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!

Experimental movie

This is a short (22 seconds) video we shot while riding in downtown Karachi. We hope it works for you.
Watch for the two donkey carts and notice the 3-wheeled taxis!

We might put on some of the really scary ones!

Miscellaneous

Many people have kindly asked about our safety since there was a major earthquake here in Pakistan. We are fine and didn't even know about it until we saw the TV news. This picture is from GoogleEarth and the yellow line shows how far we are from the epicenter (366 miles). If it helps you to visualize it, that is about the distance from the Washington coast to the Idaho border. In other words, we were a loooong way from it. You can click on the picture to make it a lot larger so you can see it. The lat long of the epicenter in Quetta, Pakistan is about 30°12'35"N 67°01'21". If you use GoogleEarth, you can search for Quetta. Our house in Karachi is about 24°53"00"N 67°05"10"E. If you donate to disaster relief, that region of the country really is in need of help.

End of October and it is still quite warm and humid. You have noticed the current temperatures here, haven't you? The Middle School had their Fall Social at the pool 24 October afternoon/evening.

Here we are with Scott and Nikola Johnson all dressed up for the Marine Ball at the Karachi Consulate last night. We all taught together in Jeddah and now all teach here in Karachi.

This is one of the many ads put up by the "Tolet Corporation". They do a LOT of advertising around here and seem to have a strong business presence all over the city.

It is hard to tell what their product is.

It actually took Jim a while to figure out that "tolet" is just local spelling for "to let". Any empty advertising space has something to make sure you know you can rent the space!

Goa in India

Goa is not actually a town or city. It is the name of one of the states in India. Once you realize this, it makes a lot easier to find hotels!
Since Pakistan is on the "Asian sub-continent", we decided to make our first trip to India.

This is what Jim did a lot of during the vacation. Lying by the pool and relaxing. Alonda was in the next chair doing the same thing.


We stayed at an actual Holiday Inn. It was at Cavelossim Beach along the western edge of India. We didn't recognize any of the names of the entire area except for Bombay where we changed planes. They are also a little unclear on the name "Bombay" since the name was officially changed to "Mombai" but everyone talks about "Bombay". Do not ever, under any circumstances whatever, go through this airport if you can help it. It was frankly horrible.

This is the "Wedding Pavillion" at the Holiday Inn. An Indian wedding is a huge, multi-day affair. Some people will rent the entire hotel for a week.


This is the beach about 200 meters from our room. Very clean with nice water. Like a warm version of Ocean Shores (Washington).


People do different things at the beach. We shared the beach with some random cows.


Other people enjoyed more "touristy" pursuits. This is NOT us! Jim broke a leg a loooong time ago parachuting and refuses to risk it.


We went out and did a tour of the region. This is the Manguesh Temple. It is the oldest Hindu temple in Goa and is in the middle of a renovation. They do that every hundred years or so.


This is the tourist shopping as you approach the temple. A lot of ladies sell flowers to people going in and other people sell T-shirts to people coming out. Alonda bought flowers on the way out. They were jasmine and smelled quite nice.


We have never been in one of these three-wheeled taxis, but they are common in India and Pakistan. The roofs on the little taxis in India are much more substantial than the ones in Karachi. We think it rains a lot more in India.


This is one of the old cathedrals put up 400-500 years ago when the Portuguese were ruling this region. This one is in the city of Old Goa. The oldest one in the state is across the street, but it wasn't very photogenic.


We went on a harbor cruise in Panaji. It was all delightfully hokey! Cost of the ticket was about $3 US and we were out for over an hour. A beer was $1 US and not many takers. It was very much a family cruise. They did some folk dances from the time of the Portuguese and did the usual dance contests.


As it got dark, the harbor got better looking. There were actually a lot of river cruisers and the city was quite busy. The river is the Mandovi. There were no mosquitoes during the entire trip.


This is the standard roadside scenery in Goa. Lots of farming and animals among the palm trees.

Like a lot of tropical areas, Goa has a lot of Art Deco colored houses. They look good in the tropics.

Here is our traditional sunset on the beach! We had a very relaxing time in Goa and would recommend it if you want to relax.

October Break

We have had a lot of time off. We had five days for the Eid Holiday (Muslim celebration after holy month of Ramazan). Now we are on a 12 day Fall Holiday. We will go over to India and visit the district of Goa for a few days.

In September we hosted a Game Night at the Droege's. This is not a picture of our front lawn, but a jigsaw puzzle we collectively worked on for game night. Can you find the five missing pieces?
We didn't lose the pieces. We think customs confiscated them!

This incredibly intelligent bird-watcher is Simon the Cat. We were originally scheduled for a different house, but we had agreed to adopt Simon and he refused to move. We moved in to his house. He watches birds and TV.

A sport we have started enjoying here in Karachi is golf. This is a par-3 course on one of the local Navy bases. The school has an arrangement so we get to go there. The course has a two level driving range, large pro shop and three 9-hole courses. The price for 18 holes on the par-3 is $1.46 per person. We pay the caddies $6.33 each and are considered very generous! The real courses are $12.66.

This is the infamous "dirt hole" on the par-3 course. The sand is really slow, so smack it hard!

More from Karachi

You know you aren't in Saudi Arabia anymore when you can dress normally (westerner style) at a media event to kick off an environmental program. We were at the Marriott Hotel and wound up sitting next to the mayor of Karachi (a city of 16 million!! people).

Independence Day does not always occur on July 4th! We got two Independence Days this year. Pakistan celebrates on August 14. This was their 61st birthday of independence.

More truck art!

We got a guided tour of the Agha Khan Hospital and University. Agha Khan is our closest hospital and easily the finest medical facility in the entire country. This is a close-up of one of the exterior walls. When they built it, they designed it to be in a tropical climate. The bumps (called "tears") actually cut the amount of solar heat absorbed by around 40% or so.

The Karachi American School Parent Teacher Organization held its annual "Welcome Back" potluck by the school pool.

The school owns what is considered to be the best pool in the entire city.