A note from Down Under!! It has been some time since I have written here

I stopped writing this blog just after my trip to Indonesia, China, Singapore and Malaysia.  I never put any of those pictures or stories in here.  I promise to do that. 

Right now I am in Melbourne Australia.  The flight time was 22 hours in the air.  I left Newark on Wed July 3rd and landed here July 5th.  I lost July 4th altogether.  But I still got fireworks.  It is winter here and for some reason through the months of July and August they have fireworks every Friday night at the Docklands.  So of course I went to see them. IT WAS COLD.  The wind was blowing and it was cold.  here are a few pictures of my 5th of July Fireworks Down Under.

I am 14 hours ahead of the East Cost of the US here.  But it really feels like I am a full day ahead.

But first on the way over to the Docklands I found this cow in a tree.  Very weird.  But based on true stories.  There are such bad floods in the lowlands/farmlands outside of Melbourne and the water rises so high that sometimes cows get caught in the trees.  The artist took this from a picture that was in a newspaper after a flood.  This artist Australian artist John Kelly was born in the UK and his family moved to Australia in the 1980s.  This is an odd combination of a newspaper story of a cow getting stuck in trees after floods while paying homage to Sir William Dobell, who was an artist during WWII that created camouflage for the Royal Army.  One of his jobs was to create paper mache cows to place on airfield to camouflage them as a farm.  One of his statements was our commanders must think the Japanese have very poor eyesight.  Just for you cow lovers, unfortunately the cows are usually dead and there is a bit of job to get them out of the trees. 

On to the fireworks.  I can't believe how many people come out to see the fireworks on a cold winter evening.  Plus there is other entertainment see the pictures.

Of course you need to see Little Bow Peep and her? um? her? Bear?

And this guy playing with fire. 

Well there were fireworks, everyone has seen them before and I am having trouble getting the pics loaded.

Saturday July 6th - walked around Melbourne for the morning and then purchased a tour to Phillips Island.  We stopped at a Historic Farm - as I started to walk around I thought of Drogheda from The Thorn Birds.  It was just your typical farm.

 That is Sophie and she is a small draft horse. 

Then we stopped at the Koala Conservancy.  Finding the Koalas wasn't easy.  Many were just sleeping blobs up in the trees.  Wish I took a video of the Koala climbing the tree.  They pretty much sleep and eat, that is it.  They come down  to the ground and move to other trees during the night.  Also saw wallabies...

We went to the Penguin Parade.  They said there would be 100s coming a shore.  BUT maybe there were 50 tops that came a shore over a 50 minute period.  They turn the lights off after that and it continues for another 3 hours of them coming a shore.  They were sooo funny though.  They would take forever to decide to come out of the water.  There would be 2 or 3 that would float in on a wave, but they would usually float back out.  And if they stayed and stood up they would run back into the water if anything scared them.  Then after watching them do that for about 10 or 15 minutes they would finally stand up and run across the beach to the low brush.  The first group though was about a dozen and there was no playing around.  They came in on the wave on their bellies, all stood up and all ran (waddled fast) to the brush.  Then when we walked back over the boardwalk to the main building we were so close to them.  They were so cute.  They are the smallest penguin species and are at best a foot tall.  I talked with one of the rangers and he said that the penguins used to build their boroughs in the sand but the high tide would wash them away so the conservancy built boxes and partially buried them and then camouflaged them with low growing brush then planted.  They said the penguins took to them immediately and started to live in the boxes.  The winter is their down time and basically they hangout in the boroughs for a couple of weeks and when they get hungry they get up very early before sunrise and waddle back to the beach to go for a swim. The penguins can stay out in the ocean for up to 5 weeks this time of year and sleep by floating on the top of the water.  He said they do mate up permanently but are very promiscuous...he said that they will at times find 2 males in the same borough.  They also are mating too!!!!  Well there you go! Even nature proves there is no merit to DOMA!!

They don't allow any photography at all even without a flash.  The little penguins were starting to get some eye damage from all the flashes.  There were a bunch just hanging out in the area of their homes...he said that there were probably coming out of their homes to watch what has going on with their friends coming in from the ocean.  They stay all day in their buroughs and come out at night to preen and stretch a bit.  So that was the penguin parade.

The Asia Trip

Flew Overnight 18 hours from Newark to Singapore, on Singapore Airlines....my flight was all Business Class, completely lay flat beds.

