Meeting news from our branches around the world.

On Saturday, July 14th, we had the fabulous Yuan Li, a Professor Emeritus from Rutgers University and author of several books on photography. He gave a spectacular slide show about China! Breathtaking photos from Beijing, Shanghai, and Xian. He truly captured the beauty of the people as well as the terrain and helped educate all of us on where to go and what
to see in China. A true inspiration to us all!

Due to all of our summer travelling, there will be no August Meeting, but next month, on September 8^th, we hope to have a talk from Toni Kamis, the well-traveled journalist who has written several travel books and articles

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theater, 154 Christopher Street (btw Greenwich St and Washington St), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm.

Christina in Texas is to hold her second Globetrotter meeting at the at the New Braunfels Public Library, 700 E. Common Street in New Braunfels, Texas. from 3 – 5 p.m. on Saturday, August 11, 2001.

Gerri Wright, from Hastings Book Store will present a review of Travel Books and Tour Guide Books and Trish Ross will discuss Practical Pre-Trip Planning Tips.

Christina’s advice is to come early so you won't be late! The Beetle’s is – come early and eat all the cookies! Handouts and refreshments will be available. Anybody want to help Christina or enquire about meetings, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk

That the combined age of our two oldest Globetrotter members is 174 years!

Let’s talk about the first of the really well known explorers: Christopher Columbus, whose name can be seen all around Central and South America as Cristóbal Colón. Although Columbus was born an Italian, in Genoa, he obtained sponsorship from the rulers of both Portugal and Spain and made four trips to the New World. He was amongst those who believed that the world was round – not a widely held view at the time – and he longed to sail west to the Azores and further, to the legendary lands described by Marco Polo.

As every schoolchild in the UK knows, “In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”. Even though the Scandinavians had reached North America a long time before Columbus, Columbus’ trip was important in that he was amongst the first Europeans to set foot on so many islands in the Caribbean, and land masses in Central and the northern part of South America. The sad thing is that Columbus thought he had reached the East Indies and that the islands of the Caribbean were in islands off mainland China.

Of course, there were commercial motives in all these great ocean-going trips, which often took years to undertake and in dreadful conditions on board. These lay in buying new and exotic spices, although Columbus was not too successful in this – he found capsicums and is also attributed as having bought back tobacco, known locally as a “bewitching vegetable” from the West Indies in 1496. On the one hand, he is believed to have possessed great courage and explored parts of the world that were completely chartered territory – his crew were in constant fear of toppling over the edge of the world. On the other, historians reckon that he was really quite greedy, constantly looking for increased wealth and a terrible administrator (although a fearless explorer) and was cruel to the local people he found in these new territories.

Next month: Vasco da Gama