Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Well I'm actually celebrating Groundhog's day in a sense. We are crossing the international date line and having two April 12ths! So today is my second day celebrating the risen Lord. And now I will be behind the States instead of ahead. All of those days of losing an hour finally gave us an entire day. Interestingly enough-

"the first person credited for circumnavigating the globe was the Portuguese mariner Ferdinand Magellan. He left Seville with 5 ships in 1519, but unfortunately was killed by a local chief named Lapu-Lapu on Mactan Island in the Phillipines on April 27, 1521. However, members of his crew made it back to Spain on the sole remaining ship in early 1522. Comparisons of their shipboard calendars with the date of their arrival in Spain revealed that their diary was a day ahead (e.g. a Thursday rather than a Wednesday) of the actual date, even though they had accurately kep count of the days along the voyage. This discrepancy was of great interest at the time and was understood to be a consequence of faining a day by traveling west to east around the world. Emissaries were even sent to the Pope to explain this geographical novelty. Over the ensuing years, the need to determine longitudinal position with precision was solved by the invention of accurate clocks that would keep track of and httime at a fixed location. That location was established in 1675 to be the Greenwich Royal Observatory in London and the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) became the international standard."

A few albatrosses seem to be living above the water where we are right now. It's amazing how birds can live so far away from land. We are about 800 miles from land right now. They live off the fish in the water and can even sleep in flight- their wings have sort of an automatic locking system that allows them to glide in the wind that comes off of the ocean. Between the professors and the other Lifelong Learners there are a number of avid bird watchers who get extremely excited by bird citings. Which leads to large debates about what type of bird it is, how big its wing span is, etc. Earlier on the trip, between Mauritius and India there were a number of red-footed booby birds.

Just a quick note for now. I have lots to blog about and hope to post about India, Cambodia, China and Japan soon! Always, Rose.