Sorry, couldn't resist.
I got paid to go to Abu Dhabi. Did I mention that? To do science in a tent in the desert as part of Abu Dhabi Science Festival. It was amazing, I still can't believe I went, and I'm keeping literally everything crossed (eyes, fingers, toes) that I'll get to go this year.
I worked at the Edinburgh International Science festival last Easter, which was an incredible experience, and directly affected my getting the job I'm in just now. I did kind of think that that would be all though. I genuinely couldn't believe my luck when I got the email asking me to go, I think there was a gap of about 10 minutes between the email arriving and an enthusiastic reply of "Yes, yes. Yes I would very much like to go. Yes."
Anyway, there was training, and nerves, and working with my other brilliant team leader, Toby. He was flipping brilliant and our SciComms were a fantastic bunch.
We flew out on the 9th of November, a month after I started at the Science Centre. I felt like I'd barely unpacked from Europe before I was having to find summer-appropriate clothing in the middle of a miserable Glaswegian autumn. End of season sales were my friend. We were flown from Edinburgh down to London, put up in a hotel overnight, then it was an early start to catch the Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi.
We were mentioned in the in-flight magazine, which was hugely exciting. As if I needed to be giddier.
When I arrived, tired, rumpled, confused and valium-ed up to the eyeballs at our 3* hotel, the nice man said that I'd been upgraded to the 4* hotel across the way. I stared blankly at him for a while, before staggering out with my suitcase into the night. I got that suitcase stuck in the revolving door, and was shown up the lift to the most ridiculous room I've seen in my entire life. The bed was as wide as I am tall and there were three phones in the room, one next to the toilet. It was amazing.
The first couple of days was spent setting up the workshop and actually getting our hands on the equipment we were due to be using. The training had all been done with imaginary equipment as it had all been in a shipping container on the way to Abu Dhabi!
And then we got to do things like this on our lunch breaks. Our pool had a swim-up bar with floating menus.
The big white thing is Du Forum, the huge blue tent behind it is ADSF. A veritable circus of science!
Part of the workshop was a Chain Reaction tank, which consisted of 225 mousetraps, 226 ping-pong balls and one MASSIVE acrylic lid. The extra ping-pong ball got dropped through the hole in the tank, and chaos ensued. It was amazing.
There may have been one or two teething troubles. The signs that went up had been spell-checked...
There were some strange growths on the trees along the path home. They made amazing iPod speakers.
There was a Carrefour along the road, which was a weird, weird place. We went a couple of times to pick up snacks and the like so that we could avoid paying mini-bar prices. I picked up the Carrefour standards, a ton of Milka, tried on some UAE day tat and tried some local goodies.
The rose milk was amazing, and super-refreshing. The melon milk was an alarming sludge green colour, and smelled almost musky, but it turned out to be delicious. I got a bit obsessed, I'd love to try and find it over here!
The tent we were running the festival in was amazing, and looked incredible. Unfortunately, Abu Dhabi is a desert and prone to sandstorms, which can make air-conditioning (those sad-looking tubes) unhappy. Our wing of the tent appeared to be cursed, so we did spend a morning with sweat dripping off our noses.
My two days off were incredibly welcome. First we went to the private beach, and did some stand-up paddle boarding. I did some swimming, arsch-bomben (arse-bombing, or cannonball in German) and generally enjoyed the sunshine.
Then we did something utterly terrifying (to me, at least). We went on a desert safari. Now, dune bashing was part of the experience, but I didn't realise it would be 40 minutes of sea-sickness inducing ups-and-downs and sliding-sideways-ness. Boke. I'm glad I did it, and once I'd moved seats to the middle, I settled into a state of quiet panic for the rest of the ride. I did get to meet a camel, and squish my toes into the desert.
I also got to watch the sun set over the dunes, and have an amazing buffet seated outside. We watched a belly-dancer and got henna, then bounced our way back to the hotel. Freakin' AMAZING.
Day two was more chilled out, the lovely Flora and I tried to go to a Falcon hospital, but the taxi driver was utterly hopeless and got lost. We basically drove round in a taxi for an hour. But then we found the Saluki Centre and got to pat pedigree puppies and try to convince the breeders to call an as-yet-unnamed pair of girls Flora and Nina.
We then went to the Falcon Hospital to get them to call a taxi to take us to Masdar City, so we waited in the reception room with these wee guys, one of which puked, so clearly needed a doctor.
We headed over to Masdar City, where the power's green and the cars are nippy, which is currently a university, but there's plans to extend it to include a residential area. It's kind of a Norman Foster designed city of the future, and has little electric cars which steer themselves. It was an odd place to walk around, and had a total Star Trek feel to it. I loved it.
And that night we went to Ladies' Night at the most ostentatious place I've ever been. I thought my hotel was a lot to take in, but the Emirates Palace was something else. They have a GOLD VENDING MACHINE there. A vending machine for GOLD.
