Archi-neering superstars

What a week! What a month, really! Four consecutive weeks of non-stop activity. First, the conference at Switzerland, then the brief trip to Italy, followed by the trip to the homeland, then the visit of my mum and sister and finally this week: the IABSE-IASS conference in London. A conference with a difference...

This time round, I was on the other side of the table: I was not participating in the actual conference but helping out the organisers in the running of the conference. It was somewhat more physically engaging than anything else, although the most painful parts were waking up at times in the order of 6.45am to be at the venue by 8.30am, which entails a lot of effort from my part...though the endeavours were rewarded in a number of ways...

On the opening day, I managed to attend 2 keynote lectures by 2 key figures in the engineering and architectural fields: Bill Baker of SOM, structural engineer of the world's tallest building and Lord Norman Foster, undoubtedly one of the world's leading architects. Not only did I attend the lectures, but then also met the 2 of them after. Bill Baker was somewhat easier to handle; soon after the end of the talk, I went up to him and asked for a photo and had a very brief chat too. Lord Foster was somewhat more complicated. At the end of his talk, I headed off to the main entrance of the QE-II centre and awaited him beside his awaiting Mercedes. Some 20 minutes later, the designer exited, and I ran up to him, let him know of my admiration, shook the hands that designed buildings the like of the Swiss Re, the City Hall, the new Wembley, the HSBC headquarters, the Commerzbank and many more, and then asked for a photo, too! What a day that was!

On the Thursday, I was meant to be off duty, but then had a last minute call and was requested to accompany the accompanying persons on their tour to Windsor. Although I had been to Windsor twice, I accepted and early in the morning I, together with my wife, headed off with a group of elderly ladies from all over the world and took them to the Queen's castle outside London. It was a lovely day, sunny and clear and it was great to visit the castle and the royal quarters and chapel again. Following lunch by the river (very tasty bangers and mash), we briefly visited Savill Garden nearby and then back to London. It was a serendipitous day out!

Friday was the last day of the conference, thankfully; I developed signs of a cold, was tired of all the early rising up and needed rest and recovery. One last great event was left: a visit to the Olympic Park site in East London. At 8.30, the coach departed towards the east and were shown around the main landmarks soon after, albeit always within the coach. Since the last time I had been there, I can say that remarkable progress has been made, but I am still not convinced that they will finish all in time. They claim they are on track and within budget. I hope they are in the right.

It is now all over, I am in bed with a dripping nose and dead tired, but it was a good week. The same cannot be said for my work, though, since not much has been done in the past couple of days. But the thought of starting my 3rd year in a few days' time give me a lot of courage and adrenalin to get going...but not today; after all, tomorrow is another day!

Another Maltese wedding!

I had barely recovered from my Switzerland/Italy trip when it was time to make another trip, this time to Malta. The motivation? The wedding of one of my sisters-in-law, the elder one to be precise. This will be the first family wedding since our own (unfortunately I missed my cousin's earlier wedding due to the Porto conference) and thus was doubly excited to attend Miriam's and Chris's wedding.

On the Thursday, I got up as usual at around 8.30am and headed off to Uni and did some decent work. That evening, after dinner and packing a small suitcase, we took the night bus to Marble Arch at 1am and then the 757 coach to Luton and got there by 3.15am. One strong coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnut later, we boarded our plane at 6am and left for Malta, still not having slept. We arrived at the homeland at 10.30am local time and a very long day awaited us; first a blood donation, then wedding preparations, food consumption and what not and only finally slept at about 11.30pm, almost 40 hours after having last been in a bed. Not nice.

The next day, I got up quite early and assisted with a few of the last minute wedding errands and in the late afternoon headed off to the in-laws' house for the start of the wedding antics: photos, video then a car ride to the church and the ceremony began. It brought memories of our own wedding and was lovely. By 9pm, we all headed off to the reception venue and an evening of food, drink, talk and dance awaited and lasted till the early hours of Sunday. After all the guests had gone, we cleared all up and got home at 3.30am, yet another long day, although of "only" 20 hours.

On Sunday, I got up at midday and whilst having brunch, my aunt called and invited us to join them on a boat trip, which I could not refuse. Thus, 2 hours later, we were on a boat to San Blas Bay in Gozo, an amazing place I had never been to before, followed by an obligatory visit to the harbour and enjoying wonderful views of the capital and environs. Malta is simply beautiful, particularly from the sea. No wonder so many conquerors instantly loved Malta; in times when the only international access was from the sea, I would have had no second thoughts as to whether I would like to colonise such a land!

