Blossoms of Cape Town

Protea is the national flower of South Africa. Check out these beautiful proteas!

Cape Town, South Africa

Lisa explored the peninsula south of Cape Town, South Africa. Along with some friends from Asia, she explored Hout Bay, Chapmans Peak Drive, the Cape of Good Hope and a penguin colony.

Cape Town is the second most populated city in South Africa. The city was originally developed by the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century. Today Cape Town is very multicultural with people from India, Asia and western Europe.

Chapman's Peak Drive is a narrow road that links Noordhoek with Hoat Bay with views of the Atlantic ocean and the surrounding mountains.

The penguins in the picture are called "African penguins."

Wales and Y Gwyr

Over the weekend we went to Wales to explore the Gower Peninsula as Britain's first "Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)." John interview the AONB supervisor for an article he is working on for comparative environmental law.

Lisa, Laura and Julia went straight to the hair salon for some good Welsh haircuts. Well done! "It was lovely" as they say in Britain. Then we went to La Tasca for some tapas. Nothing like good spanish food in Wales.

John drive us around in a rented black BMW with a stick shift he had to use left-handed and drive on the left side of the road down very narrow roads. Very challenging but he managed to get us around the peninsula with the car and us intact.

After spending some time in the city of Swansea we drove about 30 minutes to the southern tip of Wales to Oxwich Bay where we were staying for the night. Our hotel was right on the beach so we took an evening walk. We were so lucky as there was no rain and the sun even broke through the clouds.

The Gower Peninsula in Wales is known for its grey limestone cliffs and pounding surf. We saw many kite surfers out on Friday night and Saturday. This area is known for it hiking, walking, camping, surfing, extreme sports.

Train Encounter

While on the train from Wales back to London we were all engaged in different forms of media and reading. Lisa, of course, had three things going at once - reading Andy Crouch's book "Culture Making", listening to music on her ipod and watching the game played by the family in the next seat. Laura caught Lisa's attention to pull out her ear buds and listen to the conversation that was happening several seats behind us. We heard a youngish man (maybe mid-20s) talking about how he no longer goes to church and doesn't believe in God. He called his parents' Christian religion and the "conservative school" they sent him to as "brainwashing." Laura and Lisa talked afterward about how this young man must have been hurt or did not see the Christian faith lived out in a genuine way for him to reject it so decidedly.

Cambridge and the Christian Heritage Tour

Today we took the train 45 minutes north of London to Cambridge where we took a Christian Heritage Tour. We thoroughly enjoyed learning about the famous men and women who were educated at Cambridge University and went on to make a difference in medicine, science and government.

We walked to St John's College which was founded in 1511 by Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. This college contains more courtyards than any other college at Oxford or Cambridge. One of the most famouse alumni of St. John's College is William Wilberforce, who became a Christian after he graduated from the college and devoted his life to the abolition of slavery.

The Old Cavendish Laboratory was founded in 1874 by William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire. The first director of the laboratory was James Clerk Maxwell. He was widely known as the scientific link between Newton and Einstein. He was a Christian who had his coat of arms carved in the main door of the laboratory, along with a section of Psalm 111 in Latin, "Great are the works of the Lord, sought out by all who take pleasure therein."

Trinity College was founded in 1546 by Henry VIII and it is the largest and wealthiest college. There are many famous alumni of Trinity College including Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton. Francis Bacon is most famous for establishing the scientific method in his pursuit of studying, in his words, the "book of God's works as well as the book of God's words." Isaac Newton came to Trinity as a very poor students and was forced to pay for his tuition by doing menial work. Newton spent much of his time writing and studying biblical hermaneutics and based his scientific discoveries and his belief in a rational and orderly universe from a belief in a rational and orderly Creator.

Shakespeare's Globe Theater

"Well, 'tis no matter; honor pricks me on. Yea, but how if honor prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set -to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honor? A word. What is in the word "honor"? What is that "honor" Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o'Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. This insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon. and so end my catechism."

This is a quote by Falstaff in the Shakespeare play, "Henry IV, Part I". One of the main themes of the play is the nature of honor. There are several different views on honor the Shakespeare explores and in the end the play leads the audience to conclude that it is merely based on individual personality and conscience. So it is defined more by a person's own values and goals instead of objective guidelines.

Each of the main characters in the play demonstrates a different perspective of honor:

Hotspur - a quick-tempered son of Lord Percy. Honor means victory on the battlefield and defense of one's reputation.

King Henry IV - honor is the well-being of the nation and the legitimacy of its ruler.

Prince Harry - honor has to do with noble behavior (by the end of the play).

Falstaff - the idea of honor is wasted effort and does no one any good.

Lisa stayed for the entire three hour play but John and the girls couldn't follow it and decided to sneak out after 45 minutes.

Dachau Concentration Camp

We visited the Dachau Concentration Camp just 12 miles north of Munich. It was the first Nazi concentration camp and was the prototype for all the other ones in Germany. We learned at the memorial site that the camp was opened in March 1933 by the Nazi Party. It was originally built to punish political prisoners.

Dachau was in operation for twelve years as a concentration camp and recorded over 200,000 prisoners and about 31,000 deaths. Dachau was the second camp to be liberated by American forces and British forces.

We walked through the courtyard between the prison and the central kitchen. The courtyard was used for executions. The compound was surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire gate, a ditch and several guard towers. Two of the 32 barracks are still standing on the memorial site.