Trip Report - London 2006

Aug 2-17, 2006

Itinerary:
MSP-GTW, London, SW England, GTW-MSP

What'd we do?
The main purpose of the trip was Bridges, an art and math conference at the Univ. of London at which Sharol presented a paper and exhibited her work. We've been to several of these art + math conferences now and so it's fun to get reacquainted with the friends we've been making. There's a lot of mutual interest and support. Some of the special features of this conference were its emphasis on education (it was held at UL's Institute of Education) and architecture (there are many new, interesting buildings on the London skyline complementing the familiar ones). In addition to talks we attended workshops in which one literally worked - making artistic, or geometric anyway, objects.

Other Highlights:

London: esp. the developments on the South Bank during the past 15 years since we've been there, including The London Eye, The Tate Modern, Globe Theatre, Millenium Bridge. Otherwise we mostly revisited some of our favorite sites.

SW England: Chawton House (Jane Austen's house), Winchester cathedral, Lyme Regis, Bicton Gardens, Dartmoor National Park, The Eden Project, Penzance, Land's End, Lizard Point, Torquay, Sherborne Abbey, The New Art Center, castles, Portsmouth.

Links:

• The Conference
• Our hostess' webpage
• Some of Mary's work
• Sharol's work
• Sharol's webpage
• The London Eye
• The Gerkin
• London
• Hound Tor
• Land's End
• Beach
• Lizard Lighthouse
• "Victory"
• The New Art Centre
• A link to Sharol's blog (forthcoming)

Costs:
   airfare: we used miles
   registration: 2 x 250
   car rental: , 1 week, 216 pounds, incl. insurance                
   parking: a pound or so most places                                        
   gas: 900 miles at almost a pound per litre                                           
   tolls: a few                                         
   local transportation: 2 "Oyster" cards
   museums: a few pounds per
   food:  about twice what it is in the States                                 
   lodging: 
    (we stayed we friends in Clapton and camped after that)
   total: not much