Aug 12, 2011 - Looking Back

Three months after our wedding, I was given an assignment to South Africa with 8 others from Bechtel Corporation in San Francisco. We were under contract to the Atomic Energy Board of South Africa, tasked with conducting a safety review of the two unit Pressurized Water Reactor plant being built at Capetown, by the French firm, Frametome who were building a Westinghouse designed plant under license. In our crew were three Naval Academy graduates. Bill Hintz, class of 48', Instrument & Control engineer, myself, 55', and John Cunliff, class...

Aug 10, 2011 - August 4th-7th

The website below is our group blog. This is another way to see what we are doing on our trip. Also someone has posted some pictures! http://augsnamibia2011.travellerspoint.com/ Hello, I am sorry for the delay in my updates, but we have been staying very busy! I left off on Thursday August 4th..... Last Thursday we spent the day at our school placements, I was in a first grade classroom. To start the school day every morning students come into school and pray, which is way different than public schools in the US. They say the Our Father,...

Aug 6, 2011 - An update of the entire trip...

Hello Everyone! Today is our first free day since we have arrived. So I got to sleep in, shower, eat breakfast all on my own time and it was AMAZING!!! I plan to go downtown today to the craft market. Below is a recap of our trip so far. My friend Sally who is traveling with me wrote most of it, but I added in my own stuff too. For those of you that are on face book some pictures got uploaded, so check them out! The last week + has been all sorts of amazing, and exhausting experiences! We arrived in Africa last Tuesday after one of the...

Aug 1, 2011 - I am here and I found internet!

Hello Everyone!! I am at an internet cafe in Swakopmund Namibia which is on the coast. Last night we climbed Dune 7 which was 183 feet. So incredible at the top!!! We then watched the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean. There were dolphins jumping as we were watching. Two days ago we were in Etosha National Park. While there we saw elephants, lions, zebras, kudu, and lots of giraffes. We saw a family of lions eating a giraffe, which was quite amazing. We were all saying that it was "real life" National Geographic. The food here is good. LOTS of...

Aug 1, 2011 - Pre-Tour Dinner - 20 Trilby Street

Paulie Pax (or rather Mrs. Pax) out-does herself by hosting the boys for dinner... Only the local boys present (PAX, ESPEE, SNY, VIS, JULS (2-hrs late) & EMAN). Apologies received: Big Gav Johnston & Shad Rogers (SA traitors). Summation: 1. Course Hosts drawn 2. Discussion of team draw 3. Kit Handover See pics attached for a more interesting overview. Let the dream begin...

Aug 1, 2011 - Thank You Letter to South African Air

Dear South African Air, In my and my friends most depressed and exhausted state you were there to save us. You, with your fancy multi-media personal screen T.V.s for each traveler that allowed you to watch any move you wanted at any time, pause said movie, if you needed to, and change it to a different movie if you don't like the first one. A music system that allowed you to create personal play list for you listening pleasure (which comes in handy after you iPod has gone dead because you had to spend 14 hours in the Ghana airport). A...

Jul 29, 2011 - Forward

It was the great English-born American golf course designer Robert Trent Jones who wrote, ‘The first golf course architect, of course, was the Lord, and he was the best there has ever been.’ The early golfers of Scotland and the Netherlands played their golf on relatively undefined patches of ground wherever they happened to live. There was no such thing as a typical golf curse. And while a few elements of a course have become standardised, there is still no standard golf course. The Scots became the defining influence on golf when the...

Jul 25, 2011 - Ghana

I am currently in Accra Ghana on our 14 hour layover. We left the Washington Airport yesterday at 5pm local time and got to Ghana 8 am local time here. it was a 10 hour flight. I didnt sleep very much, but we have been taking turns sleeping in the airport. I found an internet cafe that costs 3dollars for i dont know how long. I exchanged 40 U.S dollars for 58 ghana dollars, so we all got bottled water and are taking turns eating lunch. For those of you that do not know, we have not had the best luck with our flights so far on our trip. Our...

Jul 19, 2011 - Pre- Trip

Hello and welcome to my first journal entry! Friday, July 22, 2011 Leave Minneapolis 11:00am United Air Arrive Chicago-ORD 12:19pm Leave Chicago-ORD 1:10pm United Air #104 Arrive Dulles 4:05pm Leave Dulles 5:40pm South African #208 Arrive Johannesburg 5:05pm Arriving Saturday, July 23rd Sunday, July 24, 2011 Leave Johannesburg 1:20pm South African #076 Arrive Windhoek 2:20pm Those are my flight times for the way there. We are spending one day in Johannesburg South Africa. While there we are going to visit Soweto, which has a very...

Jul 8, 2011 - Behind the wire in Johannesburg

Thursday 7 July The CBD of Jo’burg has been largely deserted by business due to crime and violence in the 1970’s and 80’s, and no doubt anti-apartheid unrest. Business and all the hotel chains are now in the wealthier areas quite a way from the city centre. Apparently the authorities are trying to get business and universities back but at the moment it is almost like a poor suburb. We chose a hotel there as it is close to the train station. The hotel is surrounded by high fences/gates to keep any riffraff out. It was pleasing to see that...

Jun 20, 2011 - Greg's Final Words:(

Francis picked us up @ 6:00am to take us to Chileka International Airport in Blantyre for our 8:00am flight to Johannesburg. Once we got there, Satan took over once again as the “acting stupid” strategy didn’t work at all and we had to pay the equivalent of $387 in excess baggage fees to get Heidi & Jan’s bags to South Africa. As a result, domestic air flights within Africa will no longer be a part of our future plans. Then our flight was delayed for 2 hours because the aircraft engineers were at first working on a “non-problem” as it was...

Jun 17, 2011 - East London to Jo'burg

After our dubious night in the shack we continued our epic journey along the coast. We managed to pick up an English backpacker for some of the leg, but he was a bit weird so luckily we ditched him early on. The weather changed in our favour in time for us to reach the beach in Durban. Where, yet again, our hostel choice failed us. The manager turned out to be more anal than Hamish! There were rules on rules plastered all over every wall, there were even specific rules on how to shower, and the lady (who had a tramp stamp) thouroughly...