was a bit overwhelmed initially by all unknown European faces and it seemed that everyone except me, had found a way to be part of a lively discussion. But slowly, I also was conversing with others which felt good.
No comments:
Post a Comment