Vienna day 3 - Schönbrunn Palace

Lourens and I decided to take the day and explore Schönbrunn Palace. Schönbrunn Palace is just outside of the city centre and was the Summer residence of the Hapsburg Royal Family during the Austro-Hungarian Empire.



http://www.schoenbrunn.at/en.html  
After a short tram ride and walk we ended up at the massive courtyard entrance to Schönbrunn. The sheer scale of the palace is so intimidating.  There were a lot of people visiting the palace and what looked like some choir and singing groups who must have been putting on performances there.

Lourens and I decided to go for a walk through the gardens and immediately found ourselves in an unmanicured part of the garden by sneaking through the hedge (a relatively common phenomenon with Mensans to want to end up where you're not supposed to be).

The gardens are beautiful and provided some shade in the heat of the day.

We then went to the gardens on the other side of the palace where a spectacular fountain of merpeople and seahorses is at the bottom of a hill. There are so many amazing marble sculptures. To the right of the fountain is the Tiergarten (Zoo) and the palace labyrinth. 

We then met up with Roeland and went on a tour through the main chambers in the palace. We weren't able to take any photos inside here which was a shame. It was interesting to note that all the paintings and the furniture in there were of the  royals who lived there at the time, Franz Joseph and his family, unlike other palaces where all the paintings are of relatives and ancestors who had gone before. It seemed more like the family home of the royals, albeit on an extremely large and decadent scale. The tour was only one floor of many, but it did give a wonderful insight into the lives of that family. 

After the tour we stopped for a snack and then after deciding not to go in the labyrinth and taking a lot of photos, Lourens and I went up the hill to check out the palace reservoir and buildings up the top. The view from the top was spectacular and was a great way to see some more of the city.

It was wonderful to spend time with the LEAP crew before heading to Bratislava. I'm off to meet Jessie at the airport in the morning and head to Bratislava by bus, so I'll update you all from there!

Vienna day 2 - meeting up with LEAPers!

Peter, Lourens and I were all in Vienna at the same time, so I played tour guide and took the guys to the Stephansdom, then Lourens and I walked the same trail through the Winter Palace and the museum quarter that I did the day before. I could walk the same route one hundred times and still find something new to see, Vienna is so complex and beautiful.

We then took a slightly different route and headed off towards the Parliament, Rathaus (City Hall) and the gardens in the area. The Parliament buildings are so spectacular with all the statues and white marble.

The Rathous is enormous and ornate and there was a film festival setting up in the gardens at the Rathaus, so it was great to walk through all the stalls.

We went through one of the gardens and ran into a Greek style temple.

We then adventured off to find the Opera House and met back up with Peter. The Opera house in Vienna is very beautiful and very famous. There were a lot of people dressed as Mozart promoting a Mozart concert in the city.

We went on a slightly errant tram adventure, and ended up at a warm memorial and fountain. The water from the fountain was piped in from the Alps.

After navigating the Ubahn we ended up back at the Stadtmitte. We met up with Tina and went out to dinner at a traditional Austrian restaurant. It was a great place to sit, eat and talk while enjoying Austrian food into the evening.

Beautiful Vienna!

A beautiful morning greeted us as we flew from Bangkok into Vienna.

 
Today was my first morning in the beautiful city of Vienna. People tried to warn me how amazing Vienna is, but I can't really believe what I saw.

Once I made my way from Vienna Airport to my friend Tina's house, we set off to the middle of this city, through the beautiful old buildings to St Stephan's Cathedral, right in the heart of Vienna.

 It was a beautiful day and was interesting entering a church to take photos when there was a service on, but the people in there looked as though they were used to it.

We then missioned through the city, through the palace, once the winter home of the Austrian Royal Family.

 

We walked past the Natural History Museum and the Art History Museum. Tina told me when these amazing buildings were built, they put the patron saints of the Arts on the Science museum and the Arts on the science museum by mistake. They then covered this up by saying how could they protect a building they can't see, so they had to be on the top of the other building. Nice.

In this photo, the Art History museum is on the left and the Museum of natural history is on the right. The art and architecture in this area of town is absolutely stunning and well worth having a close look. The attention to detail is magnificent.

We then went to the Museum Quartier and had a great meal in the sun looking out over the courtyard.

After this, as the temperature crept higher to 35 degrees Celsius, we decided a great option would be to hit the beach down at the Danube. 

