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Update from Lusaka

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June 14th

Hello from Lusaka, the capitol of Zambia. 3 fantastic days in our nephew’s village (he is in Peace Corps), what lovely people and what a totally fabulous welcome we received! Rustic conditions, to put it mildly, even the bus rides were arduous and there was a 1 1/2 hour walk in the dark but under a full moon to end the 12 hour day. More to come when I have time on the net.

If you have a Facebook account you can read my hand written journals with illustrations.  I have not uploaded to google+ yet.  I can not post them here without more work than I can probably manage to do right now.

From Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

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Seven hours from Madrid and you are smack dab in the middle of the Islamic world.  It hardly looks it from an air traveler’s point of vierw.  Dubai is flooded with oil money and the large modern steel and glass buildings strut out from the coastal landscape as you descend.  The world’s tallest building seems to zig zag its way into the clouds.

Three hours and a $15 quiche for one lunch later we were on our way.  It’s about 5 hours to Dar Es Salaam.  Fortunately we slept a bit along the way.  In my case, I struggled with much pain in the coccyx.  It seems I need a special pillow as not even the ibuprofen worked.

Once at the airport it took an hour to get the visa and $100 each.  Quite expensive for a three day visit.  Fortunately our ride was still waiting as we emerged and we got into a small van, only slightly beat up.  It took another hour to get to the hotel we’d booked.

Along the way people offered a wide variety of goods for sale to the drivers stuck in the traffic.  Women wearing brightly colored dresses carried a root vegetable on their heads, their skull cushioned by a round cloth.  Men carried sporing goods, traffic warning triangles for when you break down, bright plastic watches, and large bags of cashews.  Local buses lumbered in and out of the lanes.  These buses have been around a while.  It’s hot, about 92f/32c and the bus windows are all open.

Our downtown hotel sits on an unpaved street.  We are warmly welcomed, ushered everywhere from the front door to our hotel room.  A gorgeous huge bed is also very welcoming, as is the fully tiled bathroom.  You have to wait for the hot water tank to warm up, but once that is done, it’s a great shower with room for a pony.

Our traveling companions are in the hotel next door.  They have made the trip from Texas, arriving the day before.  We had a very spicy curry, a decent pizza, some tomato soup.  Nary a fried grasshopper in sight.

 

Travels

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Our time in Valencia is coming to an end, at least for now.

On June 1 we are joining two other RPCV (Returning Peace Corps Volunteers aka ex-PCV’s) who lived near us in Panama for a two day train trip across Tanzania.  There might be some wildlife along the way but mostly small viallages, open expanses and hills.  That journey ends in Zambia, where we meet up with our nephew who is a PCV there.  We spend a week in his village (just six houses there) before traveling across the country to Livingstone.  This is the location of the famous and fabulous Victoria Falls.  Tons of wildlife in the river and nearby.  280px-Victoria_Falls_2012

There are lots of critters in the area including elephants, giraffe, zebra, antelopes.  Lions and leopards are rarely seen.  There are also vervet monkeys and lots of baboons. The river above the falls has lots of hippos and crocodiles, the latter weighing up to a ton!   There are otters and a wide variety of raptors and waterfowl.  Riverine forest is found above the falls,   Mopane woodland savanah dominates the area however.    We are staying in a backpacker hotel just 8 km from the falls and so we can go often, with transport provided by the hotel.

We return to Madrid after an 8 hour visit to Dubai, where we hope to ascend the world’s tallest building.  After an overnight in Madrid (we are leaving our big bags with a friend there), we fly to Paris.  We are renting a friend’s flat in Courbevoie for the month while she is gone.  Courbevoie is famous for the impressionist painting executed along the river.

After Paris we are in Trieste for a month.  Trieste is almost due east from Venice on the Adriatic, on the border with Slovenia, and 90% of rural dwellers speak Slovenian, while Italian dominates in the city.  Trieste was part of the Austria-Hungarian empire from the 14th century until it was ceded to Italy at the conclusion of WW1.  It has a mild climate, with a high of 28C (low 80’s F) in the summer.  We have never been there but it is a city well worth visiting.  Since it borders Slovenia, it and Croatia are readily visited as well.  We have rented a one bedroom flat near the old port.

