A Science Festival?

Two Fridays ago Derek and I were walking back from Tescos with a couple of groceries when we noticed two identical banners hanging from the front of McEwan Hall with the familiar 'face' of ASIMO, most likely the world's most famous and recognizable humanoid robot.  Derek got all excited (well, he noticed it), and I decided to look up ASIMO on the school's webpage when I got home.

It turns out the Edinburgh throws an annual International Science Festival, with information and tickets for the many events having been available since February.  Before I started kicking myself for not finding out about this earlier, I got onto the official website to check out the entire programme and the ticket availability for ASIMO's show at the university.  ASIMO had the distinct honour of opening the two week festival at the hall across the street from our place, and since both of us our fans, we had to get tickets.  Saturday's shows were all sold out, but Sunday's had tickets, we headed over to the University's Visitor Centre to get our tickets first thing Saturday morning.  

Sunday morning we arrived at the square across the street to join the massive queue of parents and kids and university students and seniors.  The whole presentation was pretty neat.  There was a little robot who could do pushups, a connect four robot, a cool video explaining Honda's development of humanoid robots, beginning with what looked like a massive box with legs in the mid-80s, and then out came the star.  ASIMO was very cool.  He could shake hands, grasp, hold and carry items, kick a ball, run in a straight line and around a curve, and climb up and down stairs.  Oh, and he can dance!  I can remember seeing ASIMO do the hula on the Today show years ago, so it was really neat seeing him in person, especially on his first trip to Scotland.

Last night we attended another talk, this time aimed at an older audience, but with some cartoons thrown in :)   This talk was about the dynamic simulation used at Pixar Studios in their computer animations, and was given by David Baraff, a mathematician who received an Academy Award for his work on digital representations of hair, clothing and water.  He's worked on movies like Monsters Inc. (which I love!), Finding Nemo and Ratatouille.  It was really neat to hear about some of the work that occurs behind the scenes during the 4 or 5 year process of making a Pixar movie, and I really enjoyed the hour.

I knew before we moved here the Edinburgh hosts something like 15 festivals a year, and its quite fun to have them just pop up out of nowhere.  The Science Festival turned out to be a great find, and we'll be keeping an eye out for it next year!

PS I must correct my earlier post on hockey.  It turns out that if you stay quite late in Edinburgh you may catch highlights, or even an entire game, of NHL hockey.  But I couldn't tell you when or what you might see, as those who know me know that I'm not one to stay up late.

Hockey Night in Edinburgh

About a week ago Derek and I received an exciting invitation to accompany a couple friends of mine (fellow PhD-1s from the US and Canada) to an Edinburgh Capitals game at the rather old Murrayfield Ice Rink, complete with ancient seats.   Yes, we were going to see some 'ice hockey' in Scotland.  You're probably thinking, I didn't know Edinburgh had a hockey team.  Well, it does.  And while it's no NHL, it's the closest you can get when you're living in the UK (unless you get satellite coverage of the NHL games, that is).

The Edinburgh Capitals are one of 10 teams in the Elite Ice Hockey League.  This professional UK league is the highest level of hockey you can get in the UK.  We ended up seeing their final game of the year, which was against the number one ranked team, the Sheffield Steelers.   It was a high-scoring game with lots of excitement amongst the screaming fans.  We won 5-4 in the second of the quarter-finals, but it wasn't enough to move up.  The week before, our friends reported chants of 'We're number 8!  We're number 8!,' because only the top 8 teams were going to advance to the quarter-finals.

When it comes to the quality of the hockey, it was kind of like watching two okay Canadian university hockey teams play.  Several Capitals players were Canadian, actually, but it's not surprising that they're not in the NHL.  It was pretty funny how many times the players lost track of the puck, passed in front of the net with no one taking a shot, or tripped over their own feet.  Body checking wasn't done -- it was more like one guy skating up behind the guy with the puck, putting his hands out against the boards, and the two just standing there until the puck was taken away by someone else.  I did capture one of the fights on my camera, which was kind of neat (and surprising!).  I guess things were a little tense on the ice this week.

I can't conclude my synopsis of this experience without a word about the fans.  The Capitals have a large crowd of devoted and vocal fans wearing hockey jerseys, eating mashed potatoes with gravy out of styrofoam cups and singing their hearts out.  They had songs for events, for individual players, and to counteract (drown out) the opposition's fans' songs.  A popular insult thrown at the other team's goalie was to call him a sieve, which I thought was pretty amusing.  The singing and cheering never stopped throughout the game, and we all got into it, particularly in the last two periods when we changed seats to sit amongst the cheerers.  All in all, it was a wild, very fun and very different experience.  We'll have to go again next year!

 

The Eighties Are Back

There have been some scary sights on the streets and in the stores of Edinburgh lately, and I'm not the only one who's noticed.  Friends have spotted it at parties and on campus, and I caught a segment on BBC news noting it's return.  Yes, it appears to be true.  I'm sorry to say, eighties fashion is making a comeback.

Giant plastic hoop earrings in bright colours or silver or gold and popping up on tv shows like Coronation Street.   While I have nothing against the scrunchie or the occasional hot pink accessory, judging by some of the high street stores geared at the 13-25 market, this trend is going far beyond my comfort level.  Tight, acid washed jeans have been seen in blue and, even scarier, red.   Remember M.C. Hammer?  Well, bright, shiny 'hammer' pants are back, and are definitely a look that I thought would only be remembered when catching "Can't Touch This" on MTV.