The visit soon came to an end on Tuesday morning, but an extra 2 Micallefs boarded that flight: my mum and my sister were accompanying us to London until Sunday! But that is another story!

9/11....11

This year was the 10th anniversary since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York. Any anniversary of this sort is quite moving and I suppose the decade-long memorial was more special than usual. I will not go into the whole 9/11 affair but will only think about the whole thing from another (if shallower) perspective. On the day, I am remembering how life was one decade ago. This is not one generation ago or one century ago but only a mere 10 years. Thinking about it, I was amazed at how different the world was. Not only due to the real threat of terrorism worldwide, but on a day-to-day basis.

Ten years ago, there were no iPhones or iPods or iPads. Not even Facebook. There were only primitive mobile phones; to be honest, I did not even have my own mobile phone and we had just 1 for all the household's needs. It is amazing at how these electronic devices have changed the world. Alongside the internet which is no longer limited to the ancient dial-up or then advanced DSL technology of 2001 but is now available virtually all over the place in the form of wireless waves transporting bits and bytes all over the globe via computers, laptops and mobiles.

A decade ago, photography was limited to film technology whereas today film is obsolete and everything is digital. And everybody has become a photographer. The same can similarly be extrapolated to the existence of 3D TV, HD TV, BlueRay and all the advances of the multimedia world. I think in 2001 I was still doing my backups on 1.4 MB floppy disks; today companies give you complimentary 2 GB (some 1400 floppy disks' worth) USB sticks during Careers' Fair.

Ten years ago, the idea of building anything more than 0.5km was a dream; today the 800m+ Burj Khalifa is on its way to be superseded.

Ten years ago, there was no Harry Potter; now the series is concluded. I think there were 7 in all; I never bothered reading any of them.

Ten years ago, there were no low-cost air travel phenomena. Today, these budget airlines have changed the whole idea of travel, from something which is quite an expensive commodity to a quasi daily totally affordable affair.

Ten years ago, the Euro was in its infancy as the single currency of the E.U.; today, the Eurozone is facing a serious crisis, almost on the verge of collapse, with many countries bailing out millions, in the aftermath of a persistent world recession.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the world's public enemy #1 was Osama Bin Laden; today the man is dead. Or so they say, anyway. And on a quasi similar note, the president of the U.S.A. was Republican George W. Bush and now the White House hosts Democrat Barack Obama. In Malta, nothing changed in terms of government - the conservatives are still in power, since 1987.

A decade ago, Saddam Hussein was still in power (he is now dead), Fidel Castro was still reigning Cuba (he is now retired), Muammar Ghaddafi was still controlling Libya (he is now on the run). Queen Elizabeth II is however still the U.K.'s ruling monarch and fast approaching her diamond jubilee.

On a more personal level, ten years ago, I was just about to start my undergraduate and now I am starting my final year of my Ph.D., my ultimate stop in my formal education journey. Back then, I was not even aware that there existed the option of me doing a masters degree, let alone the possibility of enrolling on a doctorate.

Ten years ago, I was quite happily living as a bachelor on a rock of 0.4 million and now I am happily married and living in a metropolis of 7.5 million and open to so many new ideas, cultures and meeting people from all over the planet.

I am concluding here. Definitely not an exhaustive list, but this is what I could think of in a few minutes. I am sure that if I had to write all that has changed between 2001 and 2011, then I would probably be writing an encyclopedia. Oh yes, that is another one: encyclopedias do not exist anymore; today there is Wikipedia.

An Italo-Swiss trip

As I had written a few months ago, one of the (few) joys attached to doing a Ph.D. is the chance to participate in international conferences. I reckon I am quite lucky to be given the opportunity to attend to yet another of such conferences and present some of my works, too. This particular conference, from an acadamic point of view, promised to be more interesting than previous ones since rather than being very broad in its contents and deal with composite materials in general, it was entirely devoted to protective structures and thus, presumably, would be more within my field of interest. Also, the venue sounded quite interesting: Switzerland, a country I had never been to. Logistically, it proved to be more stressful: it coincided with yet another conference (in South Korea) and thus had to choose between the 2 (or rather, my supervisor chose for me) and it also was to be held during the week just after my wife's birthday and during the week when her M.Sc. thesis was due. Although I am virtually helpless in the latter, for she has to do her own work, I thought I might at least offer some moral support, but alas, on the 28th of August I left London to Lugano and embark on Protect 2011.