From September – late December we have rented a flat in Rome from a couple visiting New York during this period.  It is a small house  near Tiburtina station and a tram line.  Trains and trams are generally faster than buses, which must contend with tons of traffic.  We are not near a metro.  Where we go next year has yet to be determined.  We do think Valencia is in our future, however.

 

 

 

 

More about Valencia’s symphonic bands (with link to a video)

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Peg writes:
You may know my penchant for these Valencian symphonic bands.  We can hear groups of this caliber almost every week at the beautiful Palau de la Musica here in Valencia.
In any case, we heard this composition by Bert Appermont, a Belgian composer who was born in 1973, last Sunday.  It tells the story of Lamoral, the Count of Egmont, a descendent of one of Spain’s wealthiest families, who was a general serving under King Philip II of Spain in the Low Countries (Belgium and Holland), in 1560 ruled by Spain.  He was born and raised in Holland, however, and after years of military training in Spain and distinguished service in the army, began to protest strongly against Philip II’s cruel and tyrannical government.  He was eventually imprisoned and beheaded.   To make a long story short, his death sparked the 80 years war that resulted in the independence of the Low Countries from Spain.  You can hear the entire story in this piece.
This is a typical band from our area.  There are more than 600 of them, most with music schools attached.  These people all have day jobs, many of them having nothing to do with music.  They do it out of love, often living in the town where they went to the local music school.  Sometimes their kids play sitting next to them – I’ve seen a few who look like they’re about 12 years old.  Until they are good enough, the kids play in the school band. This performance was taped during a band competition in the area.

St Pat’s Day in Trafalgar Square

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Went to St Pat Day event at Trafalgar Sq. with 100,000 of our closest friends today. We listened to a harp concert, and the Commitments on loan from the musical ongoing here. It was a bright and sunny day. A friend I met in Spain but from here met us there and we walked past Big Ben (leaning 3 degrees), Parliament, and across the river. Lots of activity on this beautiful day- which started out badly when the parking lot machine wasn’t working and the call in number wasn’t either- but ended well as we got no parking ticket either.

A day and two plays in London

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Good moaning ladies and germs! An interesting day in London yesterday. We saw two plays. The first is called ’12 Angry Men.’ This was written in the 1950’s and is about a trial of a 16 year old black kid accused of killing his father. 11 of the 12 were in favor of immediate conviction, saying it was obvious. The 12th said he was not sure. The play is about the techniques and challenges of consensus building. One guy, one of two bullies in the room, you later find out is a racist. The other is angry at his son and transferring that anger to the kid. Very well done. Robert Vaughn was in it- you may recall him from Man From Uncle in the 1960’s. In 2007, 12 Angry Men was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.[5] from the wiki.

The second, Woman in Black, is a very old play (we got 1/2 price tickets to this one). It is just for fun, this one. It is about ghosts and they do a good job of making your hair stand on end.

In between we had dinner and one of the many crowded and noisy places in the theater district. We could not even get into a pub- by 6pm they are jam packed with pint drinkers. Without paying a fortune we ended up in an American place. It cost us $50+ for a chicken breast, a burger both with coleslaw and fries preceded by calamari and a bowl of soup. I had a soft drink- gotta stay awake ya know- and Peg had a vodka and tonic for $11. Ouch! But it was a fun day nonetheless!

 

This is the link to the wiki about ’12’  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Angry_Men_(1957_film)

Adventures in Flackwell Heath

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March 12, 2013

We’re somewhere near Oxford in an old farmhouse, long since converted to residential and quite nicely at that.  Some friends we made in Paris, now  8 years ago, are now in Asia somewhere, wandering about.  They asked if we like to sit in this old house while they are gone.  They have a cat who is, in human terms, at least 962 years old, weighs no more than a mouse, and meows in a most loud and annoying way no matter how often you feed her.  On the other hand it is a beautiful place in a lovely area where the Thames is 100 yards wide or even less not far from here.  We have use of their car, which greatly facilitates matters.  It is a few miles to the nearest Underground station and from there 45 minutes or so to the center of London.  We have already been.

