After holding a couple of fantastic Encoding Experience events in Boston and San Francisco, last week was our chance to see how well the format would work in the UK.
On Monday I was back in Zurich airport to fly across to Heathrow.
It was one of those rare flights where I opted for a window seat, so I made the most of it. Here's the view as we crossed the channel, the coastline being the south coast of England.
As we approached London the weather was still lovely.
And then we landed.
Rather than inflicting the ever-increasing Heathrow pick-up fee on my friend Simon, I hopped on the Lizzie Line, changing in Hayes & Harlington.
Something as British as bizarre weather is the phrase "mind the gap".
There's something very interesting happening in the UK, at the moment. For the longest time, during my childhood, we were basically ashamed of the English or Union flags: they were associated with skinheads or football hooligans. Right now people are hoisting them as far as they can up lampposts to celebrate their identity (although there are plenty who would say this is the far right at it again). I'm not going to comment on the politics of it all, but I've definitely come to a place in my life where I appreciate a lot more about the British identity. Perhaps I needed to spend a long time abroad to get there.
It was really nice to get to see Simon and his three boys, who are now all grown and either working or at University.
Simon and I headed across to Cookham to have dinner with my brother, who has his boat moored there at the moment.
I spent a lovely evening catching up with them (although I admit to zoning out when they discussed Spurs) and the food - at the Spice Merchant on Cookham High Street - was absolutely top notch. 
The following morning I headed into the office in Covent Garden. It's a straight shot through to Tottenham Court Road and a nice 15-minute walk from there to Agar Street.
I always enjoy this walk, getting a little slice of life in the West End.
I met with Tomas Lay Herrera at the office, and just after lunch we headed across to Stratford for the evening's event.
It took us way longer than it should have to find the hotel we were staying in, and found that a lot of the up escalators we wanted to take along the way were under maintenance. (I won't go as far as to say this is a metaphor for the state of the nation, but I will say it got to the point where it seemed like some kind of conspiracy.)
The hotel had an umbrella rental machine. Only in the UK!
The event was being co-hosted by our friends at UCL, at their Here East campus. A huge thanks to Fiona Zisch, from UCL, who put in a lot of work at a very busy time of year to help make the event a success.
The table was amazing.
Charlie Crouch did a huge amount of local legwork on this one. She's an absolute pro - having done event work at a number of former employers - so made it all look easy.
Dagmara Szkurlat worked hard with Prudence Robinson (who didn't come across from Boston for this one) to manage the invitations and make sure the event went smoothly. Lots of long hours of preparation in addition to being a great facilitator on the night itself.
And smooth is an understatement - the evening went wonderfully. We had some proper photographers, so I didn't take many snaps during the event, but here are a few of mine while we're waiting for the official ones to come through.
We had a really interesting mix of people around the table: the whole point of these events is to have a rich discussion on capturing the human experience of the built environment with people from diverse backgrounds and with varying viewpoints.
The discussion was, once again, a delight. People were sufficiently excited about the topic that very little facilitation was needed.
I was very happy to be able to catch up with Michal Gath-Morad from the University of Cambridge (although we first met when Michal was at ETH Zurich).
The food was sumptuous.
Once again we felt we could have continued the discussion for much longer. People continued engaging long after the microphones were turned off.
And Liam, our graphic recorder, did an outstanding job of capturing the nuances of the evening's conversation.
Here's a better view of his work. I loved the cartoony anecdotes!
On Wednesday morning Tomas and I ended up taking the Central Line back across to Tottenham Court Road at rush hour. Not very smart, in hindsight, but once again a great way to experience London life.
Our Senior Director of Research Engineering, Tony Ruto, took us for a very nice brunch, after which Tomas headed to Heathrow while I went back to the Agar Street office for a few hours before doing the same.
It was another whirlwind trip to the UK. It was a busy few days but also far too short to do all I'd have wanted to. Hopefully I'll once again get to catch up with more old friends on the next one, which with any luck will come at a less busy time of year.
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