The flight was not direct and started off at London City Airport. I had never been to the latter and the journey to the far east of London on the DLR proved to be interesting. Once on board the Swiss air plane, my suspicions as to how this flight will be started to materialise. I recalled the first non-direct flight I did in the past (to Stuttgart), where the plane was a tiny, propellored one. This time, the London-Zurich flight was a "normal" plane, but with 2 rows of 3 and 2 people, rather than the usual 3 and 3. I had a good window seat in the 2 person row and the flight was smooth. Once at Zurich, I was amazed at the huge number of people there and the somewhat confused departure lounge. I only hoped that my suitcase would not get misplaced and put my mind at rest when I saw it being loaded on the plane once on the runway. My peace of mind disappeared when I realised that the plane was one of those damn noisy propellor ones and this was even smaller: 1 and 2 person rows! Again, I had a window single seat and, thankfully, the journey was less than 45 minutes long. And thus I landed in Lugano and got into an airport the size of a large house.

I was amazed to find out that my impression of Switzerland was totally wrong. I had this image of snow and ice and cold Alpine conditions, but I found a 28 degree sunny Lugano waiting for me. It was also very comforting to note that everything and everyone used Italian in this little appendix of Helvetica which is very much Mediterranean in its attitude, albeit slightly more organised and clean than the average Italian city. Undoubtedly the German-Swiss influence. A 15 minute journey took me to the hotel literally at the water's edge and with a magnificent view of Lake Lugano and the 2 quasi symmetrical mountains towering over it: Bre and San Salvatore.

I was rather hungry at that point and decided to go and fetch some quick dinner. The first obvious choice was unfortunately Burger King, only to find that a normal meal there cost almost 14 Swiss Francs (when I had bought Francs at 1 CHF for £0.85). Unbelievable! I had been warned that Switzerland was rather expensive, but even such a "basic" foodstuff was almost double what it is in an average European city! I recalled that infamous slogan from the 2003 E.U. campaign back in Malta, when that sorry man had promoted the idea of turning Malta into a Mediterranean Switzerland. Did that mean doubling the cost of living, or more? If so, then what a relief that that man's ideas never materialised...

The following day was a kick off for the work part of the trip: a technical tour. The venue was actually in Italy and thus a coach took the smallish congregation of participants to Galbiate in Italy. No checks whatsoever were done at the border, in typical Italian style. The venue proved to be quite picturesque and the lunch, well, impeccable, in yet again true Italian style. The prosecco in particular was very tasty. After a longish first day, we travelled back to Switzerland and had a good night's sleep, but only after an ice-breaking cocktail evening, where I savoured some more great local food. And wine, of course.

The next day was busy, spent mostly at the conference venue. En route from the hotel, I saw virtually all of Lugano and continued to amaze myself at how expensive everything is. I also noticed that there were a lot of pharmacies, probably the highest number of pharmacies per capita in the world and concluded that either the Swiss get sick very often or pharmaceuticals are the only cheap thing in this place. That evening, I headed to Lugano station and after a long tour trying to find how the ticket purchasing system worked, I got train tickets for Milan. More on that later. I realised how much organised the Brits are, with 1000 signs every 5m, announcements every 5 minutes and everything so accessible and fool-proof. I guess the Italianite influence is far too strong in this part of Switzerland. I prepared myself for my presentation due on the next day, though such an activity did not require much adrenaline anymore.

Indeed, the presentation was very smooth and had only 2 questions from the chairman at the end. After the day's sessions, I decided to do some proper Luganese sightseeing. I walked west along the lake's edge, encountered one of Mario Botta's typical brick buildings and then boarded the funicular which led me to the top of Mount San Salvatore. As far as I remember, I had never been up such a high mountain (912m, to be precise) and, indeed, never up such a high anything (the Eiffel Tower is a mere 300m compared to the threefold height of this rocky beast). Once at the summit, after my ears popped a few times and the temperature was slightly fresher and more pleasant, I was left with a vast 360-degree panorama of pure Alpine beauty laid out like a capet below me. Absolute heaven. So was the chilled beer I had after touring the mountain-top chapel and some of the rugged paths snaking around the top.