This was a great choice! While extremely busy, there was plenty of room for everyone to swim and sunbathe. 

After tiring ourselves out with lots of hard work down by the water, we headed back into town and hit the gym. I like visiting other gyms, but this was pretty cool because of where it was located. It is in the old Gasometer, where huge bells were suspended in water and lifted depending on how much gas there was. This has since been turned into an apartment building, mall and gym complex, very cool.

So all up, a very full on and exciting day! I'm going to sleep well tonight and can't wait for tomorrow.

First stop, Bangkok!

Just thought I'd send a quick update from Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok! My flight boards in just over an hour for Vienna. 

The airport here is really nice and surprisingly busy for this time of night. Good to take a break and stretch my legs before getting back on the plane. Looking forward to a bit more sleep though!! 

Wooooah! Back into it already!

Well two weeks flew by in an absolute blur! Between sitting assessment for LEADR, sorting out stuff for the NZMAG, catching up with Dimitri and Paris and getting over my jetlag, it all went way too fast!

So here I am again, chilling out in Auckland International Airport, waiting for my flight to Thailand! 

*Token Airport Selfie* Yay!

This trip goes Wellington to Auckland (done, too easy for this seasoned traveler ;), Auckland to Bangkok, Bangkok to Vienna. I'm in Vienna until 31 July, then when the lovely Jessie arrives we're going to mission across the border to Bratislava!

Apparently it's just a quick jump from Vienna to Bratislava so that shouldn't be a problem.

Looking forward to catching up with all my friends from LEAP! 

Changing up my presentation slightly for EMAG, instead of focusing on the percentage of Young Members like I did for USMAG, I'm going to be talking a bit more about my experience as Young Members Co-ordinator, what participating on the Board looks like for me, and a bit more about what I feel leading from within looks like.

It will be interesting to talk about that more. I am very passionate about leadership and the way I try to lead, so I'm definitely hoping for some feedback on my strategy.

I've heard a lot about the cool things Young Members groups are doing in Europe, so I'm keen to learn lots from them I can bring back to New Zealand with me.

I'm meeting up with Laura now, to get a few more NZMAG things under our belt before I go, but I'll keep you updated on each leg of the journey!

DFW- day 5 final day :(

Sunday was an odd mix of sadness, relaxation, hope and excitement. 

Saying goodbye to people I had met at the AG was so hard, knowing that we are going to be so far from each other. We are lucky we live in an era where I can send a  message or make a call to someone on the other side of the world and they will receive it instantly. That, and the knowledge we have so much still to talk about for our Mensa groups, provides some consolation.

 (You guys better all come and visit me!)

Saying goodbye to the awesome other LEAPers was a mixture of sadness, but extreme excitement. We have such a good group of participants this year, with such motivation and passion for Mensa. I can't wait to meet up with you all again in Vienna and Bratislava and continue the awesome work we have been doing.

Jessie and I stayed on at the hotel for one last night, getting out and exploring a bit more of Fort Worth and having an amazing pizza for dinner (and struggling to work out the tip!), before packing to come home.

This has been the most amazing, incredible and inspiring journey so far. Realising that the influence LEAP has is going to continue once I have safely returned to New Zealand stuns me. This is not just a once in a lifetime opportunity, this is a changing a lifetime opportunity. My life is now a leadership exchange, forging connections, looking for answers and hopefully, just maybe, for a few people at least, changing the world.

Stay tuned everybody, EMAG Bratislava 2013 is going to rock!!

DFW- day 4

Saturday morning was definitely a bit rough after having such a good time on Friday, and I shot down to breakfast a bit later than I'd hoped! We headed back to the Pecan Room for Lourens' presentation on gifted children's programmes. Lourens' presentation was more of a discussion group, allowing various parties, including gifted teens, to participate. This session was great and created a lot of conversation and gave us a lot of information. I will post the link to Lourens' presentation when it is ready.

Peter then took us on a lesson in leadership, showing us different kinds of leadership and how an organisation can use these types of leadership to achieve its goals. This was a very interesting presentation and Peter's experience in the area showed. I'll put the link to it here when it is available.

Petr talked about the amazing things Czech Mensa is doing for gifted children in the Czech Republic including a school for Mensans and the Logical Olympics participated in by 32,000 Czech children. I was stunned at the level of involvement Mensa has with school children and kindergarteners and it definitely made me think more about what we can help do in New Zealand.

