St Emilion – Hidden Gem
Posted by DaveOlson in entirely personal tidbits on May 21, 2010
Took the train from Bordeaux to a medieval town about 30minutes away. It was an absolute gem of an experience.
A short walk up the hill from the train station took us (Kim and I connected with a group of sixteen students and two professors from Mount Royal in Calgary) into the middle of a UNESCO world heritage site beautifully situated amid rollings hills and vineyards reaching as far as I could see. (long pause to catch my breath after run on sentence).
The village itself holds the largest and only remaining monolithic church in all of Europe. Initially begun in the eighth century by a monk named, oddly enough, Emilion, it was enlarged and expanded during subsequent years by those following in his monastic footsteps. The resulting church building is carved entirely out of the limestone hillside.
In addition to the church, nearly 25 kilometres of underground caverns lie beneath St Emilion’s myriad of wine stores, restaurants, macaroon factories and homes. Although these caverns may have fulfilled entirely different purposes in the past, they are perfectly suited to store and age the wines produced by St Emilion’s 5400 hectares of world class vineyards.
Thanks to Antoine (professor at Mount Royal) we were able to explore caverns of four local chateaus and enjoy a tasting of some of their offerings.
Where Are You Looking
Posted by DaveOlson in creativity, leadership, personal growth, ramblings, self-discipline on May 20, 2010
Seek and you will find.
We’ve all heard that before. It’s been a rally cry for perseverance. If you search long enough and don’t give up you’ll find what you are looking for.
WRONG!
No matter how long you search you won’t find anything unless you are looking in the right place. Thebreward for seeking comes to the persistant but to the one who persists in the right place.
The other day we were in Madrid and decided to go on one of those double decker tour buses. We paid the person at our hotel reception and got directions. I understood that the pickup point was near the bullring we had visited the night before. So off we went map in hand looking for the double decker MadridVision bus.
The problem was I misread the map and turned left toward the bullring instead of right. We waited for the bus for thirty minutes. I asked a couple of people where the bus stop was but my limited Spanish gave very little help.
In the end I reviewed a street map for quite awhile until I realized we were in a completely different part of the city than where the bus stops were. So after walking another twenty minutes we finally found the right bus stop.
My point is this: it didn’t matter how long we searched for the bus we couldn’t find it because we were in the wrong place. We could have persisted all day and never found the bus.
So many people do the same thing in life. They look for answers in all the wrong places. They ask for advice from people who are no farther ahead than they are. They want someone to confirm what they already think not challenge them. If you want to find the solutions in life you need to ask someone who has already found some solutions.
Before you start searching, consider where you will look.
What do you think?
What We Have In Common
Posted by DaveOlson in personal growth, ramblings on May 15, 2010
It’s really amazing how you can spend only a few hours with someone but find common ground in minutes. Even though different by nationality, culture and previous experience, there is something unmistakably human about people.
Those commonalities are much more important than the differences. It’s the similar that brings on laughter and smiles, embraces and well wishing.
Wouldn’t life make more sense and be infinitely more enjoyable if we emphasized our commonality rather than highlighting our uniqueness? But then again it’s the common uniqueness that makes us the same and ties us together.
At least that’s what I think. What about you?
