Sport opens many doors: employment; honours; trophies; dinners+meetings. It also occasionally delivers on trips to venues where you may rarely consider visiting outwith an organised tour-such are the risks or hassles: we can think back to visits to Tblisi perhaps, or Dubai/ India+Pakistan when armed bodyguards are requirements for sporting bouts.
This rugby tour to the Pacific Islands by Scotland has really delivered on the cultural & unexpected fronts: even regarding the weather.
After last week's intermittent rains & sunshine the party arrived in Samoa in the early hours of Sunday morning to warm & glorious sunshine.
Early morning runs by the management has seen them report significant sweating even at 7am so we can expect afternoon temperatures to be plus 30 degrees centigrade. Another challenge to the squad whilst training this week then!
Samoa is a group of ten islands roughly halfway between Hawaii & New Zealand with a strongly Polynesian demographic. Whilst the culture of Christianity pervades many aspects of the way of life, sundays here are quiet with churches thronged with people singing in local languages.
One of the Pacific's most famous hotels, "Aggie Grey's" is in the capital, Apia, the largest urban centre with a population 37000 (out of a total if 140000). This colonial building is a remarkable affair with rooms based on traditional 'fales' appearing to be rising out of the jungle with different levels of building giving the feel of a wonderfully rambling construction designed for the tropics. It was very popular with the Hollywood set of the 1950s with visitors like Gary Cooper, Marlon Brandon, William Holden & Cheryll Ladd.
The original owner whose name adorns the hotel had the hotel built as an international hotel in 1900, and famously used to dance the final dance personally at the legendary fiafia evenings from her days of running the 'British Bar' in the 1930s - these are still held weekly and the tradition has evidently been continued on by the current owner, Aggie Grey's granddaughter.
So the well-kent Scottish links to Samoa of Robert-Louis Stevenson/ Tusitala have generated genuine warmth for Scots here in the cradle of the South Pacific.(SPACE blog on Samoa DEC 2011).
The hospitality shown us so far would certainly suggest an affinity between the peoples.
This rugby tour to the Pacific Islands by Scotland has really delivered on the cultural & unexpected fronts: even regarding the weather.
After last week's intermittent rains & sunshine the party arrived in Samoa in the early hours of Sunday morning to warm & glorious sunshine.
Early morning runs by the management has seen them report significant sweating even at 7am so we can expect afternoon temperatures to be plus 30 degrees centigrade. Another challenge to the squad whilst training this week then!
Samoa is a group of ten islands roughly halfway between Hawaii & New Zealand with a strongly Polynesian demographic. Whilst the culture of Christianity pervades many aspects of the way of life, sundays here are quiet with churches thronged with people singing in local languages.One of the Pacific's most famous hotels, "Aggie Grey's" is in the capital, Apia, the largest urban centre with a population 37000 (out of a total if 140000). This colonial building is a remarkable affair with rooms based on traditional 'fales' appearing to be rising out of the jungle with different levels of building giving the feel of a wonderfully rambling construction designed for the tropics. It was very popular with the Hollywood set of the 1950s with visitors like Gary Cooper, Marlon Brandon, William Holden & Cheryll Ladd.
The original owner whose name adorns the hotel had the hotel built as an international hotel in 1900, and famously used to dance the final dance personally at the legendary fiafia evenings from her days of running the 'British Bar' in the 1930s - these are still held weekly and the tradition has evidently been continued on by the current owner, Aggie Grey's granddaughter.
So the well-kent Scottish links to Samoa of Robert-Louis Stevenson/ Tusitala have generated genuine warmth for Scots here in the cradle of the South Pacific.(SPACE blog on Samoa DEC 2011).
The hospitality shown us so far would certainly suggest an affinity between the peoples.
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