2 Canadians in Edinburgh

Summer Wrap-Up

2011-09-25T17:09:00.005+01:00

As fall closes in on Edinburgh, with the light disappearing earlier in the evenings and the orange and red leaves blowing in the wind, I've found a few minutes to try to summarise some of our summer adventures in preparation for an equally busy few months.

2.5 Canadians?

I may need to change the title of the blog one of these days. Not only do we plan to move to Glasgow at some point this school year, we are also expecting a little Scottish Canadian to join us in a couple months. We found out the exciting news on April 2nd and are due December 7th. I'll go on leave from work a few weeks beforehand, so I'm now working very hard trying to complete as much work on the thesis before I take a break. It's looking good! I'm so thankful to have felt great through much of the pregnancy (at least after week 15 or so) and have even been able to do some traveling...

Off to See the Fjords

Derek and I fulfilled a very big dream of mine back in June -- going to Norway to see a fjord. It was a really wonderful trip. We went for a week and it ended up being divided into 3 very different sections. I went on my own on a Wednesday evening and spent two nights with a friend from school over here who is from Oslo. I ventured around the city, seeing the major sights (Parliament, the Royal Palace, the opera house, the fort, etc.). Then Derek flew in on Friday night and first thing Saturday morning we took a train into the mountains to Flam and from there hopped on a ferry part-way through the Sognefjorden to the picturesque town of Balestrand, where we stayed for two nights. There we did some hiking, waded in the fjord at a rocky beach (terribly painful but a great experience), and enjoyed picnicking on our balcony at the hotel.

On Monday we caught the first ferry out to Bergen and tried to do a bit of sightseeing in the pouring rain before catching our train back to Oslo. We then succeeded in completing another dream of mine that I'd held since Grade 5: seeing a Viking ship. In fact, at this one simple museum I got to see 3! The weather was lovely -- mid-20s, sunny, and just so much nicer than in the UK -- so on our last afternoon Derek, my friend and I all had a barbecue in a big park overlooking some of the city. And after picking out the perfect Norwegian sweater (my third wish for the trip) we headed home happy and tired.

Family Comes to Visit

Derek and I hadn't had many visitors before this year, but in May I was so happy to have two of my aunts and my cousin come to visit us and the wider UK. They made the wise decision to rent a holiday flat in Edinburgh for 2 days at a time, alternating between being here, seeing our lovely city with us, and seeing some of northern Britain's prettier areas. They took a trip up to Inverness and the Isle of Skye (which I'm determined to see at some point while we're here), and a second trip down to the Lake district (another beautiful area I have yet to see). It was so nice to be able to stop by their place and just hang out, or have them over for a truly Scottish meal of (vegetarian) haggis, neeps, and tatties. I certainly missed them when they flew home, and look forward to having more family come up early in the new year once the baby comes.

The (Other) Royal Wedding

While it sure didn't get the press coverage or all the hype of The Royal Wedding, Edinburgh did get to host its own royal wedding in July, when Princess Anne's daughter, Zara Phillips, married England rugby player Mike Tindall at Canongate Kirk on the Royal Mile, about a block away from Holyrood Palace. With all the big-name royals planning to attend my good friend and I knew we could not miss it. But the wedding was not a public affair (even though the British public paid the half-million pound cost for security on the day), the time of the ceremony wasn't made public, the crowd numbers allowed to line the street were severely limited and the church itself is small and along one of the narrowest sections of the street, so this created a number of potential problems to overcome. But we made it! We stood for five and half hours just down from the entrance to the Kirk, where we could see its front doors clearly, and watched as the cars quickly drove by and the guests quickly made their way inside.

We got to see the groom and his groomsmen pose for photos, William, Kate, and Harry who arrived together, Princess Anne, Edward and Sophie, Andrew and his daughters (in much less outrageous hats and outfits), Charles and Camilla (looking drab but with a wild headpiece), and the Queen and Prince Philip, and then the bride herself, who looked lovely (although from our angle she appeared to be all veil -- I had to rely on the magazine photos to get a good look at her dress). So there we had it, all the royal watching one could ever want in one afternoon, and they had come to us. Amazing.

Those were certainly the highlights of my summer, although I could have left something out accidentally in my haste to put it all down. Edinburgh's weather overall was just awful this summer -- cold, damp, windy -- we could probably count the number of summery days on one hand. Fall is somewhat of a relief because at least the weather feels fitting now. But I sure miss having daylight light the living room past 10pm!

Royal Wedding Prep

2011-04-28T14:06:00.002+01:00

The Big Day is almost here! I can't turn on the news without seeing a reporter in front of Westminster Abbey or having to listen to a 'Royal Correspondent' speculate on what they couldn't possibly know about the details of William's and Kate's big day. My personal preparations have involved buying bunting (a 5 metre string of little Union Jacks to hang up in my living room) and deciding to wear my Garden Party and make scones with Derek. I'm having a good friend over, and we'll be spending the morning nibbling on British foods, glued to the television. I'm looking forward to it.

I certainly don't envy everyone back home who would have to wake up at 3am to watch the entire coverage, or at least 6 to watch the ceremony. Here the wedding starts at 11am, a very reasonable time for a wedding if I do say so myself :) We've been getting tons of informative and fun resources on the day and I thought I'd pass a few of them along to my non-British-resident readers.

The most important for following the wedding would have to be the day's schedule. For that I've turned to the couple's blog. It's amazing how precisely the day has been planned out. I'm sure with many millions of pounds being spent on security, weeks of bomb checks, days of police-lined streets and bodyguards and policemen disguised in other ceremonial uniforms throughout the processions that everything will go amazingly smoothly.

The government has been trying to encourage Britons to hold big street party's in honour of the occasion. I don't think I'll see any around here. Scotland just doesn't seem to be getting swept up in Royal Wedding fever. Glasgow was actually on the news this morning for having not put in a single request for such a party. But if you were to have a party, of course you'd need appropriate food. Where better to turn than BBC's own selection of Royal Wedding recipes? I can't stomach coronation chicken myself, but that's just me.

Finally, Derek caught an interesting news clip this morning of all the betting on the Royal Wedding that's been taking place. I would never have thought of such a thing! People are betting on everything from what time Kate will arrive, to whether Harry will forget or drop the ring, will Philip fall asleep during the ceremony, and what colour hat will the Queen wear? (My guess is turquoise, as I've been seeing her in a lot of blue lately). It looks like all the major betting firms are taking bets on these and more. Crazy.

I'm excited about seeing the big day. I'm sure Kate will look beautiful, and I hope absolutely nothing happens to spoil their big day. This means that the rain showers that are threatening London had better hold off! I'm also looking forward to Edinburgh welcoming its own Royal Wedding this summer, on July 30, when Princess Anne's daughter Zara Phillips will marry England rugby player Mike Tindall. They're planning to have their reception at the Palace of Holyrood House, where Derek and I attended the Queen's Garden Party last summer. So there's another wedding to look forward to in the near future, but I don't think it can compare on scale, excitement, or international interest. I'll be looking for it though :)

Winter Wrap-Up

2011-02-05T09:02:00.002Z

It's been a very interesting couple of months, with time just flying by. So here's my attempt at a recap in order to capture it on the page.

A winter storm rocked Britain at the very end of November. Government officials said that due to the 'unprecedentedly' early date they couldn't have been prepared. And they sure weren't. Everyone had a good chuckle about in hindsight, as if the snow had begun a day or two later, once it was December, we doubted they would have suddenly had enough snow plows, shovels, salt and grit to deal with the snow. There were a number of factors that made handling the snow difficult. It snowed day after day for several days in a row, leading to a foot of accumulation in some areas of Scotland. However, the temperature stayed fairly warm by Canadian winter standards, which led to the snow being heavy and damp, hard to clear, and prone to melting in the day, freezing over night, and then ending up as a layer of ice under the next day's snow fall.

The infrastructure just isn't in place here to deal with continual or large snowfalls. There just aren't enough snowplows in the cities, along the main highways or at the airports. This led to many airport closures, dangerously icy city streets and the closing of the highway between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The trains in some areas stopped running. Between Edinburgh and Glasgow trains were officially reduced to 2 an hour, making every stop rather than alternating and turing the 40 minute journey into about an hour 20. City buses gave up on following any schedule and would suddenly change their routes due to road conditions (and/or hills). One day they were suddenly cancelled at noon, then slowly reinstated around 5, even though it was barely snowing. People are not required to shovel the sidewalk in front of their homes or shops, so people don't have shovels, the pavement isn't cleared, and huge stretches of sidewalk became dangerous slippery ice rinks as the snow was packed down by boots in the day and freezing over at night. I felt so bad for older residents of the city who would no doubt feel trapped by the snow and ice. I took the bus a lot more often than normal because it seemed a lot safer than walking on ice or along streets with dangerous drivers. People here don't know how to drive in slippery conditions, leading to countless vehicles getting stuck at the bottom of hills. On the no. 2 bus we came across the previous 2 that had gotten stuck at the bottom of a hill. Our driver briefly pulled over to heckle the other's driver... For me the worst consequence of the dangerous roads was the lack of food staples reaching grocery store shelves. We went days without being able to find milk or bread in the grocery stores in our area. The few deliveries that did make it in were snapped up quickly. I was so happy to come across a well-stocked Tesco's the one day that I scooped up two containers of milk on my way to school, stuck them in the office fridge, then carried them home again.

We were very lucky really during the bad weather. Our flat is decently insulated, has double-glazed windows and good gas central heating, so we were warm. Derek couldn't get to school much during the last week before we travelled home for Christmas, as inter-city buses were completely cancelled and the trains were few and sporadic. Concerned that we might miss our 9am flight out of Glasgow (the plan had been to take the first train out of Edinburgh in the morning, but we knew we couldn't rely on them to be on schedule anymore), Derek booked us a room at an airport hotel for the night before, and we took a mid-afternoon train the day before. The train was slow and late, and the main transport routes (both road and rail) still weren't running at full capacity even though it hadn't snowed for 3 days. It was really nice getting to spend a night away, and we made our flight with no problem (except perhaps the inconvenience of having to pull our luggage along the snow-covered streets between the hotel and the airport).

Scotland's transport minister was interrogated about why the country was allowed to shut down for day after day. People had been stuck on major roads for up to 14 hours at a time. Dairies had to dump expiring milk because their trucks couldn't transport it to the waiting cities, and city dwellers in Scotland's capital couldn't get milk and bread. He said the snow was unprecedented. Really? It's snowed every winter we've been here, and that's three in a row. It might be worth investing in a few more snowplows. Britain's GDP growth for the last quarter of 2010 was negative 0.5%. They blamed it on the weather.

Now that we're back in Edinburgh our lives are dominated by schoolwork, as it should be. I'm hoping to have handed in the final product by the end of 2011, and that goal has me reading a lot right now. Most of my reading is of journal articles found online, so when I'm done work for the day usually the last thing I want to do is is stare at a computer screen for another few hours, hence the decrease in blogging and other electronic communication. Derek's gone for over 11 hours a day during the week, and is enjoying his work, research and teaching in Glasgow, so that makes both of us happy. A concerted effort over Christmas to find a couple good board games and other games has resulted in more evenings spent away from the computer and tv screens, which is a good thing. We've been playing Scrabble, Scrabble Upwords (very fun -- we highly recommend it!), Yahtzee, cribbage, The Game of Life and Boggle (both on my iPod, so still a screen but lots of fun). And of course there's socialising here with friends and chatting with family back home. In all I think we've settled into a somewhat new routine for 2011 and are feeling very optimistic about this unfolding year :)

Rome!

2010-11-18T19:34:00.005Z

On October 3rd we took the train from venice to Rome. It stopped a few times, including in Florence (although in the station was in such a sketchy area of town that its hard to believe the city is actually beautiful), where it then reversed out of the station and travelled the second half of the journey backwards. Not great for those of us who get motion sick.

When we arrived at Termini Station in Rome we were prepared for large numbers of people, and we found them. The first thing we did was look for a travel agent to buy a Roma Pass from, a tourist pass that combines 3 days of public transport with free and discounted entry to sites around Rome. Then we picked up a few groceries at the grocery store in the station's basement and made our way down to the subway (a long, confusing, winding journey down). The subway line to the hotel (which was on the far side of the Tiber River, near Vatican City) was nice and new, and not too busy. Way nicer that Toronto's. The other subway line that we'd end up taking to the Colosseum and Forum, on the other hand, was crazy packed. When we emerged from the subway station we went the wrong way and walked a few blocks in the heat and sun before turning around and having to wait outside the office building where the hotel was located.

The hotel, Caesars Rooms, was more like an apartment, but with 3 or 4 separate locked bedrooms. There was no staff on sight except the cleaner in the morning and the owner whenever a guest was due to arrive, and since we'd made it there early we had to wait outside. It was nice to have the use of a kitchen and a computer with internet access, as well as being able to come and go without having to hand your keys in or get them back from the front desk. We'd both stay there again, and highly recommend it.

Our first destination was the Spanish Steps. They were full of people, tourists just like us who wanted the perfect photo, and to say they'd sat on the steps and walked to the top. During a photo op halfway up Derek got pulled into a conversation with a guy wanting to sell him a bracelet. The rather protracted encounter concluded with two very ticked off guys and Derek sticking to his guns. We decided not to get pulled into any more conversations with opportunists. At the top of stairs was a beautiful church, the Trinita dei Monti, which we checked out.

Next on the list was the Trevi Fountain. I was really looking forward to seeing it. It was just so beautiful that it really left an impression on me. It was also very, very packed with people, making it difficult to make it to the water's edge for a photo and a good opportunity to throw a coin in (and therefore ensure a return to Rome). We did make it up to the front, and just as we were posing for a nice photo of the two of us Derek got hit with a coin missile from somewhere up in the crowd. He was hit so hard that it left a pink circle on his upper arm! (which I took a photo of :) ).

