Trondheim, Norway - EAIE Conference (12-17 Sept. 2007)

I have been in Trondheim Norway for the last few days for the European Association of International Educators conference. Always a good chance to learn more about your job and the best practices of other universities. It really gives you positive drive to better your programs and ideas to improve and implement things. I've had a few good ideas come through over the last few days. Besides that, meeting 2,500 people who are working in the same sector as yourself is always an interesting experience.

As far as the city goes, I always enjoy new cities. I hadn't been to Norway since I was knee-high and 4 years old, and didn't remember much about it. Well, that's not true, I spent an afternoon in Tromso, in northern Norway in 1994 while on student exchange in Finland when we had a field course in the north. I remember the colors from that trip.....grey, a bit of green, and more grey. The water seemed grey as well as the sky, and it was broken up by the green of the vegetation (not too much of it, this is tundra country) and the dark grey granite of the rocky coast. I find that although Norway is a fascinating country geographically, with it's crazy coastline, it doesn't really appeal to me that much otherwise. I think this is mostly due to the inclimate weather. It ranged from 5 degrees Celsius to 12 degrees, which is fine, but the thing is that you can never tell when it will rain! It might be clear and in 5 minutes clouds move in and it rains for ten minutes. Then nothing. Then it starts to rain horizontally with gusty winds. Then nothing. Then it hails. Umbrella's don't help. I ruined two of them in the last few days. The last one basically collapsed on itself while I was walking to the conference from the hotel. i arrived soaking. Unfortuantely all of my winter stuff is in storage at the moment and I only had on a business jacket. I was freezing and a pathetic sight. Today it is raining again (it's rained every day) and we are supposed to take a boat tour of the fjord. Hopefully it will clear up a bit so we can enjoy it. Someone told me the other day that last year they had 87, yes, 87 days straight with rain. I couldn't live in a place like this. But there are good things, like the salmon, and the Norwegian people are very nice and warm. If anything, because of the crazy weather I won't soon forget the trip!

Via Del Sale

In mid-August my good friend Leo and I made a trip from near Milan to the coast of the Italian Riviera. By foot. We walked about 100 kilometers in just under 3 days. It was an amazing trip, much of it made along the crests of the hills/mountains that divide the coast from the Padanian plains. The trail we took was used for centuries to bring valuable salt back from the sea to the people living in the plains. Mostly by mule. It's not really utilized much anymore, except by some hardcore trekkers. We were hardcore for the 3 days. The first night we slept at the top of Mount Chiappo, which was really cold for the middle of August, especially in our light sleeping bags. We could actually see the sea from the top, although it was still around 70 km away at the time. It would be the last time we would see the sea until the last afternoon. After reaching the peak of each mountain we had to climb over, there was another peak waiting to be conquered. Only on the last afternoon did we finally see our destination. My knee wasn't very happy on the last day, though. It gradually gave me more and more problems, and in the end we had to take a bus the last few kilometers, as I could barely walk. It wasn't the climbing that gave me trouble, but the descents. They put alot of pressure on my ACL and it couldn't take it in the end. It's taken me about a month to get back to normal. Funny how sometimes you think you can just go on forever, but the body often reminds you that it is not indestructible! Just to add shame to the situation, Leo had no knee problems, even though less than a year ago he had surgery to repair a torn up ACL! I guess on the positive side that shows how the body is able to recover given time and rehab effort. The trip was fantastic, though, and all along the trail at the lower elevations we feasted on blackberries. Yum.

Malaysia September 2007

I had to jump over to Kuala Lumpur a couple weeks ago for about 5 days. It's always great to go back to Asia, and especially southeast Asia. Between the food and the hot humid weather it's just great. The people are also very welcoming and helpful and it just makes for a great visit, whether it is for work or not. I didn't have much time to do much apart from work, but luckily I had a chance to pick up a nice present for my mom and had a nice night out thanks to my friend Justin who was able to stay an extra day in KL before heading back to Singapore where he was based. It had been a while since we had caught up, so we had a great evening. Work went well and the flights were not too tough, so all-in-all a top trip. I also had the chance to check out the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as I had an extended layover there.

Philippines 2007

On my trip to Hong Kong I had to head over to Manila for a couple of days to meet with the VP of a University to discuss some stuff. I think that the Philippines should be a great place to vacation! There are so many islands and it's so tropical. Lining one of the larger boulevards there were ficus trees that were more than ten feet wide. Really incredible. If there were a tree like that in any town in the states it would be a real attraction, but in Manila it's just another tree, so I can imagine what the jungle is like there. Too bad I didn't get the chance to head out of Manila. It's not the cat's meow. Anyway, it wet my appetite for the country, so I hope I have a chance to get back there soon. And see some islands. One thing though, you know the reason you never hear of any Philippine restaurants? I think that's because it's really not that good. I won't comment further to keep the post positive! ; )

June - July 2007

I've been wanting to get a little blog started in order to let my peoples know what's going on with me, where I am, what I am up to. I wouldn't really need or want to do a blog if I were closer to family and friends, but it's a necessity because I am far away and relatively simple because the technology exists to let me do it, so......

I will be putting my 2007 experiences here over the next couple of days, even though they are finished or happened some time ago, I should put up some pictures or something anyway!

Let's start off with June 2007:

After a relatively light travel schedule throughout the spring of 2007 due to the heavy workload at University due to the international admissions period and evaluations etc, June ushered in the possibility to do a bit of travelling. I went to Portland, Oregon for a few days for work. Portland is a pretty cool town. I'd never been to the Northwest since becoming an adult, and luckily I had a few contacts and therefore apart from work, which was pretty uneventful and thankfully a no-go in the end, I had a good couple days around town with a couple friends and then headed out to Cannon Beach on the coast for a couple days, which was really nice, if a bit cool for a beach.

I then had a couple of weeks back in Milan before I headed out to Hong Kong. HK is a great town, but there's a limit to the amount of time one can spend there by oneself without going crazy if not into shopping round the clock. Since I am not really a shopper, after the first few days it was a bit tedious with the oppressive heat! I love Asian culture, I just wish HK had a bit more of it! I was actually there for a conference in which I was a speaker and so I had my things to do, which went relatively well, but then as things fell through with a friend who was supposed to visit me there, I had a few days to myself and really didn't do too much. The only thing I really wanted to do was to find something really unique to bring home, but with all of HK's shopping malls, all I seemed to find were things imported from the west. Finally i found an old man selling Buddhas carved out of pieces of wood in a square in Kowloon. He was very nice, we shared a few cigarettes (I couldn't refuse his hospitality) and I brought home 3 wonderful Buddhas, which I will post pictures of. There is a picture of the old man on this blog as well.

I got home and then had just a couple days to relax (well, not really, I went straight from the airport to work) before I had to head to Seattle for several days for personal reasons. The trip was long and over 28 hours. Seattle seemed to be a nice city as well, if not as funky as Portland. Had some nice hospitality from a couple guys there involved in Dubstep, and so I got to know a few more people. Always nice to make personal contacts where you go. Makes things much more pleasant and enjoyable when you return, or when I have the opportunity to take them in as guests in the future....

G