They also sell priceless ancient artefacts (like 1000 year-old Sumerian writing) so that really, really, really rich people can buy them and not show anyone else. It made me kind of sad.
In the middle of the tent was this amazing bit of art by Jason Hackenwerth. He does these incredible, temporary balloon sculptures. This one looked like a cross-section of the core of a star. I loved it.
We headed off to the Sheikh Zayd Grand Mosque, which is one of the biggest mosques in the world. It's HUGE, and built in the Moghul style, so it looks a bit on the Taj Mahal side. It's pretty impressive.
It's also free to visit, and we had an fantastic tour guide who took us round and told us the facts and figures. The chandeliers are supposed to be upside-down date palms, and are covered in kilos and kilos of gold and crystals.
It's also got the world's biggest carpet. It was soft and plushy. I liked it.
On the Friday morning, we were all hands to the pump. The carpets were ripped up and replaced, the workshops were put back together and fuck me, but we got the thing open on time. And had an amazing afternoon and evening. I was done in by the end of it, but so proud to be part of the team that pulled a feat like that off.
The CEO, Simon, bought every one drinks that night. I had a particularly phallic frozen margharita. It was like manna from heaven. God bless you, Simon.
And then this happened. It RAINED AGAIN. Saturday, the last day of the festival was cancelled. We were very, very sad little Team Leaders.
Some folk headed off back to the Corniche to put on a brave face, and some of us headed to the tent to start packing up and salvaging what we could. Gutted.
But we made the most of it, Team Pack-Up even managed to commandeer a golf cart and did doughnuts round the car park. Highlight of the day, that was.
Sunday was all about packing, we put the whole workshop into boxes, which we then put in boxes and said goodbye to.
While I was helping count scrubs in ER, we heard balloons popping. LOTS of balloons. The sculpture had to come down, and 50 Team Leaders were on hand to help. It was the most cathartic moment of my entire life. We were all of us transformed into 6 year-olds for 20 minutes of unadulterated nonsense. I was so happy.
I packed my bags in preparation for the after-party, because we were leaving very, very early the next day. I thought my room was fancy, but I got to prat about in a 5* hotel overlooking a marina AND Formula 1 track. I'll never be the same.
I can't believe all that happened in November, it seems like 5 minutes ago. Fingers crossed for this year, folks!
I got paid to go to Abu Dhabi. Did I mention that? To do science in a tent in the desert as part of Abu Dhabi Science Festival. It was amazing, I still can't believe I went, and I'm keeping literally everything crossed (eyes, fingers, toes) that I'll get to go this year.
I worked at the Edinburgh International Science festival last Easter, which was an incredible experience, and directly affected my getting the job I'm in just now. I did kind of think that that would be all though. I genuinely couldn't believe my luck when I got the email asking me to go, I think there was a gap of about 10 minutes between the email arriving and an enthusiastic reply of "Yes, yes. Yes I would very much like to go. Yes."
Anyway, there was training, and nerves, and working with my other brilliant team leader, Toby. He was flipping brilliant and our SciComms were a fantastic bunch.
We flew out on the 9th of November, a month after I started at the Science Centre. I felt like I'd barely unpacked from Europe before I was having to find summer-appropriate clothing in the middle of a miserable Glaswegian autumn. End of season sales were my friend. We were flown from Edinburgh down to London, put up in a hotel overnight, then it was an early start to catch the Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi.
We were mentioned in the in-flight magazine, which was hugely exciting. As if I needed to be giddier.
The first couple of days was spent setting up the workshop and actually getting our hands on the equipment we were due to be using. The training had all been done with imaginary equipment as it had all been in a shipping container on the way to Abu Dhabi!
And then we got to do things like this on our lunch breaks. Our pool had a swim-up bar with floating menus.
The big white thing is Du Forum, the huge blue tent behind it is ADSF. A veritable circus of science!
Part of the workshop was a Chain Reaction tank, which consisted of 225 mousetraps, 226 ping-pong balls and one MASSIVE acrylic lid. The extra ping-pong ball got dropped through the hole in the tank, and chaos ensued. It was amazing.
There may have been one or two teething troubles. The signs that went up had been spell-checked...
There were some strange growths on the trees along the path home. They made amazing iPod speakers.
Team Power It UP! Once the workshop was set up, we got our Science Communicators in and had two days to train them in the workshop. They were an amazing bunch. Tireless, enthusiastic and only occasionally late. I'm chuffed to have got the chance to work with them.
There was a Carrefour along the road, which was a weird, weird place. We went a couple of times to pick up snacks and the like so that we could avoid paying mini-bar prices. I picked up the Carrefour standards, a ton of Milka, tried on some UAE day tat and tried some local goodies.
