Voltei de Romênia!

Last week, between May 11 and 15, I had a great honour and pleasure to be a part of the 14 International Congress on Musical Signification in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I lived it to the fullest, both professionally and personally. I learned many new things and quite a lot about myself, including the following:

- I like beer and I can drink almost whole 0,5 l. glass (but only white!)
- I look like a Finnish girl, but I must be from Portugal
- The best and safest way to get from Warsaw to Cluj is via Istanbul
- Turkish airlines serve excellent tomatoes with mozzarella on board
- If you hear a foreign language and you don't understand even a word, this must be Hungarian
- Vampires are real, but they do not always come from Transylvania
- Gypsy-Romanian beggars sometimes give holy pictures for free (God bless them!)
- If a ticket machine doesn't work, you need to knock-knock on the screen, and lo and behold, it wakes up!

Além disso, nunca antes tive a oportunidade de praticar português durante uma conferência internacional. Aprender minha língua amada compensa muito e parece não ser menos importante que o espanhol: havia pelo menos 5 falantes nativos da língua portuguesa e um da língua catalã. Conclusão: uma língua menos falada pode não ser menos relevante. Obrigada a todo o grupo ibérico e ibero-americano!

These are all jokes or half-jokes. A more profound message is that I feel I now belong to an international community of wonderful people, with whom I hope to share the best I can both as researcher and as a human being.

Thank you all who made these days so special to me! Mult'umesc, moltes gràcies, obrigadissima, merci beaucoup, mille grazie, kiitos paljon, köszönöm, ačiū! 

Till the next time!