Over the coming month (August), my blogging will be sporadic as there is so much going on this summer between work and home (which is fantastic). I also have the good fortune of the boys really starting to enjoy golf this summer (they played 9 almost every day last week), so I get the opportunity to really bring the game back after that 4 year hiatus. I do love golf …

I am just finishing pictures from Banff. It is the first time the family has been to the province of my youth, Alberta. What is there to say about Alberta and the Rockies? It is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Glad that we are finally exploring our home country.

And of course, who ever wants to be inside with an Ontario summer like this? Feels like it is perpetually 32C with sunny as the wonderful Ontario norm, lots of Vitamin D to go around. After all, according to Statscan 2 in 3 Canadians do not get enough Vitamin D from the sun each year. I wonder how much of that is from too much sunscreen to compensate for the fact that many of us 40 year olds grew up with no sunscreen and are overcompensating?

We flew from Lapa Rios to San Jose, Costa Rica (a 45 minute flight) and instead of making another 12-14 hour travel day, spent the night at the San Jose Marriott. We were not disappointed, as it was just a relaxation stop to make the travelling more palatable. Great service, beautiful grounds and good food.

I don’t know if I would make the trip for the driving range though.

  I tried to get the groundskeeper to explain to me the name of this tree. It didn’t work out (He did not speak English). The fruit was very interesting looking.

A small colonial church sits on the grounds.

I also stocked up on 10 bags of Costa Rican coffee beans. I have been enjoying them every since. And with that, we left Costa Rica. I would highly recommend it. Next time, we need to get to the volcanoes.

I had the opportunity to enjoy Aruba last week for business. I have been throughout the Caribbean but never Aruba. While there, I frequently heard people say that it is their favorite island. I have to say that it would be right up there.

The beaches are beautiful, there are tons of good restaurants, it is a small island – so easy to get around (only 35 miles long) and of course, it is Dutch. It was odd to see Dutch troops on the island on a few occasions. Once at the airport as they unloaded a plane, once in the evening as they jogged down a street. The best part of being a Dutch protectorate was of course, the easy access to Gouda (smile).

While in a taxi, I asked a local about his schooling. They follow a Dutch curriculum with an active focus on languages. They teach the local language Papiamento, French, Dutch, English and Spanish. When they reach University age, they can travel to Holland and enjoy full Dutch benefits – subsidized schooling, student loans. Makes our system of English and a little bit of French seem inadequate. Something that I have noticed in many other countries, their focus on other languages is much greater than ours.

The island itself is what you would expect, a few sightseeing opportunities but really all about the beach and restaurants. A fantastic ‘relax’ location. It is absolutely beautiful.

With only 20cm of rain a year, there isn’t a ton of wildlife. But there are some very pretty birds.

Ironically, I caught a cold while down there. HA. Even with that, I would highly recommend it. Especially with a dollar at par to the US.

While hiking in Costa Rica the guide pointed out what I thought he called ‘fake trees’. After a few days, I realized he meant fig trees. The figs grow around the trunk of another stronger, bigger tree and over the course of a hundred years, slowly choke out the original tree, leaving behind a massive – but hollow – fig tree. Very cool.

It is neat to see what hides in those fig trees ….

The trees were huge. Our guide pointed out one tree that he estimated at 500 years old. We asked about rings and if that is how they determine age. He pointed out that due to having only 2 seasons, the trees don’t really have rings like in North America.

This is a tourist tree. Why? Because it is red and peeling.

The guide said there were something like 100 different types of palm trees. This one has roots that ‘move’ the tree over time to keep it in the light. New roots will reposition the tree by ‘walking it’ to a new location if needed.

The new roots are well protected.

I asked about this leaf – was it dying? No, this is the color of a new leaf.

Termites were everywhere. Some of the nests were huge.

What I didn’t realize was that termites die in the sun so they build these little tunnels all over the trees. The guide opened one up to show us the activity.

I also saw where citronella comes from. This is a citronella plant in the natural state. Break the berry, rub it on and you smell like a lemon.

Last observation on the plants … big trees … and really big vines. One vine was so big (must have had a .5M diameter) that the boys could stand on it midair.

And I loved the earthy smell.

