New York City Spring Break 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To view a one page itinerary of Spring Break in NYC ’15 click here: 2015SBinNYCFinalItinerary

10 travelers. 6 days/5 nights in Manhattan. $1,950

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Paris, Versailles & Reims FRANCE Summer 2014

 

To view some photos from the 2014 FRANCE tour click here: Paris14iBook (note: 33 MB file)

 

To view a one page .pdf itinerary of the 2014 FRANCE tour click here: France 2014 Final Itinerary

 

12 travelers. 10 days. $2,950

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Presidential Road Trip Spring Break 2013

Two Days / One Night visiting the Nixon and Reagan Presidential Libraries, plus time in Hollywood and The Grove/Farmer’s Market. $220

(here students participate in the interactive Discovery Center activity at the Reagan Library in an exact replica of the Oval Office discussing the 1983 Grenada Liberation)

 

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San Francisco New Years 2013

(With Alcatraz Island in the background, students present themselves on their Segways midway through our tour over the hills and sites of the City on the Bay)

To view a one page .pdf daily itinerary for New Years in San Francisco 2013, click here: SanFranciscoTripItineraryFinal2

Eight participants. 4 days/3 nights staying at the Hilton Union Square. $590 

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CCHS Student Travel Tours – Trips Prior to 2013:

2012	New York City – Spring Break Click to see the itinerary: nycsb12itinfinalC
2010	Summer Kick-Off Roadtrip – Nevada & Arizona Click to see the itinerary: Summer Kick-Off 2010 finala
2010	Presidential Roadtrip
2009	New York City – Spring Break
2008	Paris, France
2007	Berlin, Germany
2006	New York City – Spring Break
2005	Rome, Italy
2004	London, England

After my time in Africa I went to Milan for a couple of days. Why you ask? Well, it’s all about using my free frequent flyer ticket- in my case from United’s Mileageplus program. When I attempted to book my 7/4/15 flight from San Diego to Lilongwe, Malawi, East Africa (the closest airport to Rafiki’s Mzuzu village), I had no problem. But trying to book my return flight from Cape Town to San Diego was problematic. I could not seem to find any available flight combinations to get home. Researching it a bit, I discovered that United allows one international stop-over. The options were very broad. Where would I spend my international stop-over? Istanbul? Paris? London? Frankfurt? I was able to find a flight from Cape Town to Milan, then three days later, get a flight from Milan to San Diego. Problem solved. And why Milan? Because that’s where the 2015 World’s Fair would be. So it’s a couple of days in Milan. Now, I’ve been to Milan a few times. My first time was in 1990 for a couple of hours as I joined a tour of Italy there late. The next time was many years later where I saw the famous Duomo, Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting, and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the world’s oldest shopping mall. So this time it just for the World’s Fair. But, one can’t come to Milan and not spend at least a bit of time admiring the Duomo.

As with my Africa post, here’s some Signs of the Times – in Milan

This being an Italian based event, Expo 2015 Milan had two large buildings full of authentic restaurants from every region in Italy. Amazing food.

The American pavilion was focused on food (not surprising as that was the fair’s theme). I thought the flag logo was clever.

Finally, sign-wise, I present the Austrian Pavilion. The entrance was just a dense forest. Suddenly you could see the sign presented at various locations come into coherence: breathe. Clever.

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This poster was sighted in a subway station. So this is what Italians think of America? (sorry for the quality- taken with my old iPhone 4)

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One morning I took the subway to the southern part of Milan to visit the new Prada Foundation museum, renovated buildings that were once a distillery. The cafe in the museum was designed by American film director Wes Anderson (Grand Budapest, Moonrise Kingdom, etc.). Despite the interior being very stylized (think Italy in the 1950s as only Wes Anderson could imagine), the exterior is very minimalistic, just a small neon “bar” sign.

 

Above: outside with sign (btw, the tallish building is part of the museum and completely clan in 24-karat gold leaf). Below: Inside- much more lively and interesting. Drank a cappuccino and people watched:

So what did this little Milanese trip cost? flight: free; hotel: free (cashed in Hilton points); subway/tram tickets for three days $15; two days at Expo 2015: $80 (thanks dollar/euro exchange rate), plus food at $50. Total: $145. Not bad for three days to experience the World’s Fair and a bit of Milan.

   The Adventure Continues … in Florida

This June 13, 2016, I plan on taking a handful of high school students with supplies destined for Rafiki Foundation’s Malawi Village to Rafiki Foundation’s head office in Eustis, Florida.