We walked to the Pantheon and walked around inside. Despite the numerous signs asking people to be quiet, as it is a religious building, there was a constant drone of loud voices. The domed ceiling was really amazing, and I liked seeing the bronze plaques that depicted scenes from Jesus' life. I've read these about in history texts as a common method of sharing the story of Jesus to largely illiterate populations, and before the Bible was widely read or published in the vernacular. But I digress. We walked to Area Sacra, ruins of a sacred area that archaeologists aren't sure what it was and I believe its also where Julius Caesar was killed. But now its a cat sanctuary, so there's kitties all over the place! In the beautiful, bustling Piazza Navona we sat in the square, saw a number of buskers, looked at the fountains and went into the church (which had very cool marble statues and its relief walls made to look three dimensional, as though the room stretched out the sides when it was really just a wall. A great trick of the eye using fake columns on the walls.

On the walk back to the hotel we walked around Castel Sant' Angelo, past the Vatican City's walls, and up to our room. No luck trying to find any grocery stores on Google maps, we walked to a Spar (a convenience store), but it was closed, so we wandered around a bit a came upon a market. We also took some money out (the hotel owner hadn't told us until we got there that we had to pay cash, so that caused a bit of unnecessary stress and currency exchange costs as we had two use two different ATMs two different days). We went back to the hotel to eat, I had some coconut and banana gelato, and Derek found a grocery store on a map for the next day. We watched BBC news and then a funny Italian game show where the contestant has to guess the professions of a line up of people. To cap off a very busy, fun day we saw an Italian ad for long distance phone calls starring John Travolta.

On our second day in Rome we decided to go see the Colosseum and the Forum. On the subway a woman came on with a microphone and speaker on wheels, sand a song, went around asking for money, then moved down to the next car and sang again. Very odd, and definitely annoyed those with ipods. Waiting for the second subway at Termini was crazy. It was packed, the train was late, and the train platform was longer than the train so we almost didn't get on.

The Colosseum was amazing, even better than I'd hoped. I love stadiums and places for shows, so to see something so massive and so old was really impressive. We walked all around the inside (having gotten in quickly thanks to a fast lane for Roma Pass holders) on two different levels. They're rebuilding the floor, which seems a bit odd. I'm all for restorative work that keeps an ancient building or monument up, but I understand rebuilding part of a structure that covers up other original features. But I'm pretty traditional about things -- I like to see the real thing.

Even though it was lunchtime by the time we left the Colosseum, we decided to go on to the Forum which was just across the street. I didn't realise just how large of a site the Forum is, although if I'd thought about how the site was the centre of Roman life and politics, I probably should have had some sense of the scale. We saw many ruins as we walked around the ancient city centre, saw the circus maximus, the Roman forum, and fought through what felt like a sand storm. I didn't know a lot about the forum, so at a great lookout point we paused and listened into an English tour guide's talk. We were tired and hungry by the time we left around 3, although well hydrated thanks to the many fountains that we'd come across. We hopped on a bus which we'd hoped would get us back towards our place, and it did, so that was fun. A stop at a nearby BILLA grocery store got us set for lunch and dinner: pizza, meat, cheese, wine, apples and pears. We had lunch (at 3:40!), then went to walk around a local mall which turned out to be a large department store -- the BILLA took up the basement. We stayed in for the evening and ate pizza, open-faced sandwiched cooked under the microwave's grill, and wine for dinner.

On our last day in Rome we joined hundreds of people in line to enter the Vatican Museums before they'd even opened. At £15 a head they must take in a fortune every day! Luckily they have a great student discount, so we had money left over for a nice dinner of pasta. Once inside we followed my travel guide's advice and went straight for the Sistine Chapel, which is at the end of the route. What an amazing, impressive, beautiful building that took my breath away. I was studying the ceiling so intently that I almost fell over backwards I was leaning so far back to take in as much as I could. Luckily Derek managed to find the path back to the start of the route, and we spent the next few hours going through wing after wing of the various Popes' collections. Each was unique, focussing on different types of artifacts: Greek pottery, Egyptian sarcophaguses, Roman statues, metal fragments from wooden medieval items like bed frames, helmets and chariots. Plus the halls themselves were each different and beautiful. There was so much stuff there! I found myself feeling bad that its all so closed off and expensive, so that its not accessible to the general public the way the British Museum is. Perhaps its the Vatican's main source of funds.

We went home for lunch, then came back to St. Peter's Square in time to queue halfway around the Square as we waited to go through security and be allowed in St. Peter's Basilica. We did our best trying to hold off those inevitable queue-jumpers (although no one minded the little group of nuns who were in the wrong line going ahead). Inside the Basillica a service was going on, so we could only visit half of the building, but the choir music made it a very nice atmosphere. There were some amazing sculptures everywhere of the different Popes, whose similar outfits really transcended time, but I didn't like seeing the lit clear coffins of a couple Popes. They were different colours. Afterwards we stopped in the Vatican's international bookstore (lots of John Paul II memorabilia!), then went back to BILLA to get dinner. I had my last gelato of the trip: raspberry, chocolate and kiwi. If the chocolate hadn't been in the middle between the two fruity flavours the kiwi would have been a bit more enjoyable :)

That's the basic run-down of our whirlwind, 5 day trip to Italy. I had a great time, can't wait to go back to Venice, and it reassured me that you really don't need to know the language in order to communicate and get along in a new place. A great trip, lots of a good memories, and over 500 photos to make me smile :)

Venice, Italy

2010-10-24T14:42:00.008+01:00

Derek and I flew down to Venice on the first of October, and were there for two lovely days. It wasn't really what I had expected. I mean, there were canals and little bridges everywhere, and my professor wasn't kidding when he stressed the need for a good, detailed map (which we didn't have). It was just so hard to really wrap my head around the idea that Venice is a fully-functioning town without roads or cars. Crazy. Yet really quite calm and peaceful, even in areas with a lots of people.

Venice is spread out over many many little islands, tied to each other with tiny little bridges, and with the large Grand Canal winding through. The train and bus station are at the north west end of the town, with the only rail and road link to the mainland stretching across the water. Flying there was simple. We went with Jet2, a discount airline that flies direct Edinburgh to Venice two or three times a week. A short 20 minute bus ride and we were stepping off the bus and into Venice. Derek thought to stop me on our first bridge over a canal and we took our photo :) Then we made it quite quickly and easily to our hotel, Casa Peron, which was only a few minutes away. That was probably the easiest trip to the hotel for the whole of the two days we were there, and I was constantly losing my sense of direction.

There were two things that I really wanted to see while we were in Venice: the Piazza San Marco, a beautiful square with a large church, the Basillica di San Marco, and tall brick bell tower, and the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, a church I was told by my professor that we just had to see on an island across from the Piazza, with its lovely painting of the Last Supper by Tintoretto and beautiful views of the main island group of Venice from the top of the bell tower. Heading out of the hotel after settling in and having a few sandwiches (which we'd brought from home), we set out to find the Grand Canal. We ended up walking through a square full of locals, with a few market stalls (some selling freshly caught fish), university students and a really neat atmosphere. Only a couple bridges span the Grand Canal, and the Piazza was on the far side from us. We walked along what we thought was the Grand Canal for ages before coming to a point and realising that it hadn't been the right canal afterall (which in hindsight made sense, as it was far too wide to build a simple walking bridge across). And from this point we could kind of make out where the Piazza should be, but it was going to a bit of a walk along the actual Grand Canal to get there. This was the first indication that we were going to have some serious difficulties finding our way anywhere.

The whole day it drizzled on and off, so there were many times that one of us would be taking a photo while the other is holding an umbrella above the camera. But it wasn't too bad, and certainly didn't get chilly and damp the way it does in Edinburgh, or humid and damp like it can back home. We did find the Piazza and watched the tons of tourists milling around under their umbrellas. Hearing all the church bells and tower bells all ringing on the hour was a pretty neat experience. Then we walked through the fancy shopping areas, with all their expensive brands, and then came upon the Rialto bridge, with tourist shops all around it and on top. Another packed area, but smartly designed with paths for walking along the outer sides of the bridge (and the backs of the stores). Wandering around we came across a BILLA grocery store, and picked up a couple pears and two Cokes (excitingly they were caffeine free but regular, not diet, making them my second favourite food find of the trip). With these groceries we headed back to the hotel for a rest, and decided to go get a few slices of pizza for dinner. We walked back to the a pizza place near the Rialto and enjoyed two slices, one pepperoni and one prosciutto et fungi (ham and mushroom) -- so good! -- in a square near the Campo San Giacomo di Rialto. with our Coke. There was a definite lack of benches which made eating outside a bit difficult, but we managed. That evening we went for a walk through Dorsoduro (one of Venice's Sestieres) and along the water, seeing a glimpse of San Giorgio in the dark. Then to cap off a great day I had my first taste of gelato. I went with two scoops in a bowl: lemon and tiramisu. The tiramisu was amazing, with pieces of lady fingers and streams of espresso in the mix, and was actually so good that I decided to get it again the next night, but this time accompanied by strawberry, with real strawberries mixed in. Delicious.

Our second day in Venice began with breakfast at the hotel. A bit disappointing, mainly white buns with jam and two fruit-filled croissants. Not the greatest for those of us who avoid white flour and breads. We went to San Marco and were in line by the time it opened at 9:30am. The church is set up so that visitors walk around the sanctuary in an orderly circle that is roped off, and we had to keep moving, so it was hard to really take it all in, although I suppose one could always go out to the back of the line for countless trips around (as its free to visit). Then we went over to a vaporetti (waterbus) stop, got our tickets for the no. 2, and went on our first waterbus ride over to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.

The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore was lovely and quiet, practically deserted, and we were able to wander through it, taking in the lovely paintings and architecture at our own pace -- the complete opposite of San Marco. The painting of the Last Supper really struck me, as it was so beautifully detailed, and massive, and also taken from a different perspective (from an angle rather than straight on), so as to be quite different from the familiar image. While visiting the church was free, it cost a couple Euros to take the lift up the bell tower, but it was worth it for the lovely views of Venice and the surrounding area. It was a sunny clear day so I got a few great photos of the city. Afterwards we walked along the dock to the edge of the islands public space, then hopped on another waterbus back to the main islands of Venice.

For lunch we'd decided to pick up some bread, cheese, meat and fruit at the BILLA and haed back to the hotel to make and have our sandwiches. Unfortunately we took so much time getting lost that we finally decided to sit down on the nearest bench (in Campo S. S. Apolstole), washed our hands in the water from our water bottle, and I made two ham and cheese sandwiches on my lap. I will say, Italian wholemeal bread is lovely! I miss it. Recharged, we headed back to the hotel, had our fruit, and dropped off the rest of the groceries.

We timed how long it would take to get to the train station in the morning via two different routes and tried to look for clues to remind us of the right route in the morning (ie. this bridge, not that one). Planning for dinner, we checked out Pizza Del Volo, a pizza place highly recommended and crazy cheap as listed in one of my guide books, located in Campo Santa Magueriti, but wow had the prices gone up in the year since the book was published, so much so that it wasn't for us. We wandered around the residential area of Dorsoduro, went inside San Rocco Church after a bit of people watching, then went back to the hotel for a dinner of sandwiches, an apple, some Pringles (brought from home due to their great traveling abilities), and Coke.

In the evening we sat on the steps in front of the train station down by the water of the Grand Canal as the sun set, watching the boats and gondolas go by as loud popular music, mainly corny love songs from movies it seemed, was played by a couple Native Americans selling cds to tourists (I've seen the same sort of thing here in Edinburgh down on the Mound). Other than the music it was a really relaxing was to pass the time, and a great place to people watch. I should say something about the gondolas I suppose. They were a frequent sight, long and black with drivers in striped shirts steering tourists along the biggest and smallest canals. There were groups of them all lined up together in a organised state, and individual drivers on the smaller canals trying to strum up business by charging slightly lower rates. When I say lower, I mean perhaps 80 Euros for 45 minutes rather than 100 or more that they would charge at the major centres. Either way, they were out of our price range, but I didn't really have a desire to go in one, and much preferred being able to take photos of them docked along the canals, or floating by.

As night fell we peaked our head in the large church next to the train station, but mass was on so we didn't go in, and then walked along the north side of the Grand Canal, not along the Canal itself much because its built up right to the water's edge in many places, like buildings all over the city, but through the touristy areas. I took a few nice photos from the Rialto bridge of the lit facades in the evening before grabbing a slice of pizza and some gelato. We went back to room, snacked, and packed for the morning's early trip to Rome.

I loved Venice. I loved the small-town feel of the place. I loved how safe and comfortable we felt as we wandered around. I had gone there with the hope of it being a relaxing trip, with only 2 things I specifically wanted to see, and the plan of walking around getting lost with Derek and seeing beautiful, unique sights, and I got that all. While I occasionally got a little tired and frustrated at getting lost on our way home after hours of walking, overall it was a lovely, peaceful time. The buildings were so amazing, often built right into the water, sometimes with little bridges going right into their doors, or with a backdoor (or maybe front door?) opening out to a docked boat. The bridges were so cute and so varied! I took many, many photos of them, and of us on them. Everyone I know who'd been to Venice had told me that I'd like it, and they were most definitely right. I can't wait to go back.

Quick Catch Up

2010-10-08T11:29:00.003+01:00

So much has been going on the past few weeks! I've seen the Pope, flown down to Hampshire for a conference, and travelled to the continent with Derek. I've decided to give you a quick run-down of the first two events in this post and keep up the suspense about our trip. It should be worth the wait!

