Author: Julie

September 12, 2012

 

Today is walking tour in a 2000 year old city located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers,followed by a tour of the Thurn and Taxis castle. The princely house of Thurn and Taxis is a German family that was the key player back in the 16^th century in establishing what today is the European postal system. Today the Thurn and Taxis family are known for their breweries and castles throughout Europe.

 

But the best was the shopping for German beer garden costumes and the cafes serving the small sausages that were sold here at the waterfront…and on a cool damp day the sausage and beer was excellent!

 

September 11, 2012

 

We did a bus tour through Nuremberg ending at Hitler’s rally grounds and the Documentation center, a sobering morning.  This was a step back in history and while somber, it is a historic place I am glad we able to see.  The Nazi Party chose the city to be the site of huge Nazi Party conventions – the Nuremberg rallies. The rallies were held 1927, 1929 and annually 1933-1938 in Nuremberg.  Today many examples of Nazi architecture can still be seen in the city; huge monsterous buildings a good many of which were never finished.  After this we went to a local restaurant and ate lunch with some university students.  It was delightful to chat with them on a variety of subjects.  The majority of them were on summer break and eager to practice there English.

 

Tonight we are enjoying a Bavarian beer tasting.  Tasting four beers in different shape glasses that bring out the best favors. We brought home some souvenir glasses only as the beer was drunk rather quickly!

September 6, 2012 

Tis is a morning of sailing and enjoying the dramatic scenery of the Rhine Gorge.  We are sailing a 35 mile stretch of cliffs and castles from Koblenz to Rüdesheim. We passed the imposing Lorelei cliff and learned of its legend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Rüdesheim we chose to first visit Siegfrieds Mechanisches Musikkabinett. It is a marvel of self playing musical instruments spanning four centuries ….. some so elaborate and delicate the the guide only handled them with gloves.

 

 

We followed this with a gondola lift ride across the valley to the Nederland monument. This is a beautiful wine making valley.

 

 

September 5, 2012

The boat docks in the city so it is so easy to walk everywhere.  This morning we toured the Roman Germanic museum. It is so amazing to see these historic Roman ruins in a German City.

Then it was over to the historic Cathedral or Dom just a few steps away.  Afterwards, the girls went to taste the local beer, Kölsch, the boys climbed to the top of the Dom’s bell tower.

 

 

 

 

Then it was a longer trek to the Chocolate Museum ( Imhoff-Schokoladenmuseum), where the chocolate was absolutely sinful!  We bought some chocolate pasta for a souvenir.

 

The view fromthe deck of the boat was awesome as we sailed away that night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

September 1-21 2012 

We are joining our sailing friends for a 3 week leisurely cruise of the Rhine, the Main and the Danube Rivers beginning in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and ending in Budapest, Hungary with a our good friend Peter guiding us in the city of his birth.  This will be a slow cruise on the River Odyssey, a long river boat of 4 decks with 165 passengers and 42 crew.  The boat is complete with a gym, running track, sun deck, bar/lounge and dining room. Cabins are quite spacious and everyone has either windows or balconies. And of course for all of who cannot leave our toys behind, there is Internet throughout the ship.

We will see the sights of 16 cities of The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary while enjoying 4 birthday celebrations and other on-board entertainment and parties. Travel on!

We had the standard Fire drill:

 

 

And lastly

Sept 1-3 2012

Our journey began with an overnight flight from New York City for Julie and from Lagos Nigeria for Rocky. We enjoyed a wonderful continental breakfast in a old hotel, The Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, in the heart of the city of Amsterdam. We had ample time to explore the city, walking to the river flower market and the maritime museum.  We broaded the River Odyessy,  our home for the next 15 days and later took a ride through the 17th century ring canal system.  We also took a walk through the Rijksmuseum marveling at its collection of art.  Though it is autumn, the weather was absolutely heavenly.  There were hundreds of bikers everywhere; more people bike that drive! One night we went to the top of the Doubletree Hotel and sat in ist roof top lounge in starlight watching the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 16-23 2012

Namibia

Namibia is just coming out of its winter, and the temperatures were 40 F at night, and 60 F during the day with crystal clear skies throughout.  After an excellent lunch, I returned to my room and tailored the talk for what was to be a mixed group of attendees at the evening’s presentation, including Ministry of Mining staff, University Professors and geology students. After the meeting, Ben, who is Department Geology Professor at the local University, took me on a nighttime tour of the campus and geology building, although since it was Friday night, campus was fairly empty. 