Thursday was then the final day of the conference and the highlight of the day was undoubtedly the conference dinner that evening. Once again, we travelled to Italy, this time to Villa Erba close to Como and enjoyed an amazing 4 course meal in a superb setting. Back to Lugano, I bid farewell to the new acquintances I had made and retired immediately to recharge myself for the trip that awaited the next day.

Surprise, surprise, I was going to Italy, again. In less than a week, I would have gone to Italy 3 times, that is more than the 2 times I have been in the previous 27 years! However, I had never been to Milan and, being this close to the Lombardia region, I decided to pay a visit to the northern capital of Italy. I was very sorry to find out that, even having checked as early as July, there were no tickets available to view Leonardo's "The Last Supper" in the famous Milanese convent, but soon filled my itenerary with numerous substitutes which filled the whole day: the utterly Fascist Stazione Milano Centrale, the sleek Pirelli Tower of Nervi, the magnificent Duomo, the posh Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II, the famed Teatro della Scala, my Inter's beloved Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, the hidden gem that is Pinacoteca Brera and the awesome Castello Sforzesco.

I imagined the Centrale station to be a large-scale version of the old Valletta City Gate, only a bit more adorned and monumental. With the quasi operatic music in the background, I was almost expecting some Mussolini wannabe to start making an impromptu speech in the ticket hall. I got myself a day ticket for the metro and then paid tribute to the engineering marvel that is Nervi's Pirelli Tower. The weather was not attractive: grey skies and terribly hot and humid conditions. I took the metro and landed at the foot of the Duomo. What an impressive facade: well-conserved Gothic fantasy. The interior was equally impressive, although the quasi-industrial white lighting was somewhat disappointing. I headed to the Scala theatre via the Galleria building and did not fail to do some window shopping. The Scala was closed and I wondered what splendour was hiding behind that modest facade.

I had a quick lunch and then headed off to the west in the San Siro area of Milan, precisely to visit Inter's (well, and AC Milan's) Stadio Giuseppe Meazza. I decided to walk up the road to the stadium and this was a serendipitious choice: I saw a huge array of artwork by graffiti artists and many of them at work, creating wonderful improvised works of art in this Camden-like part of Milan. Once at the Meazza, I was amazed by the structure's dimensions. So much different seeing the real thing than just on TV! I got my ticket and made my way to the museum and then the stadium tour, including the teams' changing rooms! Quite a memorable experience...

After San Siro, it was time for some more cultural activities and headed to the Brera Gallery. I knew the "stars" of the place - Hayez's "The Kiss", Caravaggio's "Meal at Emmaus" and Raphael's "Marriage of the Virgin", among others - but I was also delighted to find 2 works by Mattia Preti which he actually undertook whilst in Malta! A well-spent two hours later, I almost literally ran to the ancient Milan stronghold of Castello Sforzesco, hoping it would still be open. It was, but the museums therein were not, and thus did not manage to have a look at Michelangelo's last piece of work, the Rondanini Pieta'. Alas, visiting the mighty citadel was worthwhile nevertheless. I forgot to mention that by the time I was leaving the Meazza, the sky had cleared to a more decent blue and thus I went back to Piazza del Duomo and took a few "better" pictures before it was time to return to the Centrale and northbound to Lugano. What a great day!

My final day in the Swiss land was greeted by a grey sky, albeit warm and somewhat uncomfortably humid. I did manage a quick stroll along the pedestrianised quarters of Via Nassa, of course not intending to buy anything from that devilish shopping quarter and only consumed my remaining Franc coins on water and a snack. I finished off my current read (Archer's "As the crow flies"), which kept me almost off my seat more than the turbulent flight from Lugano to Zurich. The association with Heathrow meant an inevitable delay and the journey back to London finally came to an end in the evening. Thankfully, home is now only a few minutes on the Heathrow Express and thus concluded my Protect 2011 experience.

My impression of the Swiss? I would say the landscape is impeccable and the culture somewhat weird, being a complex interbreed of French, German and Italian (though I mostly savoured only the latter). My view of Milan was not as promising as I thought the Italian capital of the north would be; a few smelly and almost run-down areas did not fail to catch my attention, but the sights were definitely worth travelling to, although I must re-iterate that I wished I had been to see Leonardo's cenacolo fresco. A good excuse to visit Milian another time, perhaps!