We went this past Sunday to the Courtauld  Museum http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/index.shtml.

This is a small museum located in Somerset House, a fabulous building.  The museum also is an art school founded by Samuel Courtauld.  He  and Count Antoine Seilern bought much of the art.  I went there mostly to see the fine collection of 19th century French painting.   There are some fine examples of Gaughan, Renoir (and a lousy one or two), the fabulous A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Manet,
and a new acquisition,  the lovely Portrait of a Peasant Woman by van Gogh.

 

van gogh portrait peasant woman

 

 

There’s also this fine Degas, Two Dancers on a Stage:

 

degas dancers on stage

 

After lunch in the Eastend, where the English was considerably harder to understand at least where we ate, we went to the National Gallery for the 4 p.m. lecture.  We saw 5 paintings in an hour that covered the development of the portrait from the confines of the religious in the 15th century (they knew about perspective but did not care much about it) until the 18th century when it because a significant source of income for some painters.

 

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Music in Valencia (by Peg)

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For a long time I have been intending to write something about the symphonic bands of this region.  They are quite special and provide everyone here with an opportunity to hear wonderful music, excellently performed.  Almost every Sunday morning at the Symphony Hall you can hear a 90-minute concert by a regional symphonic band, playing the quality of music in the video links attached below.  These concerts are always free, unless they are a benefit for a local charitable organization, in which case you will pay 2 to 5 euros to attend.  Please cut and paste these three selections into your browser.  I can’t seem to get the links to work right.

This video was made at the Palau de la Musica during one of the regional competitions.  This small band is from Benimaclet, the part of town just north of Valencia’s historic center.  You’ll see what I mean about the mixed ages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urYkCuXBayk

This video is Dance #2 , a piece by Arturo Marquez, a Mexican composer born in 1950 whose music is popular here.  It is performed by the Federation Band of Musical Societies of the Province of Valencia.  It’s a fun video to watch, as you can see the faces of the young musicians and how they are concentrating and enjoying what they’re doing.  Lots of percussionists as well, always fun to watch.  The band is so large they barely fit on the stage, which is in Rafelbunyol, the northernmost stop on the subway.

¡Hola de Valencia!

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Unlike last October 1 when we arrived in Valencia by train late at night during a flood, this time we arrived again from Paris but on a plane earlier in the day and to the dry conditions you normally find in this area.  The sun was shining and the skies crystal clear blue.  We splurged on a taxi from the airport so we would not have to drag our heavy bags up and down stairs on the Metro, and soon found ourselves in our old apartment overlooking the Torres Serrano in the heart of historic Valencia, dating from Roman times.

 

 

view from our place pen ink
Here’s what we see from our balcony (pen and ink by Gary)

 

The cleaning lady was finishing, so we had lunch around the corner near the Torres.  It was a bit warm so we ate inside.  The ‘menu’ of the day was the usual 3 course affair.  I had the vegetarian paella and a tuna steak for the second course.  Not a bad lunch at all, and only $13 including a bottle of a decent rose wine.

Afterwards we threw our clothes into the closets and our other stuff here and there and did some grocery shopping to get us through dinner.  Then we took the rest of the day to recover.

A lovely evening on the Duoro in Porto (photos)

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After another rather warm afternoon and a walk down Rua Flores, now in the midst of major renovations and a street filled with neat buildings in need,  it was lovely to be on the breezy river.   The Duoro here runs through the cliffs, upon whose sides Porto was built.  It is just a short way to the Atlantic, which you will also see in the photos.

 

https://plus.google.com/photos/111993279450383941292/albums/5926051122146900209?authkey=CLjajLyHpa-_wQE

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