Last night in South America
I'm having a relaxing last night here as I worked out I have a 35 hour journey ahead of me tomorrow. I fly from Rio to Santiago where I have about a 3 hour layover, then from Santiago I fly to Auckland. For some reason I can't get off there and I have to fly over to Sydney where I have another layover, and then from Sydney back to Wellington. All told, 35 hours from the time my first plane takes off to the time I am supposed to land in Wellington. So, taking into account the fact I'll be leaving my hotel 3 hours before the flight, that'll probably work out at 40 hours of travelling.
I went to H Stern today...it's a big chain of jewellers, but apparently Mr Stern owns the subsoil exploitation rights for about 60% of Brazil. The subsoil belongs to the government usually, but he has bought the rights and so can dig up all the gemstones. In Brazil there are naturally occuring diamonds (interestingly panned for in rivers rather than mined), imperial topaz (only found in Brazil and has a wide range of colours), blue topaz, tourmaline, emerald, opal, ruby, sapphire, citrine and rubies. I wasn't planning on buying anything to begin with, but I have always liked opals, and I had a look at some they had on sale. I eventually after about an hour of umming and ahhing, bought two small ones (a snip at about 40 pounds total), one with reddy-orange fire, and the other with more bluey-green to make into cufflinks, and a large one (about 260 pounds) which has beautiful blue-green fire with a few specks of red in it as well.
This evening I did the particularly unglamourous task of doing some laundry and buying some aspirin to take before my epic plane flight...
Anyway, I am going to go back to my room, so see you all on the other side...
Ken
I went to H Stern today...it's a big chain of jewellers, but apparently Mr Stern owns the subsoil exploitation rights for about 60% of Brazil. The subsoil belongs to the government usually, but he has bought the rights and so can dig up all the gemstones. In Brazil there are naturally occuring diamonds (interestingly panned for in rivers rather than mined), imperial topaz (only found in Brazil and has a wide range of colours), blue topaz, tourmaline, emerald, opal, ruby, sapphire, citrine and rubies. I wasn't planning on buying anything to begin with, but I have always liked opals, and I had a look at some they had on sale. I eventually after about an hour of umming and ahhing, bought two small ones (a snip at about 40 pounds total), one with reddy-orange fire, and the other with more bluey-green to make into cufflinks, and a large one (about 260 pounds) which has beautiful blue-green fire with a few specks of red in it as well.
This evening I did the particularly unglamourous task of doing some laundry and buying some aspirin to take before my epic plane flight...
Anyway, I am going to go back to my room, so see you all on the other side...
Ken
posted by Ken at 2:29 am
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