There's also oversized off-the-shoulder T-shirts with large neon print for sale.  And what does one wear with these large t-shirts?  Leggings!  Over the past couple months the trend of wearing coloured or patterned tights under a short denim skirt has been giving way to black tights under a long shirt (no bottoms required apparently).  Now leggings of every length, colour and material you can think of have popped up at Topshop and H&M.  There's ankle length, crop length and extra long leggings.  There's shiny black or grey polyester leggings.  There's leggings that look like denim, and there's neon ones (yellow and pink) which can be seen a mile away.  My particular favourite were Topshop's silver leggings, which would have been perfect for my halloween costume last year, when I went as a robot.

To be honest, my friend and I were so overwhelmed by the amount of choice when it came to rediculous leggings that we gathered up several examples for a quick photo before tossing them back onto the rack, staggering outside onto the street and doubling over laughing.  Maybe its because we remember seeing all the cool kids at school and on tv wearing these items, and how silly they looked in retrospect.  It has taken years just to get our guy friends to stop wearing pleated pants with tapered legs.  And now its all threatening to come back.  I think I'll stick with the seventies, myself.

My Six Month Review

Six months ago Derek and I arrived in a foreign land with four suitcases and Google Map directions to the university’s accommodation desk.  We had no idea what our place would look like or contain, where any grocery stores were, or where to find internet access.  Thanks to Google Map’s satellite images, I knew we’d be living in a row of houses or tenements with a large square down the street and the national museum at the other end.  What they didn’t show us of course was what our place actually looked like, even from the street, or the fact that we’d be moving into a construction zone.

 After our cab found a place to stop around the corner outside of the construction zone, we rolled our suitcases to the front door and tried the keys.  Inside we found a dark hallway with a curving staircase that went up 3 floors.  Derek dragged the cases up, and we investigated our new place with some apprehension.  Initial impressions were that it was much larger than expected, spotless, and had a little washer/dryer and a bathtub plus shower.  The colours were odd: cream walls with white trim, navy patterned carpet, blue chairs and jade green doors.  The windows were huge and the ceilings very high, and there seemed to be a good number of heaters (which would take a few days to learn to operate).

 We found our way to a small Sainsbury’s to get some pre-made sandwiches and  juice.  With lunch and supper solved, we went through the accommodation guide and read about other stuff we had to do right away: set up phone and internet access, contact the electricity supplier (which we didn’t know) and give them our readings, and complete the inventory within 24 hours.  We found an internet café a couple blocks away, and after a couple quick emails to parents, we looked up phone, internet and tv packages from a couple companies, city bus information and directions to Ikea.

 Following dad’s advice for conquering jetlag, in the evening we went for a walk along the Royal Mile and forced ourselves to stay up until 9pm before crawling into a bed made of one sheet, one small polarfleece blanket and two pillowcases filled with clothes.  Needless to say, it was a very rough night, for me anyway.  It was cold and uncomfortable, and of course my emotions were getting the best of me.  There was also the problem of street noise, which we eventually conquered two months later by moving the bed.  After a good cry, two Gravols and a lot of hugs, I fell back to sleep.

 Over the next couple days we started to make the place our own.  At Ikea we found the perfect bedding and bathroom linens.  We found the Tescos grocery store with some familiar food as well as simple white dishes and cutlery like my old Ikea set that I loved.  We called BT from a payphone and arranged to get our place wired up, although we were disappointed that it would take almost 3 weeks.  And a letter arrived for the old tenants from Scottish Power, so we now knew who supplied our power.  We went to the Bank of Scotland across the street to start the long process of applying for a bank account as an international student, and headed up to Princes Street to find the right cell phone. 

 Meeting our neighbours helped immensely.   Suddenly there were friends here to talk to, share experiences with and get advice from.  International Day helped too, as it brought the thousands of international students together into one room to meet and connect with.  I met one of my closest friends that day.  Derek’s cousin also stopped by for a couple days as part of his backpacking trip, so we had a familiar face around, and his visit inspired us to go out and explore the city.

 Six months on, when I look back at those few days they seem worlds away from the home we’ve created.  My studies are going really well, and Derek’s are wrapping up quickly.  I’m sure I shared the stress of setting up bank accounts and getting internet access with you all.  Now I have my favourite spots in the library, I’m watching all the British television I can, and I regularly see my family via Skype and our webcams.  I’ve made friends with students from Canada, the US, Germany, the UK, Norway and Japan.  We enjoyed the mildest winter we’ve ever experienced.  And Edinburgh is truly a beautiful, amazing city.  I’m very lucky to live here, and I try to remind myself of that regularly so that I don’t start taking it for granted.  I'm also very lucky that I didn't need to go on this adventure alone.  We've faced it side by side.

 The next few months should be very interesting.  I’ll stay here to work while Derek heads back to Waterloo for a couple weeks to finish his degree.  We’ll be flat-hunting soon and moving in June to a place with double-glazing (I’m tired of the curtains blowing in the wind when the windows are closed!).  And I have to hit the British Library in London this summer to look at some primary sources, particularly anti-abolition pamphlets from the 1790s and early 1800s.  I’m glad so many of you have enjoyed these updates.  Stay tuned!  Who knows what the next six months will bring?