We went to dinner at a beautifully quaint historical German-area restaurant in the center of town, and I had my first Oryx steak.  Ben was my host throughout, and was a gracious and wonderful host, providing many insights into the life and livelihood of the energy and mining industry in Namibia.

 

Kumasi, Ghana

I arrived in Kumasi via a short 45-minute flight from Accra. Cyril and Van -Dyke picked me up and took me through the town as people we leaving church in their colorful Sunday-best.  Although Accra on the coast, is the better known town, Kumasi is larger boasting a population exceeding 4 million people! It is a diverse city that hosts manufacturing, agriculture, and the Kumi Numari University of Science and Technology or KNUST as it is known.

We checked it at the Golden Tulip Hotel, a very nice, modern hotel, that was hosting a Professional Tennis Tournament Finals that day.  Since my room would not be ready for an hour, we took a trip over to the University to check out the Science Department.  KNUST celebrated its 60the Anniversary this past year, and it is a large University of 28,000 Undergraduate and 5,000 graduate students.  It has a rural, landscaped, sprawling campus on which nearly 10,000 students reside. Although it was founded decades ago, the University was renamed after Ghana’s first President only in the last decade.  Geophysics sits under the Physics Department, and their 4-story linear classroom and office buildings remind me of similar, past educational buildings in Florida. Given it is Sunday, and the day before the Islamic Holiday, Eid el Fitr, there are not many students out and about – their school term is about to begin. Ghana is about 60 percent Christian and 30 percent Islamic, and although students have committed to coming to the lecture tomorrow during their holiday, there is some concern of number of attendees.  The Geophysics Department is made up of 27 3rd and 4th year undergraduates, and about 10 graduate students.  In a strange twist of fate, Cyril is one of the recipients of last year’s SEG Student Symposium, and attended the Annual Meeting in San Antonio.  As the most senior graduate student in the Department, he serves as a role model for many of the younger students.

 

We return to the Hotel where I bid farewell until tomorrow, complete my check-in, and unpack my bags in time to grab a late lunch and catch the finals of the tennis before Cyril and Van Dyke pick me up at 10:00am in the morning, I have a chance to take an hour’s jog in the region of the Hotel, where I discover the country’s Armed Forces Museum, a pavilion displaying a wide assortment of WW1 and WW2 tanks, artillery and aircraft.  Upon pick-up, we head straight to the University, where I set-up in a 46-seat presentation classroom, before taking a brief introduction tour to the Provost, the Physics Department Chairman, and the Geophysics Professor’s office.  We return in time for the noon program, where the Student Chapter executes a structured program, and Van-Dyke introduces me.  The room surprisingly fills to capacity as Petroleum Engineering majors and Physics Professors join the Geophysics Department for the lecture. After the lecture, I answer a range of questions, some technical, but others about how to get on a path to a career.  Clearly, employment is of key interest to these students who see most Geophysicists in the country as expatriates, and worry where the opportunity is for them.

 

