Germany, Romania, Hungary and London!

A whirlwind European trip.

We don't have a lot of SPE members in Munich but the Universities there have both engineering and earth sciences students interested in petroleum issues. We caught La Cenerentola at the Bayerische Staatsoper. Munich is a lovely town as well. We managed to make a day trip.

Our meetings in Romania were with multiple universities including UPG Ploiesti SC, University of Bucharest, UAIC Iasi SPE SC and LBU Sibiu. One of the students had arrived following an 8-hour train ride!

My old friend and great SPE champion Vasile Badiu

Great students!
Bucharest is a fascinating town with a lot of history. My wife took a day trip to TRANSYLVANIA! We went to the opera....the cheapest tickets anywhere!

Yep, that's Vlad the Impaler!

Next off to Hungary. I had been there in the early 1990s and wow has it changed. Participated in an SPE Workshop and presented to some students. Jan and I spent a morning at a cooking class and we thoroughly love this town.

gelato places everywhere

No escaping the history in Budapest. This monument of bronze shoes along the Danube is to remember the many Hungarians shot and allowed simply to fall into the river. There is a struggle with the role many Hungarians played in the huge number of deaths of Hungarian Jews and Romana. Easy to blame on the Nazis but the facts show that many Hungarians were more than just complicit.

This statue is quite controversial and there are protests each day as it (is claimed to) whitewash Hungarian involvement in WWII atrocities.

It is a gorgeous town.

We finished the trip in London. The main purpose was the SPEE Annual Conference and for once I was an attendee without any speaking obligations. Nonetheless it was business development for GCA but we did have a Sunday to go to church and a few museums. Saw a Vermeer at the lovely Kenwood House and thoroughly enjoyed the National Gallery. Jan got to be a tourist for a couple days but we at least got to see Wicked! again along with yet another opera.

Other Blogs

You can of course read about my barbecue at This site
My Baker Hughes reservoir blog is here.
My (old) blog detailing my 18 months in Hong Kong is here,

Travel this trip (basically includes airport to airport) 12,915 miles. SPE travel to date 546,370 miles. Round trip earth to moon is 477,800 so THERE AND BACK!

Countries to date (my counting rule is basically that I spent the night there with some sort of SPE content...not just went through the airport like New Zealand or Panama): 45
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Belgium
Brunei
Canada
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
Hungary
Kuwait
Indonesia
India
Ireland
Italy
Malaysia
Mexico
Nigeria
Netherlands
Norway
Oman
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Thailand
Trinidad & Tobago
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom (Scotland, England)
USA
Vietnam

Operas this month =4 Operas to date = 81