Geography Quiz No.2

We're in San Francisco, California, in the USA! The city is on the southern headland of a massive bay - see the aerial picture above. There are three bridges - one north-south across the headlands, one across the northern pat of the bay, and the third from San Francisco across the bay.
The Geography Quiz question is: which one is the famous Golden Gate Bridge??

Answer next time - have fun !

Aircraft data and flight info

Attention, all Techoboys and GeekGirls, information about the aircraft we flew in and the route we took to San Francisco follows:
The aircraft was a Boeing 747-800 (one of the 'stretch' jumbos that has a capacity of 416 passengers), mainly flying at a height of 38000 feet (11000 metres) and a ground speed of 550mph. This plane was the largest commercial passenger aircraft before the new Airbus A380 'SuperJumbo' came into service. For info (and a picture), please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747.

The flight route to San Francisco was north over Scotland, to Iceland, then to Greenland crossing into Canada north of Hudson Bay. Over Canada, we crossed directly over the Great Slave Lake, which is north of Edmonton, Alberta. [It was about here that we waved to our helicopter friend, Stuart, who is currently based in White Court, Alberta]. Passing close to Vancouver, the plane then turned south for San Francisco.

Leg 1 : London to San Francisco : 5358 miles

Wow! Okay, first flight; London Heathrow to San Francisco; 11 hours and 5358 miles. Notice that to get to the west coast of America, we fly north over Scotland. Why is that?? Also we depart at 13:45 (quarter to two in the afternoon) but arrive at 17:05 (five past five) - a duration of only 3 hours for a 11 hour flight. Why is that??

Carolyn is a mistress!

Yes, after a year studing full-time, Carolyn was awarded her Master Degree in History yesterday. In view of political correctness, I prefer 'Mistress' to 'Master':The degree was made up of a series of assignments (about 40% of the marks) and Carolyn did diverse subjects such as The Crusades and White Supremacy in southern states of America. The dissertation ( remaining 60% of the marks) was a 20,000 word essay of an original historical research - Carolyn's subject was the Leicester Borough Jail 1845-1860. Carolyn received a 'Merit' grade (middle between a 'Pass' grade and a 'Distinction').

Well done, Jette!

California here we come

As you know, the first destination is San Francisco in the state of California, USA.

All sorts of trivial, yet bizarrely intriguing, information about the "Golden State" can be found on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California

which has plenty of other links to other related pages (including the name of the State governor).

Answer to Geography Quiz No.1

Hi, there, Quiz Master here. Well the first question in our global geography quiz was really easy - is San Francisco on the western side of America or on the eastern side?

The answer, is, of course, the western side, in the state of California.

California is the third largest U.S. state by land area; yet the most populous state with 36 million inhabitants. Blimey, that's bigger than some countries. Ok, a bonus question for the keenies amongst you: Who is the governor of California at the moment? Question No.2 coming up tomorrow - remember to log on to find out!

Russell and the Chaps

We have had several enquiries asking whether Russell and the rest of the menagerie are coming with us round the world. Well, it would have been nice, but the logistics of organizing all the various visas, permissions to cross borders, etc, well it was going to be an absolute nightmare. And remember the last time Russell went to Europe and Interpol got really interested and was asking all those questions??? I think there must be something shady in Russell's past so this time we are not taking them on holiday.

Instead, he and the other chaps are staying with their Nanna for the duration of the trip; Mum has had to get extra insurance (just in case, you understand), but hopefully everyone will be good (for a change).

Geography Quiz Question No.1

Hi, well, this is the educational part of the blog. Geography - uuurgh! - turgid and boring when sitting in the classroom perhaps; but not when you are actually there and seeing it with your own eyes!

So, just for fun, try our quiz questions - you may know the answer straight away or you may have to look it up (using the Google Earth magic, perhaps). We will give you the answer the next time we post an entry on this blog.

Right, an easy one to start off with. Question 1 :

The first leg of our journey is from Heathrow, London to San Francisco, USA. Is San Francisco on the eastern side of America or the western side?

Answer next time. Phil.

Adventure into the unknown!

This Sunday we are off on our BIG TRIP - there are so many places to see, things to do and people (in New Zealand) to meet. And with so many good times ahead there will be some not so good times as well. But we are bravely looking forward to the adventure together.

Your mission is....Google Earth

Phil here, listen in.... If you want to accept this mission to follow us around the world over the next two months, I strongly recommend installing Google Earth on your computer. It's free, and just an amazing piece of software. Go to:

http://earth.google.com/

to learn all about it and to download it. That's all.... this blog entry will self destruct in 5 seconds... (cue mission impossible theme....).