When Bill Potter and I decided to book the tour “Highlights of Scandinavia: Sweden, Norway and Denmark,” he said that he was going to write to Hope Jahren to see if we could meet sometime during or after our tour. If her name sounds familiar, perhaps you’ve read her bestselling books, Lab Girl or The… Read More Happy times with Hope and Clint
I had set my alarm for 4:45 am in order to put my bag outside my room for pickup at 5:30, and found myself wide awake at 12:04 am! Luckily I fell back to sleep again, and woke up at 4:00, with plenty of time to spare. We left the hotel at 6:00 am for… Read More Reindeer hot dogs in Bergen
Even though we had a more leisurely call time of 9:30 am today, I still woke up at 4:00 am, as I have done for the last three mornings we’ve been here in Stockholm. We took a ferry ride across Lake Mälaren to Drottningholm Palace, built in the 16th century and called Sweden’s Versaille. It… Read More If it hadn’t been for the bridge …
It’s just a few minutes after midnight in Stockholm and I’ve just crawled into bed at our hotel! Our plane left Honolulu on time Sunday morning at 7:00 am, so Jieun Newland and I decided to pick up Bill Potter at 5:30 am, meaning that I set my alarm for 4:30 am and we would… Read More 26+ hours to Stockholm!
For the first time ever in my professional career (that’s almost six decades!), I am working in a parish which will formally recognize the efforts of its choir. In this week’s parish newsletter at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, The Rev. Paul Lillie wrote: … at the High Mass Aloha Hour there will be a reception… Read More Choir Recognition
On our last night in Athens, our EF GoAhead tour group took one final group picture before walking across the street for our farewell dinner. I must say that this was really a nice bunch of people and we seemed to get along well. Someone asked how we liked the food, and I responded that… Read More 28 hours to Honolulu
Today we visited the Acropolis of Athens, which includes the famous landmark, the Parthenon. The first thing we have learned on this trip is that many cities have acropolises — this one in Athens is probably the most famous, but “acropolis” means “high city.” I did visit the Acropolis in Athens five years ago, but… Read More Last day in Athens
After leaving Glasgow this morning and several stops, we are finally in the beautiful Scottish Highlands—exactly how I pictured Scotland: cool, green, and misty. How cool? Along most of our ride here, the outside temperature ranged from 11–13 deg. Celsius, that’s 51.8–55.4 deg. Fahrenheit, a welcome relief for our fellow passengers from the blistering hot… Read More The Scottish Highlands
Bill Potter and I are part of a GoAhead Tour called “Edinburgh and the Castles of Scotland,” a nine day tour which begins in Glasgow and ends in Edinburgh. Today’s first day on tour included a walking tour, an art museum, and a cathedral, but to me, one of the most interesting thing we saw… Read More The Kelpies
Over 8 million people visit Fátima in Portugal, and I’ve visited TWICE this year, once in May and today. The story began on May 13, 1917, when three peasant children saw five apparitions of the Virgin Mary, on the 13th of the next five months. The three children were Lúcia dos Santos (who became a Carmelite nun… Read More The Fátima miracle