French-Australian Chateau owner, M Norbert-Andre is offering a special offer till end March 2003: third night free if two nights with evening meals taken at the Chateau. Meals from 28 Euros per person incl. wine, 43 Euros per person incl. wine, champagne. There are golf facilities at 10 km, equestrian facilities on site plus car racing ring near Abbeville just 10 km away.
For more info, contact: Email: norbert-andre@cuvelier.com or take a look at http://www.cuvelier.com
Our speaker last month was Norman Ford (Founder of the Globetrotters Club) who gave a wonderful presentation about present slides from his cycling trips. Plans for the Copper Canyon trip where also discussed. Everyone had a blast.
This month on March 18th Joei Carlton a travel writer,will share her adventures with us.
For more information about the Texas Branch: please Contact texas@globetrotters.co.uk or call Christina at 830-620-5482 or register for email updates at click here at our website.
PLEASE NOTE NEW LOCATION
We will meet at the VFW Hall on Peace Street instead of the library on Common St.
The hall is across from the entrance to Cypress Bend Park where the April 2002 picnic was held.
Peace Street is between the library and the river off Common St. Turn on Peace Street – the Fairgrounds are across the street so you can only turn one way. There is a sign for the VFW hall on the corner. Go to the dead end (cemeteries on both sides) and turn right into the parking lot for the VFW hall.
Mark your calendars – Dates of future meetings: April 12th,
The VFW folks will open their bar so we will not go to the Hoity Toit after the meeting. If you like, bring some nibbles to share for conversation time following the meeting – since we will miss the peanuts from the Toit.
For more information about the Texas Branch: please Contact texas@globetrotters.co.uk or register for email updates at our website (click here) or call Christina at 830-620-5482
If anybody would like to enquire about meetings or help Christina, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk
Sent in by Bretislav in the Czech Republic, spotted on cbc.ca
ST. JOHN'S – A woman who fell asleep on a flight to Newfoundland and wound up in England has been offered 15,000 bonus aeroplan miles by the airline. Air Canada apologized to Catherine Coyle late Monday and offered her the air miles for her troubles. The airline also said she was partly responsible for falling asleep on the 90-minute flight from Halifax to St. John's and not waking up on time. Last Thursday, the Cole Harbour, N.S., woman was on a flight to visit her ill mother. She fell asleep and woke up to hear the pilot announce a 4-hour flight time. The plane was half an hour out of St. John's heading for London. Coyle had apparently slept through the landing at St. John's and a 30-minute stopover before the flight for England. No one had tried to wake her up to check her ticket. The pilot refused to turn the plane around and she had to continue to Heathrow airport, where she waited two hours for a return flight.
Write in and tell us your jokes, anecdotes, mishaps, funny things you’ve seen! Drop a line to the Beetle! E-mail the Beetle.
U. S. Soldiers Home Mac: during a century of travel (well 78 years!) both in and out of service I have travelled to over 150 countries (I count both North and South Dakota as countries) and for some reason have jotted signs and happenings that I thought funny at the time (and now wonder why). So here is the perfect opportunity to share some of my anecdotes.
Beijing, China. The Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City in Beijing has 9,000 rooms. We agree that if we got lost and separated from each other we would meet in the Hall of Heavenly Purity (if they would let us in) At the time I was there the military did no wear rank on their uniforms (don’t know if this still applies or not) You could kind of get an idea of who outranked who by the number of pockets they had on their blouse of uniform. Someone with four pockets would have their baggage carried by someone with one pocket or no pockets.
In the hotels the orchestras (In the Peace Hotel in Shanghai I think they had some of the members or orchestra from the 30s) would play songs they thought we would like. Oh Susannah from a couple of decades ago seems to be making a comeback as well as Turkey in the Straw and Auld Lang Sang. At the end of each number the players would put down their instruments and applaud us in the audience. We could hardly wait for the Tuba player to unwind from his Tuba to applaud us. Everyone in our tour group caught colds (from the dust) except those that had taken Vitamin C for a couple of weeks before arriving in China. Mr Wu our guide referred to the Royal Bank of Canada (George from Canada wanted to get some money) as the Loyal Bank of Canada. One of the military said that when he was in China years before he took a piece of the wall and had a name plate put on it and sent it to movie actress Carole Lombard as he had read that she collected rocks. She threw it back. No she wrote and thanked him.
Our Chinese guide in Wuxi kind of had a high opinion of himself (unusual for Chinese) and though he was hip in Western ways. He liked to show off and showed us how he was proficient in Tai Chi (shadow boxing). Blonde vivacious Liza asked him to dance with her. He said No that he could not dance with a client but that he would arm-wrestle her Ha. He told long involved stories about the Kingdom of Wu and Dragons and such. George whispered: I wonder what he would say if we told him we didn’t want to hear any more dragon stories? If I were going to China today I would probably take my own plastic chopsticks. In Japan they have disposable chopsticks but in China they have plastic ones that you hope they wash after several others have used them. If going to China start a walking program at home. Walk around the block then next day further as in China even on escorted tours you are going to be doing more walking than you possibly do at home. Build up you let muscles before leaving home. I put as many Chinese stamps on letters sent home as possible for stamp collectors back home as their stamps are so colourful and unusual. While there their coffee was not very good so taking instant coffee along helped. The hotels had thermos bottle of hot water for tea in your room, which they replenished every morning and this was handy to make coffee with.
Kneehow (phonetic) in Chinese means hello. In China Carol who was from England and had a beautiful voice would sing slightly risqué Cockney songs and George would sing “My old lady and the lady next door went down the river on a barnyard door singing Ki Yi Yippie Yi ” and nonsensical songs. Miss Cha who was trying to learn English (she had taught herself) wanted to learn some of these songs so she could sing them to her next tour group. As some were risqué Carol said. “My dear I don’t think you really need to learn these songs” Les would give his excellent imitation of Peter Sellers imitating an Indian and his accent was hilariously correct. We should have been a USO troop. We laughed all the way across China. If you are in high altitude eating onions will help combat altitude sickness.
Next month, Mac discusses his travels through India. If you would like to contact Mac, he can be e-mailed on: macsan400@yahoo.com