Go West young man?
Go West young man?
I have now reached the age where a lot of my contemporaries are thinking about retirement. Rather than scaling down my commitments, I have taken on extra work by becoming a student again (part-time) in mid-2007 when I started a European Masters course in Bioethics (previously often known as medical ethics) – learning more about many of the issues I have been working on for CARE for Europe in Brussels for the past 7 years and researching latest developments. So far this has involved attending classes at different European Universities (Leuven in Belgium, Nijmegen in Holland and Padua in Italy) but after spending Christmas and New Year in Camborne, Anne and I have now crossed the Atlantic to the New World where we will be spending 3 months while I carry on my studies as an exchange student in Cleveland, Ohio.
After flying to New York and spending a couple of days sightseeing, we took an overnight sleeper train to Cleveland starting with a spectacular view of sunset over the scenic Hudson River valley. The train deposited us at Cleveland at 3.30 am to find deep snow and bitter cold, but we were well wrapped up as we had been warned to expect this. We were met by a former university chaplain who we are going to be staying with in his clapboard house in the suburbs.
It certainly knows how to snow here! We’re attending a Baptist Church (the only church within walking distance!), and this morning when everyone was ready to leave, the cars in the car park had accumulated a good 4 inches of snow! We’re fast getting a reputation as ‘the hardy Brits’ as unlike most people, we don’t have a car, and use the bus for transport. Our hiking boots are getting a lot of use too. But the bus takes me directly to the university campus in less than half an hour.
In our short experience (one week so far!) the American reputation for friendliness is well founded – practically giving our life story when buying a mobile phone seemed strange at the time, but we’re discovering that people are genuinely interested in why we should be here (especially at this time of year!) and concerned that we’re warm enough, and that we take care when out in the snow.
We expect to be back briefly at Easter, before returning to Brussels. In the meantime, an interesting piece of trivia that could come in useful in a quiz! Did you know that in 1879, Cleveland became the first city in the world to use electric street lighting?