Well- it’s been a bit more than a week! Disregarding that obvious statement, I am back to update this blog and I have two simple pre-warnings to note before reading this post. Number one; to keep some sort of chronological order, this post is called ‘week three’ simply for my brain not wanting to jump from week two to week seven (the measurement “week” will be more of a stage in the project- Currently I am within Stage Three). Number two; I wrote this post 4 days ago and so have discussed my journey through several anachronisms. I hope that it won’t get too confusing and instead will allow an insight into how my opinions developed.

So- Stage 3 is pretty exciting so far! Last update I noted how I was on a precipice of a decision; between my proposal to travel to foreign archives being approved or rejected. As I am writing this update, I am on the corner of an unknown street, eating a pastry I cannot pronounce after a gruelling 9 hours in the archive thus I can very excitedly affirm that my research proposal was approved; I am now in the midst of Portuguese archival research.

As someone who is enamoured by academia in its totality from the aesthetics of old, dusty, leather-bound books to its lecture halls with big glass windows and gothic architecture styles, this time to explore and research in archives was like early Christmas (unfortunately that comment wasn’t sarcastic, I do genuinely just love books that much).  However, this hasn’t been without its own challenges- namely my complete lack of experience within archives. La Bibliotheca de Arte e Arquivos within the Gulbenkian Museum was the first archive I ever visited. Today marks the penultimate research day at BAA which is leaving me feeling a bit melancholy (this archive has held its place still as my favourite archive, which I will divulge deeply within my research report).

For those who never visited archives, here’s a quick breakdown of what my day typically consists of.

• Wake up and pack lunch before making my way through the busy streets of Lisbon to the archive itself.
• Registering at the front desk with Catalina for my day pass, used to access all archives and on doors to enter buildings or rooms.
• Dropping my bag off at the holding room as food and drinks and bags are not permitted in the reading room. (This is very typical for archives as you are handling sometimes centuries-old material and so must respect and preserve it as well as you can).
• Checking into the Reading Room and logging onto the online database.
• Utilising this database all day to request books, photos, portfolios and leaflets from the archive on your given subject; colonialism is such a rich subject to research within this facility, mainly because the Gulbenkian institution bought most of the pictures recording the 1940 and 1998 colonial exhibitions in Lisbon. (You use your card number to request an item from the library computers, which print you a receipt with a number. Digital screens display which numbers are available to advertise when your material is ready for collection).
• Getting politely requested to leave (kicked out) at 19:00 by lovely Catalina, thus walking home to upload the pictures captured recording the material studied onto my online archive.
• Attempt to sleep through my neighbour's snoring. Fail. Invest in earbuds. Success is rewarded through sleep (victory!)

Overall, although I have only been researching in Lisbon for a week I can already feel my experiences teaching and remoulding the way I think. This is an opportunity to not only develop my personal academic skills but also my personal leadership and adaptability. Previously, I assumed that having a structured plan and being adaptable would allow me to tackle any problem I was faced with when travelling- and whilst I still believe these are incredibly important- I now also appreciate that solo research requires incredible emotional resilience and humility. You are not indestructible or an academic machine, and giving yourself recovery time is paramount to getting back into your best workflow. I like to take lots of breaks when walking during the peak heat of the day to drink water and hide in the shade. Solo travelling can be stressful at times however, I am incredibly grateful that Laidlaw has offered me this opportunity. Well, that’s more than enough monologuing for “week 3”, so I’m signing off for this update. Hopefully, by next week I can give a formal review and comparative anecdotes from my experience researching in Lisbon and Madrid.

If anyone managed to read to the end, thank you, and I’ll be back to update again soon!