I had my second visit to the amazing city of Rio de Janeiro a couple of weeks ago. The sights, sounds and spectacular setting of this city simply take my breath away. Like all the great cities of the world, it never stops. Sao Paulo might be the engine of Brazil’s incredible economic success at the present time, but Rio remains the face that this country displays to the world.
Everyone I met in Rio was friendly and, language permitting, more than willing to tell me anything I wanted to know about the city and its people. On my last day there, I got into a taxi to take me from the hotel to the Cisco office. The driver had a classical radio station on. As I settled down, I picked up the words Winton Marsalis and a beautiful piece began, one that I had not heard before. The driver asked, apologetically almost, if I wanted to listen to something different. When I said no, and that I considered Marsalis a genius, he beamed from ear to ear, told me the voice was that of the American soprano, Kathleen Battle, and then proceeded to tell me a little of his life story.
He had been a chemical engineer, had travelled the world - he had even been to Glasgow back in the 1970s - and had taken up the taxi business after he retired. His English was probably better than mine, so we spent the 40 minutes or so of the ride exchanging thoughts and memories of various parts of the world we had both visited.
He was kind enough to say he wanted to return to Scotland one day for a holiday, so I gave him my card and told him to get in touch if he ever did come back.
Rio has some wonderful views, as can be seen from the photos here, but I know that its people are even more spectacular than its wonderful setting.
My flights to Amsterdam and Sao Paulo were cancelled today because of the volcanic ash cloud, so I have been watching the news about the issue in the hope that I might be able to arrange to get away either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Edinburgh Airport, unfortunately, has a way to go to catch up with Aberdeen and Glasgow Airports, both of which make good use of Twitter to keep passengers informed.
Back in June, I spent a couple of great days on the beautiful island of Islay, off the West coast of Scotland. I was there to attend the Education2020 TeachMeet organized by Ian Stuart and Andy Wallis, both of whom teach in Islay High School.
The above image shows the view from the harbour at Bowmore up the brae to the famous round church.
And the image below was taken during the event itself. Krysia Smyth seems as if she’s been caught in mid-prayer, with Con Morris looking on in wonder! Ian and Andy can be seen working away in the background.
After all the cold wintry weather of late, it was nice to find the waters of Loch Eck, just north of Dunoon, sitting as flat and as calm as they could be - a chance to catch some strong reflections in the lochside.
Jan and I are selling our house in Lauder in the Scottish Borders. Lauder has been our home for just short of two decades - we’ve had some very happy times living in this great little village (Scotland’s oldest Royal Burgh!), but it’s time to move on. We decided a long time ago that we would eventually move to the West coast of Scotland, and that time has come. However, we will leave Lauder, when we eventually go, with no little sadness: this is where Kirsty and Ross, our kids grew up, and it will always be their home town, I guess.
Because we’re under no particular time pressure to move, Jan and I have decided to sell Redpath House privately, using a combination of Web 2.0 tools, social networks and more traditional means, but without the intermediation, for the moment, of estate agents. So, if you know of anyone looking to move to one of Scotland’s most beautiful areas, then point them towards the little wordpress.com blog we have set up to offer information about the house. The blog has the YouTube video and the Slideshare deck shown here, as well as a link to download the schedule and directions to find Lauder and the house.
Jan and I spent the last 4 days in Vilnius, Lithuania - I was there to work but we had lots of time to wander around, to get to know the old city in particular, and to try a few of the restaurants and bars - as well as a few galleries and sights.
Vilnius is still largely untouched by the malign hand of tourism or the fearful stag and hen party syndrome. At this time of year, the trees are turning to gold, and there are very many trees in Vilnius! The old city has some stunning architecture and we particularly enjoyed strolling around the 13 courtyards of the University of Vilnius (a ticket costs 5 lita - around £1.20) and you can walk freely around the ancient campus.
We wandered around the outside of the KGB Building, the site of many dark deeds by the Russian occupiers on the Lithuanian people. Each of the big stones at ground level carries the name of a Lithuanian person executed by the Russians within this imposing building - part of the building is opened up now as a reminder of those times, with many of the cells still left as they were, and the execution chamber still in place. Most of the names on the outside wall were of young men in the twenties and teens!.
At the centre of the old city is the magnificent Vilnius Cathedral in all its white, classical beauty. the Russians thereatened for many years to turn the cathedral into a storage facility for military vehicles, but never actually got around to it. They did however turn the Church of St Casimir into a museum of atheism!
I spent a brilliant day with a bunch of Cisco colleagues sailing around San Francisco Bay aboard the yacht Glory Days. We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, passed close to Alcatraz, and stopped off on Angel Island for a barbecue and a beer (or two). We even had, I am told, untypical SF weather - the sun was hot, the wind was enough to push our vessel through the water and there wasn’t a hint of fog or rain at any time - clear blue skies all day!
Glory Days sailed out of Sausolito, which is across the Golden Gate Bridge from the city - the marina there, apart from housing hundreds of yachts and other small craft, is also home to many people, since there are lots of interesting houseboats, one or two of them very grand indeed. One that I did not manage to photograph, for instance, looked like a miniature Doge’s Palace.
This is a tale of the wonderful bunch of people that I spent the last couple of weeks with in Australia and Singapore - a more intelligent, funny, kind and generous group I could not have wished for! However, for all their intelligence, humour, kindness and generosity, it turned out that they were all also a little bit crazy!
How do I know? Because they decided that they needed some therapy - not just any old therapy, but a therapy that involved them sticking their feet into tanks filled to the brim with hundreds and hundreds of tiny little fishes that had been imported from Turkey all the way to Singapore for the sole (!) purpose of eating dead skin from people’s feet. Yep - you read it right the first time!
So, this intelligent, funny, kind and generous bunch of people duly bared their tootsies and planted them, gingerly and with much squealing and minor hysterics at first, in amongst these marauding shoals of tiny fish-vultures!
I just could not hep thinking that maybe they picked the wrong therapy - but then, what do I know?
Apart from me (I took on the role of ‘fishul’ - get it? - photographer) the only people missing from the photos are Karl Limbert and Marilyn Hodges, both from Kent County Council. Karl pulled his feet out within 10 seconds and went off for a much more sensible kind of therapy - a massage! Marilyn missed the fun (fun?) completely as she was already flying back to the UK to start her summer holiday.
And why did I not do it? Well……because, of course, I’m not even a little bit crazy
Jan and I had a lovely time for 5 days or so in Singapore, our first time in this city state (apart from flying through Changi in the past on the way to Sydney). Singapore is an amazingly vibrant, teeming city. We especially enjoyed our visit on our last day there to the famous old Raffles Hotel, redolent still of the colonial era out of which it came. It has survived bankruptcy, the Japanese occupation during WWII, and a temporary re-naming, Syonan Ryokan, during the occupation, and is now a grand hotel with shops, the garden courtyard and, of course, the famous Long Bar.
Jan ordered a Singapore Sling (what else!) in the Long Bar, and I had an ice-cold Tiger Beer. We ate peanuts, which we had to shell ourselves, and then discard the shells on the floor in the traditional manner - the whole bar floor is covered in peanut shells!
According to legend, the last tiger killed in Singapore was shot in the Biliards Room in Raffles - must have put one or two off their pots!
Ian and Andy can be seen working away in the background.
