…. in soggy London, and I have to admit, I’m rather zonked. ESLAB was tremendous fun, full of great talks and was fantastic to meet up with colleagues across the Herschel project both scientifically and socially (and boy, do astronomers know how to knock back the booze…..). It’s such an intense week though – early starts plus around 12 talks a day – that basically it’s just overload central by the end of the week. As a consequence, it was nice to head home – even to screaming, hyperactive almost 3 and almost 1 year old kids and a rather frazzled wife.
A number of travel firsts for me – first trip on Eurostar, and first time in Belgium and Holland. Very impressed with Eurostar, amazingly quick to Brussels from St. Pancras. Not quite so impressed with the Belgian railway system (rather slow, and our train to Rotterdam noticeably sped up once we crossed the border into Holland), as our train back to Brussels from Rotterdam was cancelled – luckily as we had the Eurostar connection to make, we were bumped up to the Thalys high speed train to Brussels Midi, and made our connection just in time. Very much like the Thalys trains – definitely will use them again. Rather a step up in class from First Great Western, and everyone’s favourite, Irish Rail…..
An enjoyable, yet tiring, few days – time to sit on my backside for the weekend before more (UK based) train journeys next week… it’ll give me time to digest the UK election results/fallout, the football I’ve missed (and will watch) and the mad news that Ireland will be contributing $1.3 billion to the Greek bailout. Did we find it behind the sofa?
