The calm before the storm

Today I guess that I have experienced the calm before the storm. It has been a fairly relaxing day, just getting to know everybody on the course and checking out the surroundings while battling the inevitable (although mild) jet lag.
Everyone seems to be really nice which is great and with that said I'm sure it will be an awesome course, because lets be honest, with a couple of knuckleheads on the train, regardless of activity, it would not be as good or as enjoyable.
It seems like I'm among the most recent PhD students though, which I can't really tell if it's a positive or a negative thing. So I guess I'll just see it as irrelevant and that's that.

So we all did a hike together, while getting to know each other a bit, to a fairly closely located waterfall. To be frank, it was just another waterfall which just as well could have been located in Tahiti (I don't even like hiking that much) so I quickly vouched for the beach instead after having seen the waterfall. So we split up into two groups, while my group had lunch by the beach and the other group continued hiking to another waterfall further up the slopes.
That was pretty much my day since the heat and jet lag started to get to me by that point. Atleast I tasted two local beers, one lager - the only fancy thing about it being the name - Koru Longboard I think it was, and then a richly hoppy IPA which was really cool but a bit too heavy to drink beach side in 30 degrees heat.

Speaking about the temperature and climate, I'm actually positively surprised. I would say that it's currently very close to a decent swedish summer day, with the exception of the evenings being warmer (sleeveless was almost too cold though). Usually it's the humidity that gets me, but here, it is nothing compared to New Caledonia or Tahiti, which in my opinion is nice.

Now it's time to read some papers and make last minute adjustments to my talk before the course introduction starts tomorrow. I'm excited but also a bit nervous.