Friday July 22, 2011

Today was kind of a down day. After travelling for 2 days and then a full day of touring around.. I was beat last night. I did get a good night sleep last night and was going to get up early and eat breakfast with Tim at 6:30…. But it just didn’t happen. I did sleep in until about 8:30 which was great. I went to the gym and walked my 3 Km which felt great. I had breakfast downstairs and then came up and tried to work with my computer and the electrical differences.

After a little work and a new adapter it was working just fine. The one issue I have with this hotel is they provide 30 mins free in a 24-hour period. Otherwise it is approximately 10.00 per hour which is pretty high. So I haven’t done much for facebook or my blog. I did get a good blog entry up yesterday and tried to get my pics uploaded to FB too. But I just heard there is a NEA rate of 125 Rand for 24 hours.. so that is much better. 125 rands is about 22.00 US.

Eventually I got up to the convention center by noon and had lunch with Tim and a few others. I had a Mozambique Peri-Peri pan fried chicken livers. Peri-Peri is a chile sauce usually pretty spicy. This was prepared in a more mild version. It was pretty good. I have had the opportunity to each so many things from so many places lately. I am just adding to that good fortune.

I came back thru the shopping outdoor mall back to the hotel. I am planning on taking it easy.. maybe take a nap, then go running in the gym, and then go to a reception back at the convention center. There are 155 countries represented at this Education International conference and so it will be a great opportunity to meet some people from other countries. I didn’t do much after all. I did meet Tim back at the convention center where they had this reception for all the delegates. It was more like dinner and drinks and entertainment along with a lot of talking to people. It was a free meal for me since I am on vacation… The entertainment was great. They had a group of South African dancers and muscians. The things that these dancers did.. was almost homoerotic… The food and drink was abundant and free for all the delegates. I have a visitors badge which affords me almost anything a regular delegate is afforded.

A little about this conference. There are 155 countries represented from around the world. They are mostly teacher union related and where the few countries that don’t have the union, the country themselves is represented. They have issues and resolutions that they discuss and vote on. I am thinking it is a huge network on education related issues. I have met a few people from Europe as well as Africa and of course met the NEA folks that I have known, as well as have met some new folks.

Got back to the hotel and partied in the bar a little and then finally went to bed.