After a day of Rafiki-ing in Eustis, we will spend a few days enjoying the unique sites of Central Florida:

• Experience a thrilling airboat tour of the Central Florida’s Everglades on the legendary St. John’s River,  a natural paradise teeming with wildlife

• Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral
• Splashing around in the Atlantic (just to say we did)
• Worship services at St. Andrew’s Chapel (PCA), the home church of R.C. Sproul
• Disney’s Epcot
• Disney’s Animal Kingdom
• Wizarding World of Harry Potter (at Universal Studios Orlando and Universal’s Islands of Adventure)

7 days / 6 nights $980 for air, hotel, all breakfasts, all dinners, theme park/Kennedy Space Center/Airboat ride tickets, taxes, tips.

Here’s the flyer and application to participate:

2016FloridaJuneflyer112115

Hotel booked: Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista Resort

 

One boys’ suite; one girls’ suite

 

Strange, but true (at least says WordPress). The number one source of recent visitors to this site are from Brazil. Here’s the data:

Brazil	20
United States	10
Italy	4
Mexico	3
France	3
Portugal	2
Malawi	2
South Africa	1
Argentina	1
Romania	1
Colombia	1
Tunisia	1
Thailand	1
Spain	1
Angola	1
Bolivia	1
Peru	1
Serbia	1
Morocco	1

So, I’ve compiled a bit of the signs (and other written things I saw in my two months in Africa. Enjoy.

 )

Now that I’ve spent some time there I call it Jozi, but you can call the largest city in South Africa Johannesburg or JoBurg, if you’re feeling friendly.

Below are some photos from both Jxxxxxxx and Pretoria.

(After my time in Malawi, I entered Part II of my time in Africa- South Africa and Safari vacation)

Beautiful weather, interesting sites. South Africa has been on my bucket list since I was 10. What is surprising is the amount of crime- not that I’ve seen any, but hotel staff, tour guides, and every local person I met told me it’s not safe to walk in any area of the city at night and some places not even in the day time.

Let me be blunt. I’m not going all the way to Africa and not seeing any big, wild animals.

After my time in Malawi, I wanted to take a once-in-a-lifetime safari. I had been saving money for a couple of years and was ready. I checked out a variety of companies that offered where and what I wanted. Having taken packaged tours before with G-adventures (Peru) and Cosmos (the Balkans), I sort of knew what to expect. There are trade-offs with various companies. Here’s the blunt realities for me: GAdventures is a great company, catering to more adventurous, young and budget travelers. Downside? They travel exclusively overland, so you’re talking about a lot of days just riding in a big bus going from place to place. Cosmos travel offers a more “upscale” product, but they charge a huge single-supplement. For people traveling solo, that can almost double the price of your trip. I then read about Overseas Adventure Travel. They did the places I wanted to see, taking three internal Africa flights to save long bus rides AND had no single-supplement. OAT won.

So basically, the safari tour with OAT was:

• Begin in Johannesburg, South Africa (1 night at airport hotel)
• fly to Kruger National Park (3 nights)
• fly to Zambia’s Livingstone Airport, drive Zimbabwe’s Huange National Park (3 nights)
• drive to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe for 3 nights in a motel
• drive/boat to Impalila Island, Namibia (3 nights)
• boat/drive to Botswana’s Chobe National Park (3 nights)
• drive to Victoria Falls Airport to flight back to Johannesburg, South Africa, tour ends

While the name of the company had the word “adventure” in it, it was by no means an adventure tour. Every element was planned and the accommodations were sometimes overly luxurious and the meals were all-American as well (chocolate cheesecake for dessert, anyone?). (I plan to have a blog about each leg of the safari up soon). Every meal out of the lodges we stayed-in were full of other tour groups from around the world. We were in an American bubble most of the time…

… But the animals we saw were amazing.

And we saw them up-close and person. Here’s a short YouTube movie I put together of short videos I took of some of the animal encounters we had along the way. Footage is from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. All videos taken with my new Nikon P600 “bridge camera.” Does a great job -IMHO- for under $400.

During my time volunteering at the Rafiki Village Malawi, I was privileged to witness a high school graduation ceremony. Tables in the dining hall were stacked in the back and were draped in black. Chairs were set up for visitors. The dozen graduates (all girls), their family, and local dignitaries were seated. Some of the local dignitaries were elders from the Central African Presbyterian Church, with which Rafiki has a warm and cordial relationship, as well as some local elected officials (tribal chiefs are now elected in Malawi, and, from what I understand, more like city councilmembers).