Geoff's presentation was very motivational, talking about how inspiring members in one area can lead to ripples of energy throughout the organisation. This was a great motivator and put many thoughts in my head about how Mensa New Zealand could expand even more.

After the presentations we rushed back to the hotel, put our glad rags on and went to the Mensa Education and Research Fund reception, where the foundation awarded a scholarship to a Young Member from America. 

-Jessie and I at the reception 

We got to meet and interact with Board Members, Trustees and representatives from all though out the organisation. It was a great opportunity and definitely something LEAP was great for.

The next event was the Gala Dinner, a beautiful feast in the Grand Ballroom. 

The meal was great and the company even better. We watched a comedy show put on for us as entertainment and had some firey table entertainment :P

We then adjourned to the lobby for some LEAP discussion and talked about what we had learned over the past few days.

The grand ball room became a dance floor and the band played heaps of old school music. I hung out with a great group and definitely got some dancing lessons from some of the Americans. Some of the dance moves that night were MUCH more dangerous than others! I then went back to the GenY Suite before crashing after a very log and amazing day! 

DFW - day 3

D-day! Friday was the day of both Jessie and my presentations. We started with LEAP breakfast in Hospitality, a huge room where Mensa members were catered for by the awesome staff at the Worthington Renaissance Hotel. 

We followed up the LEAP breakfast with the first presentation by LEAP chair Isabella, who introduced the program and all of the participants. We each gave a n introduction to our presentation. 

After lunch, Jessie was the first to present her project on engaging isolated members. Jessie's work with TableAus, the Australian national Magazine put her in a good position for understanding how national Mensas could use their resources to  connect these members.

Jessie discussed how there were many different ways members could be isolated , and being a child member or Young Member was one of them. She talked about the importance of engaging these members and had a lot of great ideas I hope to bring home to Mensa New Zealand. I will post a link to Jessie's presentation when it is available.

After lunch I started to get ready for my presentation. I had learned a lot from the amazing members of GenY, the Special Interest Group for people of the same generation as our Young Members and wanted to adapt my presentation to cater for the right audience. I wanted to make sure that the information we were giving about what we were doing here in New Zealand was the kind of stuff that would help American Mensa. It was great meeting Robert, Ben and Billie (and a massive thanks to you guys) who were really open to sharing information and discussing GenY and how it works within American Mensa.

This was all going well, until somehow in my PowerPoint presentation, the videos refused to work. We downloaded the Young Members video and found the YouTube video I needed. Seemed like everything would be fine!

I got to my presentation in the Pecan Room at the Norris Conference Centre across from the Worthington. 

It seemed my technology dramas were not over, with neither sound not Internet working in the room. When I finally got underway, I started reading from my speech, but then found it was going to be much easier to just speak from my experience following my PowerPoint slides. I feel I talk about this all so much it was almost second nature by now.

Everyone enjoyed the Young Members Video. You can see this at http://youtu.be/qQ4ScEYBdNg

The great Kiwi sense of humour translated well and really connected with the audience, so a massive thank you to all who were involved in that!!

I will post a link to my powerpoints (and the speech I didn't use!!) here when I get back to New Zealand! I will post a link to my presentation as soon as it is available.

Everyone who was at my presentation was really engaged and asked lots of amazing questions. It made me feel as though my presentation reached out to the audience and have them some ideas. Because of this I have already engaged with many Mensa members involved with GenY and I really hope we can start and continue a great relationship between Young Members and GenY.

After my presentation we went to a reception held by America Mensa.

This was a great chance to meet some more of the people involved in Mensa and discuss a few more ideas. After this I headed back to the specific hotel suite booked for the members of the GenY SIG and spent the rest of the evening hanging out there. It was incredible to meet so many amazing people in one go!! 

I was glad to finish my day on an epic high. It was such a lot of work (and a long way to go) but I genuinely feel there was a lot of benefit in my presentation for the members of American Mensa and internationally. 

Dallas day 2 - July 4!

Day two started with a great breakfast meeting with my fellow LEAP participants Jessie, Lourens, Peter, Petr and Geoff and Leap committee members Isabella, Cinthia, Roeland and Beth. It was awesome to finally meet all the people who I had been talking to for so long and had so much to do with this year.

We then met and spent the morning discussing our projects, what issues we felt we had and what we were hoping to achieve. I think we learned a lot from the session and had confidence to continue with our work. After this I met with some GenY people for lunch and then explored a bit around Fort Worth. The weather is so nice and warm, but the air on is always on so cold that I'm almost always freezing inside!! 

