Nottingham-London-Nottingham

A baby screaming into your ear. You should try remaining calm while traveling in a bus, train or plane and simultaneously receiving many decibels of high-pitched noise coming out of the mouth of a two year old. I was one row ahead, the girl sitting next to the baby and his mum must have had the MP3 player working at its maximum volume. I wonder if some day I will find myself trying to appease an incredibly loud child to not annoy other passengers of a crowded public vehicle. But I am getting ahead of myself...

I took this bus to take me back to Nottingham, where tomorrow, Monday, I will follow for some days courses related to my field of research. I arrived here almost one week ago already. I found out of two conferences that I could attend before the course. Although I was not a speaker there, it was rather exhausting at times. I believe that I was working almost every evening after the conference to take advantage of the extra inspiration that all these talks provoked. I should say that the inspiration was not only technical, or in the form of new ideas, but also thanks to the enthusiasm and the performance that emanated from some excellent speakers.

After the conferences were finished I headed to London for something I was planning and looking forward to. In London I met two Cochabambino friends who started a life there some years ago. Despite the relatively short distance between us, it was only now that we met for the first time after leaving Bolivia. We spoke at length of the enriching experience that is to live abroad and meet new people. They kindly took me all around the center of London to see all there was to see, or rather all I could see in just one weekend. We hope to see each other again soon. There is plenty more to talk about and two days aren't enough.

I learned that there are many Bolivians out there in London. But they don't always come together. The differences of age, goals, values and what have you often get in the way of forming a small community. That is why I am glad we share so many things with my friends. This made possible we had such a nice time