Arrival of winter in Houghton

I thought I'd chronicle the arrival of winter here--how it changes over time.

One photo is from the middle of the summer, then there are a few from two days ago and two from today. We are just starting to get a bit of snow. If it keeps up, I'll go cross-country skiing later this week. It's not very cold (I know, that sounds strange, because it is already lower than Malta's record low just to snow). In fact, we don't get cold in the sense of the Dakotas or Minnesota. Too cold and it doesn't much snow.

I need to go shovel this white stuff. Good exercise, especially now that I don't walk a dog everyday.

Parade of Nations

Every Fall my community has a Parade of Nations. In this, students and faculty and others carry the flag of their home country (if they come from somewhere else) or the flag of the country their family originally came from. In my case, I decided to carry the Maltese flag in honor of my wonderful experience in Malta. Here is a photo. I don't have any of me actually walking, however, for obvious reasons.

Talk to Rotary about Malta

Hi everyone,

I gave at talk about Malta at our local Rotary. People seem to have enjoyed it. Two came up later and asked about visiting Malta, so just maybe I'll have helped prompt some Americans to make vacation plans for Malta.

I'm going to a university recruiting fair in Washington DC on Monday. I'll be telling people about the University of Malta's International Masters Programs in Integrated Communications and Marketing and in Sustainable Resource Management. These programs, of course, are also open to Maltese citizens. I hope I can convince a few of the students I meet to take the degrees. We'll see, it's a new experience for me, though I've talked to many prospective students for Michigan Tech.

Misc. photos

Here are photos I've never posted, but like.

Ship: On way to Buckingham Palace
Flowers: On way to beach at Portobello, Scotland
Beach: Scotland
Dog: Malta
Building: Malta

Edinburgh--Portobella sunset

Edinburgh, is far north (as near as I can tell, its latitude is roughly that of Kodiak Island, Alaska). So it stayed light very late and got light very early. Around 1o:30 pm I walked the two blocks down to the beach from our B&B to catch the sunset. I wandered around for a half an hour or so, but never did see it actually set.

Edinburgh botanical garden

We always try to find a local botanical garden on our trips. I regret that when we were in London, we did not get out to Kew. Maybe next time. But, we did go to one in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh cruise

We went for a cruise so that Don could take photos of famous bridges and I could look at birds, seals, an old monastery, and whatnot. Ok, I liked the bridges, too.