European Convention: The Venue

As always, Convention is held at some amazing places! This year it was held outside of London in Addington Palace, Surrey. I was able to convince one of the workers there to give me a quick history lesson on the place. It was built in the 1770's as a summer home for a business man. He died before it was completed and it then became the home of the Bishops of Canterbury. Eventually it was turned into a private residence once more, and when that owner died, it became a public building and golf course. As the man pointed out, every owner of the building died shortly after purchasing the palace, so I wouldn't recommend buying it! :) Below are some pictures of the place!Me on the grand staircase. You just wanted to wear a formal to walk down those stairs. It made you feel like a princess!

This tree was absolutely amazing! It was growing in so many different ways. Unfortunately, several of the branches had fallen in recent years, so we weren't allowed to go underneath it.
This is the front of the building, with SU! signs to welcome us as course. SU! always manages to decorate the venue in ways that make us feel right at home!
This maze of tents out back is where all our general sessions were held. We had over 300 demonstrators there this year (more than double last year) so we needed a bigger area than the inside of the palace could provide.
This was one of the common areas, it was a great place to hang out in between sessions, or to organize all those swaps!