The Squamidian Report – June 10 / 17
Issue #785
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
I must say, it's easier to get to the Vancouver airport at 5am or
midnight than it is at 4 in the afternoon. It doesn't help that the
only way to get there from here is to go right through the core of the
city although no matter how you would or could get there you must put
up with west coast drivers and traffic. We gave ourselves lots of extra
time on Thursday afternoon in order to be there for shortly after 4 in
order to pick up Lorne and Cindy and Gale. Good thing we did because
you spend a lot of time not going anywhere when trying to get there but
we eventually did in fact, get there. As we drove along Granville after
getting through the city core I noticed that there was no traffic
coming toward us. We then came to the reason why, a crash had all the
north bound lanes totally blocked. That meant we might have some issues
trying to get home when we left the airport so once at the airport and
having collected the visitors, we simply hung there for a while and got
a bite to eat in the food court before diving back into the traffic.
Luckily, by the time we headed out the crash site had been cleaned up
and traffic was moving at a nice brisk crawl. Once back through the
city and onto the Sea to Sky it was a breeze and we were home before
7pm. So now we have a house full of visitors. Perhaps I'll let you know
how that went in next weeks letter.
In the mean time I'll talk a little bit about climate change before handing you over to Greg's travel adventures....
We as a society are taking a totally wrong approach to the issue of
climate change. You see, the Earth's climate has been changing all
along, right from the beginning when two gas molecules got together and
said “hey, lets form a climate around this planet”. For most of the
Earth's history the climate was tropical with high carbon and oxygen
levels. It was during that vast span of time that plant and animal life
erupted and thrived. Plants grew so fast and lush that the coal beds
formed. Animals grew to staggering size and the oceans teamed with
life. Then, along came the ice ages, there were several of them. The
stable tropical state had somehow been disturbed, perhaps sun or orbit
cycle disruptions or whatever, but things changed big time. Ice ages
are not very friendly places for life to exist. We are just now coming
out of the last one and we don't seem to realize that the Earth is in
fact trying to revert back to 'normal'. So what we are doing wrong is
we are trying to fight and correct climactic warming, if it is indeed
warming, when we should be learning to adapt to it as it shifts and
adjusts. Wasting time and resources and taxing the heck out of
everything in order to fight a changing climate is a stupid waste of
opportunity, although it does make a lot of politically elite types,
and power hungry persons very rich and even more powerful. A return to
an ice age would wipe us out, a return to the normal state of a
tropical world would bring its own challenges because we don't like
change and don't react well to it but we can and must both adapt and
embrace it. Otherwise, we will just end up as a small footnote in the
history of this planet.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Well, we’re home and all settled back into the Canadian way of life.
It’s good to be home but the experience of Rome was well worth the
trip. We had nothing but bright sunshine and warmth for the entire trip
and of course that made for excellent photo opportunities wherever we
went. Once we get the photos on the computer I’ll be sure to send out a
selection of our best. As I stated last week it was an adventure to
just walk the streets of Rome without twisting an ankle or getting run
over by a scooter. We spent every day walking the streets and of course
sight seeing in every direction. There was so much to see and like
Carole said during our stay, “It’s impossible to take a bad picture in
Rome!” and she is absolutely correct! Adam took most of the photos
because he had his top-notch camera along. I don’t know if you remember
this from our trip to Europe a year and a half ago but we came home
with more than 7,000 pictures from the three countries we visited. This
time we don’t have a running total yet but I figure it’s around the
2500 mark. Every corner we turned afforded us photo opportunities
galore! Here in Canada it’s difficult to find a building that’s much
more than 100 years old but in Italy that’s considered a new structure!
We viewed so many buildings that were 700 to 1000 years old and still
standing. The primary materials used to construct their government and
most religious buildings are granite and marble and those two materials
seem to last forever! The colour of most of the historic structures is
the colour of sand and like I said last week, they simply glow in the
bright Italian sunshine. We spent every day walking and gawking at the
marvels of their historic buildings. There were churches on almost
every block and you could enter and take pictures anytime of the day.
We were awe struck at the beauty of the inside of the churches and in
particular the amazing paintings on both the walls and the ceilings of
every one of them. If you look at the skyline of the city of Rome, you
can’t help but be amazed at the number of giant domes that top so many
structures. Most of them are atop churches but they also sit atop most
of the government buildings. When we entered the churches the domes
became immediately apparent. It was impossible to stand in the center
of the church floor and look directly upward at the highest point of
the dome without losing one’s balance. At least I had to make sure I
was steadying myself somehow before doing so! The ceilings were all
adorned with the most incredible paintings and it made one wonder just
how the artists were able to accomplish such works of beauty! Most of
the ceiling domes are at a guess, 100 to 200 feet at their peak and the
paintings are large enough to enable you to see even their smallest
detail. The beauty of these works of art never ceased to amaze us! I
believe it was on the second day of our stay that we walked another few
minutes from our apartment and happened upon a structure called “The
Pantheon”. It’s a church that is one of the oldest in Rome and it’s
fronted by another “Square” with a beautiful fountain in the middle.
