Buon Journo from Florence
I can't believe that it was ten days when I last wrote to you. This one will just be an update with no specific agenda so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.
Let's start with a follow up from the theft of my backpack. Several aspects of that have changed the direction of my travels. My credit cards are being replaced and sent to my address in Canada and will then have to be couriered to me so I have funds to continue. My immunization card is being replaced and will also be couriered later. I can't enter certain parts of Africa until that is received.
And then there is the matter of my airline tickets. When I contacted Air Canada to get my tickets replaced the guy laughed at me and said I actually had bigger problems than just getting a replacement. Apparently the airline I was flying on in South America next March has gone bankrupt and Air Canada doesn't have another partner in that area. That meant that I couldn't go to South America on that ticket. I could either go back to Canada from South Africa or back to Europe. In the end, we changed literally everything. Since I knew my entry into Africa was going to be later than originally anticipated I delayed the departure from South Africa and then I also delayed the departure from Europe so I could do some of the things that I didn't get done this summer because of my foot injuries. I now have a flight from Capetown, South Africa to London, England on April 22nd and a flight from London, England to home on June 20th, which means I will have been gone just two days short of a year. Of course anything could change between now and then!
Yes, I know that I will have to some how get my taxes done by April 30th. And I can't ignore that because CRA decided to audit me this year and since I'm not there to get them the proof that they wanted and no one else could possibly find it in the storage unit, I'm already in their bad graces and have been reassessed with the interest mounting daily. Don't you just love it?
I hope I didn't promise anyone else that I'd be there for anything in May or June because I definitely won't be there. I couldn't think of any commitments I'd made so this seemed like a great opportunity to extend my holiday - and basically as a result of an Air Canada problem. Can you imagine how I would have felt if I'd found out about the changes the day before I was to fly from Johannesburg to South America? What would I have done then? Flown back to Europe in the middle of winter I guess. This advance notice, compliments of the thief who took my backpack, allowed a bit more planning and opportunity. And the flights are great: non-stop from Capetown to London and then non-stop London to Vancouver or Calgary (can't remember which) with a same-day connection into Kelowna.
Okay, enough about that. It just means that I'm a bit more flexible with my travel plans for the next month or so. However, it's getting too cold for me in most of Europe so I figure I'll definitely have to head south soon. I'm also contemplating a Mediterranean Cruise just for a change of pace and scenery. And I'm even trying to book Egypt at the same time as Ed and Rita (my brother and sister-in-law) will be there in January. That would be really neat too.
On another topic, I have been trying to reconstruct what Maxine (my sister) referred to as "the lost cities of France and Spain". Hopefully once I get this blog done I will be able to post what I remember from my Paris visit. It's pretty scattered but then some of you probably think most of my writing is pretty scattered so you won't see much of a difference. Nice should be up before long, assuming I can manage to stay awake long enough at night to type more entries. Barcelona hasn't been started yet and Rome hasn't been either so it's a slow process. Oh well, it's good exercise for the brain.
I will just say one general thing now. I apologize for my comments about the Science Museum in London and all my nasty comments about how non exciting the history of Math section would be. Ever since I said that, I have been flooded by wonderful examples of how Math can and has been applied in exciting ways. Today I got hit yet again so I thought I should make a formal apology. Barcelona is probably world-renowned for all its Gaudi structures and all of them are based on Math principles. He didn't build square or rectangular buildings. No, he used parabolic arches and hyperboloids and all kinds of Math and Physics formulae in his construction - and it was wonderful. Every building I went into gave me another Math lesson as applied to architecture. And then in a Military Museum that must also have been in Barcelona there was an entire section dedicated to the Military Engineers and their training in Math and Physics principles so they could build all these great bridges, dams, highways, aqueducts and other things. I probably hadn't posted the London portion more than a day before Math was everywhere!
In Rome there were examples too but I can't exactly remember what at the moment. I remember it was something big so perhaps the construction of the Coliseum or something in Castel Sant Angelo or St. Peter's Basilica. Who knows? These Math applications are everywhere! Today at the Galleria del Accademia where Michelangelo's statue of David is supposed to be the most memorable thing of all, I get hit with more examples of Math applications in the Music Museum. Math is the basis of music - time, notes and fractions, sound waves, modulations, intonation, scales, intervals, harmonic cycles, and even the designs of the instruments themselves - all were based on Math. So after that visit I decided an apology was in order. The history of Math and its applications can indeed be truly exciting. And given that the professions of my siblings were a high school math teacher, an engineer and an accountant, I guess I probably shouldn't be picking on Math too much!
The only other travel thing I wanted to say was that I don't seem to be enjoying this section of my travels as much as my earlier travels and I'm just finding it more of a struggle. I have to wonder if I'm just getting tired or if the weather has something to do with it or the shorter hours of daylight, or if it's because it's no longer tourist season and things are closed for repairs or limited hours or whatever. Somehow it just doesn't seem the same and sometimes I don't think I'm accomplishing enough each day. How bad is that for someone who is supposed to be on holidays? Anyway, I definitely think I need a break which is why I'm considering the cruise, which would be a very different pace. I guess you'll just have to wait and see what happens as the saga continues.
Okay, enough trivia for now. I will go work on Paris and Nice and try to get them finished up as much as I can at this stage. If I think of something else for these cities later, I will add it to the same posting and mark it as revised.
Cheers all!
