Quick Catch Up

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

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

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

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.