The agenda at the Lapa Rios lodge is pretty simple, wake up to a great breakfast, pick an activity, return for a great lunch, pick an activity, go back to your room and then return to the central lodge for an amazing dinner. The next day, repeat.

With 1,000 acres of jungle on the doorstep, the most obvious activity is one of the many hikes – from short hikes to all day hikes. On our second day, to ‘get our feet wet’, we did a short 3 hour hike called the Waterfall hike. As you can imagine, it was through the jungle, along the river with 3 waterfalls along the way.

Everywhere you go there is something to see. Whether it is a beautiful plant or flower, to a monkey or a beautiful bird. The resort has many guides, for that day our guide was a trained botanist with a lot of knowledge and passion for the rainforest.

As we hiked I marveled at the density of the jungle. I could not imagine being an early Spanish explorer trying to make my way through. It is a wall of vegetation.

Taking photos leads to 2 challenges, the first being the volume (I took 2,000 photos while there) and the second being the height of the forest. With a 60m to 80m canopy above you, and a very high UV sun, you are often shooting into the sun, which means photos with all of the wrong shadows. Something this junior photographer (with much to learn) needs to research a bit more.

A great example, this is a Howler monkey staring at me. In the end, I just looked for elevation opportunities (which is a story for another blog entry).

That being said, there was no shortage of photo opportunities. One guide said that Costa Rica hosts less than .5% of the worlds land mass and something like 20% of the worlds biological inhabitants. If they measure by number of insects, I would tend to agree.

The colors are so much more diverse in Costa Rica.

A passion fruit. Had never eaten one before this trip, they were very different, as you eat the seeds. Eating a crunchy fruit was definitely different.

We came across three waterfalls on that first hike. The first was shallow so we stood in it and cooled off.

The second was a small falls with a very deep pool, so we swam (it was very hot).

The third was for jumping. We spent a lot of time and went back to the 3rd waterfall a few times.

Who wouldn’t want to?

We flew into Costa Rica via the capital, San Jose. Two things about the airport:

1. If you have children, you can skip the incredibly long lines. There is a line for people with kids (under 18), and I figure this saved us at least an hour on arrival and departure.

2. We were taking the regional airline to get us to the Osa Peninsula. It is right beside the primary terminal but you need to go outside and walk over. A cab driver tried to insist it was a drive. It was a 3 minute walk.

Turns out that the small prop plane we were taking into the jungle was brand new, and armed with the latest technology including a full Garmin GPS based auto pilot. It looked very high tech and comforting. I have to admit that this aspect of our travel was the most concerning for me. You don’t really hear about big airlines crashing often, but you do hear about ‘Air (insert 3rd world country name)’ going down. I was glad to learn that this wasn’t a small outfit .. but part of a big company.

The technology that had not changed was the stick on the tail. As we checked in, they weighed everything, including us. Seems like weight has a significant part to play in our ability to climb steeply out of the valley so that we can clear the mountains. The stick is an old fashioned weight measurement. If the tail hits the runway … to much weight …

It was an uneventful flight to Puerto Jimenez. A little rain, but quite the sights to see at such a low altitude.

I am just glad we were not flying with these guys …(look closely beside the shed).

Our family just came back from 10 days in Costa Rica. It is the 16th country that the boys have been to and a truly amazing place that lives up to all of the rave reviews. I am just finishing the photos and will post over the coming week.

As we passed the days in Costa Rica, I became more curious of the roots of country. Where has the culture evolved from? Flying in to San Jose at the end of the trip, I was left wondering, what do people do for a living beside tourism?

Looking at this house, in the middle of the jungle, I wondered (as I had done many times during the trip), is it a agrarian, subsistence level living? How do you earn money living in the middle of the jungle?

When we were on our kayak trip, we passed by this fellow’s home on the shore of the ocean. Our guide explained, probably one of 30 people over 10 km. It sure looks like a subsistence or ‘living off the land’ living.

Reading the book The History of Costa Rica (which was written by a Canadian) was very enlightening (although poorly written). The country is the only stable country in Central America, virtually devoid of civil war that has plagued Central America (except for one notable action by the American William Walker in 1854). They were quick to adopt universal education, medical care and the socialist mentality. And as this sign points out … they have not had an army for a long time.

