Saturday, October 13, 2012
PORTUGAL TRIP
Monday, July 9, 2012
SPAIN FAMILY VACATION
We would like to thank Eugenio Ovalle of Alta Tours for superb organization of our customized private group tour of Spain, which included must-see sights in Madrid and vicinity, as well as major attractions in Andalusia. Looking back at what we have seen and experienced, it is hard to imagine that so many things have been packed in just fourteen short days.
One of the reasons we chose Alta Tours was their offer to conduct all travel by a private bus (which had been at our disposal at all times), thus eliminating the need for frequent cab rides to and from railway stations, loading/unloading baggage for ten people, and purchasing expensive intercity train tickets. Miguel and Pedro Marcos, our drivers and co-owners of the bus company arranged by Alta Tours, were highly skilled, conscientious and accommodating, and in general a delight to work with. (In retrospect, I cannot imagine doing this tour using multiple modes of transportation, which, even in the best case scenario, would have made things much more stressful and costly.) The local guides in all the cities we had visited were knowledgeable, intelligent and sensitive to the fact that three children of different ages (9, 14 and 17) were a part of the group. Five included dinners (in Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba, Seville and Granada) were served at “atmospheric” restaurants, and included fine examples of central and southern Spanish fare.
We stayed at four-star hotels throughout the tour, and all properties were very adequate, with some exceeding the standards associated with this rating. Last but not least, one of the things that made this trip a success were the services of our indispensable “virtual tour director” Javier Gomez who literally had been “a phone call away” throughout the entire trip, resolving communication/language problems, making restaurant reservations, providing “real-time” advice on points of interest, and in general assisting in ways too numerous to list. We recommend Alta Tours without reservation to all travelers interested in exploring Spain with a travel provider that is sensitive to the needs of their clients, attentive to details, and very dependable.
Natalya Govzman and Alexander Kuzmin Lena Krislasky Marina and Yuriy Tsvetov Tatyana and Alexander Kagan, and also Mark, Daniel and Eugene
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
MADEIRA SHORE EXCURSION
Eugenio
Your tour in Madeira was one of the highlights of the whole cruise for the group Thank you very much
PLEASE Send our gracious gratitude to the winemaker and Tour guide for their extra special attention.
There was some confusion on the wine exchange – and no wine was brought to exchange – and we are sorry for the confusion.
However upon her return, Ms. Eileen Crane, winemaker at Domaine Carneros in Napa CA is sending the winemaker of Blandy’s a package this week.
And she is telling that wonderful story of his and his grandmothers hospitality.
Have a look at these two different guest comments that I hope you will share with your colleagues in Madeira:
The Madeira Island tour was fantastic, the trip to Monte was fun and beautiful, the town of Funchal was quaint, there was a street market when we were there. The tasting at the Old Blandy Wine Lodge was phenomenal, having the wine maker at the tasting was an unexpected pleasure.
In Madeira having the winemaker come in on Saturday, show casing a number of special wine and even offering his grandmother's cake, that to me is the more than expected side.
Thank You again,
Michael Mastrocola
Your tour in Madeira was one of the highlights of the whole cruise for the group Thank you very much
PLEASE Send our gracious gratitude to the winemaker and Tour guide for their extra special attention.
There was some confusion on the wine exchange – and no wine was brought to exchange – and we are sorry for the confusion.
However upon her return, Ms. Eileen Crane, winemaker at Domaine Carneros in Napa CA is sending the winemaker of Blandy’s a package this week.
And she is telling that wonderful story of his and his grandmothers hospitality.
Have a look at these two different guest comments that I hope you will share with your colleagues in Madeira:
The Madeira Island tour was fantastic, the trip to Monte was fun and beautiful, the town of Funchal was quaint, there was a street market when we were there. The tasting at the Old Blandy Wine Lodge was phenomenal, having the wine maker at the tasting was an unexpected pleasure.
In Madeira having the winemaker come in on Saturday, show casing a number of special wine and even offering his grandmother's cake, that to me is the more than expected side.
