From London to Dijon for the ICRS conference

My journey started at St Pancras with the Eurostar to Paris. Although the temperatures had fallen from the near-40 degrees they’d reached earlier that week, it was still pretty stuffy and I was grateful for the spacious and pleasantly air conditioned Eurostar compartment. I arrived in Paris just over two hours later, happy and content after the problem-free train journey.

“Spacious and pleasantly air conditioned” are not words I’d use to describe the metro from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon, though, where my next train was leaving from. With the passengers packed like sardines in 35-degree heat (Paris had not quite come off their heatwave yet), the mood was tense, to say the least, and to top it off, one angry traveller treated us to a long, angry French rant about I don’t know what during the journey. The man next to me tried to address the problem by shouting “Respire, madame!” but that didn’t seem to help (has being told to relax by a stranger ever made you feel less angry?). Living in London, however, the hot and overcrowded metro full of angry locals yelling at each other made me feel right at home.

Fortunately, the journey between Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon is only ten minutes, so I didn’t have to endure the chaos for long, and within five minutes of exiting the metro, I was on the train to Dijon. I settled into my window seat looking forward to listening to a podcast and enjoying some lovely views of the French countryside but immediately fell asleep. It was sheer luck that I woke up just before we reached Dijon, and not at the Swiss border.

The conference itself was excellent. I got my talk on how cannabis use impacts the brain’s reward system out of the way with in the morning on the first day, allowing me to enjoy the rest of the conference without any pre-presentation nerves. Several of the talks were on the chemistry and molecular pharmacology of cannabinoids, which is far outside my area of expertise, but there were also some great talks on medical cannabis. Additionally, it was terrific to meet some researchers who I so far had only known as names on journal articles.

Another quirk of attending a conference in Bourgogne was the food. I have never been to a conference which served seared tuna fillet, cuttlefish, and snail for lunch. Outside the conference, we enjoyed the fun vibe of the World Cup, including a magnificent victory for my native Norway over Cote D’Ivoire, and a not-so-surprising win for our host country over Sweden.

My return journey was at least 10% less relaxing than my outward journey. The first leg back from Dijon to Paris went smoothly, but when I arrived at the Eurostar section of Gare du Nord, I was greeted by close to 1000 people who had all seemingly arrived at the same time and were now trying to get through passport control and security before our train left an hour later. Needless to say, this was not possible and the train ended up being delayed, presumably because they could not simply leave the hundreds of passengers (including myself) who had not made it through in time at the platform. I have to tip my hat to the Eurostar staff, though, who exercised excellent crowd control through a highly organised queuing system which, although it took over an hour to get through, made me feel like the world still has some order in it.

After the ordeal at the train station, I was grateful for the opportunity for two hours to relax on the journey back to London. Upon exiting the train at St Pancras, I was greeted by a roar from the pub opposite the platform, informing those of us who had fought the horrible internet connection in the tunnels into St Pancras that England had won their game against DR Congo.

Slight travel hiccups notwithstanding, I would choose train over plane any day, even if the train takes three times longer. Flying feels like disappearing from one city and then suddenly reappearing in another, kind of like apparating in Harry Potter, whereas taking the train really makes you appreciate the true distance and continent you’re travelling across, like flying a broomstick. It is also undeniably more comfortable and relaxing, and the views are ten times nicer. Unfortunately, unless you’re going to Brussels or Paris, traveling anywhere in Europe by train is usually at least twice as expensive as flying. Hopefully that will change in the future, as the value of sustainable travel becomes more obvious, perhaps after a few more summers of insufferable heatwaves. In the meantime, I’m grateful the IGUANA fund exists to support these journeys and for allowing me to travel with less pollution-guilt to the ICRS conference in Dijon.