The rose milk was amazing, and super-refreshing. The melon milk was an alarming sludge green colour, and smelled almost musky, but it turned out to be delicious. I got a bit obsessed, I'd love to try and find it over here!
The tent we were running the festival in was amazing, and looked incredible. Unfortunately, Abu Dhabi is a desert and prone to sandstorms, which can make air-conditioning (those sad-looking tubes) unhappy. Our wing of the tent appeared to be cursed, so we did spend a morning with sweat dripping off our noses.
My two days off were incredibly welcome. First we went to the private beach, and did some stand-up paddle boarding. I did some swimming, arsch-bomben (arse-bombing, or cannonball in German) and generally enjoyed the sunshine.
Then we did something utterly terrifying (to me, at least). We went on a desert safari. Now, dune bashing was part of the experience, but I didn't realise it would be 40 minutes of sea-sickness inducing ups-and-downs and sliding-sideways-ness. Boke. I'm glad I did it, and once I'd moved seats to the middle, I settled into a state of quiet panic for the rest of the ride. I did get to meet a camel, and squish my toes into the desert.
I also got to watch the sun set over the dunes, and have an amazing buffet seated outside. We watched a belly-dancer and got henna, then bounced our way back to the hotel. Freakin' AMAZING.
Day two was more chilled out, the lovely Flora and I tried to go to a Falcon hospital, but the taxi driver was utterly hopeless and got lost. We basically drove round in a taxi for an hour. But then we found the Saluki Centre and got to pat pedigree puppies and try to convince the breeders to call an as-yet-unnamed pair of girls Flora and Nina.
We then went to the Falcon Hospital to get them to call a taxi to take us to Masdar City, so we waited in the reception room with these wee guys, one of which puked, so clearly needed a doctor.
We headed over to Masdar City, where the power's green and the cars are nippy, which is currently a university, but there's plans to extend it to include a residential area. It's kind of a Norman Foster designed city of the future, and has little electric cars which steer themselves. It was an odd place to walk around, and had a total Star Trek feel to it. I loved it.
And that night we went to Ladies' Night at the most ostentatious place I've ever been. I thought my hotel was a lot to take in, but the Emirates Palace was something else. They have a GOLD VENDING MACHINE there. A vending machine for GOLD.
They also sell priceless ancient artefacts (like 1000 year-old Sumerian writing) so that really, really, really rich people can buy them and not show anyone else. It made me kind of sad.
In the middle of the tent was this amazing bit of art by Jason Hackenwerth. He does these incredible, temporary balloon sculptures. This one looked like a cross-section of the core of a star. I loved it.
The weather had been amazing, until the day before the penultimate day. It rained that Thursday. It rained really, really hard. The tent flooded, so we got the morning off while the damage was assessed, then we headed off to the Corniche to lend a hand as the SciComms couldn't make it due to lightening. Apparently we Scots are impervious to lightning strikes!
We headed off to the Sheikh Zayd Grand Mosque, which is one of the biggest mosques in the world. It's HUGE, and built in the Moghul style, so it looks a bit on the Taj Mahal side. It's pretty impressive.
It's also free to visit, and we had an fantastic tour guide who took us round and told us the facts and figures. The chandeliers are supposed to be upside-down date palms, and are covered in kilos and kilos of gold and crystals.
It's also got the world's biggest carpet. It was soft and plushy. I liked it.
On the Friday morning, we were all hands to the pump. The carpets were ripped up and replaced, the workshops were put back together and fuck me, but we got the thing open on time. And had an amazing afternoon and evening. I was done in by the end of it, but so proud to be part of the team that pulled a feat like that off.
The CEO, Simon, bought every one drinks that night. I had a particularly phallic frozen margharita. It was like manna from heaven. God bless you, Simon.
And then this happened. It RAINED AGAIN. Saturday, the last day of the festival was cancelled. We were very, very sad little Team Leaders.
Some folk headed off back to the Corniche to put on a brave face, and some of us headed to the tent to start packing up and salvaging what we could. Gutted.
But we made the most of it, Team Pack-Up even managed to commandeer a golf cart and did doughnuts round the car park. Highlight of the day, that was.
Sunday was all about packing, we put the whole workshop into boxes, which we then put in boxes and said goodbye to.
While I was helping count scrubs in ER, we heard balloons popping. LOTS of balloons. The sculpture had to come down, and 50 Team Leaders were on hand to help. It was the most cathartic moment of my entire life. We were all of us transformed into 6 year-olds for 20 minutes of unadulterated nonsense. I was so happy.
I packed my bags in preparation for the after-party, because we were leaving very, very early the next day. I thought my room was fancy, but I got to prat about in a 5* hotel overlooking a marina AND Formula 1 track. I'll never be the same.
I can't believe all that happened in November, it seems like 5 minutes ago. Fingers crossed for this year, folks!
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