Tuesday begins early, as we had agreed the night before to use this morning to “squeeze in” a bit of local sightseeing by traveling out of town to a popular weekend recreation spot for locals.  The guys pick me up at 8:00am, and after fighting a bit of traffic, we make our way out of town into the lush, green countryside.  The lonely, winding road we are on is only punctuated along the way by occasional villages, as common as anywhere in rural Sub Sahara Africa. These villages are hives of activity as children’s play and grown-up commerce bustle in the marketplace.  About 10km from our destination, we stop to give a ride to an elderly woman beside the road needing a lift.  She brings with her a 10 liter plastic container with her day’s wares of Palm Wine, to be sold to villagers and visitors at the place where we were going.  I shake her hand and introduce myself, noting that her gracious smile doesn’t hide the life of hard work that is evident in her hands.  Her skin is taunt and tough, worn thin but strong like leather stretched over a sinew skeleton. We began travel down a winding cliff-faced road and enter a deep ravine floored by a large lake.  This is Lake Bosumtwe, the remnants of a million year-old meteor impact crater. The lake is home to a number of surrounding villages that draw life from fishing and using its waters, and derive income from hosting weekend visitors. After sightseeing the shores, we depart for the long climb out of the ravine.  At the top, we stop for a few panoramic pictures, and meet an elderly gentleman who has need for a ride back to town for church.  It is on our way, and we oblige, but we are running late, so we do not stop, other than to drop him off at the local church.  The ride back is uneventful, until we get to town and encounter a worse traffic jam than when we had left.  Finally, while at a standstill 1/2 mile from the hotel, we decide to improve our options, and while they continue to fight traffic to get the vehicle to the hotel, I walk the route, now familiar from the previous day’s run.  I reach the hotel first, collect my luggage from my room and check-out before Cyril and Van-Dycke reach the hotel to meet me.  We then load-up and proceed to the airport where we say our goodbyes, and I check in for the flight to the next leg of this lecturer’s tour.

 

Accra, Ghana

Akwaaba – Welcome to Accra! The flight from Kumasi back to Accra is smooth and uneventful.  Mark, a geophysicist with the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, (GNPC), and National SEG Representative for Ghana, picks me up at the airport and delivers me to the hotel, only 10 minutes away.  This Golden Tulip Hotel is very up-scale, with a large swimming pool and exercise room.  It is decorated today, as are most institutions in Ghana, in black and red in 48-day mourning for their recently deceased President, John Atta Mills.  In the evening, the mild weather and gentle ocean breezes bring me and a crowd to dinner taken poolside, while a live band provides entertaining music for the evening. Jonathon, a GNPC driver, picks me up at 9:00am for the 45-minute drive to the GNPC offices in the city of Tema.  We travel down a well maintained, divided lane Toll Road to the Tema exit, and then to the ocean’s side.  Tema is a Port City, chartered by Ghana’s first President, and serves as the country main Harbor for import and export.  As such, the roads are full of trucking containers and are a bustle of activity.  GNPC has historically been located here since their founding, but they are preparing to move into Accra when the facilities under construction currently are complete.  This will put them in closer contact with their service providers and partners, who are dominantly located there.  At GNPC, Mark greets me and takes me to visit GNPC ‘s Chief Geologist, and then I reconnect with Manager Ferdinand, who had greeted me days earlier. The presentation room was set up well, and quickly filled with over 40 GNPC staff, (Geophysicist, Geologists, and Petroleum Engineers), Students from the local University, and staff from Tullow Oil, who are operators of Ghana’s largest Offshore Oil Field, “Jubilee”.  The talk goes well, and is followed by nearly 30-minutes of questions and answers.  We exit to the steps to the building where we take a group photograph of a core of attendees.

Ferdinand and Mark then take me to lunch at the Imperial Peking Restaurant before returning to GNPC offices where farewell greetings are made and a driver is arranged to return me to the hotel.  The next morning, the hotel will provide transport to the airport, where the short 90-minute flight from Accra to return to Lagos will end this first tour.

June 28- July 7, 2012

I actually made 3 trips into London during this visit.  The first was on a drizzly Sunday; the one day you can drive in central London without paying a congestion tariff.  We started out early and once reaching River Thames followed it on to London.  We saw the wharf (Rotherhithe) from which the Mayflower sailed and the clipper ship, Cutty Sark in Greenwich before stopping at Dickens Inn on St. Katharine’s Docks for drink and lunch.  We met some former Lagos expats and enjoyed catching up.  We then traveled on to London stopping to walk across London Bridge and see the Tower of London.  Back in the car past the London Eye, St Paul’s Cathedral to Trafalgar Square and to The Mall, however, the Mall was closed to vehicular traffic in preparation of the Olympics.  So we continued past Westminster Abbey and St James Park to Buckingham Palace.  Despite the rain and grey skies there were lots of tourists even though the Queen was not in residence.  That is when we discovered the Palace would be open to the public for 7 days only while I was in town.  So we booked tickets to see the Palace on the upcoming Friday.