Jayne
I can't believe that it was ten days when I last wrote to you. This one will just be an update with no specific agenda so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.
Let's start with a follow up from the theft of my backpack. Several aspects of that have changed the direction of my travels. My credit cards are being replaced and sent to my address in Canada and will then have to be couriered to me so I have funds to continue. My immunization card is being replaced and will also be couriered later. I can't enter certain parts of Africa until that is received.
And then there is the matter of my airline tickets. When I contacted Air Canada to get my tickets replaced the guy laughed at me and said I actually had bigger problems than just getting a replacement. Apparently the airline I was flying on in South America next March has gone bankrupt and Air Canada doesn't have another partner in that area. That meant that I couldn't go to South America on that ticket. I could either go back to Canada from South Africa or back to Europe. In the end, we changed literally everything. Since I knew my entry into Africa was going to be later than originally anticipated I delayed the departure from South Africa and then I also delayed the departure from Europe so I could do some of the things that I didn't get done this summer because of my foot injuries. I now have a flight from Capetown, South Africa to London, England on April 22nd and a flight from London, England to home on June 20th, which means I will have been gone just two days short of a year. Of course anything could change between now and then!
Yes, I know that I will have to some how get my taxes done by April 30th. And I can't ignore that because CRA decided to audit me this year and since I'm not there to get them the proof that they wanted and no one else could possibly find it in the storage unit, I'm already in their bad graces and have been reassessed with the interest mounting daily. Don't you just love it?
I hope I didn't promise anyone else that I'd be there for anything in May or June because I definitely won't be there. I couldn't think of any commitments I'd made so this seemed like a great opportunity to extend my holiday - and basically as a result of an Air Canada problem. Can you imagine how I would have felt if I'd found out about the changes the day before I was to fly from Johannesburg to South America? What would I have done then? Flown back to Europe in the middle of winter I guess. This advance notice, compliments of the thief who took my backpack, allowed a bit more planning and opportunity. And the flights are great: non-stop from Capetown to London and then non-stop London to Vancouver or Calgary (can't remember which) with a same-day connection into Kelowna.
Okay, enough about that. It just means that I'm a bit more flexible with my travel plans for the next month or so. However, it's getting too cold for me in most of Europe so I figure I'll definitely have to head south soon. I'm also contemplating a Mediterranean Cruise just for a change of pace and scenery. And I'm even trying to book Egypt at the same time as Ed and Rita (my brother and sister-in-law) will be there in January. That would be really neat too.
On another topic, I have been trying to reconstruct what Maxine (my sister) referred to as "the lost cities of France and Spain". Hopefully once I get this blog done I will be able to post what I remember from my Paris visit. It's pretty scattered but then some of you probably think most of my writing is pretty scattered so you won't see much of a difference. Nice should be up before long, assuming I can manage to stay awake long enough at night to type more entries. Barcelona hasn't been started yet and Rome hasn't been either so it's a slow process. Oh well, it's good exercise for the brain.
I will just say one general thing now. I apologize for my comments about the Science Museum in London and all my nasty comments about how non exciting the history of Math section would be. Ever since I said that, I have been flooded by wonderful examples of how Math can and has been applied in exciting ways. Today I got hit yet again so I thought I should make a formal apology. Barcelona is probably world-renowned for all its Gaudi structures and all of them are based on Math principles. He didn't build square or rectangular buildings. No, he used parabolic arches and hyperboloids and all kinds of Math and Physics formulae in his construction - and it was wonderful. Every building I went into gave me another Math lesson as applied to architecture. And then in a Military Museum that must also have been in Barcelona there was an entire section dedicated to the Military Engineers and their training in Math and Physics principles so they could build all these great bridges, dams, highways, aqueducts and other things. I probably hadn't posted the London portion more than a day before Math was everywhere!
In Rome there were examples too but I can't exactly remember what at the moment. I remember it was something big so perhaps the construction of the Coliseum or something in Castel Sant Angelo or St. Peter's Basilica. Who knows? These Math applications are everywhere! Today at the Galleria del Accademia where Michelangelo's statue of David is supposed to be the most memorable thing of all, I get hit with more examples of Math applications in the Music Museum. Math is the basis of music - time, notes and fractions, sound waves, modulations, intonation, scales, intervals, harmonic cycles, and even the designs of the instruments themselves - all were based on Math. So after that visit I decided an apology was in order. The history of Math and its applications can indeed be truly exciting. And given that the professions of my siblings were a high school math teacher, an engineer and an accountant, I guess I probably shouldn't be picking on Math too much!
The only other travel thing I wanted to say was that I don't seem to be enjoying this section of my travels as much as my earlier travels and I'm just finding it more of a struggle. I have to wonder if I'm just getting tired or if the weather has something to do with it or the shorter hours of daylight, or if it's because it's no longer tourist season and things are closed for repairs or limited hours or whatever. Somehow it just doesn't seem the same and sometimes I don't think I'm accomplishing enough each day. How bad is that for someone who is supposed to be on holidays? Anyway, I definitely think I need a break which is why I'm considering the cruise, which would be a very different pace. I guess you'll just have to wait and see what happens as the saga continues.
Okay, enough trivia for now. I will go work on Paris and Nice and try to get them finished up as much as I can at this stage. If I think of something else for these cities later, I will add it to the same posting and mark it as revised.
Cheers all!
Jayne
posted by Jayne Brooks @ 11:25 AM
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