The morning of Day 7 was the end of the conference. After a quick lunch we drove to Stratford Upon Avon where Shakespeare lived. It was a pretty good start to our real vacation!
Last morning talk with a good view of the Great Hall. The last plenary was the lady who was in charge of LIGO. She gave a great talk (very understandable for people with some physics knowledge). Then they had a surprise announcement that Malala was coming! I was a little nervous I wouldn't make it because they locked my room again, but I managed to get there with a few minutes to spare.
Malala agreed to come because she knows the head of the Pakistan team who had asked her. She said she had been to like 3 continents in 10 days and was very tired but she agreed to come talk to us because she wanted to encourage women in physics especially in developing countries. She gave like a 10 min speech and then took audience questions for about 20min
After audience questions she went to visit some country posters. She didn't really visit our poster but she agreed to take a picture with many of the US delegation. I am sure somebody has a picture from a better angle
Great Hall from the outside
After Malala's talk there was a few sessions on recommendations and such and then at 1 pm we were done!
For the last few hours Zach and Lincoln hung out in the feeding room one last time. During his rolling around on the floor Lincoln made more pregress toward crawling
There is our small minivan packed up and ready to leave Birmingham!
On the way out we stopped at this hole in the wall sandwhich place for a quick lunch
40 min later we were at Avon House at Stratford Upon Avon. Our room was bigger than the Hampton Inn and the host seemed really nice (if somewhat frazzled trying to get everything ready)
Lincoln looking cute while we unpacked and let me stretch a little
After our little break we walked the less than half mile into town. Here is the walking bridge with the tons of town swans hanging out
Of course we had to stop for Starbucks
Lots of cool really old buildings around town as we walked to get ourselves orientated
First real stop in town was the Avon Boat Club river tour. Lincoln was facinated by the swans and they seemed to think he might be somebody who would feed him.
Our boat
Trinity church from the river where shakespeare was buried
Dinky with the Royal Shakespeare building behind him
Lincoln decided he wanted to stand on his own and eat the boat at the same time
He was a much happier boy on this boat trip than the last one!
Wildlife near where we turned around to head back to the starting point
After the cruise we took a nice 2 mile walk mostly along the river through some wild areas. Lots of birds and different plants
Then back to our hotel to feed Lincoln and get ready for dinner.
Monument to Shakespeare given by an American near our dinner place
Dinner was at a real Tavern! This place was actually around when Shakespeare lived here. The building was a little tight, but super cool!
Some good beer with our dinner
Cute setting for dinner, seems like not to much has changed in like 500 years
Lincoln was not willing to sit quietly through dinner by himself, and he seemed very interested in getting Zach's IPA
My steak and guiness pie meal. Everything was very good and it wasn't super expensive!
After dinner we walked back to our hotel and enjoyed the sunset over the river area.
And finally it was bath time for Lincoln. Sadly Lincoln didn't have a good night. He wailed for over an hour before finally settling down. Then he woke up pretty mad at 1:30 and wanted food at 6:30. Hopefully he refigures out this whole sleeping thing soon!
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