As I wrote about last time, Pope Benedict XVI started off his state visit to the UK in Edinburgh, and a friend and I had long ago agreed that we had to find a way to see him. It was too amazing an opportunity to miss. I mean, how often does the Pope ride down the street a few blocks away from your house? But it turns out that not a lot of people thought that way. Determined to get a good viewing spot along Princes Street, we agreed to meet at 8am. Watching Breakfast on BBC I saw from the live shots that the street looked deserted except for those heading to work, so I texted my friend to let her know that it looked pretty empty and we likely didn't have to worry. We met at 8 and there was absolutely no one along the barriers, so we headed up to a first floor Starbucks and sat at one of the windows overlooking the street and the Castle to keep an eye on the 'crowds'. We saw one group of about 6 guys and girls about our age, but like us they kept coming a going.

Around 9 we decided to do a bit of shopping, as there was still no one around. By 10 groups were forming, so we found a great spot across the street from the art galleries and the Mound. We were right at the corner of the barrier, so that not only would we be able to see everything in front of us, we could also look down the street towards where the Pope would be coming from without a line of people obstructing our view. At one point a number of black cars with black windows sped along escorted by police cars and the crowds got a bit excited, as in one of those cars was the Pope on his way to meet with Queen Elizabeth II at Holyrood Palace. About 45 minutes before the Pope arrived was the St. Ninian's Day parade. It consisted of a number of bagpipe bands, groups of children from St. Ninian's schools across Scotland, and people dressed up as important figures from Scotland's history, including Scottish saints, Robert the Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots, and many others. Then came a long break and we all waited. Derek and my friends boyfriend texted us updates from news programs as to where the Pope was and what he was up to.

Suddenly we could see the flashing lights of the police escorts, and there was the Popemobile traveling not terribly slowly down the street towards us. I took two photos, but also tried to take the time to look at the Pope. We were lucky that he turned towards our side of the street right before reaching where we were standing. It felt really special seeing him. Crowds of about 3 or 4 people deep cheered as he passed by, so the atmosphere was really exciting. And it felt like he looked at us, saw us, and then just as fast had passed by. In my photos I could see men in suits walking fast alongside the Popemobile, but I never noticed them. I did see that he was sitting in a comfy looking white chair and had two men lower down in front of him in the glass pod. That was pretty neat, seeing that he's not alone in there.

So that was a really neat experience. We're so glad we went, but the 5 or so hours I spent out in the sunny but chilly, windy Scottish weather had me sick in bed within a day, and Derek and I were both on antibiotics by the next Monday. But I think it was worth it, and am really glad we went.

Much less exciting was my trip to a conference in Hampshire. It was like nothing I've ever done. I flew down to London from Edinburgh on a 7:05am flight, and we landed around 8 at Heathrow's Terminal 5 (the new one). I then hopped in a car I'd booked earlier, driven by a very nice and funny guy, and headed down to Jane Austen's neck of the woods about an hour away. The conference was located in the Chawton House Library, part of a sixteenth century manor home and estate, in the middle of nowhere a down the street from Jane Austen's house. It was a beautiful sunny day, nice and warm, and made it difficult to want to head back north.

The conference was pretty good. I arrived in time to do a bit of mingling with the 2 dozen or so other attendees before the programme started. The conference was on West Indian planters, a topic so closely related to my own research that I felt I couldn't miss it, even though it was so tough to get to and took half my year's research budget. I made a very good connection with a prof from the University of Houston, who told me I could email him anytime. Unfortunately another individual with a similar topic as my own who was supposed to speak at the conference dropped out, so I didn't get the chance to meet him or hear about his latest research, but he and I have an emailing relationship so I can always email him for info if I need it.

At the end of the day I was picked up by the same driver and headed out before the dinner began (which would have cost me £40 to eat!), but not without realising I'd left my jacket (with my passport in it) on my chair and needing to be driven back to pick it (thankfully we were only about 4 minutes away when I realised it!). I had lots of time to explore Terminal 5, where I strolled through Harrod's, checked out the menu of Gordon Ramsay's restaurant (which sold little lunch boxes for people running late for a flight!), and looked longingly at the stretch of posh shops (Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., etc.) before hopping on a 9pm flight back to Edinburgh. I'd left Edinburgh and came back in the dark, which felt a bit odd. It was good to be home and felt a little unreal that I'd been to the south of England and back in a day. What an adventure! But I didn't know then that within two weeks I'd be on another plane!...

The Papal Visit

2010-09-14T11:12:00.003+01:00

This Thursday Pope Benedict XVI will arrive in Scotland where he will conduct an official state visit to the UK from September 16th to 19th. He will start his trip with a visit with the Queen on Thursday morning at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh (the same palace where we had tea in the gardens). There will then be a large St. Ninian's Day parade down Princes Street through the heart of Edinburgh. St. Ninian was the first Scot to be named a saint. Apparently there will be a thousand school children dressed in blue to turn Princes Street into a sea of Scottish blue, with the help of 'thousands' of Saltires (flags with St. Andrew's cross). Should be quite the sight! There will also be bands of pipers which I love. During the parade the Pope will ride down the street in his popemobile for everyone to see him. After the parade the Pope will go to Glasgow to conduct an open-air mass in a park (which one of the guys in my programme will be attending!), and will then fly down to London. So he'll only be in Scotland for the day.

My one friend and I are determined to attend the parade and see the Pope. We still can't believe that we have the opportunity to see him not only outside of Rome/Vatican City, but in our own town. Don't worry, I will definitely have my camera on me. We've been trying to decide how many hours early we should be to get good spots on the side of the road. I'm very much looking forward to Thursday. What an experience!

The general British public's reaction to the visit seems to be not so positive. Some people are concerned about Britain paying for the Pope's visit with the current state of the British economy. The British government (and British taxpayers) pay because it is a state visit, with Pope Benedict XVI as the head of state in Vatican City meeting Britain's heads of state. There are also concerns about what Pope Benedict XVI represents, some of his personal views, and the legacy of and on-going investigations into sex scandals involving Roman Catholic clerics and British and Irish children. These have sparked serious debate as to whether the Pope will be welcome in Britain. Whatever my personal opinions may be as a Christian and not a Catholic, I've decided to stay focussed on this amazing opportunity to see His Holiness in his popemobile (a word I will never get tired of saying or writing, as it always makes me smile) in my beautiful city, and hopefully one of these days I'll be able to visit his.

To find out more about Pope Benedict XVI's visit, here's a couple useful links:

The official website of the Papal Visit includes live video coverage while he's in the UK and day-by-day itineraries (as well as the official souvenir shop, which was a bit surprising):

http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/

Additional information on the St. Ninian's Day Parade which my friend and I plan to attend (who knows? maybe you'll be able to see us on the live coverage, either on the news or the above website, in amongst the thousands who have flocked to Princes Street):

http://www.stniniansday.co.uk/

And for a quick run-down of the Papal Visit, visit BBC's 'At a Glance' coverage, which also has links to the recent news items on the controversial elements of the trip I mentioned above (a quick sidenote: I'd never heard the term 'Pope stalker' before):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10927162

I'll be sure to tell you all about the parade. Fingers crossed for a dry morning!

Villains, Rogues and Deviants

2010-09-02T19:42:00.004+01:00

A friend (and fellow second-going-on-third year History PhD student) and I have been putting together a one-day conference for postgraduates and early-career researchers to present 15 minute papers, receive feedback and share their thoughts on current scholarship. We began planning this day about 10 months ago, after a seminar for postgrads on funding and CV building. Organising, running and presenting a paper at a conference are all important skill and experience-building exercises in our field, and we left that day determined to run one of our own. The tough part was trying to figure out a theme on which we could both present.

My friend studies Unionism in Ireland and America in a later time period than I study. I study the abolition of the slave trade and slavery in the British Empire. So we came upon a compromise after recognising that the bulk of the people we study would be considered 'bad people' by today's standards. This opened up a wide range of possibilities. Instead of focussing on slavery history, or Irish-American history, we could open up the conference to anyone researching 'bad' people, groups, or ideas, and those who have been considered good then bad, or bad then good, etc. It also meant that we could look beyond history departments for possible participants, and include students of law, classics, english, politics and so on.

Then came the logistics. We met with several professors to get advice and ran the idea past them. They gave us some very positive feedback, as well as advice on everything from budgeting and funding, to advertising, to the title of the day. We had to come up with a budget, which meant finding out about catering, printing, and estimating how many people we felt we could handle. We put together two funding applications, but as time went on we decided to be brave and send out the Call for Papers before securing funding. Happily we secured the full amount of funding we'd requested from the Edinburgh Trust, a fund supported by university alumni.

The Call for Papers was pretty successful. Over 30 students from across the UK applied to give a paper, inspiring us to double the number of participants we'd originally intended on having, to 12, and shortening the individual papers from 20 to 15. We also secured a keynote speaker, a professor at our university who is studying a relevant topic. Next came a room, initial catering enquiries, a poster advertising the conference, and a webpage on the school's website. Now that the webpage is finally up, I can share it with you here. So if you're interested, check out the details of Villains, Rogues and Deviants: Writing the Histories of People We'd Rather Forget.

Things are starting to get more real, and a bit more nerve-wracking. So far we've found it impossible to get hold of the university's caterers (who have a monopoly -- only school caterers can cater university-based functions). I'm a bit nervous about the day staying on time, especially now that we've got so many speakers, and having to be more assertive about keeping to the schedule and leading discussions after each panel has spoken. It should be great experience giving a paper, introducing speakers, running discussions and keeping the day running smoothly. There's just so much involved that I've more than once told my friend that this planning really reminds me of planning a wedding. She in turn remarked, 'But this doesn't have to happiest day of your life.' Thank goodness!

Under Attack

2010-08-22T11:25:00.004+01:00

Edinburgh is under attack, but at least this year we were prepared. It's festival season again, and with hundreds (thousands?)of shows and events playing at several hundred venues across the city, tens of thousands of tourists from across the country and overseas have descended upon Edinburgh, crowding the footpaths, stopping every bus that goes by wondering where they're headed, and ticking off the locals.

Last year our lives were quite affected by the festival. By being only two blocks away from Edinburgh Castle, the noise of the Edinburgh Tattoo's fireworks was scary-loud. It was particularly bad on Saturday nights, when the special late show included a five minute firework display. In our bedroom it sounded like the place was being bombed. Now we just hear a rumble every evening between 10:37 and 10:40pm, and I have yet to hear the Saturday night fireworks. We also lived in a much more central location, only 2 blocks away from the Royal Mile, between the very busy Grassmarket and the popular bars of Tollcross. As a result hundreds more people would walk by our window every night. And there was no chance of forgetting about the special closing times for bars and clubs during August. The festival goers who took advantage of the 3am bar closings and 5am club closing sure would make a lot of noise on their way home! But now that we live off to the west end of the city on a back street, there's no party-goers walking by (unless they're heading home), and since we're up on the third floor they're no longer walking by our window.

We're staying away from all the festival stuff this year actually. Last year we went to a couple shows, including the tattoo, a musical, and a comedy show. This year Derek's been heading to Glasgow all the time, and I've been working on a new chapter. I'd been completely focussed on my work and barely noticed that the festival had begun until I went to a pub near campus and saw the extent of the traffic jams outside. We now put off shopping until a day in the middle of the week, because on the weekends the main shopping area around Princes Street is absolutely packed. Walking anywhere that requires going near or on the Royal Mile? Give yourself an extra 20-25 minutes! There's buskers, show-goers and tourists stopping all over the place to take photographs, plus the annoyed local trying to get places. And if I don't allow myself enough time to get to school for a meeting, then I become one of those annoyed locals trying to get somewhere! The problem is, if I ever need to speak for any reason then the locals think I'm one of the problem-causing tourists thanks to my accent and in turn find me annoying. So I just try to look like I belong, like I've got places to go, people to see, etc. :)

I can't believe that August will be coming to an end quite soon, but we've gotten a lot accomplished this month. Derek is onto his second stage of training and is enjoying the work and the people in his programme. I've written the rough draft of a second chapter for my thesis and am feeling really good about becoming a PhD-3 shortly, plus a friend and I have a great-looking conference in the works which I'll tell more about once we've got our webpage up. It's been a very busy month, but a productive one, and in truth I'm rather glad that we've been able to stay away from the craziness of the festival, instead staying focussed on home, work and friends.

Little Furry Animals

2010-08-07T10:54:00.012+01:00

There is a little black cat who lives on the ground floor of our apartment building, down one of the sides of the building so that we can see the bay window of its apartment from our kitchen window. Almost every evening, and at different times of day throughout the week the cat's owners open the window. Keep in mind that windows here don't have screens, as there are few bugs and flies compared to back home. At some point the kitty will appear on the window sill, cautiously place her front paws down on the outside of the wall, and jump down into the grassy courtyard. Sometimes she runs immediately for the bushes (when she's in what I would call her 'jungle-cat' mode), but most of the time she just saunters a couple steps and sits down in the middle of a brown square of grass a few feet from the window.

There's a man who frequently comes out the back door for a cigarette. We call him 'Mr. Depressed Smoking Guy,' because he generally looks really down and and lonely, although one time last week he had a lady friend with him. (Can you tell we don't have a dishwasher and thus spend a lot of time washing dishes while staring out the kitchen window from up on the third floor?) If he's out when the cat is out the cat keeps him company, which I think is so cute!

Derek and I keep an eye out for the cat, telling each other when we spot her (FYI I tend to assume all cats are female), if she's climbing down, or being a jungle-kitty, having a nap, etc. When it's time to go in (whether she's decided so or one of her owners is sticking their head out the window calling her), she stands at the base of the wall, prepares and jumps up into the window, disappearing into their dark living room. She seems like a nice, fit, well-behaved kitty to be allowed out on her own here, staying within the little grassy area by the parking lot and coming home when she's called. We like to keep an eye out for her. We'll be off an a walk through the Meadows or looking out over the fields in Holyrood Park and Derek will remark on how much Sneaquers would love it here. Sometimes we see little white puppies that remind him of her. The cover story on a recent Historic Scotland magazine was about dog-friendly historical sites in Scotland, with favourite places to visit for the whole family. If only his puppy wasn't a 7 hour flight away and from a country with rabies (a disease the UK doesn't have).

