Tasmania. Ten thousand miles away and about as far away from home as you can get. Tasmania — an island state off the southeastern coast of Australia and about an hour’s plane flight from Melbourne. Its capital city, Hobart, is located on the River Derwent and nestled below the rugged peak of Mt. Wellington. I was there for a brief two day visit this week. My visit to the city was short, but long enough to confirm that Tasmania is not just far away but beautiful as well.
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Germany in February
The D&O Diary is on assignment in Germany this week for meetings in Frankfurt, with brief opportunities to look around in some other places as well. I have been to Germany during the winter before; I know it can be chilly, and it can snow, too. But during my jetlag recovery visit to Freiburg, I was fortunate to enjoy some pre-Spring warmth and sunshine, as reflected in the picture at the top of the post.
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A Mumbai Experience
The D&O Diary’s Asia Pacific tour ended last week with a final stop in Mumbai for meetings and for an educational event PLUS was co-sponsoring with the local management liability insurance education group, Bima Gyaan. I enjoyed the chance to be back in Mumbai. It is a vibrant, dynamic, fascinating place, a place that is experienced more vividly and more viscerally than more ordinary destinations.
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Notes from Sydney
The D&O Diary was on assignment last week in Australia, to attend and participate in the annual conference of the Australian Professional Indemnity Group (APIG), in Sydney. As a result of my travels to the conference, I once again experienced the miracle of modern technology. You can leave your home in, say, Cleveland, and less than 24 hours later you can be walking on a beach in Australia. I have made this trip or its equivalent many times now, but it still never ceases to amaze me.
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Two Cities in Canada
The D&O Diary was on assignment in Canada last week for meetings and to attend a PLUS Canadian Chapter event in Montréal. It was a short sunlit visit to our Northern neighbor, but it was just long enough for a bit of foreign adventure without even leaving the Eastern Time zone.
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A Tale of Two Cities (Illustrated Edition)
The D&O Diary was on assignment in London last week for meetings, a conference, and a reception. The itinerary allowed for some time abroad in the city, and included a weekend stopover in Paris. The main event for the London visit was the annual C5 D&O Liability conference, in which I participated as a panelist. In the picture below, I am standing with my good friends and fellow panelists, Nilam Sharma, of Nilam Sharma Limited; Stephen Reilly of Beale & Company; and Chris Warrior of Hiscox.
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Two German Cities in Winter
The D&O Diary is on assignment in Germany this week, with the first stop for a meeting and a short visit in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg – “Free,” as a free Imperial city under the Holy Roman Empire, and “Hanseatic” for the Hanseatic League, the Northern European trading confederation in the late Middle Ages. Though Hamburg is 60 miles inland from the North Sea on the Elbe River, it is a seaport – the second largest in Europe, in fact. It remains a separate city-state within the present German federation. At 1.7 million people, it is also the second-largest city in Germany.
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Paris, After the Attacks
My European sojourn continued this week with a trip to Paris. I arrived in Paris on Monday morning, just days after the Friday night terrorist attacks. I had been unsure whether or not to come to Paris, and I wasn’t sure what I would find when I got there.
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London Weekend
The D&O Diary is on assignment in Europe this week, with the first stop over the weekend in London. When I arrived at my hotel on Saturday morning I learned for the first time about the Friday night terrorist attacks in Paris, which had taken place while I was in transit. Since the primary purpose for my trip was to attend meetings this week in Paris (to which I planned to travel next after leaving London), these developments certainly put my trip plans in an entirely different and unsettling light. I spent most of my weekend in London trying to decide whether I should travel on to Paris from London or just return home after the weekend.
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A Visit to Prague
The D&O Diary finished up its recent European sojourn with a weekend visit to Prague. After a four-hour train ride northeastward from Munich through forests, farm fields, and low mountains, and a final stretch through the Vltava River valley (the river is known as the Moldau in German), we reached Prague, or Praha as the city is known to the natives. The Czech Republic’s capital and largest city is a bustling river metropolis with a rich cultural heritage and a vibrant night life.
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