Thank You again,
Michael Mastrocola
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
SANTIAGO,LAKE COUNTRY & PATAGONIA TRIP
Hello Eugenio, I would love to give my impressions of my trip,.. I absolutely loved it and am completely in love with Chile. Our trip was centered in Santiago which I found to be full of warmth and heartfelt welcome from the Chileans. They really seem to love tourist and are all to ready to assist. My entire stay, I felt completely safe, never encountered anything but warmth from the people. The food was unbelievable and I am completely taken with their love for all things fresh from the bread, to the cheese, to produce and meat. The choices for dining are endless and we were able to sample many different types of cuisine including Peruvian, Chilean (both traditional and contemporary), I love the empanadas de queso and cant even begin to describe my love for Pisco Sours, we also sampled the desserts which were wonderful. The weather was great through most of our stay, although we did encounter rain in the south and were slightly hampered by flooding in Punta Arena (the river adjacent to our hotel flooded and we were stranded for a few days in the hotel, but the staff at the hotel were great and the experience just added to the adventure and left us with great photos and stories to tell. Huilo Huilo was incredible, Torres de Paine was unbelievable and it was an all around great experience. I hope to repeat it in the very near future. Thank you so much for everything and I will definitely be in touch with my plans to return to Chile soon. Linda Story
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Antarctica flight
George Washington Gibbs Jr., the first African-American to set foot on Antarctica, had long dreamed of writing a book about his adventures as a member of the U.S. Navy on Admiral Richard Byrd's third expedition to the South Pole in 1939-40.
But his journals had gotten lost somehow, and he didn't have enough information. Then soon after his death in 2000, his wife found the missing journals wrapped in a plastic bag that had fallen behind the dresser.
"I read the first journal in a weekend, just inhaled it," said his daughter, Leilani Henry, a management consultant in Conifer who will make her first trip to Antarctica this month.
"It read like a film. It had adventure and suspense and was told through his point
George W. Gibbs Jr. on the USS Bear, a ship with the United States Antarctic Expedition, which set off in 1939. (Photo courtesy of Leilani Henry)
of view, as someone who worked 14 hours a day on ship," she said. "He worked at the lowest level job, cleaning and sweeping and cutting potatoes and serving officers."
In November 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that two exploration camps for scientific observation be established in Antarctica. Two ships and 125 men, including Gibbs, departed on the United States Antarctic Expedition, along with 160 sled dogs, seaplanes and the famed Snow Cruiser — a wheeled vehicle 55 feet long and 20 feet wide, and massive enough to hold an aircraft.
Often working 16-hour days in subzero temperatures, Gibbs still found energy to write in his journal each day, describing icebergs larger than city buildings, his fear of getting trapped in the ice and sailing through Drakes Passage, considered the world's roughest stretch of ocean.
On Jan. 14, 1940, Gibbs finally arrived at Little America III, one of the series of Antarctic exploration bases started by Byrd in 1929.
"When the (USS) Bear came up close enough to the ice for me to get ashore, I was the first man aboard the ship to set foot in Little America and help tie her lines deep in the snow," he wrote. "I met Admiral Byrd. He shook my hand and
Leilani Henry of Conifer shares stories about her father, George Gibbs Jr., and his experience in Antarctica with children from the Home School Connection at Conference Baptist Church in Evergreen last week. Gibbs was first black man to set foot on the continent in 1940.
welcomed me to Little America and for being the first Negro to set foot in Little America."
It was not always easy being a black man on the ship, however. Those were Jim Crow years, decades before the civil-rights movement.
"There are two naval officers aboard ... who at times make this cruise very hard for me," he wrote in April 1940. "If it wasn't for the Captain aboard here, I would certainly be put ashore on arrival or at least on another U.S.N. ship."
Eleven years of researchMesmerized by the narrative, Henry decided to fulfill her father's dream and write a book about his journey. She has spent 11 years on the research, confirming that everything he wrote is consistent with records kept by the Navy and the expedition.
