It this really happening? I’m flying to Hawaii?

My first international conference

At the beginning of my PhD, I was promised to go to at least one big international conference. Sometime in the second half of 2016, my supervisor and a few other colleagues started making plans about going to ASLO 2017 conference - and it was taking place in Honolulu! I can tell you: as much as I was excited about this, I was also scared. Back then, I was still not really used to flying and could not imagine having to take three flights to get to Honolulu. But hey, that should not keep me from doing such a great trip and attending such a cool conference! So it happened, and it all went well! At the end, it was such an awesome experience! I gave a great talk, received a lot of positive feedback and even got invited to give a talk at IGB at Stechlin Lake in Neuglobsow, Germany. Me and my colleague Heidi used the time after the conference to explore Honolulu and I loved it! I stayed for just a few more days and climbed the Diamond Head with two other awesome ECRs from Germany, Svenja and Vanessa, and was so happy I got to see Honolulu from the top of the Diamond Head. All in all, this was a time and a trip that I will never forget.