Posted: August 3, 2016, 5:14pm
University of Nottingham
Here’s the scene: 840 researchers from 40 (mostly european) countries all descending onto the University of Nottingham’s campus in north central England for 5 days to listen to presentations on research in the field of mathematical and theoretical biology. I wrote briefly about this amazing experience before, so read my previous post to catch up to date.
Me, myself, and I
I traveled alone to Nottingham. I took a plane from LAX, to KEF in Iceland (the most beautiful airport I’ve been in — breathtaking scenery out the window) and landed in Gatwick airport, just outside of London. From there I rode the train to Kings Cross station in the heart of London. You may remember that as the location of Platform 9 and 3/4 from the Harry Potter wizarding world. I checked and was disappointed to find that I’m still not magical in any way, shape, or form. Sad.
After that I rode the train to Nottingham, about 2 hours north of London. Yes, people ride trains in Europe. I was surprised too. I checked into the conference and after traveling for about 25 hours, I seriously contemplated laying down in the parking lot for a quick nap before ascending the final hill to the dorm where I stayed for the week. That last hill felt interminable.
The time change (about 8 hours different from LA) really messed with my body, too. I think I fell asleep on average around 6pm, which made it harder to network in the evenings (I never did make it to dinner, I would just wake up and have breakfast around 2am). But I made due, at least when I was awake!
Tourism
In Nottingham, we saw a few very cool attractions. It’s a medium-sized town but the historical nature of it makes it a great place to travel. There is a Nottingham castle, complete with dungeons and gates and a moat! I also saw the “Wayne Manor” filming location from the Batman movies.
One of the great parts of the tourism in Nottingham is that we traveled the city with the other researchers from the conference. This provided a relaxing atmosphere to make networked connections with the people who I hope to collaborate with for years to come. We do love to talk about science, but it’s also nice to establish a friendship in order to foster a friendly, cooperative atmosphere in the field.
Published on July 25th, 2017
Last updated on August 10th, 2017