Prague

It's taken a while since we took our trip to Prague before I got around to posting an update to my Blog. It was wonderful going back to such a beautiful city and sharing it with Lynn again. We haven't been back sine 1994 and were delighted to see so many changes.
The city still has all of the old world charm that we affectionally remembered but it now has all of the new world shopping, airport and conveniences of a modern city. The subways and buses are still some of the best transportation of any city. It is so easy to get around. Everything was in bloom and we especially enjoyed walking through the parks and exploring places where we never had time when we were there on business.
For a taste of home, we even made our daily stop into Starbucks on Wencelas Square (Vaclavske Namesti).

Trips, Trips and more Trips (the end)

We had been hearing that our close friend Dave Story had a conference in London. His wife had never traveled to Europe before so we begged him to bring her with him. Once he finally convinced her (or was it she convinced him?) to bring her along, we decided to meet them for a long weekend. I think it was 1994 the last time that Lynn and I spent time in London but that time she was shepherding three kids around and I was tied up in meetings most of the time. It was good to be going back, meeting up with great friends and doing the tourist thing.

We all stayed at the Holiday Inn about a half block from "The Ritz" Hotel; not to be confused with the wannabe Ritz Carlton. Dave and I went in to check it out but were informed by the cordial concierge that we could look around the lobby but that we weren't properly attired to visit the dining room (at breakfast hour). I wonder if you have to bring along your pedigree and sleep in bow-tie and tails. Needless to say, we thanked them kindly for their hospitality and headed off for friendlier venues.

I'm trying to think of all the stuff we did, like the Albert and Victoria (can I call her Vicki?) Museum, Buckingham Palace, the Orangeree for tea. My most memorable experiences were Saint Martain-in-the-Field for lunch in the basement. We stopped before going down and listened the choir practicing for Evensong. It was a real tossup as to whether to return for the Evensong service or to go to the Evensong service at Westminster. It turned out that Westminster won. It was a wonderful service with beautiful voices soaring up to the rafters. They can play around

with all the electronics and balancing they want to but there is nothing quite like the sound of young male voices echoing through a cathedral. Dave and Maribeth stayed in London for another week but Lynn returned home to The Woodlands and I am back in Tripoli.

Were looking forward to our next trip in late April. Meet in London, then shoot off to beautiful Prague for a week. Back in 1994, we actually looked at apartments there thinking about living abroad.

Trips, Trips and more Trips (cont.)

After arriving back from our unexpected trip to NYC we had already planned on a few days off in Malta during the Prophet's birthday celebration. The island isn't quite the hopping place that it becomes with warm weather and tourists but it was a nice respite from the desert.

We had no set agenda other than to relax and enjoy the time together. We decided to explore a bit more than previous trips and took the bus out to Mdina, a medieval fortified town away from St. Juliens where we were staying. It was a lovely afternoon where we had a nice lunch along the ancient walls overlooking the beautiful countryside.

This was my 4th trip to the island and Lynn's second. It was a great way to spend a relaxing weekend. The next week we had a holiday (I can't remember for what) on Tuesday. A lot of our people took a long weekend but we decided to just take the day and go with friends back out to the Roman ruins at Leptis Magna. Joyce and Kurt have only been here for about 6 weeks so we John and Gloria joined us to give them the tour.

I'll let your imaginations create the cations for this but the Romans had better facilities than some of our contractors have on site today. We had a lot of fun making new friends and getting out of the city for a day.

(to be continued)

TRIPS, TRIPS AND MORE TRIPS

It's been a while since I published a post, so here goes.

