Chronicles of Portugal: Part Two

I have now arrived in Cascais, the setting for my first ever scientific conference type thing, although it is in fact a workshop. Let me explain what I am doing here, and I'll be brief so I don't lose you to sweet slumber. I am here as a so called plant expert, applying my knowledge of legumes in order to assess the state of European populations of species of this particular group of plants in order to establish whether they are threatened, and to attempt to decide on adequate conservation action. Legumes are of economic importance for human food, animal food and soil nitrification, and this particular workshop is focussing on the status of wild plants which are related to commonly grown legume crops which could potentially act as gene donors in the future in order to improve said crops. If you're still reading, congratulations, if not, well I don't blame you, I've bored myself slightly.

Anyway, the local council seem quite excited to be hosting us, and as such are treating us like royalty, but it's getting to the point where it is almost embarrassing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the free three course meals and bottomless wine glasses, but no one can work out what the area is gaining from it. They must easily be shelling out £150 a day per person to have us here, and it's making me wonder how the money could be better spent. The first thing that springs to mind is some sort of conservation project in the area. If the purpose of hosting us here is to raise awareness about the importance of biodiversity, why not spend the money on local conservation projects, of which there are several, all of which I'm sure need funding more than we need feeding. This makes me sound incredibly ungrateful, which I'm genuinely not as this is an excellent experience and an opportunity to hob-nob with some big names in the field. I just think it could have been done on a smaller scale. Us biology types really aren't too fussy, happier rooting around in a field than being pampered. Anyway, enough rich boy complaining, and back to the books. I'm hoping to upload a few photos before the week is up as this place is annoyingly picturesque...