We have had several lovely holidays this year. In February, Peter, Alison and Diana started our travels with a week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is a very friendly country, with a warm and often wet climate and very fertile outside the city. It has a mix of cultures and architectures, from the British cathedral and main railway station to the mosques and historic Malay and Chinese areas.
March was another busy month. It started with the BA Bridge club having their annual friendly match against Delta Airlines from Atlanta. Peter and Alison hosted the dinner at our home, as Peter is the BA bridge club chairman.
The following weekend, we went to Milan. The Opera House and the Cathedral are very beautiful and as it was off-season, there were few crowds. We also visited several museums.
At the end of the month, Peter went off to Monte Carlo to speak about BA’s customer computer systems to the European Bankers Conference. He also went to Cannes and looked around Nice before flying home.
In April, Peter and Alison took part in the Thames Valley League’s annual bridge team tournament, hosted by BA. Peter led the bridge club as captain to the European airlines annual championship in Reykjavik. The home Icelandic team was very strong including international players and won easily. On the Saturday, he went on a tour to the scenic highlights of lava fields, Gulfoss, Iceland’s mightiest waterfall, and the hot spring area dominated by Geysir.
In May, Peter and Alison went to Warsaw for a weekend. It is clear there has been a lot of reconstruction and it has become quite like Western Europe. The rebuilt Old Town is very pretty, but there are other attractive areas such as the University. It offered good value for money compared with other cities we have visited.
Later in May, Peter, Alison, Diana and Richard all went to Mexico City. This is a city of contrasts. With 24 million people in an area smaller than Greater London, everywhere seemed packed. They have an excellent metro, supported by vast numbers of minibuses, but it is not always clear the routes that these follow. The historic centre around the Cathedral and the President’s Palace is very beautiful. A few miles away are very impressive pyramids and the remains of a huge city and another civilisation.
In June Peter had another business trip to France, this time to a conference in Versailles. Later that week, Peter and Alison went to Dublin for a friends wedding. Although it was wet and cool, there was so much celebration that we hardly noticed it. In July, following his graduation, Alison and Richard spent 3 weeks going round Australia. They visited Sydney, Cairns, the coast North of Cairns, Alice Springs and Ayers Rock. Peter thinks Alison is getting a bit old for backpacking, but both enjoyed it very much.
In August, Alison, Peter and Richard flew to Chicago, Richard just for the weekend. We saw but little of Chicago, except for an air show and the shopping street Michigan Avenue on our first day. We went north to Milwaukee in Wisconsin, and south to the cities of central Illinois. The highlight of this was visiting Lincoln’s home in Springfield. We then headed northwest to Iowa and the beautiful Mississippi river, before returning to Chicago and its wonderful Botanic Garden. In September, Richard went to China for two weeks to visit a friend in Nanjing. He also saw some of Shanghai and Hong Kong. Peter’s business trips in September were more local with day trips to Paris and Newcastle.
In October, Peter and Alison went to Berlin for a weekend. Later in the month they went to Houston and New Orleans. There was hot sunny weather but few other tourists. Highlights in New Orleans were the historic French Quarter, Riverfront and St Charles Avenue houses and tramway. We also went to the seaside resort of Galveston, with palm trees and old mansions, where Peter visited the aviation and railway museums. Finally, Peter and Alison went to Calais and Boulogne for the day on the ferry to stock up with Christmas goods.