Trip #1 - I arrived at the office and started reviewing my e-mails from the night before as usual. As I opened one after another, I came across one which merely said, "Rick can go to New York and BIll can go to LA". That peeked my interest and I replied, "Will someone tell me when I am going to New York and why?". After an opps, we haven't gotten around to telling you yet, I found out that due to several people either being on holiday or just returning from holiday, I had been "nominated" to escort a group of our client's employees on the first half of a training trip to the US. The next Friday, saw us boarding a plane for London, an over night experience there and then on to NYC. The prior group that had gone in January sent the clients guys back with a layover in London but forgot to tell them how to get an overnight visa and hotel vouchers. As the good tour guide that I am, I got them through passport control with their 1 day visa and upstairs to get their vouchers for the airport hotel. The only hitch was that someone forgot to ticket me for an overnight hotel voucher. Luckily, there was a room available at the same hotel (there goes the expense account).

The next day, we made it to NYC between cold fronts. That's not to say that it wasn't cold but there was a snow storm the week before and week after we were there that was crippling the east coast. The first order of business was purchasing required articles of clothing (hats, gloves, scarfs, etc.) to stay warm.

The week as spent in presentations, site visits and emersion in American culture; everything from valentine's day to Times Square to Wall Street, we explored it all. My guests have traveled and even lived outside of Libya but had never had the opportunity to visit the US. I think we all had a great time experiencing one of the world's greatest cities.

Apologies to all you Astros, Mets, Red Sox and various other team fans.

Ghadames

OK, I have to set the story on this one. As mentioned previously, three of us went on a working trip to Ghadames last weekend. Our guy from the south region was very impressed with the improvement in quality on our contractor, he requested the contractor to give him some steel rebar ties that they were using to hold the block walls to the columns. We packed them in the back of the car and brought them back to tripoli. He was getting up early Sunday morning to catch a plane back to Sabha in the south of Libya. I emailed him later in the day to send him some information and asked if he made it back with the rebar. What follows is his reply to me. . .

In the “hard to believe” category… Libyan Airlines looked at my rebar and kindly explained to me that it would rip the shit out of their conveyor belts if they let me check it, and that there was no way in hell that the security people would let me board a plane with these weapons…and that I should go sit down.

Five minutes later a big guy in a trench coat came over (non-english speaker) and pointed at the bars and then at me, and motioned me to follow him (I am thinking, does Libya have KGB, if so, this guy is it). He takes me to a room that has all kinds of warning in Arabic which loosely translated I believe said, “Enter and Die”. He takes the bars from me and I go to follow him in. He turns and looks at me and says (with body language) “what part of ‘enter’ or ‘die’ don’t you understand?”. I go back to my seat. Three hours later I am waiting for my bag to come off the conveyor line at Sabha, and the first things on the belt are my bars. What a country!!

I guess I could have just told you “got em”, but this was too much fun.

Sorry that it has been some time without a blog. Dad passed away and I made a trip home. After returning, getting a new visa and cleaning up from being gone, it was away again for Christmas. Anyway, I'm now back in Libya working. This last couple of days, we decided to visit a site on the western border where Libya, Tunisia and Algeria meet. It is a wonderful old town with much history named Ghadames. Toward the end of the day, we drove out to the dunes to watch the sun set. I am told that these are not as spectacular as the Sahara in the south, but it took my breath away.

This morning, we got up early as we had 5 different construction sites to visit as we drove back to Tripoli. One of our guys had been to an oasis near Ghadamas and on the way to our first site so we decided to take a quick side trip to explore. It was lovely being out in the middle of nowhere and seeing this beautiful pond bubbling up from the desert floor.

From the top of the oasis, we could see what appeared to be another oasis near by without any vegetation. We decided to explore it and as we drove along we thought that it had snowed. It was chilly out but not near freezing so we got out to investigate and found the desert floor covered with salt. In some places it looked just as if a dusting of snow had covered the area, in others the salt was in these polyps bursting up from the ground. We did find the other oasis but the amount of salt present explains why there was no vegetation.

I never cease to be amazed at what nature can show you.

Planes, Trains, Boats, Busses and Automobiles Ch 3

Ah - Rome!! We finally made it. I can't imagine what this place must be like during the summer. The tourists were enjoying a "late" vacation in August. We found that getting around on foot wasn't hard since our apartment was in a great location near the Spanish Steps (which I passed numerous times but never climbed. I'll save that for another trip). The subway system is rather two dimensional, nothing like Paris. We got a bus map and decided that if we wanted to get out of our area, we could always jump on since we had purchased three day passes to get us into attractions and was good for the subways and busses.

