December 2008

In December, we took 12 students to Harvard University in Boston, MA for the Harvard Model United Nations conference. We flew through Dubai in the UAE. Totally Muslim nation with lots of Christmas decorations in the airport! After Jim took this picture, a Muslim family asked us to take their picture in front of it, too.
Kind of fun to take Flight 007! James Bond was not on board, though.
This is the view from our hotel in Boston. We didn’t pay for the hotel; the students paid all the fees. The convention was actually downtown and we went out to Harvard only once, even though Harvard University runs the convention.

We put up our Christmas stuff in Karachi. We didn’t take everything from home, but we took some things. We bought the little artificial tree at the local grocery store. Simon the cat was hard to pose with the tree. This was the best we managed to do with him.

For Christmas/New Year break, we went to Vienna. Alonda got to wander through several Kristkindlmärkte. This one was at the town hall in Vienna. There was another one out at Schönbrunn Castle. We also saw them in Budapest and Bratislawa.

There were actually a lot of people at the market in Vienna. It is a real family event. Tourists get there, too.

We visited two museums in Vienna. This picture is from the clock museum. Astonishingly fun! This is an example from about 150 years ago when they would take a picture and install a clock in it. The frame would be thick to give the clockworks enough room behind the picture. Looks like something you could do with those battery powered clock kits!
This is the interior of the Maltese Church. We went there to listen to a trumpet and organ concert. The church is quite small and is in the middle of town. The trumpet player was amazingly good.

Jim wanted to visit the Esperanto Museum run by the Austrian National Library. The guy behind him is L. L. Zamenhof, the inventor of the language.

The first part of our Christmas/New Year was visiting Vienna. We then took a 5-day river cruise. The cruise was on the Danube River from Vienna to Budapest and back. The “Beethoven” is a fairly new boat, built in 2004, and run by a French company.

Along the Danube, there are a lot of bridges. This one is in Vienna and reminded us of the single tower suspension bridge in Tacoma. The Austrians also have a lot of windfarms. You can see one of the turbines in the background. We cruised past a lot of these.

The weather along the trip was cold, but very sunny and nice. This is one of the things along the river. It is Eszergom Cathedral.

When we first saw these, we thought they were bird’s nests revealed by the lack of leaves in the trees. Actually, this is clumps of mistletoe! Good Christmas decoration along the river.

When we arrived in Budapest, it wasn’t that long until sundown. This is the boat moored on the edge of the river on the Pest side. Buda is actually on the other side of the river. Ship is about 110 yards long, holds 144 passengers and 35 crew members.

This is the newest bridge uniting the two cities.

This is the oldest bridge. It is called the “chain” bridge. If you zoom on the picture, you can see that the pieces look like a bicycle chain. They had to bring engineers from England to build it. When the bridge was finished, people started talking about the city of “Budapest”. It is “Buda Pest” instead of “Pest Buda” because Buda is the side with the Austrian imperial palace!

This is the palace on the Buda side. There are a lot fewer people on that side, but the property values are much higher.

On our city tour, we saw this natural hot spring full of ducks. The entire area is actually famous for its hot springs. This is not fog, it is steaming. Air temperature at the time was about 31 ° F.

This is the view from an overlook down into the city along the river. Very pretty place.

This is a completely different country! This is Bratislawa in Slovakia. There is a restaurant in the round tower, but it doesn’t revolve! In the background you can see the Communist era apartment blocks they built to bring workers in for the oil refinery. Slovakia has no oil deposits.

The city has some very nice pedestrian zones. The city tour was very nice

Off to Muscat, Oman for New Years! We met friends, Graham and Lee Haywood, from Jeddah. We toured some castles and forts. This is the mosque next to Fort Nizwa near Muscat.

The countryside is definitely greener than Saudi Arabia but not as green as Europe

This is the beach near our hotel in Muscat. It was nice to be able to just go out and walk around. The Omani people were very gracious and friendly. Cars actually stop when pedestrians cross the street!

Like in Jeddah, the Omanis decorate the roundabout intersections.

The souk (market) in Muscat looked a lot more like what we think a market should look like!

We enjoyed the New Years Eve bash at the Rock Bottom bar in the hotel.

We are back working in Karachi and are going to The Hague in the Netherlands for the next Model United Nations conference with 12 students. More when we get back!

We hope you all enjoyed the holidays and wish you a happy and prosperous New Year!