Sabbatical 2.0

Part of our sabbatical plan, in addition to volunteering and educational travel, is the completion of three courses offered through Stanford University.  The first course is America’s Poverty and Inequality Course.  It is offered through an online format, which you complete at your own pace. We have scheduled ourselves for a Monday, Wednesday, Friday format, in which we watch the lectures, complete the discussion questions and debate the information with each other.  Below, you will find the outline of one of the chapters. The individual lectures, by the experts, are engaging.  However, we have noticed that this course has, thus far, had almost no people of color presenting.  This is an interesting approach for a course on inequality offered by an elite university.  We are halfway through the course, at this time.  We look forward to the second half. We have now completed our first course. There were very few people of color or different financial stat...

 Well, if you are following this blog, then you should be aware that we are Phillies fans.  As it happened that our beloved Phillies made the playoffs, in the newly created final playoff spot, and then proceeded to eliminate all of their opponents, we found it important to return to our hometown for the World Series.  In truth, we were coming home anyway for November and December, but we were very happy to return to see the World Series.  I was fortunate to get a couple of tickets to the October 31st game, that was played on November 1st due to rain.  The Phils crushed them 7 - 0.  Unfortunately, the series was lost, but it was a great time to be in Philadelphia. Philadelphia Phillies vs. Houston Astros You can see the lit up Liberty Bell and the lit up face of Bridget after Bryce Harper’s home run. Below, you will see our costumes from the Halloween game that wasn’t played.  We met a lovely family from Abington, PA in the Victory Brewpub.  It’s n...

 Hello from Lisbon!  Bridget’s sister, Laura, and her husband Matthew came to Lisbon on a side trip from their vacation in Spain.  We thank them for putting us up for a couple of days in their AirBnB.  Above is not a picture of the BnB, it is the Jerónimos Monestary.  Take a look. If you have to be a monk, I guess this was a pretty place to pray. Famous Portuguese people are entombed here. A lot of stained glass in the world is painted and this is one place. It’s beautiful but I like the piece by piece better. Portugal was an empire and had many colonies. Below is the tomb of Vasco da Gama.  Brutality in the name of exploration was a part of this time period.  Like Columbus, Da Gama is known by many as a great explorer.  The reality of the atrocities enacted in the name of exploration is now recognized.  Da Gama is seen as one of the worst explorers in terms of his treatment of others.  Yet a display, such as Da Gama’s tomb in Jerónimos ...

Bordeaux is a beautiful city with many streets in which to get lost (speaking from experience).  The picture above is La place de la Bourse, 18th century architecture.  The reflecting pool gives a nice effect. The Port Cailhau, built in 1495, was once the main gates into the city.  Below is a view from one of the windows on top of the tower. Cathedral Saint Andre is open for all to visit for free.  A church of St. Andre has been here forever.  Each century has added changes to the structure. Cool spots and sights to see in a town that has a no-car, walkable center. Walking in this town makes you think you’re on a movie set. However, you know you’re not and the history lets us know how terrible we humans can be. It also lets us know how smart we can be. Now if we can get these things together as a group, we would be awesome.

Alette and Olivier are our friends from Philadelphia who, now, live here in St. Emilion.  Truthfully, they are our friends from Europe (France and the Netherlands) who lived in our neighborhood, in Philadelphia, for a short but wonderful time.  We had to make a trip to stop by and stay with them during our world tour. St. Emilion is an ancient town outside of Bordeaux.  It is where the grapes are grown and the wine is made. The town is from the 8th century and can actually be traced back to the 3rd century when the Romans first grew wine here.  The current building that Alette and Olivier live in is from the 18th century.  So, it’s almost new. A Chateau is a winegrower’s estate.  I somehow had ski lodges in my head when I thought of a chateau. This is a remnant of an ancient door at a gate of the town. That is water in a shallow pool.  This was an ancient laundry.  No quarters needed. You can walk around all day here and find history as it leaps o...

Murano is an island, next to Venice,  known for its glass.  Burano is another island, close by, known for its lace.  We took the boat tour visiting both islands.  Here are some photos. The houses are brightly colored on Burano, so that each fisherman could find his own home each night. They didn’t say he was drunk, but we assumed as much. We bought something from each island and hope to show them off some day. This guy fashioned a glass horse in about 10 minutes in Murano glass factory.   We had a bakery lunch (cookies and cannoli) which was very good. They have lots of restaurants and art here. It would be a good place to retire. The clothes sometimes match the color of the store. We found this interesting boat in one of the Burano canals. It was a lovely day that gave us a chance to visit two islands that we would have missed.