Official EAFOL16 blogger Asma Merchant travels through space and time on day 5 of the Festival
One of my favourite parts of the festival is seeing young children all enthusiastic about books and reading. I saw it live in action at the Harry Potter session. An event for children with tonnes of prizes and readings from the book. Now, I am a crazy Harry Potter fan and I turned up in my Gryffindor attire to enjoy the festivities and I definitely wasn't alone. People, young and old alike, were dressed as witches and wizards. Even though the event was geared towards young children, I enjoyed jumping up and down in my chair like Hermione when I knew the answer. Unfortunately, I couldn't apparate to the next session and had to make a short walk from Novo cinemas to the Event Centre at InterContinental. This was a session on the UAE Mars mission and it was most informative for a rookie like me. I learnt about the UAE’s quest to join the superpowers in pioneering space exploration with the Mars Mission, Hope. 
The speakers Saeed Al Gergawi and Sarah Amiri also spoke about the exploration of space in fiction. They emphasized on how such missions push the boundaries of societies to involve themselves by thinking, creating and innovating in the field of science and technology. And this theme continued in the talk by Chris Hadfield, a renowned Canadian astronaut. As a young child, he saw the Apollo 11 moon landing and his worldview expanded, making him realise that the impossible is possible too. His book, detailing his life on earth and in space, An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth, which I am looking forward to reading. 
All in all, an out of the world evening especially the brilliant views of earth from a space station courtesy Chris Hadfield. Even his book signing queue was out of this world! Check out the Festival website for more such inspiring sessions.
One of my favourite parts of the festival is seeing young children all enthusiastic about books and reading. I saw it live in action at the Harry Potter session. An event for children with tonnes of prizes and readings from the book. Now, I am a crazy Harry Potter fan and I turned up in my Gryffindor attire to enjoy the festivities and I definitely wasn't alone. People, young and old alike, were dressed as witches and wizards. Even though the event was geared towards young children, I enjoyed jumping up and down in my chair like Hermione when I knew the answer. Unfortunately, I couldn't apparate to the next session and had to make a short walk from Novo cinemas to the Event Centre at InterContinental. This was a session on the UAE Mars mission and it was most informative for a rookie like me. I learnt about the UAE’s quest to join the superpowers in pioneering space exploration with the Mars Mission, Hope. 
The speakers Saeed Al Gergawi and Sarah Amiri also spoke about the exploration of space in fiction. They emphasized on how such missions push the boundaries of societies to involve themselves by thinking, creating and innovating in the field of science and technology. And this theme continued in the talk by Chris Hadfield, a renowned Canadian astronaut. As a young child, he saw the Apollo 11 moon landing and his worldview expanded, making him realise that the impossible is possible too. His book, detailing his life on earth and in space, An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth, which I am looking forward to reading. All in all, an out of the world evening especially the brilliant views of earth from a space station courtesy Chris Hadfield. Even his book signing queue was out of this world! Check out the Festival website for more such inspiring sessions.