She has visited the children of the men he served with on the USS Bear, trekked to the Smithsonian — where she discovered Adelie penguins most likely caught by her father — and delved into archives at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio University.
She has given talks about her father at the American Polar Society, befriended polar scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder and interviewed Antarctica experts on her KGNU radio show.
This month, she's heading to King George Island, which has the greatest collection of multinational research facilities in Antarctica. There, she'll meet with international scientists to learn about climate change.
And, of course, she wants to see the penguins.
"My father almost died catching penguins," she said. "He said he was 'volunteered' to catch penguins for the Smithsonian. They were in a rowboat, it was very foggy, they couldn't see the ship and the radio didn't work."
Finally, they heard the ship's horn and began rowing in that direction.
"It was important for science to catch these penguins and take them back so others could learn about them," she said, "but no one ever thinks about the sacrifice it took to do that. I thought if I were in the presence of the penguins, I could imagine what that was like."
On King George Island, she'll see land emerging from thick ice and get a sense of how hard it was for people like her father to build a base
George W. Gibbs Jr. with the infamous snow crusier, that's at the bottom of the ocean now. they built Little America III, a west base and east base. the west base has since floated away with global warming. (Photo courtesy of Leilani Henry)
in harsh conditions on barren rock and deep snow.
She might also see Gibbs Point, a spit of land named for him in 2009 by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names.
Ultimately, a decade of digging into her father's history has tunneled into the future: of Antarctica, of humanity and of the environment.
Glaciologists from a NASA-funded study published last year said the polar ice caps are melting at a rate faster than expected, becoming the dominant contributor to the global rise of oceans.
"I finally realized this is an opportunity to link Antarctica's past, present and future," she said. "It doesn't matter to me why it's melting. People can argue about why, but they can't argue that it's not. I'm more curious about the questions we need to ask and how to talk about it from different points of view — scientific, educational, public policy."
One story, global impactCoincidentally, about the same time her father's journals were found, she got involved with the Deep Democracy Institute, a global leadership organization that teaches a form of conflict resolution that focuses on dialogue, not debate. Because the topic of climate change is now as polarized as Congress, Henry hopes to leverage these skills. This June in Portland, Ore., she'll be a facilitator at Deep Democracy's climate-change forum.
"A lot of people don't care about history, or black history, but my father's story is much bigger than these categories," she said. "It's a universal story about humanity, and what we need to know about for the future of our lives here."
Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, has encouraged Henry to continue this work.
"It's like her father from his diary is calling her to the Antarctic as a person experienced in the idea of trying to straighten out arguments," said Scambos, who specializes in glaciology and Antarctic history. "It brings her into a discussion of global importance right now, nearly 100 years after her father was there."
But his journals had gotten lost somehow, and he didn't have enough information. Then soon after his death in 2000, his wife found the missing journals wrapped in a plastic bag that had fallen behind the dresser.
"I read the first journal in a weekend, just inhaled it," said his daughter, Leilani Henry, a management consultant in Conifer who will make her first trip to Antarctica this month.
"It read like a film. It had adventure and suspense and was told through his point
George W. Gibbs Jr. on the USS Bear, a ship with the United States Antarctic Expedition, which set off in 1939. (Photo courtesy of Leilani Henry)
of view, as someone who worked 14 hours a day on ship," she said. "He worked at the lowest level job, cleaning and sweeping and cutting potatoes and serving officers."
In November 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that two exploration camps for scientific observation be established in Antarctica. Two ships and 125 men, including Gibbs, departed on the United States Antarctic Expedition, along with 160 sled dogs, seaplanes and the famed Snow Cruiser — a wheeled vehicle 55 feet long and 20 feet wide, and massive enough to hold an aircraft.
Often working 16-hour days in subzero temperatures, Gibbs still found energy to write in his journal each day, describing icebergs larger than city buildings, his fear of getting trapped in the ice and sailing through Drakes Passage, considered the world's roughest stretch of ocean.
