In the last week of my summer holiday I feel I’ve lived the life of three people. It’s been crazy busy, but with a lot of fun things. At the beginning of the week I had a friend over for dinner and even a guest from England! Wednesday I left for London myself…
It would be an only-one-night visit and since I had to be back for the first meeting of the new school year on Friday, I was flying instead of sailing. My dad had to work on the same train I was taking in the morning, so that made things easier and even more fun. I packed some stuff at 6.50; he picked me up at 6.55. Five hours later I was in the air, surprised by the fact people at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and the British Airways crew were actually all very friendly today. I also do like London City Airport, where Graham picked me up for lunch on the way to his office. In the evening I met up with Edd, who explained some interesting maths during dinner – which would help understanding some of the talks at the conference the day after better.
Before I checked in at the hotel, I met up with the lovely organisers of the next two days, who quickly concluded I should’ve been on the organising committee from the start. I’ve only been to one of these conferences once, but the next morning I’d experience chairing the first session of one! I hope I was as charming as people said I was afterwards. It was fun in any case and there were some interesting lectures. Needless to say I especially enjoyed hearing from Steven what’s happening next with the Zooniverse projects. It was a shame I couldn’t stay for the panel Jules was on, but it was great to see her and Geoff and Tommy again too. Tom took me back to the Micky Mouse ride we were in a few weeks ago, to make sure I got to the airport on time.
Yeah, they spoil me, my English friends. We didn’t get to do anything special besides the meeting, but we concluded that ‘doing nothing special’ is special too. In between the meeting I did two interviews as well. One for GridTalk, which resulted in the nice reporters concluding it was a one-take-thing and it ended up as a video on YouTube too. The other one was for another British Broadcasting Corporation radio show. In the plane back I sat next to the father of a fan of mine, apparently, as he was telling me about his 14 year old son who’s very much into astronomy. I ate my ‘last reminder’ of England (you got to love carrot cake!) before I found my taxi driver – who’d have a sign like in the movies.
That was arranged by the NOS Radio 1, which is a big national channel in the Netherlands. I was taken to the Mediapark in Hilversum to do a live interview in their studios at about midnight. I was on right after Alain Clark played his last new song a meter from me, very relaxed! By that time I was so tired I made a fool of myself by not noticing for two whole seconds that this nice artist wanted to introduce himself to me. Otherwise another great experience again though. The interview was mainly about the comic launch and afterwards I was driven back home (all the way to Heerlen!) by the same nice taxi driver.
I remember thinking ‘is this my life?’ I guess very little sleep gives new perspectives on things too. Anyway, a middle of the night comic launch and an otherwise exciting weekend later, I’ve now started teaching again and enjoying life in a more structured kind of way.
2 Comments
Great days, Hanny, I’m glad you got your plane on time.
XX
Great interview, too. You’re a natural xx