19.07.2011 – 19.07.2011  20 °C

A nice calm start for Bookie and Conductor on their last day of their trip (and my last day of my Arctic Exploration Trip). We spent the morning, going to see the Nobel Peace Prize Museum. As someone who has seen both, skip the Oslo exhibition and go to the Stockholm one.. much more informative! The Peace Prize museum gave us a quick overview of previous peace prize winners.. The one’s that struck me are as follows:
– Kissinger (and his North Vietnamese counterpart) were awarded the prize for signing the peace treaty over Vietnam—the N Vietnamese guy refused to accept!—I mean Christ, how can you get an award for pulling out of a war that you shouldn’t have been in and were only leaving for economic and political reasons??
– About 5 different people were awarded the prize in the 20s and 30s for the founding of the League of Nations.. well that was a waste of time wasn’t it?
– Many US presidents have received the prize.. for what???? Carter was awarded for reconciliation work in the Middle East… Obama has been awarded for his speech about putting out an olive branch to Muslim people

Of course there are deserving winners.. The one’s that stuck in my mind were:
– This guy in Bangladesh (I never can remember his name) who won the award for setting up this bank in Bangladesh which is only for poor people.. Basically they are able to obtain loans from him in order to start their own businesses at a very low rate of interest (almost nothing) and a percentage of their wages goes to pay back the loan. I’ve seen a doco about the guy, he has also set up a company in Bangladesh providing interest free loans for solar panels for people’s roofs so that they can run a tv and a fluro light… Its kinda like an Amart interest free scheme, except that they can pay the panels back over something like 10 yrs! All of the panels are made in Bangladesh and so not only are the panels for Bangladeshis they are also made there creating more jobs.. A very deserving winner.. He was awarded the prize because the Nobel committee agreed that his low rate interest loans are pulling people out of poverty which in the long run is the only way to create a lasting peace throughout the world.
– Mother Theresa (of course)
– Yasser Arafat and Yiksak Rabeen (I know the spelling is bad) for calling a ceasefire in Palestine
– Mandella

We went for a bit of a walk after the museum before it was time for Bookie and Conductor to hit the road for the long journey home to AU (we did cut it kinda thin with only 5min to spare to getting them on the bus for the airport! Have the cramps gone away yet Bookie?). I spent the afternoon “netting” and then went out to see Harry Potter VII Part II (for the record, it’s the best one so far).

This is Weary signing out for the Arctic Explorer Blog and signing in on the Teutonic Tales Blog- Denmark, Poland, Czech Rep and Germany.