to london, to london, to milk a fat pig

When I'm done with INRIA soon, I will miss its seemingly eager approach to travel funding. To cash in while I still can, I chooffed off to London last week for the MAST workshop, having initially been invited by Laurie way back just after the Australian cricket team finished belting the English 5-0 in the Ashes (just in case anyone had forgotten).

I flew over from Rennes airport via Paris, bringing to three the number of different modes of transport (with train, ferry) I have now used to get across the Channel. Upon arriving, I headed straight over to Earl's Court and caught up with Afe and Trish for dinner. We had a pretty intense talk about movies, something I've enjoyed doing in the past with them, and something I haven't done often enough in the last few years. They seem to have settled in really well in the last couple of weeks.

The workshop was really good, but I'll leave that to my other blog. After it was done, we adjourned in good research fashion to a nearby bar, and then to a dinner with waiters with an obsession over maintaining our glasses entirely full. After that was done and they booted us out, Laurie and I went for one more in a pub in Holborn.

On Thursday I made the worst of the miserable weather and went for a walk. I walked from my hotel up to the Natural History museum for a look through a couple of exhibits, then from there up past Imperial College to Hyde Park. I walked the length of Hyde Park to the corner tube, and jumped across to Piccadilly. From there I walked over to Leicester Square, where I temporarily surrendered and went into Starbucks to read my book for an hour or so. I met up with Ben for a nice Japanese lunch, and we continued walking, down to Nelson's Column then down Fleet Street to St Paul's. By then it was time for me to fly home.

I think the whole time I took one photo, in a continuing pathetic lack of photographic effort. I'll probably put it up sometime, if it doesn't look too awful.