 

A Cockney Pearly King and his cab.

London Bridge ready for the Olympics.

The tower of London.

Admiralty Arch

 Big Ben

 

The second trip was by train from Wadhurst to Charing Cross, about an hour’s trip.  The purpose was to take in a matinee and we chose Ronald Dahl’s Matilda which was at the Cambridge Theatre.  It was a truly delightful production, so enjoyable.  We took a quick walk through the Coventry Garden Market before the show.   We also did a quick stop at the National Portrait Gallery to check out the royal family exhibit.  We finished the day with a Chinese dinner in Chinatown.

 

 

The third trip was also by train for a Day Out at Buckingham Palace.  We would see the Queens Gallery exhibit about Leonardo de Vinci.  Next we toured the Mews or what is the garages and stables of the Palace.  We saw the carriage Prince William and Katherine used in their wedding.  Since the Queen was out of town so were all of her horses but 2, they were to pasture for Holiday. Then we entered the Palace to see several of the state rooms and an exhibition of the Queens diamonds (in commemoration of the Queens Diamond Jubilee).  It is an awesome beautiful place, yet a working place as these were the rooms’ where the Queen greets and meets with visiting dignitaries.   But also these rooms display several of the Queens works of arts.  Unfortunately, no is allowed to take photos in the Palace, as it is not only where the queen works but where she lives.  The tour covers the first and second floor ending in the Palace Gardens. I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to visit the Palace. London is a wonderful place to visit!

 

                                The rear lawn of Buckingham Palace!

June 2012

 As a part of my London trip I was able to partake in the activities of King’s Week in Canterbury.  King’s Week is a unique festival of music, drama, art and recreation. Held every year in the last week of the Summer Term of The King’s School, it attracts thousands of parents, friends and visitors. Events, ranging from jazz to dance, from classical music to a variety of plays, and pupil and staff presentations, are staged in attractive settings around the School. For the hundreds of pupils involved in many capacities, King’s Week provides focus in the period after examinations and a glorious climax to the School year.

I sat in the Great Cloister of Canterbury Cathedral to listen to King’s Serenade Choir singing acapella a varied selection of secular music from madrigals of the sixteenth century to present day arrangements.  It was a magical evening under the stars in the shadow of the cathedral.

I also attended the Lark; a student play about Joan of Arc.  It was high drama to see Joan defending herself in a courtroom that eventually leads to martyrdom. This was hosted outdoors in the Mint Yard on a 4 sided stage.

I strolled the old cobble streets of Canterbury window shopping and looking for souvenir spoons.  We stopped for drinks and dinner one evening in The Parrot established in 1370.  At one time it was 7 dwelling inside the building which of course is now the pub.  It still contains the staircase from 1470, low ceilings with large wooden beams.

The Jazz Concert was an exhilarating evening.  Held in Shirley Hall this is a student directed concert featuring the Big Band, Modern Jazz, the King’s Men and the King’s Swingers.  The music was truly delightful and toe tapping!

Here at Kings, I was then honored to attend the Leaving ceremonies of a friend.  It was a beautiful day that started with a service in Canterbury Cathedral, then moving to a champagne reception on the school house lawn with family and friends.  Next it was time to remove all the students’ belongings from the boarding house. Finally to cap the evening with a Leavers Ball held out in the country on a beautiful estate lawn filled white tents and chandeliers.  The Ball was a feast for the parents and lots of music and dancing for the students.  I think this tradition of Leaving Kings is even better than a graduation ceremony.

The King’s School sits in the shadow of Canterbury Cathedral and has from the beginning of time been associated with education.  In 1170 Thomas Becket was murdered in the Cathedral and soon afterwards miracles began to take place.  Thus Canterbury Cathedral became one of Europe’s most important pilgrimage sites.  Today the Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury and still very much a living working church with daily services. For Anglicans worldwide the Cathedral is their Mother Church.

 Canterbury Cathedral as seen from King’s School.