We miss our pets. We also just miss pets in general. I long for having a friendly animal around to pet and cuddle. Part of that is because I grew up with a big friendly kitty in the house, and anyone who knows me somewhat well knows I'm a total cat-person. Derek's used to having his cute little puppy around back home, and even though he didn't grow up with a dog, their family dog has been around for 10 years now and is a big part of the family.

We both love Skype (free video-conferencing software that allows us to see and speak to others with webcams and the programs back home or anywhere in the world). It's great to see our families, and it's also great because we get to see his puppy Sneaquers and my big fat cat Lucy, as well as my Grandma's cat Jimmi if she's in the mood and Derek's sister's cat Alexis (who we're quite close to, having cat-sat her for a few months before moving to Edinburgh).

A lot of friends here report how much they miss their pets, or just having an animal to pet occasionally and say 'hi' to. At our last flat, there was a big friendly dog who spent most days lying outside the door of the used bookstore next door. He was a great sport about accepting doogie-noogies and a 'hi' or a scratch on the chin. A couple of my fellow pet-deprived friends used to take him for the occasional walk in the Meadows, or having found neighbours' dogs to walk. I just love days where I'll walk around a corner and there is a cat who's willing to let me come near, and maybe even let me scritch her along the chin or et the top of her head. There's a black cat who hangs around campus on occasion, and she's been known to flop right over for a cautious belly-rub. There was also a cow-patterned cat that would hang out on a doorstep on my way to school from our old place, and it was always great to see her.

I don't know how people can feel comfortable letting their cats loose outside without supervision here, to be honest. I don't think I'd want my cat to be outside back home if I lived in a city, because of all the traffic. Then add to the fact that here dogs don't have to be on leashes, and in my opinion you have a very not-cat-friendly environment. Plus there's so little grass anywhere, that the tend to have to stick to cement doorsteps, windowsills, and hiding under bushes to avoid the rain and mist.

So to celebrate all these great furry animals of ours back home, I thought for today's images I'd put together some favourites of our pets (and those of our families', mentioned above). Enjoy!

My Cat Lucy (who can look deceptively small)

Derek's Family's Puppy Sneaquers

Derek's Sister's Kitty Alexis

Grandma's Cat Jimmi

A Weekend Away

2010-07-27T18:42:00.008+01:00

While I may never be able to top blogging about having tea with the Queen, we're still having other, somewhat smaller, adventures here in Scotland that I think are worth sharing. Like last weekend. Derek suggested getting away on his long weekend (Glasgow celebrated a holiday on the Monday), so we decided on two day trips: Berwick-Upon-Tweed and Linlithgow.

Berwick-Upon-Tweed is a small town about 45 minutes south-east on the train on the border between England and Scotland. For centuries the two countries battled for control of the town, as it lies on a strategic point with the North Sea to the east and the River Tweed to the south. England has had possession of the town since the 1600s, when its Elizabethan ramparts were built surrounding much of the town. These high, thick walls were built to withstand cannon fire, and while they were never used in such a way, they provide a great way to walk around the town and see the sights. They were our first stop.

After circling much of the town and coming across some of the original medieval walls, we walked down to the beach and out to the old lighthouse. A number of people were digging in the sand with pitchforks and buckets as the tide was low. I think they were digging for clams, but we're not sure. We picnicked looking out over the harbour during a break in the misty rain.

In the afternoon we walked along the River Tweed in search of Berwick's picturesque mid-19th century railroad bridge. It was pretty amazing -- certainly an amazing feat of engineering for the time, and it's still used by the railway to this day, so it's held up well over the years. Past the bridge was the bottom of a set of stone breakneck stairs that went up the side of the cliff to the old site of the castle. The castle was all but demolished in the Victorian era to put in the train station. I guess the Victorians didn't have the kind of appreciation for history and historic sites that most of us do today. It's quite sad really. From the station you can see an existing castle wall, and on the platform is a sign telling visitors that there once stood the castle's Great Hall in which Robert the Bruce was denied the Scottish Crown in 1292. But the hall is gone.

On Sunday we went on a much shorter trip to Linlithgow. Linlithgow is the next stop on the train from where we live, about 15 minutes west of us. Derek passes through it on his way to Glasgow every time he heads to school, and from the station you can see St. Michael Parish Church with it's distinctive metal sculpture on top, and Linlithgow Palace behind it.

Linlithgow Palace is the site of Mary, Queen of Scots' birth and her son James', who becomes James I and VI, uniting Scotland and England in the Union of the Crowns in 1603. The palace is in ruins but most of the stone walls, floors, towers and staircases remain intact. There was so much to explore and discover! So many large rooms and halls, small rooms in the basement, the kitchens with their large fireplaces, beautiful stone windows, all surrounding a large stone courtyard with a beautiful fountain in the middle.

On top of the one corner tower was a small platform to walk around, in order to view the grounds and a high up tower room. It was pretty windy up there! But there were some great views of the royal park surrounding the palace and the small lock below the grassy grounds. We had the added bonus of visiting the palace on the morning that Mary Queen of Scots happened to be visiting, accompanied by the husband of one of her four Marys, her main ladies in waiting. We were able to chat with her for a short time, finding out why she's called 'Mary, Queen of Scots' (because she officially ruled with the consent of the people, rather than as their dictator), and how much time she would have spent in the palace (they moved around quite a bit once each place got dirty and/or all the food was eaten, but she liked Linlithgow Palace because her horses could be housed in the building and it's in town so the rest of the court didn't have to stay with her).

After thoroughly checking out the many floors, rooms, hallways and towers, we went outside and had a picnic at a table in the palace's grounds overlooking the loch. After lunch we went for an hour long walk along the loch, seeing lots of little duckings and even a nest of tiny furry swans with their parents. The so-called 'Heritage Walk' looked like a bit of a let-down (not as history-filled as a walk through Edinburgh tends to be), so we walked along the main street, back up the train station and headed home in time for dinner.

It was a great weekend. We walked and walked and walked, and saw lots of nature and country-side, as well as a lot of water. Two excellent day-trips a short train-ride away. What a great idea!

Tea with Her Majesty the Queen

2010-07-14T09:45:00.003+01:00

Yesterday was a day that I'm sure I'll remember for the rest of my life. Derek and I attended the Royal Garden Party in the Holyrood Palace Gardens, Edinburgh. This event was attended by Her Majesty the Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philip), and The Princess Royal (Princess Anne). We think there had to be over 1000 guests in the gardens, all dressed up according to the guidelines that were sent with the invitations: for women, a day dress with hat, uniform or trouser suit; for men, morning coat, lounge suit or uniform. No medals. It was quite the sight to see so many fancily-dressed individuals. We were amongst the youngest guests (no one under 18 was allowed).

The official timeline for the day:
3:00pm Gates Open
3:30pm Tea is served in the Main Tea Tent until 5:00pm
4:00pm The National Anthem announcec the arrival of Her Majesty The Queen and Members of the Royal Family. A small number of individual presentations will be pre-arranged with those who are to be presented in the Garden near the Iron Steps. The Royal Company of Archers will then form lanes for The Queen and Members of the Royal Family to move through the guests.
4:30pm Tea is served in the Royal Tea Tent
5:10pm The Queen and Members of the Royal Family take tea in the Royal Tea Tent
5:50pm The Queen and Members of the Royal Family depart
6:00pm The National Anthem

The schedule was followed quite closely, but still didn't really give us an idea of what the party would be like. We arrived around 2:50 to find ourselves in a queue of a couple hundred guests, and while in line I spotted 3 other women with the same hat that I had on. At least no one else was wearing my beautiful poppy-covered dress with a pink short-sleeved cropped cardigan over top. But the hat was quite distinctive with its open-weave, and I kept spotting it throughout the afternoon on a total of 7 other women.

When we got inside the gate, having passed security with our invitations and photo ID, we walked along the north end of the gardens, and then went to find ourselves a place to stand along the edge of one of the royal's pathways. The Queen and Prince Philip would come out of the Palace at the top of these iron steps, and then take different routes through the crowds, being introduce to half a dozen pre-selected couples as they went. At first we tried to find a spot along the Queen's path, but an elderly women slipped in front of us while talking to a guard and then remained standing in front of me after he left, and Derek had a woman step in front of him, so we decided that we'd go over to line up along the edge of the Prince's path, where there was next to no one on our side.

As the time drew near everyone was turned towards the staircase. And then she appeared, and I swear the crowd took a collective gasp. Then came the applause as she walked down to the landing halfway down the stairs, when God Save the Queen (the national anthem) was played. No one sang, which surprised me. Maybe Scots generally don't sing it. And then there was more applause as she descended down and disappeared into the aisles that were lined with people. She's quite petite, so we completely lost sight of her until she was in the larger circle at the far end, where she would eventually meet up with the Prince and take tea in the Royal Tea Tent.

We did end up being in the front of the crowd as Prince Philip walked along his route, but because he was taking so much longer chatting with the couples than the Queen had, they stopped picking couples just before they got to our section in order to hurry up his progress, and thus while we think we had a very good chance at being the last couple chosen in our aisle (we'd both caught the woman who made the selections' eye, and my outfit was the most striking and colourful in our section), we missed out because he's such a talker :) We got to see him from a distance of 3 metres at most, and for a good five minutes as he talked to a pair from the far side of the aisle. It was amazing to see him in real life. He looked good too! Slim, smiling a lot, and quite steady too, carrying a long black umbrella but never relying on it as a cane, more for a distinguished look I think and some subtle steadying/something to lean back on slightly as he stood and chatted. Just a bit taller than me, and I was in 2 inch wedges. He wore dark black and grey pin-striped trousers and a black jacket with a long tails, plus a grey top hat that he carried more often than he wore it. Two of the men accompanying him wore identical outfits.

The Queen wore a lovely A-line jacket that fell to just below her knees. The jacket was pale turquoise with 5 silver buttons down the front. She wore white gloves, a hat in the same pale turquoise but with a beautiful navy or black brim and flower of feathers, and carried a simple shiny black rectangular handbag. She must have taken off her gloves when having tea, because when she reemerged from the crowd in the Royal Tea Tent I saw her putting her gloves back on. She looked great, healthy, moving comfortably down the stairs and across the grass. Princess Anne wore a striking bright blue shiny knee-length dress with a matching short jacket. Everyone was struck by how skinny she is. Well, more slim. Definitely healthy and smiling.

After the Prince had passed by and the group of Royal Archers marching behind him were now standing in front of us blocking our view of anything, we decided to go get some tea. Of course, neither of us generally drinks tea, but they was also juice and what tasted to me like a cold cappuccino. The servers wore white shirts and black pants. In the royal tea tent they wore bright red jackets and carried silver trays of food and drinks to the guests. I had two small finger-like pastries with pink icing and a piece of candied lemon peel on top and filled with a raspberry cream filling, and a shortbread cookie. Derek had a couple cucumber sandwiches on white (no crusts of course). Just as we had reached the table to get our tea they closed it! They told us that they'd ran out, so we had to merge with the next line over and explain why we were now taking their spots. Not great planning there. At the end of the day they had individual ice creams for a nice treat -- I had lemon curd (excellent!) and Derek had vanilla. There were wooden tables and chairs in some areas, table tops under the tents to stand around and rest your drinks (very convenient).

I should mention that the weather was as perfect as it gets -- partially sunny, a bit of wind to keep everyone cool, and not a drop of rain (unlike today and the rest of the week, with heavy rain predicted for every day). We really lucked out. It would have been a shame to have to hide my dress under a jacket and my hat under an umbrella, and when its to rainy they cancel the event, which would have been devastating. I'm glad I had my cardigan on, though. Some of the women in smaller dresses (strapless, mini-skirted dresses especially) were shivering.

There were some pretty interesting outfits around, from summery flowered ones like my own, to solid black or neutral dresses with jackets, to outfits with matching hats that had probably been bought for a wedding. One woman that we were behind in the tea queue had the most beautiful magenta and lilac hat on, with a contrasting brim that looked as those it had those two colours splattered across it in a subtle way, and some lovely feathers woven into the flower. There were some memorably bad ones, like an overweight woman in her later 60s wearing a slinky silky dark blue and green knee-length dress with turquoise wrap and sea-foam green support hose, or the woman we got stuck walking behind on our way home in a black silk dress that fit too tightly and with its bright yellow polka dots we couldn't help but think of a bumble bee.

Anyway, after enjoying our tea we walked over to where a few guests were gathering along the edges of the boundary created by the Royal Archers (who did carry their arrows around) facing the Royal Tea Ten, a small, mostly walled-in tent for special guests but with clear plastic walls along the front to watch for the Queen. It wasn't until then that I found out Princess Anne was there, too. Everyone got excited when the Queen emerged from deeper within the tent. She put on her gloves, chatted with a couple others, and often stood near the entrance, obviously ready to head off. At one point she was standing facing the entrance (and all of us) next to Prince Philip, whom I hadn't seen actually interact with her at any point since walking down the stairs. While he was chatting to someone else, she looked up at him and either poked or brushed his shoulder quickly four times. I thought this was really cool, and cute, like a real moment had just occurred between them.

As they left the tent everyone applauded again, and the applause broke out again a few moments later as Princess Anne left with her companions. You could tell she was pleasantly surprised by the applause, as she suddenly smiled and looked like she was saying to her companion "For me?" or something along those lines.

