It has been quite some time since I wrote anything, in fact..not since my asian trip. This month though, I was able to combine a little getaway to another new place along with my very first academic conference. The conference and therefore main effort of the trip was the Palaeontological Associations 60th Annual Meeting and took place at the Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1. My initial thoughts on attending were purely based on attempting to learn new things first hand from researchers in the field, make some contacts which would help with future studies and of course, enjoy the sites of what is an old, French city.
So for the conference itself, I thought I would be clever and book early to save on costs of flights and accommodation. I decided to book an air bnb closest to the university Lyon campus BUT of course, a week or so before the conference took place, I decided to read the information guide that was probably emailed several months earlier and the conference itself was in a different campus about 30 mins away...sigh! It wasn't an issue in the end mind as the couple I stayed with were super friendly, the bed was super comfy and the metro journey was not too taxing. This was good news as it took about two days to de-stress from the outward journey. Let me explain...
The plan was to get a train from my house into Reading where I would have a 15 minute wait for a direct train to Gatwick. Easy! But as usual, my favourite, local train company (Great Western Railway) that are the cause for 70% of my stress levels was 15 mins late meaning that I missed my connection meaning that I would not make my flight to Lyon. No matter you say, I can go via London you say. This is true and that was the only option for me BUT thankfully, Southern Rail was on strike so Gatwick Express was not running properly and I would have missed my flight. Instead, I had to take the Thameslink from London Bridge and it all started out so well. I got to the station 20 mins before the train was due to leave and I would have got to Gatwick with just a smudge of time to get my luggage dropped off. As you can imagine, I was fairly tense at this point but the train came and left on time so I was much calmer. That is until we stopped for 10 minutes outside one station and a further 5 mins outside another meaning that after the whole rush, I missed the flight anyway. Luckily, EasyJet were acting like human beings that day and because they know of the train issues they swapped me on to a later flight for free. All i had to do was sit in the airport for 7 hours. Joy! So as you can see, my day was shit but O2 did cheer me up by telling me that the guy who sold me the upgrade actually lied to me and I was not entitled to some of the things he said I was. I shall stop there though due to the fear of a rant coming along.
The conference was good. It started early and finished quite late and on more than one occasion I got back and fell asleep in my clothes. I learned a lot about new pioneering techniques and research into the world of Palaeontology and Palaeobiology which I probably won't go into here. I even made a few friends which was nice.
Lyon itself can only really be described as French. It was not as dirty as Paris I must admit but it does seem to be a French problem when nobody cleans up litter. I think my phone thermometer was broken also daily it would tell me that it was only 5 or 7 degrees but in reality, it was much more of a bitter cold than London. Maybe the pollution here helps, who knows. Some of the sites were very beautiful, like the Basilica and various Cathedrals. Even the view of the city was beautiful but vert foggy. I have to say, the city seems to pride itself as a 'capital of gastronomy' but without going on and on, it really isn't haha. Most of the places I found were tourist traps but because I am now an experienced traveller, I avoided them.
As with my usual visits to other cities, I had to visit the natural history museum. This was supposed to happen as part of the conference but I forgot to book my ticket so had to go a different day. Either way, it is called the Musée des Confluences, is quite new and has very weird architecture but had very fascinating exhibitions including one on species that has a really amazing, complete skeleton of my favourite species (Megaloceros giganteus - in the photo). Apart from some of the religious buildings, the museum and the odd other site, Lyon, despite being France's third largest city, was pretty small with no much to do.
So after conference and walking around for a bit, it was time to leave. As usual, my luck came to haunt me and the fog lurking over London delayed me for an hour but I suppose it could have been worse. My favourite train company also decided to not run trains from Gatwick to Reading due to staff shortage so once again had to go via London during Southern Train strikes. A fun trip all around and a useful experience but I think in summary, I am quite happy not to visit France on holiday as actually it is a pretty boring, underwhelming experience.
As for the next blog, who knows where I am going next...
