For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.
Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.
Under 30? A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?
Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?
Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we’ll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!
If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites
Globetrotters meeting on 12th April by Christina
The April meeting in Texas provided a plethora of travel tips – from the virtues of ziplock bags to the uses of duct tape when travelling. Each month new people attend this branch meeting (3 in April) and eagerly state they are looking forward to the next meeting.
Coming up May 10th at the New Braunfels Public Library
The May meeting will provide a magical mystery slide trip. Attendees come from Austin, San Antonio, the Texas Hill Country and even Corpus Christi. The May meeting will be at the New Braunfels Public Library, conveniently located 1 1/2 miles from IH35.
Come one, come all. Make new friends and see old ones. Keeping in tradition with the London meeting, the Texans adjourn to the Hoity Toit for more fun and fellowship following the monthly meeting.
Come see us, y’all! Second Saturday at 2 p.m.
The Texas Branch of the Globetrotters Club will meet Saturday May 10th, 2003 at the New Braunfels Public Library – note back to old location.
If you like independent, adventuresome, fun, daring, exciting, “off the beaten path” travel, this club is for you. Our meeting begins at 2 P.M. Come early so you won’t be late! Enjoy handouts, travel talk time, and door prizes!
Dates of future meetings: June 14th
Mark your calendars
For more information about the Texas Branch: please contact texas@globetrotters.co.uk or register for email updates at our website (click here) or call Christina at 830-620-5482
If anybody would like to enquire about meetings or help Christina, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk
Kevin from the UK wrote in to say: “I think it depends also on whether you need a visa to actually set foot in a country e.g. when I came back through Saudi last Xmas, there were lots of people in transit from India, but you cannot get out of Jeddah airport without a Saudi visa. Whereas Changi airport in Singapore actually gives you a free city tour if time allows between connecting flights. So you will in my book have visited Singapore, even if it is only for 4 hours”.
Any more comments, anyone? E-mail to the Beetle
Win a Frommer’s guidebook on Seattle 2003. See www.frommers.com for info on Frommer’s guidebooks.
Some people have said the quiz is difficult, we say do some research; try google.com or Ask Jeeves, if you need help with the answers.
The winner of last month’s Moon guide is Andrew Hindley.
If you enjoy writing, enjoy travelling, then why not write for the free monthly Globetrotters e-newsletter! The Beetle would love to hear from you: your travel stories, anecdotes, jokes, questions, hints and tips, or your hometown or somewhere of special interest to you. Over 7,500 people subscribe to the Globetrotter e-news.
To see your story in cyber print, e-mail the Beetle with your travel experiences, hints and tips or questions up to 750 words, together with a couple of sentences about yourself and a contact e-mail address to Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk
Some thoughts by Padmassana, likening travel to yoga – or the other way round!
He says: “When you travel you are thinking about what you are seeing, where you are going to stay, how you are going to get there, the people you are with. You are absorbed in where you are at that moment in time, not thinking about the past or far into the future. In yoga you are thinking about the practice, the breath, the foot positions and the bandhas. As with travelling, you have so much to think about, you are absorbed in that moment.
In both yoga and travel, you are enjoying being where you are at that time and the clarity of mind and general happiness; you leave behind all the daily worries. I think that yoga has become a substitute for travel for me, for the 48 weeks a year when I am at home”.
You can contact Padmassana by sending an email to padmassana@globetrotters.co.uk
Meeting news from our branches around the world.
Heathrow airport is one of four airports that are almost dotted like the four points of the compass in and around London. There’s London Gatwick to the south of London, City Airport in the east of London and the Beetle’s most hated airport, Stansted, and home of the infamous Ryanair to the north of London. LHR or London Heathrow is some 24km or 15 miles to the west of London.
Before WW2, the airstrip at Heathrow was little more than a grass strip and a tent a little walk away. Back then, it was called The Great Western Aerodrome and was privately owned by the Fairey company and used largely for test flying. London’s commercial flights took off from nearby Heston and Hanworth Park airfields.
As was the case with many airports in large cities, WW2 changed the nature and importance of these otherwise small airstrips. The UK Air Ministry requisitioned the airstrip in 1944 with a view to it being developed as a major transport base for the Royal Air Force. The war ended before the work was completed but this new airstrip with its modern amenities lent itself to cater for the massive post war demand for civil aviation. One runway was ready for use and when the Ministry of Civil Aviation took it over in 1946 a tented terminal was quickly put in place. By 1947, three other runways had been completed and work on another three, subsequently abandoned as unnecessary, was going on. A new and permanent building arose in the central area at the start of the 1950s, replacing the army surplus tent.
In 1955, Terminal 2 was constructed to cope with the ever increasing demand for flight travel. Next came the new Oceanic terminal handling long-haul carriers, a function it still performs as Terminal 3, followed by the opening of Terminal 1 in 1968. Increased congestion in the central area led to the birth of Terminal 4 in 1986 on the south side of the airport, a 10 minute transfer away by tube.
Today, Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports and has 60,000 workers.
Terminal 1: is for all domestic flights, most UK airline departures to Europe plus EL AL and South African Airways flights.
Terminal 2: is for most non-UK carriers’ flights to Europe and some long haul destinations.
Terminal 3: is the long haul terminal for US, South American, Asian and Asia Pacific airlines plus most African carriers.
Terminal 4: is for British Airways long haul and Concorde flights and BA flights to Amsterdam, Athens, Paris, Moscow and Tel Aviv. KLM and Qantas also use T4.