London at Night
(Astronomy Picture of the Day).
Image: ISS Crew, Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Lab, JSC, NASA [larger view].
Ever since I first heard about it, I have been wishing wishing wishing that I could -- somehow -- attend Nature Network's Euro ScienceBlogging Conference in London, England on 30 August. In fact, I have wanted to relocate to the UK (or elsewhere overseas) for much of my life, but alas, that's another dream unrealized, sigh. So of course, I thought my latest desire to visit London and attend this conference would suffer the same fate as the dodo.
But, I was wrong! Thanks to several of my readers, I WILL be attending the conference, which I will refer to as "SciLon"! To say the least, I am so excited about this that I could cry!
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Congratulations!
Just steer clear of Slough. It really is as bad as claimed.
Congrats, that sounds too cool!!
I can't wait to hear about it.
there are reasonably-inexpensive (by today's standards) B&Bs in centrally-located spots, such as those around russell square (near the british museum)... you can jump on the tube at russell square (on the picadilly line) or at holborn (a 200-300-metre walk away, and sorry, i forget what line it's on) and be almost anywhere in london within an hour (with perhaps one more change of station)...
how long will you be staying? summer in london can be a bit on the warm side... get an oyster card, first thing, for your travel needs...
Have a wonderful time!
But why have you illustrated this with a smashed windscreen?
:-)
Have a wonderful time
A smashed window screen? - sounds just like London at night to me!
Seriously, congrats for managing to get over here. Travelgirl is right that there are some B & B's near to Russell Square, but hotels cost far more in London for an acceptable standard than they do in the US. I used to organise hotel accommodation for patients and relatives in a London hospital, and £130 a night was the average around South Ken, and I wouldn't bet on much less around central London. Unfortunately cheap often tends to equal nasty. I was really embarrassed how much visitors would have to pay for accommodation that was really awful.
You could try out Lastminute.com as well as the usual travel sites. You could also try university accommodation. UCL are in that area, and although when I stayed in one about 10 years ago, the rooms in the halls where we stayed were even more ropey than I remember them (I was a student at UCL), I'm sure they are much better now. They are available until early September, and you will be in London during late August, so you might be OK.
This is a link to them http://www.ucl.ac.uk/residences/ , and £26+ a night sounds pretty good for that location. Astor College is very central, Ifor Evans is in Camden, and I would not recommend it (thats where I stayed, and the location is not very central). The others are apparently not open to individual bookings.
Good luck, get your Oyster card, and check out Oracs site for last August. He went to London, and asked for suggestions beforehand on where to go (I can't find the actual post in his archive, so it might be worth asking him for it). There was lots of stuff from all us Brits on what to do in London and where to go. Obviously, this did not include Slough!
That's fantastic! I hope I can make it there myself, in which case I'll buy you a beer, or two or three...
I would check out the budget hotel chains like Premier Inn and Ibis. It's not luxury, but they do good, cheap, clean rooms for under £100.
Rock! Pint's on me. See you in August for SciLon.
Matt Brown has started a Science Blogging 2008 group at Nature Network. which will be useful for keeping up to date. I guess at some point someone will start a thread asking about accommodation.
wow, i am so excited about this. i am also receiving lots of great suggestions in email so i have decided to post a summary once per week of all the information i receive from all of you regarding things to see and do in london in august.