We had to make it to the Vatican. It was a pretty easy subway ride and walk in good weather. We followed all of the tours to get to the entrance and found that it was not too crowded. It is everything that has been said and more. The Sistine Chapel is unbelievable and St. Peter’s is way over the top. There is no way that pictures can do it justice (but I have many attempts to try and capture some of it)

After leaving, we decided we needed to try something completely different so we found a bus heading for Trastevere. We were crushed in and didn’t know where we were going to get off. I was digging for a map and Ryan and I were trying to look out the windows over people’s heads to see if we could find some landmark to alert us to where we were. I started counting bridges and looking for the Isola Tiberina (Island in the middle of the Tiber River). We finally decided on a stop and got off; it was close enough. To get back we decided to take the Metro “B” line back to the main station, transfer to the “A” line and walk back from the Spanish Steps. I think I know the way by heart, if it’s daylight.

I’m sure that Lynn and Anne have waxed eloquently about the trip so I won’t go into the sight seeing stuff. As we were leaving a day before the kids, I talked to the concierge at the Plaza Hotel across the street from our apartment and he acknowledged that he could call us a cab if one was not there when we got up the next morning. We were up and out the door by 6:30 and sure enough, we had the cab waiting for us. Let’s hear it for great concierges’, even when you aren’t staying at their hotel! One taxi ride, one more plane ride and we made it back to Tripoli.

Planes, Trains, Boats, Busses and Automobiles, cont.

Ahh . . . Elba. It is a lovely island and I imagine a quite active one, before 15-September. It seems that we arrived after the tourist season and the town where we were staying is basically for the locals. Even the tourist information center was "Closed for the Season". We saw a bus stop down by the harbor and actually saw a bus pull in at the early morning, however, it was going away from where we had decided to spend the day. After trying and calling the landlord who had no idea about the bus schedule for Rio Marina, we decided to venture into town and as luck would have it, a bus pulled past us and stopped about 100 meters ahead of us. We waved as it rolled past and sent our young, athletic passengers ahead to hail the driver. He waited for us and I climbed aboard and asked in my best English, "How much for the four of us?" He answered in perfect Italian, and I didn't understand a singe word. I started handing him money and he just shook his head. Since this isn't Libya, I knew he wasn't saying that the ride was free but was muttering something about how stupid this tourist was getting on his bus and then I noticed that all of the older women on the bus were trying to help. They were saying the names of the towns on the bus route. Finally the light bulb went on and I realized he couldn't quote me a fare until he knew where it was that we wanted to go. That settled, and the fare duly paid, we settled in for a lovely 1-hour bus tour up and down, over and under and through the mountains of the island. We stopped at every village and hamlet along the way until we finally found the town where we knew there was a beach. We got off in the center of town since we had no idea of where the "proper" bus stop was located. After wandering around a bit, we found the beach and a couple of lovely restaurants. The kids left us to contemplate a lovely bottle of the local favorite and went exploring and said they would meet us at the beach in a bit.

When they returned, we all enjoyed a dip in the sea. I had no idea that the Mediterranean was so salty! It was quite easy to float. Anne and Ryan purchased a couple of goggles and we were able to swim with the fishes.

While Ryan was purchasing goggles, he found the local bus station and the list of times for busses returning to Rio Marina so we had no trouble retracing our route to return to the village for the night. I forgot to mention that while in the beach town, we found an internet café and not only got to check on the birth of John and Robin Alexander’s baby but confirmed the schedule for the train and ferry for the next day’s adventure traveling back to Rome.

