Trip to London
Posted by Martin Orr on Sunday, 08 November 2009 at 17:54
I took a trip to London on Wednesday. It takes 4 hours to get from where I live in Bures-sur-Yvette to St Pancras by Eurostar (and under 6 hours to Cambridge, where I went for a weekend in October). It is surprisingly cheap - £27.50 if you book far enough in advance (about 4 weeks in advance to travel mid-week). In London I went to see Ed, who did Part III and is now doing a PhD in Imperial, and went to the London Number Theory seminar. This seminar reminded me that the stuff I have been doing recently is much more "geometry" than "number theory" - I am generally happiest doing something in the middle.
I only planned to go to London for the day, but my time there was nearly doubled because I was confused about the time of the train home. I discovered this as I was going to check in, bang on 30 minutes in advance as requested, which was in fact the time the train was due to depart. So I heard it leaving. This was the last train to Paris so I had to wait until the next morning. When I explained to the lady at the ticket office what had happened, she looked like she thought I was completely stupid (which I was). But she said she would class me as having missed the train (I am not sure why this was being generous; maybe it is meant for people who had delayed connections), and so I could change the ticket without paying anything. But only to the next train, at 5.25 in the morning. Fortunately there is a youth hostel only a couple of minutes from St Pancras where I could stay.