We made another trip to San Antonio to take Monica to a two day orientation session. The orientation lasted two days and so we had to stay for a couple of nights. Until now we always stayed in the center of town somewhere along the River walk. But this time we decided to stay close to the university which lies on the western side of town. We were thus able to completely bypass the city center, using the outside 1604 loop highway, which cut down traveling time by about 30 minutes and made the whole trip a lot less stressful. The west side of San Antonio lies in a hilly region (mountainous if you come from Houston) and is actually very pretty and modern, very different from the tourist part of town. Monica's orientation went well and in less than a month time we will be making the final trip.

Speaking of trips, we took Alice to the airport this week to send her off on her month study stay in Prague. She managed to make it to the dormitory without problems, took her placement exams and will start to study on Monday. Apparently I was not a very good teacher, she placed in the beginner's class. Interestingly, she is staying in the same dormitory I stayed in when I went to Prague for the Ostracod Congress in 1993, exactly 10 years ago.

(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.) Last year I planted several types of decorative gingers in the shady narrow strip along one side of the house. Ginger is one of the plants that does very well in Houston. This year they are starting to bloom, we already had two and the third kind will flower soon. In the meantime, back in our gardens all the papayas which survived last winter are busily growing. So much so that we are beginning to have a papaya grove rather than a vegetable plot. There are lots of little green papayas and I hope they mature quickly so that we can taste them. That is because by the end of next month we will be moving again, this time to London.









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