At the beginning of August, for the second year in a row the iGEM Team Marburg invited other European iGEM Teams to meet up in their lovely town. Gladly three members of our team accepted the invitation. After all the lab work for the day was done, we rode north and arrived at our campsite in Marburg in the evening hours.

The plan for the first night was getting to know each other and the city during a pub crawl while working through a task list. Finding landmarks and enjoying local specialties were among the challenges. The atmosphere and people were great, and Marburg's old town was simply gorgeous. We learned a lot about the members of the other groups and their projects.

After not quite enough sleep the whole meetup went to a university building, where each group held a presentation to introduce their projects. We were astounded by the ingenuity behind some of the projects. Traci Haddock-Angelli from iGEM-headquarters also held a presentation, and it was fascinating to get a deeper insight into the organization behind iGEM.

After the work had been done, we set out to a park to have an excellent barbecue and play a round of bubble soccer. For everyone who doesn't know what bubble soccer is, just google it, you won't be disappointed.

In the second night, Team Marburg had rented a club where we partied and danced until dawn. The following day, after a hearty breakfast and lunch we rode home with a whole new set of ideas after we learned a lot and made plenty of new friends.