Derek and I wandered around the grounds a bit more, through the ruins of the old Abbey, along what we thought were hills but we actually cleverly-concealed palace walls. The Abbey was beautiful with lots of stone and walls (and even the frame of the massive stained glass windows) still standing, and old simple tomb and many tombstones and marker left to fight the elements as there's no longer a roof. Derek looked in one of the Palace's windows to see a break room, complete with pop machines and a worker lying on a couch. We saw the snipers up on the roof packing up for the day (I'd never noticed them before that moment, and suddenly there were three up there). In fact, security had been very low-key throughout the event. Lots of police at the entrances and around the outside of the gates and gardens, but generally just the not-at-all-intimidating archers around the grounds. I mean, to just be considered for an invitation I'd had to send in a photocopy of my passport, so there was some pretty heavy screening to get to that point.

The music throughout the afternoon was provided by two military bands who played an odd selection of music, including classical numbers, Gershwin, what sounded like the score of a 50s Western, and the same Michael Jackson medley we'd heard a military band play in front of Buckingham Palace during the changing of the guards a year ago in the week following Jackson's death.

Talk about once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Actually, unless you're receiving a special honour or are requested to attend, I believe that you can only ever attend one Royal Garden Party, so this was our moment, and it was just amazing. We walked halfway home, enjoying walking up the Royal Mile all dressed up and me in my beautiful hat, occasionally coming across fellow guests on their way home or out to dinner. It felt sad to put on normal clothes when I got home, as it'd been so nice being dressed up. But what a day to remember!

Spending Canada Day in Edinburgh

2010-07-04T18:56:00.003+01:00

As you might recall, last summer we spent the Canada Day in London at the big Canada Day London 2009 celebration in Trafalgar Square. It was fun, but without fireworks, doughnuts or any recognizable acts it was a tad disappointing, although very cool to be surrounded by so many Canadians and Canadian wannabes. This year I thought that it would be a fun idea to combine celebrating Canada Day with showing everyone our new flat, so we held a Canada Day Flat-Warming Party on the evening of July 1st.

To prepare I cleaned the place from top to bottom, with help in the kitchen from Derek as I suddenly ran out of time and realized that I still had to get ready myself. I vacuumed, scrubbed, washed and dusted all over the place. I tidied up and made good use of the Ikea storage boxes I bought a year ago, and filled the spare room's closet. That's the one thing about a flat-warming -- everyone is going to be looking everywhere, so I can't just pile stuff up in the bedroom and shut the door... I finally gave the inside of the windows a good wash, as they were dirty when we moved in, and there's just something about greasy forehead marks on a window that gets to me, especially if they're not from us. Derek had done the outside a few days earlier, so the flat was looking particularly bright for the night.

For food I made my mum's now-famous five layer nacho dip and my peanut butter magic squares, complete with Reese's Peanut Butter chips imported from the Walmart near St. Jacobs. I can't buy peanut butter chips here, you see, and the squares are just not the same without them. We had at least half a dozen bags of tortilla chips, and I put out a plate of store-bought cookies. I was still afraid that there wasn't enough food for the 11 or so guests coming, but it turned out to be perfect. In fact, pretty much no one had any of the cookies -- guess my cooking filled them up!

In total we spent the evening with 5 Canadians, 3 Scots, 2 Americans, and 1 guest each from Germany, Japan and the Philippines. Lots of people wore red and/or white, and my one friend borrowed a Canada Olympics T-shirt of mine to be an honorary Canadian for the night. I don't think we could have fit anyone else in the living room and all be comfortable. As it was Derek was pretty much sitting in doorway (rather useful when we needed to get more drinks for the guests). It was a good number, as more than one conversation could easily go on without it getting too loud.

My party soundtrack was comprised of over 40 Canadian artists, from Joni Mitchell to Nickleback, from Matthew Good to the Guess Who, somewhat obscure one-hit wonders like Tal Bachman and Sky, and bands we hadn't realised were Canadian such as Men Without Hats. One of our Canadian friends who is really into music seemed to enjoy trying to remember the more-forgettable bands and singing along to some of the mid-90s songs from our high school years. Its kind of fun showing off Canada's music accomplishments to friends from other countries who probably assume the big-name bands are American. And kudos to Spotify for greatly increasing their range of international artists, although I still couldn't access some of the bigger-name bands' full catalogue from within the UK.

We had a great night, and I think our guests left full and happy with how the evening had progressed. I was again thankful for the warm, dry summer we've been having so far in Edinburgh. Last year at our flat-warming it was pouring so hard that I had to pull out the drying racks because our guests needed more places to hang their soaking wet jackets and socks. Really, I did. We even got out a blanket for one who was stuck sitting in cold wet jeans for the night (we did offer a pair to change into, but he declined). So a great night overall, lots of good food and conversation, and so many compliments about the flat that I am even more sure that this is just the right place for us :)

Hiking in the Pentlands

2010-06-26T12:05:00.005+01:00

Edinburgh has been experiencing some beautiful weather, so on Monday we decided to escape from the city and head to the hills. The Pentland Hills are a long range of hills that run along south of the city. Derek found a route to the hills via Balerno and Havelaw, and we were off. We took a city bus to Balerno, a village on the western edge of Edinburgh, and then walked half an hour to Havelaw's visitor centre where we picked up a couple maps and guides. A few minutes away we settled down on a bench overlooking the reservoir for a picnic lunch and looked at our trail options.

Derek's original idea was for us to walk the 2.5 mile trek around the reservoir, but almost immediately upon seeing the reservoir we also the large trucks and construction around half of the shrunken body of water (according to BBC Scotland, the beautiful weather has had the unfortunate effect of lowering water levels in reservoirs across Scotland to a worrying amount). Not terribly appealing, and impossible to make an entire circle, so we decided to walk straight to the Black Hill, which does look much darker than the surrounding hills due to its vegetation.

Upon reaching the base of the hill we saw a map showing the construction sites and found that we could either double back, walk around on the main path behind the far side of the hill, or take a path on the near side that was shorter and would take us over to meet the main path. We took the third option, the supposedly straight path that led from where we were along the base of the hill to the main path that would take us a different route back to Balerno, where we'd catch the bus home again.

The path was not what it looked like on the map. It was a nice trek, slowly making its way higher and higher along the side of the hill as it followed an ancient looking stone wall between pastures with sheep and the hill's vegetation. At some points the wall had crumbled (it looked like it had been made of piles of stone with nothing to hold it together), and near these spots we could usually find a couple sheep wandering high up on the hill. Two little lambs gave Derek quite start as the suddenly bolted down the hill straight for him, then stopped and stared. Derek was standing in front of one such hole in the fence, which was their way back home. It was really cute :)

Then came the scary part of the trek: the descent. The path suddenly narrowed dramatically and the wall had gone a different way, so we were on our own on the side of the hill (I say 'hill' -- it's over 500m high, although we were only probably about 250m or less up the side). It wasn't steep, but the view down and the loose rocky trail didn't inspire confidence. Luckily Derek's great at instilling confidence, and we made it down to the main trail below just fine.

And so we followed the trail which led to the road, and the road took us to the edge of Balerno and the end of the line for the bus we needed to take home, which happily was sitting there waiting and left within a few minutes of us getting on. It was a great way to spend an afternoon, and the beautiful sunshine and mild winds had led to some beautiful views. Plus Derek had brought a fully-stocked backpack with the picnic lunch, three bottles of water, fruit, and trail mix.

As an epilogue I'd like to mention that there's different rules here in the Scotland for using land that belongs to others. All the details are found in the Scottish Outdoor Access Code. Basically, anyone has the right access almost anywhere in Scotland including parks, hills, beaches, forests, rivers and lochs -- there's just rules about how you can use that land. You can even walk though farmland if you stay to edges and don't disturb any livestock. The rules include that you must respect the environment, close gates behind you, not feed the animals, and avoid damaging fences, walls and crops. But you can go just about anywhere except building and their immediate surroundings, and houses and their gardens. Now that we know we've got great access rights we may have to get out of the city a little more often!

Why I Love Our New Flat

2010-06-20T15:58:00.005+01:00

Everything's been moved and we're all settled into our new place! We were assisted in the move by a good friend of mine and her boyfriend, who also lent us his driving skills and his car for an hour on the Friday night and the next morning to transfer just about all of our possessions from the old place to the new one. This time it was a little too far to walk/roll everything over, and we're so thankful for his help. It took another two days to clean the old place, get the last few bits of stuff moved over (Derek brought home an amazing amount of stuff on his back and in each hand one afternoon after a long day of cleaning), and get organised here at the new place. Moving the cable, internet and phone over was no trouble -- they disconnected our service at the old place on Friday night and had the technician in here first thing Saturday morning (apparently we'd normally have to pay extra for that, but I think it was a gift to us as an apology for not being able to supply us with reliable telephone service for the prior two weeks). But now the keys have been handed back, I've learned the necessary bus routes for when I need to get a long way from here on my own, and with all our stuff put away it feels like home!

So why do I love the new flat so much? Here's a few big reasons:

Warm and Bright

We're up on the third floor (what would be called the fourth floor back home), which is also the top floor of the building. The buildings around are all about this height and we see a ton of sky when we look out the window. This is in direct contrast to the old first floor flat, with a bedroom window that looked at a grey cement-block wall three feet away, and a living room window that looked out at the tall office building across the street. We used to get half an hour of direct sunlight at most through each window in June and July, but always on a sharp angle. We'd get indirect sunlight bouncing off the office building's windows into the living room which was quite nice. But spending my first few days here constantly thinking I was leaving lights on in all the rooms has made me realise just how dark that flat must have been.

The sunlight is having a lovely effect on the new flat's temperature. It's so warm! A little too warm in the morning and at suppertime, to be honest. One reason for the hot morning is a southeast-facing window and the sun rising before 4:30am. I'm thinking blackout curtains may be in order. Between the cement wall and the original wooden shudders, our old bedroom was cool and pitch black at night until we decided to get up. Now my body wakes me up at 5, thinking it's time to start the day! The other thing is that here in the UK, duvets are what's available to sleep under. Ours wasn't nearly warm enough for the old place, and now we're too warm in the new one. And yet I can't find a simple blanket the size of a bedspread anywhere, other than fancy-ish quilts and blankets that cost over £100 at the department stores downtown. So I'm still working on this. It's warm in the evenings because our living room is on the opposite side of the flat, and with a big bay window. The table is in the bay window area, and the sun starts shining in around 4pm and sticks around for 3 or 4 hours, making eating a hot activity that necessitates the closing of curtains. But I'd sure rather be warm than cold in my home!

Finally, we have those two coveted items that are all too rare in Edinburgh flats: double-glazing and gas central heating. The boiler got fixed on Monday, and we got to experience how fast and efficient the central heating really is. There's a heater in every room, including in the washroom (which was one of the coldest places in the old flat). Double-glazed windows keeps the heat in and the cold Edinburgh wind out, so the sun is able to heat up the right half of the flat in the morning, the left half in the afternoon and evening, and the heat stays inside for us to enjoy. Amazing.

New-Built

Our building and the surrounding identical buildings have been built within the past ten years. Our old building was built in the 1860s and renovated in the 1980s. This place has insulation in the walls and roof, working windows with that all-important double-glazing, lower ceilings which keep the rooms warmer, clean carpets and linoleum flooring, many electrical sockets in convenient locations (including on both sides of the bed so that we can each have a bed-side lamp), and waterproof tiles and fixtures in the bathroom and kitchen. Electrical wires and cables were in place when the walls were put up, so there are only a few wires running down from the ceiling or along the skirting boards, rather then coming in through a hole cut into the window sill which is the common way to wire traditional tenements here. Our old bathroom was done all in wood, and consequently had rotting areas along the base of the bathtub and mould stains on the paint work. I also feel as though not only was the place very clean when we moved in (which our old place definitely was not), but that I'll be able to easily keep it clean and feel good about the level of cleanliness of my home. With the original wood floors with their large cracks between them and old, unclean furniture and rugs, the old place never felt comfortably clean to me as a whole.

Near the Train Tracks

I'm learning that many people wouldn't agree with me on this one, but being so close to train tracks is something that I love. Being close to the train station was very important to us when we were looking for a new place. Derek will be commuting to Glasgow everyday for school, and that's about a 45 minute train ride, so we wanted to make the rest of the commute as short and simple as possible. Happily there was a large new-built community with numerous flats regularly becoming available, and I was able to spot a good one at a better price than most. Now Derek will have about a 6 minute walk to the station with no streets to cross, rather than over 15 minutes fighting past numerous pedestrians on their way to work, countless tourists and fellow commuters on narrow footpaths and getting stuck at several intersections.

What I am really enjoying is hearing the rumbling of the trains going to and from the station. I love it. It makes me think of my grandma's place back home which is located on the far side of a field from train tracks. I find the rumbling very peaceful and almost reassuring, as it takes my mind right back to her place, and so I feel very lucky to get to hear them in my home here. And I just heard another one :)

Well that's some of my initial thoughts and feelings about our new home. I have absolutely no second thoughts about moving, as I'm so much happier here already. The summer's off to a great start.

Exciting News

2010-06-08T15:35:00.003+01:00

Big changes are happening here. The biggest would have to be Derek's news and plans for the future. He's been accepted into a PhD programme in Electrical Engineering at Glasgow!!! We're really excited about it and about the future. He'll be one of two PhD students building a better version of an existing laser (just his type of thing!) for a professor who happens to be the partner of a fellow British History One Tutor. The tutor, a postdoc and fellow Canadian, and I had bonded over our similar backgrounds and having partners in physics, and she kindly remembered to mention Derek's continuing job hunt to her boyfriend, who then mentioned the PhD positions he had going on one of his funded projects (because as a scientist his research has commercial applications worth investment by the private sector as well as the government). It's a funded position with a research stipend, so thankfully he won't be hit by an annual tuition bill of £12 950 (about $20 000 CAD)! But there's a lot to do before he can start in July.