Pictures from the Ukraine

So now a few picks from my October trip to Ukraine:

Tried to get a picture of the Soviet signature that was still seen on the top of the building where we landed in Kharkov....this was actually the Kharkov Airport....

Next are my 2 buddies in front of the airport - Rino (left) and Ralf....the two that are running the implementation for the Confections Business in EU and CEEMA.

This was after all the crazy driving over some of the bumpiest roads I have been on when we were heading home. Two lanes with lots of passing. Thank goodness we didn't land in Kiev as planned it would have been 4 or 5 hours of that headache (literally) but from Kharkov we were only about 1 to 1.5 hours from the plant.

Not sure if it is visible but there was a ton of Mistletoe in the trees. The round blobs in the treats. These are even good pictures.....I couldn't believe all the mistletoe.

Other colleagues from Ukraine:

This is Olga she is from Kiev. Very interesting discussion with her about her choices after the Soviets left. Originally she told her parents that she wanted to continue in the Russian school. They had a choice to go to Ukrainian school or Russian school when the Soviets were withdrawing. Her parents were fine and let her go. What is interesting is how clear her next decision was and still is to her. At age 13 she decided she wanted to go to Ukrainian school. The interesting thing is how Olga described the change in her thoughts.....it was clearly completely of her own accord, based completely on her evaluation of what she had learned about the Soviet Occupation. At age 13 she decided that what they had done was wrong and wanted to change completely over to all things Ukrainian. She was Ukrainian and very proud of it.

Katerina on the other hand was really too young to remember anything about life with the Soviet Occupation. She is so sweet. She had 2 or three cell phones with her and they all rang sometime during the evening. I made a joke that the only way she could keep all her boyfriends straight was to have a different phone and number for them. She thought it was funny....but I think it might have been true! Then there is Andry....my comrade....I ask the question so how has it been for you since the Soviet Occupation has ended. The answer was: "it wasn't an occupation, it was my country". He was a member of the Soviet Military. We continued to talk about his life with the changes, he said he can't relate to being a Ukraine, in his mind he is Soviet and always will be. He has seen a lot of negative changes, children that don't have the close knit family ties anymore. Kids hanging out after school in groups or gangs, not doing anything productive. He sees this as fart of the downfall of his country. We talked more, it was certainly interesting to hear his perspective

This is the whole group....missed talking about Vi era, she is from packaging in Kiev, she was quiet. Then there is Imola, my travel buddy from Munich. She is the Hungarian that grew up in Romania. She and Andry had a very interesting discussion the prior night, but I missed it. I went to bed early.

The food in this hotel was AWESOME.....the theme of the hotel was around Kazakhstan. I loved the flavors of the food. It was very yummy. I also had Borscht while I was there. It was quite good. Most of their veggies are in the fermented form....pickled. I guess that is the way to have them through the long winters. But I liked them too.

The hotel was on a guarded compound in Sumy....but outside my side of the hotel, there were the Ukrainian version of the McMansions going up!!

I am only sorry I didn't get any good pictures of the typical homes. The economy is not good here. There are a lot of people living in unacceptable apartment buildings. Some of the buildings are abandoned....but I can't tell the difference between the empty ones and the occupied buildings.

Missing in Action!!! Next was THE UKRAINE

Sorry all who follow my blog....I have been missing in action.

My next trip after Lithuania was Ukraine in October, wanted to get in and out before winter. Obviously a smart move given this Natural Gas Embargo from Russia. Can I just say WOW...that was some trip into the past! The lack of everything is just unbelievable. I have pictures I want to post, but haven't done it yet.

The Roads: Insane!! Rough, unmarked, no speed limits....flew into Austria then to Kharkov and had a car from Kharkov to Trostyonets (where our confections plant is). The mix of past and current is a bit crazy too. I saw a man leading his cow talking on a cell phone. The trucks are Soviet Union Era. There still are horse and carts on the road. The roads were so bumpy that I my brains were a bit sloshy when we got to our destination.