Found these all outside!

Fort Worth is really lovely with a great mix of architecture. All the streets were lined with American Flags. I went to sit (ed. hehe) on the grass until someone told me that's a bad idea because there are fire ants! I love sitting on the grass so I was very disappointed! 

The grass I wanted to sit on :( another thing about this part of the US is it is so flat! The horizon just seems to stretch on forever. 

I went back and visited the GenY suite where a game I vented by one of the members was being played. Was so cool to see another game someone made in action - Made me so proud of SchilMi,l it's hard work trying things out on people! I hit the gym then went for sushi/thai food with the group. It was interesting, my food was Asian spiced with Cajun seasoning, a new experience.

We then headed down to watch the fireworks.

 They were pretty awesome, but had to stop because something caught fire! They started again a bit later and we watched the end from the hotel. 

Some Americans cranked out "USA, USA, USA" and sang their national anthem at the end, didn't think that happened in real life...

All in all it was a pretty awesome day, but I knew Friday was going to be the day the hard work really started!

Well... An interesting start!

When I got on my plane in Auckland on Monday morning, I definitely didn't know what would unfold. Had a nice day out in Sydney, saw the typical Sydney sights like the Harbour Bridge and the Opera house, then had fish and chips in the sun. If that's what Aussies call winter, I could definitely handle that!

Tuesday morning I went to check into my flight to LA, got there a little bit early so thought I would have a coffee and check my emails. Lo and behold it said my flight was delayed by 6 hours! I was going to miss my connection to Dallas.

I emailed my travel agent, the amazing Andrea at Karori flight centre, then went to the Virgin Australia desk to see what was happening. They didn't know, and went and had a staff meeting.

Flight cancelled. Oh no! Panic ensued, didn't know whether or not I would be able to get to LA. Staff didn't know and weren't able to say whether we could get on a flight the next day. We had to call the Virgin customer service line who at first had no idea what was happening and didn't know the flight had been cancelled.

Fortunately, Andrea was amazing (I will definitely be using her again!) and she got me on a Delta flight this morning and got me a new connection to Dallas. So instead of arriving 10.30pm Tuesday Dallas time, I will be there 2pm Wednesday. So many people didn't make it on and I would hate to think how they are all trying to get to LA.

I met a great girl during all this called Laura ( funny right Miss Burgess?!) and we both found out we had been rebooked on the Delta flight. So we decided to go check into our hotel provided by Virgin, the excellent Rydges Hotel at Sydney International, then did a bit more exploring around Sydney. We went through University of Sydney and checked out all the gothic inspired architecture (my favourite!)

We even saw an eel in the pond in the park!

We walked through the city to Newtown, which funnily enough feels like the Newtown of Wellington, just with a few more nice bars added in. We met up with Laura's friend Sophie and went and had Thai for dinner.

So despite a rocky start, I'm now at my gate in Sydney, waiting for my flight to LA. I've got a quick turn over in LA so I'll post again once I arrive in Dallas! 

Dallas - day one

After we were stuck waiting 40 minutes to get off the plane, I got sent to the wrong terminal and the airport staff thought I'd missed my flight to Dulas, Washington (stupid accent haha!), I finally made it to Fort Worth, Texas! I'm staying in the Worthigton Renaissance Hotel, a gorgeous hotel in Fort Worth.  

I checked in with my roomie, the awesome Jessie Cat from Australia (based in Finland) and went to see what was happening around USMAG.

So, the US Mensa Annual Gathering is huge! There are 1600 people here! There are presentations, games rooms and the hospitality room pretty much running 24/7. 

We checked out the Gifted Youth/children coordinators meet and greet and ran into some of the awesome ladies who keep the children's and teens programmes running in the US. This was really interesting, especially to hear they share some of the same issues as us.

We then missioned off to a group we heard was having a few drinks and ran into the amazing GenY SIG who are the US equivalent of those of us who are in our late teens/early 20s in Young Members! They are a cool bunch and somehow I ended up talking to their coordinator and we went and talked shop for a couple of hours. It was fascinating hearing what he had to say about the initiatives GenY are trying to get underway, and the kind of support they would like from their National Board. Needless to say, I explained why I was there, and definitely hoped I would be able to provide something helpful for them to use.