We were all packed and lugged our back packs, day pack and gear down through the town in the dark at 6:30 to catch the 6:50 ferry so we could find a train that would get us to Rome by noon. To make a long story short, we got there, not without a little confusion about which regional train that we needed to be on at our connection, but that’s the fun of the adventure. On the way to Rome, again, I ventured to call the landlord to alert him that we would be arriving. It appears that the service that was renting the apartment, expected us but spoke very little English (beginning to see a trend here?). It appears that they were as frustrated as us as soon a text message appeared saying that they would meet us at 5:00 at the apartment. Since, we had a confirmation for 2:30 arrival, and we didn’t want to roam Rome with our packs all afternoon, we texted back asking them to meet us at 2:30. Now being the good techie that I am, I had down loaded a map of the apartment location and we hit the Roman metro/subway to get there. Talk about a ground zero location, 5^th Avenue, Rodeo Drive, rolled into one. High end fashion from the Spanish Steps all the way to our apartment. Only one problem . . . There was no apartment with the address that we had reserved. Before I went into total panic, I texted the rental guy saying that I would meet him at a bar close to the address nearest to the one I had. He arrived and spotted me instantly, the guy with the 30 pound orange backpack standing in the middle of the street/alley. He looked at his instructions and told me, “I’ve never been here before.” His address was the same as mine and wandered around for a couple of minutes muttering before finally calling his office. It turned out we were in the exact location but the address they had in their computer was wrong. He had the keys, they worked, we paid him, and had a wonderful time.

(to be continued with more photos)

Planes, Trains, Boats, Busses and Automobiles

Lynn gets to include all of the tourist scenes from our trip to Italy but I'm here to give you the back story on how we got around! Flying from Tripoli to Rome was an easy couple of hour flight once you take into consideration getting to the Tripoli airport after 45 minutes of rain the morning we left. If you think street flooding at home is crazy after a couple of inches of rain, here, it only takes a few minutes since the street drains serve as garbage recepticles rather than drains. No one worries about it; they just sweep the garbage, dirt and plastic bags down to the storm grates (assuming there is a grate on top of the drain) and plug it up. When it rains, people get out with whatever they have and try to "unclog" the drain. And John Blount at Harris County thinks he has a hard time with SWPPP activites! Anyway, our driver took some back roads and safely got us to the airport in plenty of time. I received a call from our driver coordinator, Najmi to make sure we made it. He had made sure that the driver had the high route to get us there. He knows how to take care of us.

We met up with the kids at the Rome airport as they stumbled off the plane, a bit jet lagged after the all night flight to London and Rome. As you can see, we had decided to carry everything in backpacks, so no rolling suitcases through the crowds. We caught the train from the airport and into Rome and found our hotel for the night near the train station. The picture below is us packing up at 6:45 the next morning to head back to the train station to head north.

We made the successful transfer from the sleek EuroStar train to a regional affair to get to Vernazza in Cinque Terra. Grabbing our packs,we waded our way through the Sunday day trippers through the small town to find the bar we had been told served as the check in point for our apartment. They were expecting us and showed us the lovely apartment below which had two windows with small balconies overlooking the town square and coastline.

The old folks took the twin beds for the first leg of the trip and let the kids have the bedroom. We switched when we got to Elba. After a couple of days in Cinque Terra (see Lynn's blog) we moved back south to Elba. We had no confirmation of our apartment other than an email from the owner saying that they didn't take credit cards to hold the reservation but if I promised to come she would hold the apartment for us. We had no idea what time we could get there so we had to wait until we could get a train and ferry schedule in Piombino to then call and let her know we would be arriving. The only trains going to Piombino were Regionals which stop at most of the towns along the way and transfers at Pisa.

Once the train reached Piombino, it stopped at the station at the end of town. We got off with others and wandered around looking for the marina, which was supposed to be about 200 m from the station. No marina! We looked around and finally someone saw saw us and finally communicated that the train makes a side trip from here to the marina. We all rushed back onto the train just before it left and made the cross town ride to the marina. This would have been muck easier if we had internet connections to see what the schedules were for the trains and boats, but we didn't so we plunged ahead. At the marina station, we found out the ferry line we thought we were going to take wasn't leaving until later so they pointed us toward the other ferry office to make our booking.