First, he has to get his ATAS clearance. This has something to do with giving the UK government confidence that he won't use his acquired knowledge and skills for bad purposes. It takes about 20 business days to get clearance, so we're stuck waiting on that. Next are the UK Visa issues. The Border Agency has changed the rules for acquiring a UK student visa since we got ours less than two years ago, so no information on changing Derek's specific class of visa exists online anymore. But then again there might not be an issue with his visa -- we're still figuring that out.

Next comes the logistics of starting school in another city. We don't have a car, nor are we going to get one (do you know how much petrol costs here?!), and we're agreed that we don't want to leave Edinburgh -- our friends are here, I'm still studying here, it's so much more beautiful and peaceful... So we're doing the next best thing to make Derek's commute easier -- we're moving near a train station in town. In the past three weeks we toured five flats, found the perfect one (and some some awful ones), put in an application, arranged to get out of our current lease early, found a new tenant to move into here (a fellow history PhD from Canada, one who doesn't mind the cold), and got what I think is the perfect flat. It's located about 7 minutes away from the train station and is a top floor flat in a new-built complex. There's a grocery store around the corner, and the building is back in a quiet family-friendly area with dead-end streets and pedestrian paths. Two of the flat's four windows face the South (therefore natural light and heat!), the ceilings are a normal height, we have a separate fridge and freezer (a necessity for us) and we'll have two of the most coveted items that one can find in an Edinburgh flat: double-glazing and gas central heating. Any heat we use won't be flying out of drafty windows anymore. In other words, I'm going to be warm!!!

Everything has been happening so fast! We're picking up the keys and signing the lease in two days, and a week from today we'll be fully moved out of this place with the help of a friend who has a car (it's too far to walk everything this time around!). So if I don't write again for a week or so, you'll know why. Wish us luck for a smooth move!

Making Our Way Back

2010-05-27T19:29:00.003+01:00

It occurs to me that I haven't yet shared the story of how we made it back to the UK. In the days leading up our flight airport closures continued in the UK and beyond into Europe due to the volcano, although the news in Canada rarely mentioned the closures anymore (old news I suppose). We'd already learned that Air Transat, both online and on the phone, had very little information to provide to us their customers, so we stayed glued to Toronto Pearson's website, the UK airspace authorities sites AND Air Transat's. Our flight wasn't until 8:30pm, but we wanted to check-in early, so we planned to leave Waterloo at 3:30 to get to Toronto by 5 (and beat rush hour traffic). Then Derek told me on our way to Walmart that he had spotted a new departure time from Toronto of 12:45am on Air Transat's website.

I got on the phone with Air Transat and asked what was going on and when check-in now was. They said to come to the airport for the original check-in time, between 3:30 and 6:30pm. I questioned it, but they said that the departure time was just a suggestion made by the airport taking into consideration the weather forecast, and that as recently as that past Saturday the delayed departure time of one of their flights ended up being brought forward an hour, so that convinced me to stick with the original plan. But by the time I made it back upstairs and onto the computer I saw that the departure time now said 2:45am.

I called Air Transat right back, and asked them if now that the estimated departure time was 2:45am, did they expect me to check-in at 3:30pm, and as I'd reached a different woman this time, she said of course not, but maybe give it an extra hour ie. arrive 4 hours early, just in case it changes again. She didn't bother to mention that our plane had been held up in Spain on its way back to Canada via London that morning because of the volcano, so it was still in Europe and wouldn't have even left the UK until after we'd left for Toronto. Therefore we decided to give ourselves lots of extra time by aiming to get there around 8, which also meant that my dad would get back home before midnight. So we got there at 8, and having carefully weighed our luggage, we proudly squeaked under the weight with 1.2kg to spare. We had a coffee with Dad, who headed out around 9, and then inched our way along the security line, where even though the metal detector didn't register anything, we each received two options: get patted down or go through the body scanner. No question -- we both chose the body scanner. I was excited to be able to say I've been through one. And I think Derek wanted to check it out, too, although probably for a different reason that will be expanded upon at a later date.

So by 10pm we were walking around the gates, deciding how to spend the next 3 hours before boarding began at 1:10. I bought a People magazine, and we bought a sandwich and a bottle water (since you can bring your own anymore!). At one point we heard a familiar noise on one of the tvs. It was a hockey game! Vancouver was trying to stay alive in the third period of what would turn out to be their last game in the playoffs. Within about 2 minutes of finding a seat they went from being at the losing end of a 3-1 game, to it being 4-1. About 25 of us all groaned in disappointment. We didn't make a noise when it became 5-1 a minute later. I think we were all in shock. I thought we were watching a replay. So there went our entertainment to keep us going.

At another point I managed to catch about 45 minutes of sleep on a bench at a nearby gate. We got to see the British Airways passengers spend $10 vouchers on food because their flight was also delayed, but then watch their tired and distressed faces as they heard the pilot apologise to them at 12:30am, but say that the fuel pump was faulty and they weren't going anywhere that night. After that ours was the only flight left on that day's list. A line had shown up underneath it with the next morning's flights. 1:10am came and went with no sign of airline staff. 2:45am came and went. Around 3am staff showed up and the people closer to the gate applauded. We eventually pulled away from the gate around 3:45am, exhausted.

After about an hour's sleep on the plane, they woke us up for a meal. We fell asleep again afterwards for a bit, but since we'd taken off so late it was already broad daylight within a couple hours, whereas normally you'd fly through the night and get there around 6 or 8 in the morning. We were also flying farther north due to the volcano, so between the new route and the sunlight I got to Greenland! We flew south of Greenland's south coast, but we could see its mountains and glaciers in the distance, and icebergs in the sea below us. And then we were told that we were flying over the northern coast of Iceland, and although it was covered in a thick layer of white cloud, we'd be able to see the volcano's ash plume out the right side of the plane. Very exciting. We were over on the left, but the ladies in the seats across the aisle would lean back to make sure we could see. I was worried that I'd miss it, but Derek spotted it first with a better angle and told me not to worry -- I couldn't miss it. And then there it was -- a black arm of smoke reaching out suddenly from the blanket of white. People were standing in the aisles looking out, taking photos and chatting about the sight. It was pretty cool, and makes for a good story.

We landed around 3pm, sailed through customs, and two buses and a short walk later we were home just in time for dinner. Apparently I slept deeply on the bus back to Edinburgh, not even waking when Derek was poking me to show me the church he'd spotted which we'd recently discovered was probably where my great-great-grandpa was baptised back in 1821. What a day/night/another day! And here we'd again gone about 38 hours with only a couple 1 hour naps in the middle to keep us going. It took a few days to over the jetlag, which is very unusual to experience coming back this way. I'm glad it's over. It'll be interesting to see just how long the volcano continues to erupt. I think it's pretty cool that we got the chance to see what all the fuss is about :)

Culture Shock

2010-05-15T09:58:00.002+01:00

Alright, so maybe the term 'culture shock' is a bit of a stretch, but being home in Canada after almost 11 months away had its surprising moments, particularly when it came to everyday sights and items. Let me explain...

The most obvious surprising moment to me that made me realise that I'd gotten used to the British way of doing things came about three days into my trip. Around 8am I decided to do the morning Tim's run. I got behind the wheel, backed out of the parking spot, and drove to the end of the parking lot where I needed to turn left onto the street. There I found myself in a position I never thought I'd be in: wondering which side of the street I was supposed to drive on. I genuinely couldn't remember. With no cars on the road luckily the stop sign gave me a clue, and as my hunch had been 'the right', I stuck with that and thankfully was correct. That was quite the experience. It's not like I had driven in Britain, and had only been in a vehicle maybe 8 times over those 11 months. I guess I'd just gotten used to watching for cars on the road as a pedestrian.

Walking through a grocery store had become an exciting experience. They're so large! I noticed a lot of new brands and more space devoted to international foods, including some of the Indian foods and sauces we're used to here. I made a number of trips to Zehr's and made good use of President's Choice's sale on Decadent Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk cookies (which I highly recommend!). Walmart was also great for clothes and food and generic pain killers to bring back with us. But I was also surprised at how much the price of some groceries had gone up since I was last home. I was under the impression that £2 for a bag of Doritos was expensive, but here I was being asked to pay $3.59 for a bag at Sobey's (which I didn't buy, by the way -- just couldn't bring myself to).

There were also little surprises here and there, and things that I wouldn't have noticed before. For example, last June we moved to our current flat which is rather cold and damp all year round, so to be in a warm, dry home with central heating and air-tight windows was amazing. I was actually worried about getting too used to being warm, for fear of how bad our Edinburgh flat would feel (and I have been having some trouble falling asleep at night due to feeling so cold, although it's getting better). Normal smallish Canadian washrooms seemed huge compared to our tiny washroom here, where the two of can brush our teeth at the same time only if the door (which opens inside for some reason) is shut. The bathtub also seemed crazy wide. Being able to hop in the car and drive places was amazing and so convenient. The dishwashers were huge! and held so many dishes that it seemed to take forever to empty them!

And finally, something that struck both Derek and I was what I suppose foreigners might call 'Canadian politeness'. Cashiers chatted with us, even at large, busy department and grocery stores. I didn't see any angry yelling on the streets or public drunkeness in the mornings or evenings (except at a friend's birthday party :) ). And even the toughest-looking men walking towards us on narrow sidewalks moved to the side so that we could pass without running into them or having to walking on the street. People said 'sorry' and 'excuse me' if they came close to bumping into me. That would almost never happen here. You just get used to having to walk around like a bulldozer if you don't want to end up on the street with cars flying by. So good work Canada on living up to your polite reputation. It was a very nice break.

Volcanic Disruption

2010-04-20T14:15:00.003+01:00

On Thursday, April 15th, Derek and I left our Edinburgh flat at 6:40am and walked our luggage to the St. Andrew's Square Bus Station on the far side of Princes Street. Five minutes into our walk a man crossed the street to ask us if we were heading to the airport, saying that it was closed, and we thanked him but kept on walking, barely worried because we weren't flying out of Edinburgh and hadn't received a call or anything from our airline, which we should have if there'd been an issue.

When the bus driver got on the bus after packing our luggage underneath he asked us about the volcano, and said he'd heard over their intercom that the airports were closed. A businessman seated behind us confirmed that he'd seen news of an Icelandic volcano that had erupted sending ash into the air, and as a result Scottish airports were closed. Neither Derek nor I had checked the news that morning in the rush to get out the door. As the bus pulled away and began making its way west Derek took out his laptop and we looked around for a sign of WiFi on the bus. Ours didn't have any, but the bus in front of us did (a suspiciously-empty-looking airport bus), so he managed to pick up the signal, went to Glasgow Airport's website, and saw their alert informing us that the airport was closed, and telling passengers to NOT come to the airport. We were supposed to phone the airline, which I did immediately, but as it wasn't even 8am, there was no answer. Derek decided that we should get off the bus now before we were out of town, asked the bus driver to let us out with a quick explanation, and the next thing we knew we were rolling our luggage down the sidewalk for 45 minutes, taking regular breaks to call the airline (with no luck).

Once home I started calling them every 15 minutes. We had BBC news on with its dire forecasts for the ash cloud, and saw the BAA and Nats declare that all UK airspace would close at noon. When I did get hold of our airline (Air Transat), they knew nothing other than that the flight wasn't cancelled, and told me to call back in two hours (around 11am). Seeing as it takes us over 2 hours to get to Glasgow International, and we'd have to buy bus tickets, get two buses, and be at check-in at least 3 hours in advance of take-off it didn't look good. I emailed home, letting our parents know that our best guess was that the flight would be cancelled. We were pretty crushed, having looked forward to going home for weeks (months even, as it'd been 10 months since we were last in Canada). Plus we had planned it all out. We'd left next to no food in the house so that the fridge and freezer could defrost, so we had to start grocery shopping, but only for one day's worth of food as at any time we could get the call and head out.

At 11am I called the airline back, and was a bit dismayed when the rep's response to my question about our flight status was 'Let me check the airport's website.' If only I'd thought of that! :P She told me to call back at 1pm, which was when their head office in Montreal would be making a decision (I suppose they wouldn't have even been at work yet, although with the massive Act of God shutting down huge amounts of airspace I think some of the heads should really have been woken up to deal with it). I said that the flight was supposed to leave at 12:25, so did this mean that it was delayed, and she said that the airspace was closed for the moment, but that's all they knew.

At 1:15pm I called again, and was told to try calling back in 2 hours, as they didn't know anything. I said I'd been told to call at 1, as they were supposed to be getting information from Montreal then, and was snippily told that if they were receive information at 1 then they certainly wouldn't have it yet. But she also mentioned that their flight into Glasgow had landed that morning, so now I knew that our plane was there, which was a very positive thing. It also made me wonder how on earth they'd managed to get it there, as our flight path usually takes us near Iceland. I called at 3 with very little optimism, but this time the guy who answered asked for my flight number, ticket registration number and checked our mobile phone number, and told me that we should have the phone on us at all times. At least he seemed to have some plan.

All through this time I'm constantly emailing our parents with the latest information from the websites, the news, and the lack of information from our airline. I was half cursing myself for choosing a charter airline rather than a regular one who would have a plan in place for situations like this. But as we watched all the major airlines cancel flight after flight, at least we didn't have to worry about rebooking -- we just constantly had to be on standby. It was a bit unsettling not knowing how or when we'd have to get to Glasgow, or when we'd get home, especially when the news reported would talk about how the last time this volcano really erupted it went on for over a year!

