After four eventful days, the ICMS in Kalamazoo closed on May, 10th. Four days attending this congress in K’zoo meant, many exciting events, many interesting, friendly and intelligent people, lots of fun and less sleep. Here my unforgettable impressions of this unique happening.

Wednesday, May, 6th – Arriving in Kalamazoo

First of all: Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo . It’s situated in the state of Michigan.

My flight from Berlin to Kalamazoo had two stopovers, one in Amsterdam, were I had to wait for about five hours, and another one in Detroit. I arrived at Battle Creek International Airport on Wednesday, 6:00 p.m. Due to the time difference of 6 hours, in Germany it was already midnight. I had a really comfortable flight with an excellent service. I never thought I would feel so pretty good after an about 20-hours trip. Leaving the terminal in front of it was a cowd and some people from the media. No, they weren’t waiting to greet the Medieval Congress attendees, but we find out about it that they were waiting for an „American Idol“ participant (the american pendant to „Deutschland sucht den Superstar“) living in Kalamazoo, who was one of the last five candidates and should immediately land.

Overlooking the campus of WMU

For a city like Kalamazoo with a population of 72.000 inhabitants that was a special happening. Me and some other congress attendees weren’t as much interested as our shuttle bus driver wished we would be. So he drived us directly to the Western Michigan University’s reception. Everything was well organised. (They even hung up special advices to prevent the Swine Flu). The check-in flowed smoothly. I got a room next to the reception building.

My room

I brought my baggage to the room. I read up on the room’s moderate standard in advance. That doesn’t matter to me. And in retrospect I have to confirm, you can surrender nearly every luxury for the luxury of on-campus housing. Because in addition to the nostalgic student feeling, you don’t have to waste precious congress time with an unnecessary long way home.

My room - Simple but functional

But there was one thing I was bothered by: The lavatory was arranged between two rooms for sharing it. Unfortunately it was impossible to lock the door from inside the lavatory and the toilet had no extra door. That means if the luck was on your side you were overtaken by your housemate. I personally advise to sing or to whistle while in the lavatory. For me it was a successful operation; I always stayed alone in the bathroom . I also advise to bring your own blanket. There are blankets in the rooms but they are very thin and used. The weather was mild but other attendees told me that they already had experienced a cold snap years ago and had frozen. K’zoo is famous for its weather fluctuation. I got another blanket on the reception. Single rooms are always twin rooms, so I had enough space. After stashing all my stuff, I mannerly put my name tag on and went back to the other building to have a look-around.

Connecting people – My first evening

I easily got into conversations with some people, though I didn’t know anyone. The name tags are a real wow. Throw a glance at the tag and you know who is standing in front of you and what university he comes from. By the way, titles get disregarded, because everyone should be coequal to each other. Such a glance revealed me that the kind man, who despairingly tried to open my water bottle, was a professor who helped me years ago with a translation. A funny situation. Now I knew his name AND his face. All people were very outgoing and friendly. To my surprise I also met immediately the professor who advised me this congress. That’s not understood on a congress with 3.000 anticipated attendees.

I was cordially affiliated by the regulars, and we decided to have a pint. And faster then I could enunciate „Kalamazoo“, I found myself in a pub in the middle of delightful people. Of course I wasn’t able to help trinking an American Budweiser. I wanted to see for myself if the rumors about the beer are true. I had good possibilities of comparison, ’cause I drank two days befor the Czech Budweiser in Berlin. My result: The same name doesn’t mean the same beer and least of all the same taste. Someone missed to acquire the international trademark, that results in two different tasting beers with the same name. It’s very easy to name the difference: The Czech Budweiser has flavor, the American hasn’t. But I was told to be careful: With the alcoholic content it is the same than with the name; it is equal. Enough spoken about beer .

Out for dinner on Saturday

I had a wonderful evening and all those people gave me the feeling beeing really arrived at the congress, mentally, too.

Another result on this evening: By sharing out the jetlag I was forgotten on a mysterious way. I was up since 27 hours and were laying in bed at midnight, exhausted but good-humored.