Once on board, we finally were able to call the next apartment owner to let them know about our arrival. Unfortunately, the lady with whom I had been emailing was out and her husband didn't speak much english. She finally called back when we were about 15 minutes from shore to tell us that her brother-in-law would meet us and take us to the apartment.

To be continued . . .

OCTOBER!!!

It's beginning to feel a bit like fall here in Tripoli We enjoy sitting outside on the roof patio for dinner and conversation afterward and the air is starting to be rather cool. This week has been catching up for being away for a week in Paris, finishing out all of the monthly reports and then preparing to be gone next week to Italy to meet Ryan and Anne.

This is going to be a bit different arrangement than being in one place and exploring a city such as Paris. We are meeting in Rome and then dashing off via train to Vernazza along the northwest coast. After a couple of days, we migrate south, taking a ferry at Piombino for Elba. A couple of days on the beach and then off to Rome for the final leg of the trip. It should be quite varied and very interesting! We'll try and post some photos along the way.

Rick

Back in Tripoli

I feel that I'm going through decompression after such a lovely time in Paris. We spent the last month going through Ramadan on a 9 am - 3 pm work week; we flew to Paris for a wonderful week and then come back to Fall in Libya, and the 8 - 4:30 day. Everyone at the office was slowly trying to get back up to speed but still not at 100%. I hope to get all of the month end reports finished tomorrow so that I can make a site visit out west and then leave for Italy on Saturday to meet with Anne and Ryan.

Here's a few more moments in Paris.

PARIS days 4

Monday in Paris - woke up to a beautiful day with plans to go to the Louvre. I have always heard about the world's greatest depository of art but I didn't quite know what to expect. I've seen pictures, watched the DiVinci Code multiple times, seen videos but still wasn't ready when we came up from the Metro. It seems that each time we exit from a Metro station to the streets of Paris, it's an OMG moment. We climbed the steps of the Louvre exit and all I saw was a massive public building, no pyramid, no open space, etc. It finally hit me that we were entering from the side, not through Tulliries Garden along the Seine. Once through the gates, the whole place, with the I.M. Pei pyramid, opened up in front of us. What a beginning to an overwhelming experience.

Once we navigated the lines of tourists (not too many compared to what we would expect during the summer) we walked into another world; a world of art, sculpture, adventure, archeology, history, and more. You can spend hours, days, months and probably years in the Louvre. I can't describe all of the works of art and objects de art that we viewed but will post pictures over the next week or so.

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Paris days 2-3

PARIS – DAYS 2 & 3

What a beautiful experience. We decided to go out exploring on our first full day and took the Metro into the middle of town, the Place de Concorde. Every time I come out of the subway it’s an “OMG” moment. The sights, the sounds, the history are outstanding! It was a bit foggy on Saturday morning but we walked around the Tullieries. From there we decided to take a walk up the Champs-Elysees to the Arc due Triomphe and then back down. The only comparison I can think of would be 5^th Avenue in New York City.

Sunday found us traveling to the original Paris, Isle de Citi. With the start of Sainte-Chapelle Chapel on one end and the Cathedral at Norte Dame on the other, the Citi is tres magnifique. We crossed over to the Isle de St. Louis with street performers, shops, restaurants, crepes, wine, espresso, and lots of people.

Dinner, Sunday night, was at the La Cave, a bar/café on the corner next to the apartment. The bartender had told me in the morning that they had Internet but I had forgotten the network name. Lynn spotted a guy sitting out in the median of the street with his computer so I went out and asked if he spoke English. He answered, “I’m from New York”. It turns out he’s an IT consultant working with Renault and owns the La Cave. He got me hooked up so we can stop in and connect with the rest of the world.

Lots of walking and lots of fun with Lynn.

Picture when we get back to Tripoli

Paris - Day One

It's really Day 4 but I'm just now getting an internet connection at the friendly neighborhood bar, La Cave in Montmarte.