The Pantheon is a round structure I would guess to be about three
hundred feet in diameter with a squatty dome. The walls are at least 60
feet high and the dome reaches about 150 feet at the center point with
a glass 50-foot diameter window in the center. That was one of the most
spectacular sites I recall on the trip. You can stand in the center of
the floor and there are no pews within a hundred feet of that point in
any direction. It’s just a huge open floor space with amazing marble
works of art built into the floor. There are beautiful paintings in
grotto’s all around the inside perimeter of the building as well as
alters in every third or fourth grotto with pews lined in front of each
one. We spent about an hour touring this one church and taking
pictures. The square out front of the building was beautiful as well.
There were 8 huge granite pillars that held up the peaked roof of the
front entrance of The Pantheon and the entrance itself was a photo
opportunity to behold. In the square the fountain was a popular photo
site for tourists including us! There were about a dozen horse drawn
carriages parked in front of the building that one could rent a tour of
the city in. I imagine that would have been a nice way to spend an hour
or two!
Also in the square was a young woman who had set up her bicycle with a
trailer attached. It contained a battery-powered amplifier into which
she had plugged an electric acoustic guitar. She sat on a chair
as we stood and listened to her play and she began to sing in Italian a
beautiful version of “Hallelujah” by Leonard Koehn. The crowd in the
square gathered in front of her as she sang and were mesmerized by her
beautiful voice! She had an incredible voice and I’d be shocked if she
wasn’t a professional recording artist! She was playing for whatever
people tossed into her guitar case and by the reaction of the audience
I wouldn’t doubt her case was overflowing by the end of the day. She
was an amazing talent with an incredibly beautiful voice! Some
recording executive should have been listening to her that day; she’d
be a star for sure!
Of course that was but a small part of
our day and we continued to explore for several more hours. Each day we
ate lunch and dinner at a different street-side café` or restaurant and
each one was a new experience. Most of the eateries had their menus
both in Italian and English so we could tell what we were ordering. Of
course we ate our fill of pizza during our stay and also tried a good
deal of other Italian fare. I think the best dish I had was true
Italian lasagna. Their pizzas were amazing and there were so many
different toppings and types that the meals never became boring. One of
the most interesting meals I had was spaghetti with baby clams. I’m not
the adventurous meal type but like they say “when in Rome”… LOL! Carole
and Adam tried Steak a couple of times and were not too impressed with
Italian beef! I did do something that I rarely do and that was to have
a glass of red wine with several of my meals. I gotta say, they make
darned good red wine in Italy!
One of the pleasures we enjoyed while in Rome
was just walking along the riverbank of The Tiber. The river is about
fifty feet below the street level and there is a wall about chest high
lining both sides of the river. There are river boats that will take
you on a sightseeing cruise of even a dinner cruise if you prefer. We
opted not to do either as we had so much else to occupy our time each
day. The river is not the cleanest looking body of water but it’s main
deterrent is the brown colour of the water. You can even stand at the
wall and look down to watch the many large Carp feeding along the edges
of the river below. I would imagine that the view from one of the
riverboats would be slightly obstructed by the high walls lining the
shore on each side. You can climb down large stairways by each of the
many bridges that cross the river throughout the city and walk on the
concrete walkways that have been poured along the rivers edge. We
preferred the view from up at street level. Canada isn’t the only
country that has food trucks in their large cities. Rome is populated
on the larger streets by some portable food trucks but it also has
permanent food truck sized structures on many of the street corners.
They sell everything from souvenirs to food to ice cream at these
establishments. One of the many quirky souvenirs that they sell is a
men’s chef’s apron that is printed with the front of a naked man on it!
LOL!
If a man were wearing shorts under one of these aprons he’d look quite
naked for sure! We laughed out loud when we saw these for the first
time! Those Italian men sure have a strange sense of humor! Speaking of
strange customs, I told Carole before we left home that she should be
aware of the habit that Italian men have of pinching women on the
bottom in a crowd! LOL! Fortunately or unfortunately Carole went the
whole vacation in Rome without experiencing this phenomena! I offered
to accommodate her but she said it just wouldn’t have been the same
since I’m not Italian! Hahahahaa……!
Well, I think once again I’m going to leave our adventure off at this point for this week!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again
next week in The Ontarion Report where our adventure in ROME will
continue!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Are Gelato and Ice Cream the same thing?
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Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
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