I had been hearing less-than-pleasant things about Birmingham since it was announced that GUADEC, the GNOME Users and Developers European Conference, was going to be held here. I was pleasantly surprised, Birmingham’s much nicer than I was led to believe it was going to be.

New Street is a very nice pedestrian mall, and there are plenty of clubs and pubs on Broad Street. I haven’t had the chance to explore much beyond downtown, unfortunately.