The homes: Our hotel was very nice, very new and on a guarded compound. Not for our physical safety but to keep our 'stuff' safe. Our rooms were very big and empty!! Had a desk, a nice bed and a TV....and a lot of empty space....the rooms were bigger than typical western high end hotels. But out my side of the hotel I saw huge McMansions being built....very much like what we have in the states but not stone or brick....plaster/smooth stucco. But everywhere else the homes were small and in decay and behind gated walls along the highway. There was an attempt to keep them painted in very bright colors, blues, greens, yellows. Or they were high rise apartment building again in horrible decay. Saw a woman moving her heard of goats along the road and all the women that live in the country wear what you would expect as typical ....babushka on the head, longer skirt, sensible shoes, over sized cardigan sweaters and aprons. In many ways it was a very cool trip to go to the past.

My colleagues: well, the down side was when I got to the meeting to do my presentation, the IS folks made all kinds of changes on my computer but still couldn't get me on the Kraft Intranet.....but then just left....didn't put anything back and my computer was hosed for days. When i got back to Munich the site IT helped a lot to get me back on the network. But it took someone from India to take over my computer over the Internet and work to reload and make changes to allow me to use my iPass again...so I could log on from off-site. The huge upside, was getting to meet all the great folks....I will post pictures later with some information about each of them.

The food: AWESOME....we were in a hotel that was modeled after Kazakhstan....I will tell you, I love Kazakhstan food. The spices and flavoring was just terrific. I did have Borscht and they pickle just about all their vegetables. It was all very good. My Hungarian friend, Imola, loves her Vodka. Every trip we need to sip on an icy shot of vodka. I just need to say I am not a fan of vodka. She usually gets to finish my too!! She knows her vodka too. Her grandfather used to make his own, but from fruit (plums?) instead of potatoes.

I will post pictures soon.

Dinner in Kaunas, Lithuania

So the team had dinner at a restaurant where the name translated to English is Honeycomb. It was in a kind of catacomb area and made a Honey Beer which is typical to the area. They served the beer by the meter!! We had 2 meters of beer and then another 2 meters!! The beer was excellent. We had one that was dark and then a lighter one.

The woman on the left is Lina (our R&D Subject Matter Expert) and Virginija (the Business Develoment Manager). Lina is so young she doesn't remember the Soviet occupation and Virginija has some of the most amazing stories. Virginija said she wouldn't change her life at all, she knows what she has and is so grateful because she can contrast her life with freedom with her life under the Soviets.

On the far left is Aida, she also has a good memory of the occupation of the Soviets. Then sitting is Lina and standing is Imola (she is a Hungarian from Romania!). You can barely see the other Lina (she is the one above) then it is Virginija and then Jolita (the manager for R&D). What a great group of people I so enjoyed our meal and trying the Lithuania foods.

This next pic just includes me (Jolita is taking the pic). And the next are the fermentation tanks for the beer. One thing I learned is that in Lithuania toasting with out making eye contact results in the exact same thing it does in the the US. I think it might be a Universal knowledge. If you don't look directly into the eyes of the person you are toasting with and clinking glasses with you will have 7 years with no sex. To say the least we were all very careful to look directly into each others eyes as we clinked glasses!!! It is too funny...I confirmed that is this also the case in Germany and France.

Outside the restaurant before dinner, Virginija and Imola. These 2 talked about having to stand in lines for rice, flour and cooking oil. Imola shared when she was a child in Romania, she had seen a line forming one day and went and stood in it until her parents came home from work and they found her there. She said she was the hero for thinking of getting in the line and holding her family's place until an adult got there. Virginija talked about no electricity for weeks at a time, sometimes with no water or sewer. She said that is was always hit or miss and many nights the electricity would be turned off to entire towns after 8PM. What amazing stories. And we have a fit when our electricity is off for 1 or 2 hours.

Next Trip was to Kaunas Lithuania

Boy what a great trip. Kaunas used to be the second largest city in Lithuania it is now the third largest. It is a wonderful city, but I was amazed at how few people were on the streets. The Western Europe Cities are bustling all times of the day and it was so quiet in downtown Kaunas.

Some pictures of the city, some spectacular buildings. When the Russian occupation started many of the churches were converted to Offices or Manufacturing Facilities. It has been in recent years that the communities are working to convert them back to their original state.

This is part of the pedestrian mall in the downtown area. So clean and so quiet. Our hotel was real close to here.

Very cool sculpture in downtown Kaunas.

CUTE TWINS......

Are these the cutest little girls or what!! They were at the Sao Paulo airport and I just needed to take a picture of them.