Today was Scientific and Industrial Symposium Day. There were many excellent speakers that really bumped my knowledge of the global pharmaceutical practice to the next level. My favorite speaker was Dr. Subodh Priolkar, who spoke on the pharmaceutical industry and how innovation is working to raise everyone around the world to higher standards.
After the symposium, we had a brief meeting about our post congress tour and our flights, then began our preparations for International Night. Christine brought microwaveable popcorn as her contribution, but we don't have a microwave in our room so we had to look for another way to pop it. There is a restaurant downstairs in the hotel, so we approached them and asked to borrow their microwave. They had never seen it before, so they were quite intrigued. We were not allowed in the kitchen, but we just explained the process of preparing it and they took it to the back for us. They came back looking for us, seemingly upset telling us there was a problem. We were afraid we set the kitchen on fire, so we rushed to the kitchen with them, only for them to tell us they thought they ruined it, because they cooked it for the 2 minutes we told them, but nothing happened. We just laughed and told them we should probably just leave it in longer. It ended up taking 5 1/2 minutes. Well, we had 6 bags, so we had to leave the kitchen and just left them at it. A half hour later, we had our popcorn. As a thank you to the staff, we gave them one of our 6 bags, and headed upstairs to finish getting ready for international night. Christine brought her popcorn and I brought my twinkies and rice crispy treats (so happy to have those out of my bag now) down to our USA table.
International night has been my favorite night yet! Each country had a table with goodies, drinks, and trinkets from their country. We all mingles around trying everything, all the while each country performed something to represent their country. Most were dances, some were silly, some were traditional. Some sang, some did skits, it was awesome. It went in alphabetical order so we were second to last and didn't get to perform until after 12:30, and by that time everyone had tried a few too many goodies and were hard to keep of the stage while we were performing, but nonetheless it was an awesome time. I got my name written by the girls from Taiwan, tried lots of yummy (and some not so yummy) snacks, tried alcohol that tasted like nail polish remover, but then fixed it with one that tasted like liquid chocolate. It was also the night that everyone really came out of their shell and the most relationships were made. We know so many people now, or at least have met before, that there's always going to be someone to talk to in a workshop or at meals or on the bus, etc.
It was such an awesome night, I hope the rest of the conference is this great!