THE
METAMORPHOSIS
By Ernie D.
Delfin
SIGHTSEEING IN LONDON AND PARIS
AND INSIGHTS FROM THE EXPERIENCE
(2nd in
a two-part series)
After more than a week of visiting and enjoying many sites and historic
places in Austria and Italy, my wife and I took Ryan Airlines (a very popular airline in Europe known for
its very inexpensive air fares but makes it up by charging exorbitantly
surcharges for excess weight over l5 kilos of luggage and even for not printing
your own boarding pass from your own computer’s printer!) from
Rome to London. The plane was full but everything went as
scheduled with an efficient crew,
that sold everything to the passengers including coffee, water and
even the European lotto.
We were met at the airport by
a new Rotarian friend, Harry Royle, whom I
have never met before that day. Harry
and I belong to our Rotary International
Travel and Hosting Fellowship (www.ithf.org)
. It took us about 45 minutes drive from
the London Stansted Airport to his home in Colchester, England. Before we reached his house, we had a late lunch at a century old Barn’s
Restaurant that served excellent food and
wine. In dollars (one pound is about
$1.71 that day) that was probably one of the most expensive lunch that I ever had
in my life. It was the start of a several
days of a never- imagined- adventure to ancient history of England and meeting dozens of British citizens, compliments of a
fellow Rotarian who took extra miles to make our stay in England quite
unforgettable.
The rest of the afternoon
was just sightseeing and driving around Colchester, the ancient capital of
England before it was transferred to London.
Colchester is a very old historic
city, built during the Victorian
age. It became world famous as it was the real setting of that very short but popular Humpty Dumpty Rhymes. It is said that
Humpty Dumpty was in fact believed to be a large
cannon! It was used during the English Civil War ( 1642 - 1649) in the
Siege of Colchester (13 Jun 1648 - 27 Aug 1648). Colchester was strongly
fortified by the Royalists and was laid to siege by the Parliamentarians
(Roundheads). In 1648 this Victorian town of Colchester was a walled town
with a castle and several churches and was protected by the tall city wall made
of thick layers of bricks over several years to protect the city from invaders .
Standing immediately adjacent the city wall, was St Mary's Church that still
stands to this day. A huge cannon, colloquially called Humpty Dumpty, was
strategically placed on the wall next to St Mary's Church which is still in
good condition to this day. The historical events detailing the siege of
Colchester are well documented referring
to this historic cannon, Humpty Dumpty. Although my wife and I
read as much as we can to prepare for our European trip, this unexpected visit to this “Humpty Dumpty”
site with its interesting story added
some sweet dessert to our memorable trip to old England..
The following day, we toured London, took lots of pictures of the usual tourist spots of the Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the
Parliament and many others. Thereafter, we took
the long river cruise up the
Thames River from Westminster to Greenwich
Village, where the biggest Maritime museum in the world is housed,
I learned. Our
eyes feasted lavishly on countless historic sites and buildings that were aptly
described by our Rotarian host Harry the
whole day. Over lunch, we met an
Italian businessman from Milan, Christian Dr. Molteni, with his wife and their 2 year old son, who was
quite interested to know more about Rotary. After exchanging business cards, I found out
that he is the export and marketing manager of his company and he goes to Las Vegas at least once a year to
participate in a furniture trade show. I
asked him to email me before he comes to the USA next year and we could meet
again. As businesspeople, the more we people we know the better for our
businesses too. I also invited him to
consider joining our cyberspace based Global Kalinga e-Rotary Club that I organized this year. Hopefully we will meet again; only time will tell.
It was a very
hectic day which tired our aging bodies, but the mind and spirit were
very much engrossed with so many things
that seemed to be like fairy tales.
The next day was again full of activities of pure immersion to
ancient history while visiting other
places surrounding Colchester. This
includes the City Hall that is over 300 years
old but still proudly standing showing its eternal grandeur and beauty.
In the evening, we drove about 45 minutes to attend my first Rotary
“make up” meeting in England.