Around 7pm our phone rang. Derek was soon grasping for a pen, and wrote down a flight time of 7am, with check-in between 3 and 4 (yikes!). He checked out the bus times and found that the last bus out of Edinburgh left at 11:59pm (the bus station closed at midnight), and the next one wouldn't get us to Glasgow until around 6am. So he called the bus company, explained about the problems that morning and got them to exchange our tickets, then we tried to nap for a couple hours, but I only managed 45 minutes of sleep. At 10:20pm our mobile rang. It was the airline confirming that our flight would be going ahead, so we shouldn't listen to the news reports. We looked online at Nats' website and saw that yes, some Scottish airports were being granted permission for some inter-island and west-bound transatlantic flights between the hours of 1am and 1pm on Friday, because the ash cloud was curving around the country from heading eastward along the Highlands and islands, down the East coast and then westward into England. Within that was a little opening just for Glasgow.

We headed out with our luggage at 11pm and caught a taxi this time, grabbed the midnight bus and got to chatting with the other passenger, a girl who was also gong to be on our flight. When we arrive in Glasgow around 1:30am we found an woman in her late 60s who had been chatting with the Security Guard, as she was the only passenger waiting for a bus and the bus station had closed much earlier. It was a cold night, but luckily the airport bus came right away, and it turned out that she was on our flight as well. When we got to the airport we were relieved that the sliding doors had opened for us, as it was completely deserted. We saw two men sleeping on bench seats, and that was it. We'd packed some snacks and sandwiches to keep us going, even though we were exhausted (having been up for 23 hours) and really should have been sleeping.

Around 3:15am they opened check-in, and around 4 or so security. The only officials around were Air Transat employees and security officials, and the only passengers were on our flight. It was bizarre. I managed to get about 1.5 hours of sleep on a bench at the gate, which I have never in my life managed to do. Derek got a great deals on chicken sandwiches at the Boots drugstore. The shelves were full of yesterday's sandwiches that hadn't been sold because there'd been no passengers to sell them to, so they were reduced to 75p.

7am came and went with no one called to board to plane. That was worrying. A lot of passengers had crowded around the one tv showing BBC news, who were reporting that no flights would be heading out that day. Around 7:15 they announced pre-boarding, and I think we all gave a sigh of relief. Once everyone was on board the Captain came on over the PA system. He thanked us for our patience and understanding and explained that the ash cloud was currently in Belgium, France, and low over Ireland (around 20 000 feet). We would be flying at 37 000 flight, would easily be able to see a new ash cloud if one developed while we were in the air, and the plane had a lot of extra fuel so that we could adjust our route or height to avoid it.

The flight itself was pretty standard. The food was really bad, as expected, and was a bit bizarre. The hot breakfast contained made sense, but the cold items around it were for the lunch that we would have had the day before, including a dinner roll, chocolate muffin, and two bite caramel brownies. That's a fairly sugary breakfast, even for me. They handed out headphones for free (normally they charge $2), showed a couple movies, and everybody slept, including us for about an hour. Because we were taking a more southernly route than normal to avoid going near Iceland, we flew just south of Newfoundland, and were able to see the Gulf of St. Lawrence and watch as the river formed and flowed, surrounded by Quebec. That was pretty cool.

When we touched down in Toronto after a good descent and the flight attendant said 'Welcome to Toronto' over the loudspeaker everyone erupted into applause. Customs was quick, as it was only our flight and a flight from Florida who were coming in, and while waiting ages for our luggage we heard rumours of camera crews outside in the Arrivals area. The rumours were true, as we walked out from behind the little wall to be greeted with a television camera. CBC and either Global or CTV were there (I can't remember which -- I was just so relieved to see my dad). I guess our flight was pretty big news, as we discovered that we were the only ones to make it out of Europe that day (one one of the few who have made it since the 15th, which is pretty amazing). I never worried about the flying conditions, as I knew that with the high level of monitoring, forecasting and security concerns they would not let anyone fly without being sure we'd be clear of ash, and as a result, we had an event-free flight.

By the time I went to bed (at 8:30pm, which had been my goal), I had been up for 44 hours with the exception of 3 naps of roughly 45 minutes each, taken one airplane, two taxis, and three buses, and walked a rediculous amount lugging my backpack and luggage around Edinburgh. It really was quite the adventure. We currently have friends and family members stuck in Ghana, Indonesia, North Carolina and Thailand, and I hope that their travels will work out sooner rather than later. We really were (and are) two of the lucky ones.

Easter Weekend

2010-04-07T11:15:00.002+01:00

We had a pretty good Easter weekend this year, although certainly not weather-wise! As you likely heard on the news, Britain was hit by a final bout of snow last week, just to make sure that we hadn't forgotten that it's been her coldest winter in 30 years. Scotland got hit particularly hard of course, with blizzards and flurries and freezing rain. It was all gone within a day, but the cold damp winds remained.

Contrast this with Ontario's weather. 27 or 28 degrees and sunny. Of course it would be a beautiful Easter weekend just to add to all we were missing -- family dinners, barbecues, egg hunts etc. Sigh. But I don't begrudge anyone back home of some much needed warmth after what sounded like a long, cold winter. And while we had received an awful lot of snow around Christmas, it was gone by mid-January, and only a few flakes had fallen since until last week.

By Saturday the sun had come back out, so we headed out on a long walk around the base of the crags. In the evening we Skyped with family back home, which was so nice. Sure, the phone would be fine (although not cheap) for an everyday chat, but for me it is so important and reassuring to see the faces and expressions of the loved ones we're speaking with. And then to be able to see lots of family who have gathered together for the holidays like on this past weekend, well, that's pretty special.

Overnight the Easter Bunny stopped by the flat, leaving a nice little collection of Marks and Spencers chocolate for me, and had found some excellent hiding spots for Derek's goodies (my favourite would have to have been a bag of crisps inside the file folder). We went to a morning service at St. Giles Cathedral, then spent most of the afternoon playing Paper Mario on the Wii. That evening there was lots more chatting on Skype, which was a nice way to wrap up the holiday (as unlike everywhere else in the UK, Easter Monday isn't a holiday in Scotland).

I hope you all had a very happy Easter :)

It's All About the Food

2010-03-27T09:56:00.002Z

I've discovered a common trend when chatting about missing home and going home with fellow North Americans here: we all miss the food. There's some items that are missed by a bunch of us, and then there's the personal favourites that might be region-specific, or have some special meaning for the person. Derek and I try to find adequate substitutes, as we probably all do, but these generally receive the same response: it's good, but it's not the same. Wondering what we're missing? Well, for months now Derek has been talking about how much he's looking forward to a good backyard barbecue burgers, sausages, and all the works. Me, I'm missing a few more specifics (in no particular order):

Tim Hortons
Pizza Pizza's hawaiian pizza
Hewitt's Dairy Bar
Cheetos

Tim Horton's is probably the most often mentioned missed shop by our Canadian friends. Most miss the coffee, but as I'm not a coffee drinker, I miss my usual order of a medium french vanilla cappuccino and a cinnamon sugar doughnut, although a box of TimBits would be excellent right about now. Having tried a couple types of cheese puffs and balls from the stores around town, I still haven't found a suitable replacement for a bag of Cheetos Crunchits. We do have some pizza store chains here, like Domino's and Pizza Hut, but for me nothing beats a Pizza Pizza hawaiian pizza, well-done, with creamy garlic dipping sauce. And then there's Hewitt's, with its excellent ice cream and old-fashioned Dairy Bar and grill. I'm so looking forward to my standard lunch order of a plain cheeseburger with an order of fries to share with Mum or Grandma and a can of cream soda, and a delicious hot fudge kiddie sundae.

When someone mentions that they're heading home for a holiday, the discussion usually turns to food at some point. Other much-missed items amongst friends include Kraft Dinner (the Kraft 'Cheesy Pasta' here just isn't the same), Coffee Crisps (which I didn't know were a Canadian thing until I moved here), Welch's Grape Jam, Diana's Barbecue Sauces, and stores like Seven Eleven and M&M Meats. A Harvey's cheeseburger and onion rings also sounds tempting. Family members and friends who come visit from Canada sometimes bring missed food, which is very kind. And friends returning from a trip home take orders and bring favourites back here to share with others who are missing the same stuff. The Coffee Crisps have been such a nice treat! We'll definitely be returning the favour. But we also take precautions before coming back here. Last time I brought myself back a tin of Tim's French Vanilla Cappuccino mix, and am down to the last mug or two, so I've been rationing it over the past month or two. I may just bring two tins back with me next time.

Cooking from recipes is also more complicated here. Some items that I could just pop over to Sobey's and pick up off the shelf just can't be found, including cookie crumbs for crusts, or even graham crackers from which to make crumbs, so you have to find alternatives. In this case, using plain digestive crackers smushed with a wine bottle. I also learned that fruit pies aren't common here, and thus cans of non-meat pie filling are also rare. And so when I was making my birthday cheesecake last December I ended up using a Polish cherry jam for the topping. One also needs to take time to convert measurements from cups to weight, and even to convert the oven's temperature as we now have a fan-assisted oven.

But it's by no means all bad when it comes to good food. First of all, some of my favourite snack foods are available here, including Pepsi, Doritos (although some of the flavours are different), and KitKats. I'll sometimes meet friends for a hot chocolate at Starbucks. Some have different names, such as Lays potato chips which are Walker's here (and come in a wild range of flavours). Other familiar brands make different things. Not surprisingly, we have access to a wonderful variety of Cadbury products, which makes Easter an exciting day. But there's also British and European brands of food that offer some great stuff, including Milka's chocolate bars, ChicagoTown frozen pizzas, Walker's shortbread, and pretty much anything from Marks and Spencer's food court (my favourites are their Chinese lemon chicken and their Indian butter chicken). Chocolate Soup makes the most amazing hot chocolate, although it gets way too busy during the festival season in August (it's just off the Royal Mile, so a prime spot for tourists). Jimmy Chungs does a good Chinese buffet, and the Red Fort has a good and affordable Indian buffet, although service is always slow. Overall, I'd have to admit that vegetarian haggis is one of my absolute favourite home-cooked meals, and happily we'll be having it at least once this week :)

So that's my summary of some of the more missed foodstuffs. Although I haven't included the home-cooked meals of mums' and grandmas,' which we all also miss, hopefully it's been enough to make you hungry!

Halfway? Already?

2010-03-17T15:39:00.006Z

A bunch of us are now hitting that point in our PhDs where we should technically be just about halfway through, which seems pretty crazy because time has been flying! If I'd done this back home, I wouldn't have even started writing or done much in the way of primary source (material created at the time you're studying) research by this point, because the Canadian PhD system involves at least year of courses, plus another year preparing for and undertaking comprehensive exams on a library of significant secondary sources (current historical research in monographs or journals) on your topic. I knew I wouldn't have enjoyed five or six years of study, which is the average length of time a History PhD takes to complete in Canada. However, this three year programme is flying by!

I should say that it's also unusual to complete the three year programme in three years. The fourth year is usually used for writing up (the completed thesis will be a maximum of 100 000 words), the viva (an oral defense in front of your supervisors, an external examiner who is an expert in the field) which can be held up to three months after you submit your thesis, and, assuming you pass the viva, corrections which take two or three months. So really, a fourth year could actually drift into a fifth depending on how slow the school is to organise your viva and the extent of the minor corrections. And yet funding runs out after three years (which is only relevant to those lucky people like myself who have funding, that is), and us overseas students are faced with our UK visas running out in January of the fourth year (2012 for me), so there is extra pressure to complete, defend and correct by halfway through the fourth year. In fact, it looks like the school has finally admitted that most students will take four years to complete, and the new visas issued to students who started last September now last a full four years.

Then comes applying for post-doc and lectureship positions. This takes time. A number of the major UK postdoctorate schemes have a deadline of April, and you have to have at least submitted your thesis if not defended it, so it makes it highly unlikely that someone could apply in the spring of their third year and have a position secured for the fourth. This can then mean no income beyond tutoring for the entire fourth year -- a scary thought. Postdocs vary greatly. The Leverhulme Fellowship is the major one here, and is ridiculously hard to get, but it is a great start to a career in academia. It allows you two years of paid research at a UK university to pursue research on a new topic, thereby giving you time to put together the basis for what will become your second book (as your thesis is assumed to be your first). The pay is good, and your teaching time limited so that the school you're working at can't take advantage of your newness too much.

I can't count how many dire warnings we've received from staff, upper-year PhDs and postdocs about the bleak job outlook we're all facing. I suppose it's just like any other field right now, except maybe discount stores. We're told that the trick to getting a job is to have a book (likely an adaptation of your thesis) and, hopefully, a postdoctoral fellowship under your belt. To get a book you need to find the right academic publisher, create an exciting and convincing book proposal, and spend a lot of time re-working your thesis, because the thesis can be so technical in its referencing, definitions, methodology, historiographic examination... see? I bet I'm boring some of you already, and thus it needs to be reworked to become publishable.

Lectureships are also hard to come by. Tenure doesn't really happen in UK universities (so I've been told by profs here, anyway), so it's not like jobs are held for life here, but when professors retire or move to a new school, a lot of their positions just disappear for cost-cutting reasons. I've noticed that a number of major slavery historians have retired recently, so I do have a bit of hope, but to be honest I'm not sure that I want to be a 'slavery historian' for the rest of my life. There's so many different aspects of British history that interest me that I wouldn't want to be limited in that way, although I would be very happy to teach courses on it, and then aim my own research elsewhere, so that could be the way forward.

I was very surprised when I first came here and starting working as a tutor running three tutorials a week that I was the only grad student tutor on my course. The rest were all postdocs. I think this happens because a) postdocs can be assigned menial jobs by the school that's housing them, b) Edinburgh doesn't officially teach postgrads to teach or even want them teaching as the programme is so short, and yet provided a bunch of us with teaching awards to get us teaching... c) teaching just isn't as important when job hunting here compared to in North America, or perhaps d) postdocs nearing the end of their funded fellowship might not find work right away and need something to tide them over. Some teaching and admin. experience is important when job hunting in the academic arena, although teaching isn't as important when assessing applicants in UK universities as it is in the US or Canada. Luckily I now have three years of teaching tutorials under my belt so I should be okay on either side of the Atlantic on that front, and I gained a ton of admin. experience this year by organising and chairing a couple postgraduate workshops and sitting on a number of committees as a student rep. A fellow PhD-2 and I are also in the early stages of organising a one-day academic conference for the fall, so stay tuned.

