Friday 20 March 2015

Washington DC and RULE

Sadly there is no big sign (that I noticed) saying "Welcome to the Czech Republic!"
But here we are as proven by the slot for Czeck Krona in the pay toilet at the service station we just fueled up at...
It feels like a lot has happened since my last blog. We spent over two days in  Washington DC, lost some 'time getting back across the Atlantic, and have now had two days in Germany.
I must say, being asked in a German accent why there is no EU exit stamp in my passport at Frankfurt Airport when we arrived was disconcerting. Fortunately it was just a combination of the beautiful colours in the pages of our NZ passport and a very faint effort on the part of the immigation person in Paris that simply made it hard to find - not missing!



Wahsington DC has lots of sights that are familiar to us if we've watched any movies at all - especially Forest Gump! We were staying quite close to the heart of DC, about 10 minutes walk from the Washington Memorial, which we had the opportunity to wander around on our first afternoon. By popular vote we also went into the Aerospace Museum. It had a great vatiety of themed displays. I enjoyed the perspective of the American Airforce on one of the battles we had found out about in Northern France.


Our purpose in Washington was to link up with a Pennsylvanian leadership group set up as an Extesnion intitaive by Penn State Uni - not just our tour, but the 11 guys doing the 'Brazil Tour' too. Every two years they take about 15 people in places of leadership and infuence and seek to further develop leadership and understanding of agriculture. These folk are not necessarily already involved in agriculture but will have the opportunity to be ag ambassadors in some form.Extension here takes a much wider view than we do in New Zealand.
It was good to have some personal connections with locals over these two days. and I have made a friend in Nadine, my buddy :)

Along the way we heard from a deliciouly humorous international trade consultant ("don't be afraid to tell the emperor [read 'client'] he has no clothes"), an ex Senator (who helped us understand the media portrayal of the USA is the 'federal' version of policy, where individual states may think and enact differently) and a lawyer from the American Farm Bureau ("we need to be thinking about omni-channel communication - and infuence the influencers").

On our first day together as a group, the flags of all the nations represented were in the conference room -each country had to say something about their flag. It was just Ben and I from NZ, so I got to do it. USA was last, and we got a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, sweetly led by my buddy Nadine, who, along with her family, is heavily involved in theatre! It was a great exercise, for what it offered us Nuffielders in the way of insight to the passion and allegiance to the US flag, and for what we all learned about one another's history and culture.
On the Tuesday, our second day, we had some pretty special engagements. The Under Secretary for Agriculture met us at the historic USDA building (apparently unprecedented access for a large group of 'nobodies') in the Heads of State room. We sat where many internationally significant people have sat and discussed weighty matters!

Next off to Observatory Circle where many of the Embassies are housed - NZ Embassy was difinitely a touch of home. Unfortunately our ambassador Mike Moore was unavailble as there is lots of TPP activity at the moment in Washington DC, but we were given a great summary of  NZ agriculture and our relationship with the USA in that areana by an enthusiastic and experienced trade policy team member, Jason.


The coup d' gras was a light dinner up at the Naval Observatory, where our host and guest speaker was Rear Admiral Craig Faller. He and his wife are one of four top Navy officials that live on the site - along with the Vice President of America. He discussed some of his posts, including as Director of Operations, US Command, and commanding the first US ship to render assistance after the Boxing Day Tsunami. He talked of how his leadership focus has changed over time to being more trust oriented. He spoke in their Library - housing pretty much any book ever written about astronomy, including the works of both Gallileo and Copernicus - and complete with a wee indoor fountain in the middle of the circular room!

I haven't said anything about Eastern Europe yet - that will have to wait until later!

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