On Jan. 14, 1940, Gibbs finally arrived at Little America III, one of the series of Antarctic exploration bases started by Byrd in 1929.
"When the (USS) Bear came up close enough to the ice for me to get ashore, I was the first man aboard the ship to set foot in Little America and help tie her lines deep in the snow," he wrote. "I met Admiral Byrd. He shook my hand and
Leilani Henry of Conifer shares stories about her father, George Gibbs Jr., and his experience in Antarctica with children from the Home School Connection at Conference Baptist Church in Evergreen last week. Gibbs was first black man to set foot on the continent in 1940.
welcomed me to Little America and for being the first Negro to set foot in Little America."
It was not always easy being a black man on the ship, however. Those were Jim Crow years, decades before the civil-rights movement.
"There are two naval officers aboard ... who at times make this cruise very hard for me," he wrote in April 1940. "If it wasn't for the Captain aboard here, I would certainly be put ashore on arrival or at least on another U.S.N. ship."
Eleven years of researchMesmerized by the narrative, Henry decided to fulfill her father's dream and write a book about his journey. She has spent 11 years on the research, confirming that everything he wrote is consistent with records kept by the Navy and the expedition.
She has visited the children of the men he served with on the USS Bear, trekked to the Smithsonian — where she discovered Adelie penguins most likely caught by her father — and delved into archives at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio University.
She has given talks about her father at the American Polar Society, befriended polar scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder and interviewed Antarctica experts on her KGNU radio show.
This month, she's heading to King George Island, which has the greatest collection of multinational research facilities in Antarctica. There, she'll meet with international scientists to learn about climate change.
And, of course, she wants to see the penguins.
"My father almost died catching penguins," she said. "He said he was 'volunteered' to catch penguins for the Smithsonian. They were in a rowboat, it was very foggy, they couldn't see the ship and the radio didn't work."
Finally, they heard the ship's horn and began rowing in that direction.
"It was important for science to catch these penguins and take them back so others could learn about them," she said, "but no one ever thinks about the sacrifice it took to do that. I thought if I were in the presence of the penguins, I could imagine what that was like."
On King George Island, she'll see land emerging from thick ice and get a sense of how hard it was for people like her father to build a base
George W. Gibbs Jr. with the infamous snow crusier, that's at the bottom of the ocean now. they built Little America III, a west base and east base. the west base has since floated away with global warming. (Photo courtesy of Leilani Henry)
in harsh conditions on barren rock and deep snow.
She might also see Gibbs Point, a spit of land named for him in 2009 by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names.
Ultimately, a decade of digging into her father's history has tunneled into the future: of Antarctica, of humanity and of the environment.
Glaciologists from a NASA-funded study published last year said the polar ice caps are melting at a rate faster than expected, becoming the dominant contributor to the global rise of oceans.
"I finally realized this is an opportunity to link Antarctica's past, present and future," she said. "It doesn't matter to me why it's melting. People can argue about why, but they can't argue that it's not. I'm more curious about the questions we need to ask and how to talk about it from different points of view — scientific, educational, public policy."
One story, global impactCoincidentally, about the same time her father's journals were found, she got involved with the Deep Democracy Institute, a global leadership organization that teaches a form of conflict resolution that focuses on dialogue, not debate. Because the topic of climate change is now as polarized as Congress, Henry hopes to leverage these skills. This June in Portland, Ore., she'll be a facilitator at Deep Democracy's climate-change forum.
"A lot of people don't care about history, or black history, but my father's story is much bigger than these categories," she said. "It's a universal story about humanity, and what we need to know about for the future of our lives here."
Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, has encouraged Henry to continue this work.
"It's like her father from his diary is calling her to the Antarctic as a person experienced in the idea of trying to straighten out arguments," said Scambos, who specializes in glaciology and Antarctic history. "It brings her into a discussion of global importance right now, nearly 100 years after her father was there."
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