We arrived a little late on Friday. It seems that a number of people in our country of departure feel that they are entitled to "open seating" rather than what's on their boarding ticket. It took almost an hour to get it all straightened out, including some normal yelling and posturing and 4 airline personnel getting in the face of one man to make their point.

Jean-Yves met us at the airport and is the most gracious host that anyone could ask for. He got us to the apartment and made sure we had our feet on the ground. We took off to explore and found the neighborhood amenities, grocery, pharmacy, cleaners, etc. Following Lynn's lead, we marched up to Sacre Cur for one of the most beautiful views of the entire city of Paris.

September 1 Celebration

I'm only two weeks late but I am sharing the sites of the 40th Anniversary Celebration of Independence in Libya and the 10th Anniversary of being part of the African Union. Enjoy!

Ramadan Lights

This is a video of our drive back from the old market last night. We left at 10:00 pm, just as the majority of the shops were opening. All of the shops are open 24 hours a day through the end of Ramadan so that families can shop. Think the week before Christmas.

Never get tired of sunsets

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to post the photo above. We saw our first rain storm since we arrived in the country. Unfortunately, I saw it on my 3 hour drive back from Mizrata along the coast. We saw three or four wrecks on the way back. People not used to driving in the rain, going too fast and hydroplaning. Our driver was able to catch some sleep since we were in meetings from 11 - 3 so he was alert and careful. If everyone would act like our guys, it would be a lot safer.

Thursday meeting and reports then the weekend.

It's still Ramadan

Things are still pretty quiet during the day here. The 6 hour business day can get a little complicated. LAst Saturday I was asked to come into the office for 4 hours to help prepare a presentation to the Prime Minister on Sunday night. The meeting was good for us but occured from 10 pm to 2 am. Today, I was planning to drive out to Tandamerah, a town out west about 2 1/2 hours but instead got pulled into a 3 hour meeting with our client and 6 of our contractors. Tomorrow we have a follow up meeting in Mizrata, about 2-3 hours away.

Lynn is staying as busy as she can. She's met with several ladies this week and continues to make friends where ever she goes.

We are counting down the days before leaving for Paris. Lynn is reviewing the Michelin guide book to help plan our itinerary. There are so many things to consider, there's no way we are going to hit them all in a week. I guess that means that we will have to go back some time. After a week back in Tripoli, we leave for Rome to meet Anne and Ryan. There is definitely a benefit to being this close to Europe.

Sunday and its a new week

Things continue to go slowly as we move through Ramadan. We are counting down the days to
leave for our Paaris get away on 18-Sep. I'd guess that 90% of the people at work are going to be gone that week since we have three days off and you can take two days of Paid Time Off "PTO" and stretch out a long 9 day holiday.

The celebration on 1-September was enjoyed by all. One of our Libyan partners threw a party last Friday night

from 9:30 pm - 12:30 am. I'll post some pictures or video of that later.

In the mean time, enjoy some pictures from the celebrations.

August 31

We received a surprise yesterday afternoon. A rumor started circulating around noon, in fact, Lynn called me to tell me, that we were going to have the day off on Monday. It seems that the leader has called for a two day national holiday for the celebrations rather than just September 1. Lynn and I have been enjoying a leisurely day around the apartment, sleeping in, working out, reading, napping, enjoying a wonderful concoction that Lynn threw together for lunch, walking to Aruba for more snacks and groceries. There aren't many shops open until after 8 pm, that's when people get out and start hitting the streets to eat and shop.

We think that they celebratory fireworks are going to be tonight. We don't know for sure since we haven't seen anything in writing except for tomorrow night's schedule. The plan is for a group of us to sit on the roof of one of the guesthouses and watch from afar. No matter what, we can visit and have a good time.

I really haven't mentioned how happy I am to have my beautiful talented wife back with me. It has been a joy to have her back to share everything with. I guess that I didn't realize, until she went back to Houston, just how spoiled I've become over these 33 years with her. She can be by my side anytime she wants to.