Graduations, Graduations ...

As it so happened, two of our offspring graduated within two weeks in July:

Regent's University's Graduation Ceremony was a nice affair in Marylebone Chapel followed by a party on the lawn in the University grounds of Regent's Park. 

The graduation ceremony at Oxford University was just slightly more formal in the beautiful Sheldonian theatre : a ritual of greetings and announcements in Latin with English pronunciations, marches up and down the aisle in groups, marching out and coming in again, stick banging and bowing. Not many changes in the past 800 years. 

They will continue as "cost-centres" as both decided to top up their degrees with Masters Programmes. My daughter decided to move to Sydney ... of all places! Has she no regard for her mother??? 

But in case the crazies take over here in Germany, we might need to visit down-under and take refuge there. Although speaking with this odd US American Republican candidate who wants to subject Germans entering the country to a special security clearing, the Australians might not like us either and not give us shelter. 
No - this is too serious to be joked at. We might wake up one cold morning in November and realize with a déja-vu feeling of dread, that the US Americans cold-heartedly and hot-bloodedly decided for a sort of "Amerixit". 

But before turning to that last resort of emigration, we might consider reviving our Germanic heritage and take out the long-swords, like the courageous driver who witnessed one of the attacks on innocents in Bavaria during our own  "septimana horribilis" in July, passing-by in his car. He directed his BMW at the attacker! An unusual way of assistance, but helpful in this case (the madman had managed to kill one person, but it might have become much worse). The killer was immobilized and will face justice. No twenty-seven virgins here :)! We all hope, the driver won't have too many problems with his insurance. And I seriously hope, the other whatever number of virgins, who await all the madmen in paradise, will act like the hopefully wise judges on judgement day, seriously kick in the murderers' faces and cut off their balls when considering their deeds. But knowing the superb support only too well that females can give each other when it comes to men, the desolate realization is dawning on me, that sisterly love might not extend to such helpful gestures.... 
But the times, they may be a changin ... 

The other cost-center is moving from Oxford to London's LSE ... and will certainly need an increase in allowance. Luckily it is only for a year. 

 in front of Pembroke College

and Oxford's "Bridge of Sighs"

As you can easily judge from this rambling post, the main problem of this increasingly  and speedily aging woman-writer-photographer is : admiration-tinged with-pride-tinged with-ENVY at what the young people nowadays are able to do! 

Views from above ...

Continuing from a bird's perspective,  this is a collection of "plane window shots". 
Occupying a window seat on a plane with a camera in the lap, ideally in front of the wings meaning business class, waiting for the plane to make a turn before it goes through the cloud layer, makes one feel like an idiotic "All-of-Europe-in-a-Day" tourist next to the business guys hacking away on their notebooks. I guess, I feel stupid, but they are envious...  But it is the easiest way to get aerial pictures short of renting a high-resolution camera drone. 

Camera settings should be on a fast shutter-speed for obvious reasons and focus on manual - otherwise the camera will inevitably focus on some dirt or scratches on the window.  Then, sometimes, if you are lucky with the weather, and if you have good light, if the pilot flies a steep curve in your favour soon after take-off or just before landing, and if you are quick to spot the image - many if's - , pictures can turn out quite pleasing. 

So enjoy this Quick-and-Easy-Grand-Tour-Around-the-World from above! 

 Sicily from above

patches of olive groves in Sicily 

Africa, the Okavango Delta, Botswana:

in the Okavango Delta,  Botswana

 Boma in Kenya, Masai Mara

Tansania:

Australia:

 in the Outback, Northern Territories

Salt Lake, Lake Amadeus

Kata Tjuta mountains with Uluru in the back

Uluru

The Great Barrier Reef:

UAE, Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed Mosque:

Dubai:

 dotty neighbours

The Palm, Dubai

fishing fleet, Dubai

The Himalaya and Mount Everest 

Singapore

Hongkong

Storm clouds over Java, Indonesia

Iguacu Waterfalls, Brazil 

London

Frankfurt, with the Taunus hills in the background

somewhere over Thuringia approaching Berlin

River Havel with the lakes of Brandenburg around Berlin and the TV tower in the back

Berlin

...and who is the photographer? 

Water horses, the Gods of the Thames and other imaginations ...

My grown-up kids seem to have inherited my Wanderlust. Their choices of places to study and where to live have provided me with many interesting journeys and photo opportunities.

For the past six years there was always one or the other of my three cost centers (to use Ms Moneypenny's allegory from her Financial Times column) studying in London. I have spent a lot of time there, sometimes for fun and nice dinners, and sometimes for support with leaking pipes, mould on ceilings, or water  rising up through the floor or out of the ancient washing machines in rented studio apartments.  London's expensive flats are nowhere technically as sophisticated as their exterior might suggest. ...

Staying with the water theme: on London's Thames river right next to the MI6 building in Vauxhall (the one that explodes in the latest James Bond film Skyfall watched by Judy Dench as M from Vauxhall Bridge ),

the MI6 or SIS building in London

there is a very interesting and unusual installation at the moment : "The Rising Tide"  by Jason deCaires Taylor. These sculptures submerge with the rising tide and rise out of the river again with low tide. 

 low tide

Roughly two hours on either side of the low tide, one can stroll down to the river bank and walk on the riverbed to the sculptures. The ground is soft, but they stand on large slabs of concrete. 

A couple of hours later, the view is totally different. 

 high tide

I never realized (or had forgotten since my last visit to the London flood barrier at Greenwich thirty years ago) that London lies so close to the North sea and the Thames must be rather brackish. The sculptor's message was one about climate change, bad business guys and innocent children. I, however, came to think of Ben Aaronovitch's imaginative London police novels: "The Rivers of London", where the Thames and other tributaries are the hiding places for river gods and goddesses - Aaronovitch has written a series of books  about a London magician police officer with wild and sometimes rather gruesome - not for children! - adventures. 
  
And another story comes to mind, the one of the water horses that swallow girls, who come too close to the river bank,  and make them live and serve underwater...  Isn't it amazing what the best art work does to us? Artists try to make a point, a grand statement, maybe just a cliché, but the best loved pieces are those that everybody can relate to, not in intellectual understanding but in our individual imaginations based on our personal history. 

Another interesting installation this week is Ai Weiwei's exhibition in the Royal Academy of Arts on Piccadilly. The courtyard is full of trees. 

This poster next to the installation  .....   I am quite sure, they did not mean to advertise my blog, but Wanderlust seems to have become an English word. 

So I am sending this postcard from London - to go with James Blunt's song : only a postcard and no dangerous stories of handgrenades, drowning or flooding from my side.