Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for December, 2008

…and Land on the Moon

Posted in Travel in USA, science, tagged , , , on Wednesday, December 31, 2008 | 2 Comments »

See the past. See the future. Imagine the possibilities.
We’re sitting in the IMAX Theater at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It’s dark and we’re wearing our special 3-D goggles as we wait to watch “Magnificent Desolation” produced by Tom Hanks, the movie about landing on the moon. First, in interviews with kids we find out [...]

Read Full Post »

Take off, for Space…

Posted in Travel in USA, personal musing, science, tagged , on Wednesday, December 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Take Off in the Shuttle Launch Experience at Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Many people have been in a plane and know the feeling of acceleration and of take-off, have seen the earth from a plane window, up above, like a bird. It’s a wonderful vantage point and perspective, different and sometimes unexpected.
Now, try and imagine going [...]

Read Full Post »

End of Semester…again

Posted in cultural understanding, my town, seasons, tagged , on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Well, the semesters just seem to keep rolling around! Here we are, winter and almost Christmas and the end of another semester.
I and my students had a lot of fun exploring the intricacies and lunacies of the English language, while I gained a deeper understanding of some of their cultures and customs. This teaching is [...]

Read Full Post »

Charles Darwin Bicentenary

Posted in Holidays/Celebrations, Nature, science, tagged , , , on Thursday, December 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

(As I mentioned earlier, under Simone de Beauvoir, there are a number of significant commemorations coming up. This one is interesting to us, partly because Rod is a microbiologist and partly because we’ve been to the Galapagos a number of times).

CHARLES DARWIN’S BICENTENARY
February 12, 1809–April 19, 1882
2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of [...]

Read Full Post »

Saumur’s Doue la Fontaine Zoo, Loire Valley, France

Posted in France---general, tagged , , on Friday, December 5, 2008 | 4 Comments »

Saumur Zoo—A Corrected Update
The first time we visited the Loire Valley in France was five years ago. We’d visited Paris and other parts of France, but never the Loire and decided to spend a few weeks in the area. Our first stop was Saumur, a lovely town and a really good base for many wonderful [...]

Read Full Post »

Nairobi’s Airport Road

Posted in Africa, World travel, cultural understanding, tagged , , , on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 | 5 Comments »

ARRIVAL IN NAIROBI
We drive into Nairobi—population ca 3 million—from the airport at 4pm on a Friday in July. Traffic chaos leads to a total traffic jam, and what should take 30 minutes took us about 2 hours. Lanes of traffic form any which way, including down the sloping shoulder and into the ditch. Cattle roam [...]

Read Full Post »