As the videos below show, this is not your passive American high school graduation. No. There is literally dancing in the aisles and the MC for the event really gets into it (check out his moves- he’s quite good).

The ceremony started with a short performance by the school choir and I think you might be taken aback by how excellent they are. Rafiki Malawi is blessed with having an excellent music teacher and gifted students.

After the ceremony there was delicious cake and soft drinks for all the graduates, families, dignitaries, and some students. For the students to get American-style cake and a Coke is quite a treat. In my whole time there, I never saw such things served or available on campus. Kids were overwhelmed with excitement and joy at being able to attend this event.

Then the dancing started. I don’t want to reinforce stereotypes, but skin pigment color might also affect dancing ability. Use your own judgement.

It was a wonderful time to see these young ladies commence the next part of their lives. As Rafiki Foundation attempts to accomplish their mission of renewing Africa and integrating the Gospel into the lives of the people of that Continent, I wish them all God’s blessings.

A few Sundays ago I was asked by the Rafiki village administrator, Debbie, to join her and the two other mini-missionaries for worship at her church. How kind. Of course, I wanted to attend my first African worship service, but then I found out that it begins at 7 AM. Yes, you read that correctly- 7 A.M. So on my day off I had to get up early.

As “Madam Debbie’s” bungalow is literally 100 feet my my house, the walk over to her house for the ride to church wasn’t extensive. We arrived at her house at 6:30 for the drive to church. The church we attended was the Katawa congregation of the CCAP. That’s the Church of Central Africa, Presbyterian. Check out their website. You’ll see they’re very Reformed.

Above: Photos the the congregation and their building, which was packed to the rafters!

Due to the high cost of paper and pens, the entire church “bulletin” is read out. That takes a while. There were three (yes, three) different choirs that sang, lots of prayers (most of which I could only understand about a third due to their accent and my inability to follow it), three hymns, a few greetings of those around us, and a fairly basic sermon that began two hours after the service began. The entire service lasted over 2 and 1/2 hours. There are three services each Sunday here. One traditional English (the one I attended), one in Tumbuka (the common language in these parts), and one that is contemporary (English).

When we took our seats at 6:50, there were about 50 people in the building. By 8 AM (yes, an hour after it started, people were still arriving), I’d estimate that over 400 people were there. And there are scores of CCAP churches in this part of Malawi. You can certainly see that the church is growing in Africa!

Of course, I wanted badly to video the wonderful singing from the choirs, including their amazing hand and body choreography, but I was worshipping God with my brothers and sisters, not making a documentary.

The choirs danced from their seats to the front of the church and back again! I was in full culture shock!

Prior to the service, I did take the opportunity to video these two groups preparing for the service. This should give you a taste of the amazing time we all had worshiping God that Sunday.

Goodbye Malawi.

One mini missionary’s flight was Sunday at 3AM, mine wasn’t until Monday at 1 PM, so the Renners, Annie and I took a road trip down to the capital of Malawi, Lilongwe. Just a short five hour drive. So the Renners and I spent two nights in the capital. Did a little exploring…

Check-out the first real African animal I saw. On the drive to Lilongwe we saw monkeys fall out of a tree! We stopped by the road and I took this photo from the other side of the car.

Finally got a photo of a typical scene on the road in Malawi. People pile on high loads on their head or on their bikes.

Everything looked familiar until I noticed it, right between the milk scones and queens cake, the zitumbuwa. Say what?

Above, this is our hotel in Lilongwe, The Sunbird Capital Lilongwe

And across the street is this new, inexplicably ultra modern five-star hotel, The President Walmont. Just what one of the poorest nations in the world needs!

above: Here’s a photo of the Chinese built legislative building in one of the poorest nations in the world.

While visiting the open-air mausoleum of Malawi’s first president, this random guy insistent that his friend take our photo. He bowed to the grave- I smiled uncomfortably.

Above: Love these overly polite English-style signs

Enjoyed a lovely time with the Renners- Here at Mama Mia’s Italian restaurant

This is the plane from LLW to JNB- Rather than us just walking over to it, we had to take a 45 second bus ride.

And now, for my artsy friends, an artsy photo taken from an open window on the top floor of the President Walmont Hotel, Lilongwe.