The Rotary Club of Harwich and
Dovercourt is all male-members- Rotary
Club (as evidenced by their Rotary roster)
unlike most Rotary Clubs in the USA. The
fellowship during the no-host cocktails was great and the dinner-meeting was quite jovial, with lots of English humor embedded during committee reports on their
forthcoming projects. Like the Rotary
Clubs in America and Asia, this English
Rotary Club also has many community
services and club’s activities for the year.
I felt “at home” with their transparent hospitality to both my wife (the only lady in
the big hotel function room!) and me! As
a tradition, their club president, Tony
Boddy and I exchanged Rotary banners
after I spoke briefly about my former club in California and
invited them to visit us also. Also, I informed them also about our Global Kalinga e-Rotary Club, that I founded
with 40 members.
Reflecting on my own Rotarian experience while in the other side of
the Atlantic Ocean, I was reminded by the story of the small little wave from
the best seller book, Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom. It is about a story of the little wave
rushing toward the shore, feeling quite scared and lonely, realizing that at any moment he will
definitely crush and die. Asked by
another wave why the little wave was sad and lonely, the latter answered,
“Don’t you see that very soon we will crush and die!” The
other wave answered, “My dear little
wave, you don’t really understand. You are not just a little wave, you are a part of the ocean!” After
about 15 years as a Rotarian and having
visited probably about a hundred Rotary
clubs in Asia, America and now Europe,
I am now quite convinced that although I am just ONE Rotarian,
I am also an important part and parcel of this great ocean of
humanity, in general, and this
106-years-old organization called Rotary International, in particular, now consisting of over 1.3 million members in
about 200 countries, doing their best every day to render Service Above Self. Service to humanity (without expecting any
returns) is indeed the best work of life!
What a better and lasting legacy,
can we leave to our children and their children than
that? To me, that is what Rotary in a nut-shell!
As all good things must end, after several days as guests of Harry, it was
time to say goodbye as he drove us very early in the morning to a train station, almost
an hour away from his house, for
Paris. We could not thank our Rotarian
host enough who walked extra miles in
hosting us in England that made our trip quite unforgettable.
A
Rotarian for about a quarter of a century, Harry told us that he was happy that he was able to do what he did for us, as one
way to reciprocate what
has been accorded to him by other Rotarians in other parts of
the world in the past. We also assured him that we may not be able to reciprocate to him personally, but to be rest
assured that we will do it again to another human being, possibly to another Rotarian in the near future in
our Southern California home. Indeed
that is a great human philosophy of “Paying It Forward”.
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We arrived in Paris in less than 3
hours on this “bullet” train passing through the English channel, and took
a taxicab to our hotel in the heart of Paris, where we could walk to many city’s tourist attractions, which we did the whole day, with intermittent eating and incessant photo taking.
After many hours of walking, our bodies are sorely tired and
returned to our hotel
exhausted. That night we slept
like a log and never knew that we were are
in the heart of Paris, until we woke up to face another day of information
overload and pleasure-hunting.
We promenaded like most tourists do, and with some “minor” guidance from local people
who speak English, we were able to locate
the Seine
River Cruise, that gave us a much
needed rest for several hours that day! We were furnished a headset we can tune into any language giving descriptions of the many
buildings, artwork attractions, historical places along this famous Seine River. With intermittent Parisian music, and photo
taking along the way, all the tourists
on this cruise obviously enjoyed an expensive 3-hour
ride.
As first time tourist in Paris and as an interior designer, who had extensive
training in arts and architecture, my
wife had her “must see” places and
buildings, like the Eiffel Tower, Louvre
Museum, Notre Dame de Paris, Pont
Neuf, Musee de Orsay and Hotel de Ville which she plans to include
in her professional blogspot: www.eyeandfeelofdesignblogspot.com
After several days in Paris, we boarded another Air Berlin flight to
Vienna to catch our Lufthansa flight back to sunny California . That ended our
exhausting l6 day adventure to Europe,
hectic but truly a memorable trip
for
my wife and me. We were quite happy that we did it at this time of our
lives!.
To all my friends and AJ
readers, I recommend that you too take
an adventure to places where you just dreamt or read about it, as part of your
own “Bucket List”, while you are strong and healthy. The time and money will be all worth it.
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Email writer: ernie.delfin@gmail.com or
drbannatiran@yahoo.com
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