José gave a lightening talk on the things he had learnt in Houston. This included interesting things like how to adjust the air conditioning in the dorm rooms using a screw driver and the fact that the city seemed to be teeming with cockroaches. I learnt a couple of things too. On the first day I managed to get bites on both my feet. It was pointed out to me that I shouldn’t wear open toed sandals in Houston. I managed to get mosquito bites and something else that I was told was probably a chigger bite. I hadn’t even heard of chiggers.

I was also able to get some advice on coping with heat and humidity. And I did meet one woman at the airport who had lived in Japan and continued carrying a parasol now she was living in Houston again. Though the picture below of Norwin and Marty shows why men shouldn’t carry one of these no matter how hot it is.