Weekendje London.

Friday morning. 08:06 hours. A text from Adrianus. He and Jan were already on their way to London for Astrofest. But their flight was delayed and eventually even cancelled due to heavy snow on the Airport. (!) I was going to leave the next morning to see my ‘Zoo-friends’ at this place where we first met, exactly a year ago…

 

So I kept looking anxiously at the ‘live flight information’ on the website, where it said ‘trouble’ more often than ‘on time’, which by the end of the (school) day made me decide to book the ferry last minute instead. Good old Stenaline still had a place for me, so I quickly packed some stuff, arranged for my mum to pick up Janey earlier and asked Marcel to take me to the station. I was so going to be there anyhow!

 

On the familiar boat I not only found out that another ‘zooite’, David, was travelling the same route as I was, I also discovered I had forgotten my UK phone and the charger of my Dutch one, after telling everyone they could reach me of course. But hey, I was on my way and we even saw some snow travelling from Harwich (harbour) to London Liverpool Street Station, where Graham was waiting for us.

 

The three of us headed for Kensington and even the Circle line being closed doesn’t make travelling through London hard. Graham and I didn’t plan to go to any of the lectures at Astrofest, like last year, so instead we went for tea at Café Nero. Later on we met up with Edd, Annie (so glad you could make it!), Tommy, Geoff, Paola, Harry, Chris… lots of well-known faces. But the bunch was also bigger than last year, because of some very friendly new faces.

 

We were in a pub when Chris told us about exciting things happening soon with ‘the Zoo’. He also put me on the phone with Pamela Gay, but I’ll write more about that later. After lunch we went back to Astrofest, where I found out that Robin (from ‘Canopusbooks’) was there again too. He produced the book ‘Bang! The complete history of the universe’ for Chris, Patrick and Brian and my Dutch copy of it was living with him for months.

 

In the evening we had dinner at this nice Italian restaurant Jules had found. I brought my laptop, as we had a ‘Skype-date’ with the people meeting up in New York and the people at home who couldn’t make either of the meet-ups. Unfortunately the connection only let us say “Hello, Hanny?” and “Hi Jordan, can you hear me?” before it cut off again. I managed to chat to Kevin, Weez, Aida and Curtis, but we definitely need some practicing in conference calls. Oh well.

 

After dessert Edd took me to his new place (still in Portsmouth – I love that place) where I stayed over for the night. I like being able to just come over for a weekend to see my friends, but travelling back so quickly makes me feel a bit restless. I had to though, I was going to fly back on Sunday. That became a whole story itself, so more on that later. Here’s first some pictures of last weekend, taken with Graham’s camera, but by different people. So credit and thanks to all for this (proof of a) very nice ‘weekendje London’.

  

 Edd, me and Graham in the pub – chosen by our expert Geoff – just relaxing.

 

Chris showing us the exciting new plans for Galaxy Zoo. In the picture, from left to right:

Tommy, Paola, Geoff, Chris, David, Gemma, Alice and Marina.

 

Tommy and me being crazy / staying dry from rain. (Like we did last summer, when we used

The Multifunctional Picnic Blanket as an umbrella).

 

Robin and me at Astrofest. He’s holding the book we got signed by one of the editors,

Derek Ward-Thompson (thanks!). It has a picture in it of Hanny’s Voorwerp too!

 

Me, Paola (all the way from Italy!) and Marina at the restaurant. Paola was the first zooite I met last year on Astrofest and she is the sweetest person who calls herself ‘Scary’ I’ve ever met! Marina was one of the friendly new faces and I’m glad she’s part of the family now!

 

This is Graham’s fault. Well, and my own. I didn’t really think he meant it when he said ‘smell this ice cream’ as I used that silly joke myself before. Anyway, again some proof of how we are actually just big kids…

 

There are more pictures of this weekend on the Galaxy Zoo Forum by the way! And here’s to next time!