I suppose the final complicating factor when looking towards the future is knowing that we really have to be willing to go where the work is, because work is so hard to come by. This could mean a lectureship in England, a postdoc in Canada or the US, or maybe we'll head farther afield to Europe. Universities in a number of countries in Europe, including in Scandinavia, teach first and second year courses in English, and give their academic staff several years to learn the native language. That's pretty exciting stuff. And I'm all for looking beyond academia towards government or private positions with national heritage bodies or in museums, but the nature of my degree and my qualifications will steer me towards the academic environment.

The uncertain nature of the next few years is a little bit daunting for someone like myself who likes to be organised and have a plan. With regards to the near future, we've made an educated guess that we'll be here in Scotland until at least late fall, 2011, to allow me to complete my writing up and probably my viva and corrections, although if I found a position elsewhere I could fly back for the viva and likely make any corrections at home. If Derek was working then I would probably tutor in my fourth year and we'd stay until April 2012 (we should both have British passports by then and therefore not need our visas anymore, but that's another blog). With Derek still job hunting our future's more flexible at the moment then we'd expected, but we're on a very tight budget. A postdoctoral fellowship (which is what I really want) or a first-year lectureship, and time to work on my book proposal and maybe write an article or two, will hopefully be how I spend 2012-2013, and that sounds pretty good to me.

An Olympic Wrap-Up

2010-03-06T17:05:00.007Z

What a Games, eh? I must have watched twice as many hours of Olympic coverage than I've ever done before (and it certainly wasn't due to the quality of the commentary...). I'm so thankful that Canada was the host nation so that other nations like Britain kept tabs on our athletes as well as their own. We were able to see coverage of almost every competition in which we won gold (or were in contention). Of course, this also meant that we got to watch some of our gold-medal-favourite athletes throw the gold away (women's curling & skeleton -- the 'bob-skeleton' as they call it here -- come to mind). And we even got to watch three medal ceremonies where we won gold.

And then there were our spectacular stats, shown off even more nicely by BBC ranking their nations by the number of gold medals won rather than total medals. As I'm sure everyone knows very well by now, by winning 14 golds, Canada's now won more golds at a Winter Olympics than any other nation ever has. Of course, one needs to take into account the new events that get added every four years, but it is still a great achievement and something I bet we're all proud of. Of course, I'm now wondering if the funding will disappear now that we've had our day and our games. At least the facilities will remain, and Canada's golds will be added to the history books. They were awfully pretty, too, those gold medals.

I can't summarize our experience of the Olympics without mentioning the game. In the days leading up to Sunday BBC was already touting it as a game that, for Canadians, would be the most important one in the past 50 years. And wasn't it spectacular! We were on the edge of our seats when the USA tied it up with less than 25 seconds to go. 25 seconds! We should have had those golds safely in our hands! But no, we all had to sit through a depressing end of the period, BBC's 'analysis' of the game so far (I should mention that instead of Ron Maclean and Don Cherry, we had a Canadian skier (their token Canadian for the entire Games), a British track athlete as host, and a British rower who said he'd 'seen some games'), and then another 7 minutes before Crosby saved the day and our men's team's reputation. We were shouting in celebration, but only temporarily, as we were watching with American friends who were anything but thrilled with the outcome.

As our little party finished and we were on our own again, I found myself in tears for only the second time since the Games had begun. Everything in me was telling me that I should have been home, shouting and celebrating with everyone else as part of a nation who'd just earned the greatest prize we could in our Winter Olympics: the double gold in hockey. Friends here said they felt the same way. We watched as Facebook's status updates from both sides of the Atlantic celebrated the victory, and each of ours did, too. I was noticeably happy the next morning in tutorial and told my students all about it (I think only my 3 American students had watched the game). I'd teased them a bit the week before in my Thursday class, reminding them that the hockey game would be on at 8pm the night before their essays were due so that they should be sure to factor that into their writing schedules, knowing that maybe 1 or 2 would even know what I was talking about. One of my students did tell me that Canadian students had poured out of the pubs on George Street over in New Town after the game finished, shouting and singing and celebrating the victory, so that's pretty cool.

All that was left was the closing ceremonies, which were on too late for us to watch live, so watched them on Monday afternoon. I loved the opening of them, making fun of the torch not rising properly from the ground, and giving our fourth torchbearer the chance to light her leg of the torch. I thought Neil Young's acoustic performance while the fire went out was lovely. We were excited to see Alanis Morisette, and I agreed with the BBC commentator's surprised sentiments that Avril Lavigne wasn't going to sing Sk8ter Boy. We felt bad for Catherine O'Hara who got next to no laughs, and were so happy to see Michael J. Fox! Personally, I thought the giant beavers, inflatable moose and sexy mountie ladies dancing around Micheal Buble on a giant mountie hat was pretty darn funny, although I suppose we just have to hope that the larger international audience gets that it really was a joke, and that that's not what Canada really is.

BBC wasn't always the most polite in their discussion of the Canadian athletes, and seemed to harp on our 'Own the Podium' program quite a bit as the golds continued to come in. They would comment on how Canadians showing that they really want to win just isn't very Canadian, and that our reluctance to give extra practice runs to foreign athletes beyond the required practice time was unfair to their British athletes. When the two married British skeleton medal hopefuls came in far from the medals, both whined to the BBC about not being allowed enough practice time on such a demanding track. However, the women's competition was won by the second British athlete who said she loved the track (and whom BBC had completely discounted in the run up to the Games) while the Canadian favourite with 'hundreds more practice runs' had bombed. They were also really upset when a British short-track speed skater was disqualified (for twice knocking over the Canadian skater next to her by skating directly into her after the gun went off), and managed to bring up this 'unfair' disqualification at various times throughout the rest of the Games. Regardless, the Games wrapped up with us feeling even more proud to be Canadian, a phenomenon I'm sure that was stirred up in the minds of Canadians around the world.

So Much Olympics!

2010-02-25T11:18:00.003Z

I have never in my life watched this much Olympics coverage. It's crazy. We're probably watching 7 hours a day on average, and that's if there isn't something important on that we've scheduled in to watch live (or 'live replay' the following morning). I've always loved the Olympics, and have always been happy to watch just about whatever sport is on, but now that my schedule is completely flexible (and Derek is home, too), and we have a PVR (one of those HD digital boxes that tapes tv shows automatically), there's just so much to watch and a fair number of hours in which to watch it!

I think some of my favourite moments have probably come from the Snowboard Cross and Ski Cross. It's so exciting to watch, and so wild, that I find it hard to believe that they haven't had it as part of the Games before. And to finish it off with a gold for Canada was the icing on the cake. We're watching a ton of sliding sports: luge, 'bob-skeleton' (where the Brits won their 9th gold ever at a Winter Games, so you can imagine how many times they've brought that up!), and 'bobsleigh'. There's been a good amount of short-track speed skating, although not as much long-track and thus we didn't see our Canadian skater win. There's been a lot of curling coverage too, even though the British teams aren't very good, and they've only shown our apparently excellent Canadian curling team when we're playing the Brits (or, really, the Scots). Curling's fun -- it's pretty much the only time that we hear the familiar Scottish accents from both the athletes and the commentators.

I should mention that I've learned that my use and understanding of the word 'athlete' is different from the BBC commentators' use of the term. I guess here it means a former track and field participant, rather than a generic term for someone who plays sports. I discovered this while watching the two-man bob-sleigh. The commentators regularly told us of the brakeman's former sports background, such as rugby, 'American football', weight lifting etc. And then a bunch of them were labelled as 'former athletes', which I still find a rather amusing title, as they are obviously still amazing athletes in my sense of the word.

We're still getting excellent coverage of important matches and sports thanks to BBC's red button coverage, which streams up to 6 sports at a time all day and night. One advantage to BBC's Olympic Coverage is that, since BBC does not have commercials (a privilege we all pay for annually through our £100+ tv licenses) their Olympics coverage doesn't have commercials either. This makes events such as the Opening Ceremonies wonderful, since you're not worrying about missing anything and you're not taken away from the atmosphere of the show, but it can be a bit boring during the skiing and hockey games as everything is put on hold for 2 minutes for the North American broadcasters to fit in their advertisements. We end up watching replays and funny shots of the crowd or the athletes (there's that word again!) for the break.

I'm so proud of how well Canada is doing. Our ice dancers were absolutely beautiful in the final performance, and I'm not a big ice dance fan at all. The Canada-US hockey game was a tough moment, but I'm very proud that they've pulled themselves back together and started working as a team to defeat Russia so spectacularly. We were told that 11 million Canadians tuned in for the game on Sunday night -- that's amazing! And it must have been absolutely devastating! I can't wait for the women's gold medal game, which we'll watch live tomorrow morning on the replay (I just can't stay up until 3pm!). And fingers crossed for our men to do as well. From the stats it looks really good for our curlers, too, so I hope that we'll continue to get coverage of that even though the British women are out and the men are on the border. So we may not be home to feel the Olympic fever, but we're still shouting and jumping off the couch in celebrations here, too. And boy, would another gold or two feel great!

A "Canook's" Olympics, BBC-style

2010-02-16T22:08:00.005Z

Well, the Winter Olympics are well underway, and they're back home in Canada for the first time in 22 years, and where are we? We're way over on the other side of the Atlantic. No worries: London will be hosting the 2012 Summer Games. But wait -- where will we be in the Summer of 2012? We have no idea! but most likely not in Edinburgh, and odds are not in the UK. So we get to miss both. Sigh. And while I was lucky enough to be in Calgary for at least one night during the '88 Olympics, I was 5 years old and all I remember is the kind of cake my Aunt let me pick out at the grocery store for dessert that night. Really. My parents got to see some speed skating, and I do like my mum's stories of the celebrations at Olympic Square when Elizabeth Manley won silver.

The thing is, I'm a huge fan of the Olympics. I grew up loving watching figure skating, but by my early teens I just wanted to watch any sport that was on. And the Winter Olympics are particularly special, probably for all of us Canadians, because its in these games that we've got a good chance! So I tried not to think about the fact that I'd be missing out on the whole host country experience, which wasn't too hard here, but after a flatwarming on Friday night I came home and watched the first 15 minutes of the Opening Ceremonies (on at 2:15 am) I ended up in tears. So we had some friends over (2 Canadians, 2 Americans) the following night to watch the entire ceremony. It was great. We all critiqued the outfits, got bored with the excessive interpretive ballet, and felt pride in seeing some of our great athletes, musicians, actors etc. strut their stuff. I tried to take mental photos of my favourite outfits to chat with my mum about after, like we always do.

Now that I've been sucked back in (as I am every 2 years), it's time to figure out what BBC's Olympic coverage consists of. I was worried that we wouldn't get much coverage of the Canadians, which makes sense. I bet each country's media concentrates on their own athletes and their best events. And while this has certainly been evident in some areas, such as the initial hockey games being shortened to include only the goals (but still quite a lot of coverage, thanks to our girls getting 28 goals in their first two games!), we've lucked out. Because Canada is the host country, BBC is constantly mentioning our athletes, our stats, telling us who the Canadian hopefuls are, and even showing us the medal ceremony and anthem singing when we got our first home gold.

I'm really impressed with BBC's coverage. We've been recording the 5.5 hour edited coverage that they show every night after midnight, and in HD it's pretty darn nice to watch. They also show one or two events every evening, like snowboard cross or skiing. But the amazing thing they do (and which I am only beginning to figure out) is their red button coverage. Anytime you have the BBC on, you can press the red button on your clicker and be taken to an interactive menu that shows news headlines and tv shows via BBC iPlayer. However, now that their Olympic coverage has begun, there's a new option: live sport coverage. You suddenly see a bunch of squares, each which a different video feed from the different venues, and then choose which sport you want to watch. The coverage is initially live, but some get repeated throughout the day or night. So this gives us the opportunity to watch more sports that might not have made the cut of BBC's edited coverage. It's really cool. It's also how we'll be watching the Canadian men's first hockey game and how my friend and I will be watching the men's free program in figure skating.

One last note on the BBC's coverage: it's a tad amusing. We get slightly more informal commentary (eg. we were told that the next athlete had 'butterflies in his tummy', and the German gold medalist had an awesome hat), a bit more opinion (eg. the figure skating commentator was really pulling for the one Chinese pair), and some odd statements that make us think twice (eg. we were informed that the snowboarder from Alaska would be competing for the United States). We all had a good chuckle at the coverage of the Opening Ceremonies, which rarely even showed Stephen Harper, and I'm not sure they even mentioned who he was, instead giving us all the details about the Governor General, which kind of makes sense as she's the Queen's representative.

My favourite so far has probably been the pronunciations, which I will attempt to recreate phonetically. We learned that one athlete was from 'Winny-peg,' as in Winnie the Pooh, and that we're all Canooks (as in Chinook). Eek. But it happens, and it's great fun listening to some of the commentators. I should mention that they also have a token Canadian commentator, Karen Lee Gardener (sp?), who says rather obvious things, like that Canadians want to win. So that's how we've experienced the Games so far -- we watch 4 to 5 hours a day, are generally a day behind, and are pulling for our Canadian athletes all the way. There's been lots of yelling at the tv and high-fiving, just as I'm sure there's been across the country back home. We've been loving the snowboard cross and can't wait for the big hockey games. We may be fighting an 8 hour time difference and some British bias towards certain sports, but it's still our games and we're following it just as closely as we'd be back home (or possibly more so!). And there's hockey parties with friends to come!

So to conclude, as one commentator just said, 'The Canadians are going mental!'