Bordeaux Vielle Ville

Bordeaux Vielle Ville

Walk around Place Camille Julian, then to the river, the nearby Place des Bourses. I walked right over the famous Miroir d'Eau (no water during winter!).

Visited the city of Bordeaux free museum there, then walked to the main tourist information office and had a quiche and sandwich (delightful fresh baguette, ham & butter) at an outdoor café facing the Grand Théatre.

We hoped in vain for some performance at the reportedly beautiful Grand Théatre. We instead purchase boat-tour tickets at the tourist office, then walked further, following our host's suggested walking trail, through the Quinconces Garden, then tired and returned home. Out later to Place Camille Julian for some escargots, of course

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Where we are working now

ISG Jubail School is the Anglo-American school for this area: Jubail is one of two planned industrial cities in Saudi Arabia, given a special royal commission for development and planning. Our district, the seven schools of International Schools Group, runs the school in the other industrial city -- Yanbu -- as well. Jubail is on the east coast, between Dhahran and Kuwait. Our nearby "big city" is the tri-city metropolis of Dhahran-Khobar-Dammam, where all the big shopping malls and quaint old markets are, along with the central 3 schools of our district, where Coleman attends high school. ISG Jubail has 410 students -- an average of 2 homerooms for each grade, K-10. Class size varies, up to 22. I have 12 in my required course "Computers & Information Management"; Barb has 12 students in her first-grade class. Most of the teaching staff come from the U.S., some from the Commonwealth. Several teachers are wives of engineers an...

Driving everyone crazy

One of the lightning rods of dissent in the Kingdom is the government's refusal to permit women to drive. We know of no other nation with this ban; and to compound the confusion, there is apparently no explicit law banning it, just a reference to a decree in 1991. Like the other irritating restriction of the niqab veil, it also has no basis in the Koran, and therefore is not easily upheld in Sharia law. Recently the first name "Manal" has become a symbolic name, as the divorced Aramco IT expert -- she received awards for her expertise a few years ago -- drove a car near Coleman's high school last month and published the feat on YouTube. The deliberately banal video inflamed the sensibilities of the Saudi police, who detained Manal in the women's reformatory for 10 days. Her lawyer carefully pointed out that there was no law against her driving, and further she carefully avoided any reference to the Facebook group urging women to all drive on June 17th. St...

Reservoir of European Youth, Parliament

A few days ago I walked to the nearby Pasteleira Park, planning to visit the city museum at the Reservoir. Walking through the park I noticed a large group of young people gathered in a circle, engaged in team-building activities. My days in education attuned me to the spectacle and piqued my interest, so I sat on a nearby bench and watched as a succession of enthusiastic students ran to the center and started an activity, which all the others joined enthusiastically. What sort of group would this be? A typical high school class would include a portion of disinterested teens, and others only half-heartedly participating. This crowd was unanimous in their excitement. I also noted that the leaders were speaking in English, though the breeze muffled the words. I walked around, found a couple of older participants on the side, with official-looking lanyards, and asked: this was an activity of European Youth Parliament , simil...

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