Day 4 was the first full day of the Conference which was mostly held in the Great Hall at the University of Birmingham. Zach and Lincoln dropped me off and then went to do their own things (find their adventure at the end of this post). Of course they had to come back for all of Lincoln's meal times.
Opening slides in the great hall. This place is like being in a church except the University wasn't religious. The intro talk focused on the important people at Birmingham. Poynting was one of the first physics professors here, but turns out they had quite a few ties to famous physicists.
So after many many emails I was told that I would have a room with a sink and fridge to feed Lincoln. Turns out it was actually a music classroom in a locked part of the music building. No sink no fridge and I had to get the head of the conference organization every single time I wanted in the room. In the end it was ok, but not the most ideal situation.
This is the outside of the Great Hall
Inside of the great hall during one of the country poster sessions. Each country gets 90 seconds to talk about their poster. Then at least one country representative stands at their poster during the poster session. Lots and lots of countries are represented including Yemen, Gambia, Peru and lots of other places not always known for physics.
This is where my poster went up. I will be talking about it and standing in front of it on Wed. Also they call tents marquees here for some reason.
Lincoln's travel bouncer came from Amazon. We got back to the hotel early enough for him to try it out. I ended up skipping dinner because they couldn't tell me if Zach could come and then Lincoln's feeding schedule wasn't working very well with the night talk anyway
Instead of the talk we all headed out to explore more of Birmingham and get some decent beer with dinner. This is one of the statues near the main museum area that was behind some construction walls partially.
Queen Victoria statue in her square in front of the Birmingham Mueseum
Zach had to get his picture taken with this bear
And finally some good beer. We went to Purecraft and had a small area all to ourselves to enjoy our IPAs and other beers (plus when Lincoln wasn't happy nobody really cared!) This place had like 40 good beers on tap with half being from England and half being from all over the place including things like Stone IPA
Trying to keep Lincoln happy during the appetizer which was crispy goat cheese with heirloom tomatoes. So good!
Brewer's grain risotto for dinner
We walked to the nearby St. Phillips (aka Birmingham) Cathedral after dinner. It was a pretty church surrounded by a very old cemetery. The church bells were just ringing like crazy the entire 10 minutes we were there.
Not sure what this is, but I thought it was a cool building on the walk home
We stopped at this big shopping area called mailbox on the way back to get dessert and go to the bathroom. Above is the BBC headquarters for this area with yet more bears which can be found on top level
Nice looking canal as the sun was setting
Beautiful sunset again from our room at the end of the night
Zach and Lincoln's Tolkien Adventure, Day 1:
Today's sites were the Plough & Harrow Hotel, where Tolkien spent his wedding night, and two towers that are supposedly (not proven) inspiration for Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul, The Two Towers from Lord of the Rings. This was all within a 20 minute walk of our hotel.
The first stop was the Plough & Harrow, still a wedding venue and an operating hotel!
Next was the first of the two towers, Perrott's Folly. A very nice crossing guard helped us cross the busy road - it was time for some sort of school to get out!
On the way to the next stop, we saw this quaint, stereotypical (at least in my head) Birmingham street.
The second tower is Egbaston Waterworks tower. We got there just at the right time to grab a picture with the gate open!
Though this part of the walk had nothing to do with Tolkien, it was a nice walk around Egbaston Reservoir.
On the way back, Lincoln insisted we stop so he could have his picture taken at each site!
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