It seems to be working. I was speaking to a farmer who had the opportunity to go to University (his sister speaks 6 languages), and he has returned to the farm. It is not a life filled with the North American luxuries, but he seemed happy.

But then again, this is his backyard …

Loved learning about their culture.

I love a great sunrise. I have seen a different, beautiful one every day for the last 10 days. This one was the most beautiful, and gone forever in less than 15 minutes.

A sunrise from deep in the jungle. Another first for us.

One last post on the beauty of Barcelona. There was a mistake with our hotel reservation, it did not coincide with the date of departure. In a convention filled city my travelling companion and I were left to figure out one nights stay. The hotel was nice enough to find us a place across the street. Accidentally, we walked into the wrong hotel, but they had 2 rooms at a good rate so we took them.

We stayed at El Palace. I want to stay there next time … the hotel entrance tells you why … (and at the price of the Hyatt in Toronto). A picture of the lobby from my BB.

A picture from their website …

It would appear that we were very lucky, as the hotel has been under massive renovation. Watch the price sky rocket in 2011. It was nice for a night.

I was in Halifax a couple weeks ago and walked out to the harbour in the early morning and snapped off these photos with my point and shoot.

It looked like a cold day to be heading to sea.

On the way to the airport the driver had a book on the great Halifax explosion.

The Halifax Explosion occurred on Thursday, December 6, 1917, when the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, was devastated by the huge detonation of the SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship, fully loaded with wartime explosives, which accidentally collided with the Norwegian SS Imo in "The Narrows" section of the Halifax Harbour. About 2,000 people were killed by debris, fires, or collapsed buildings and it is estimated that over 9,000 people were injured.^[2] This is still the world’s largest man-made accidental explosion.^[3]

At 8:40 in the morning, the SS Mont-Blanc, chartered by the French government to carry munitions to Europe, collided with the unloaded Norwegian ship Imo, chartered by the Commission for Relief in Belgium to carry relief supplies. Mont-Blanc caught fire ten minutes after the collision and exploded about twenty-five minutes later (at 9:04:35 AM).^[4] All buildings and structures covering nearly 2 square kilometres (500 acres) along the adjacent shore were obliterated, including those in the neighbouring communities of Richmond and Dartmouth.^[2] The explosion caused a tsunami in the harbour and a pressure wave of air that snapped trees, bent iron rails, demolished buildings, grounded vessels, and carried fragments of the Mont-Blanc for kilometres.

I spent a half hour reading about different experiences, who was to blame and how the entire city was levelled. The best story being of a boy, who ran down to the waters edge with his mates to watch the burning ammunition ship. When it exploded, he was thrown 500 feet and lived. A fascinating story. It also marked the beginning of a strong relationship with Boston. A few days after the disaster, a train showed up, unannounced and filled with American doctors and nurses.

Halifax is a beautiful place, I will need to come back when this is open …..

Can’t believe I forgot my charger, my BB doesn’t do these justice.

On the last evening, we had an hour before the sun went down so we walked up the main boulevard near the hotel. We happened on a few Gaudi buildings. The last time I was here, my family joined and we saw a lot of Gaudi, but we missed these. The Casa Batllo:

Casa Batlló (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈkazə bəʎˈʎo, bədˈʎo]), is a building restored by Antoni Gaudí and Josep Maria Jujol, built in the year 1877 and remodelled in the years 1904–1906; located at 43, Passeig de Gràcia (passeig is Catalan for promenade or avenue), part of the Illa de la Discòrdia in the Eixample district of Barcelona, Spain.

The local name for the building is Casa dels ossos (House of Bones), and indeed it does have a visceral, skeletal organic quality. It was originally designed for a middle-class family and situated in a prosperous district of Barcelona.

A few low quality pictures.

You just don’t see these types of buildings anywhere else in the world.

And of course, the huge bank building.

An amazing city, where the architecture is beautiful and the Espresso just tastes better for some reason … One day I will get back there and do the Picasso museum again. When we did it 2 years ago, the boys could only handle 2 hours of Pablo .. and he deserves at least 4.

I have been in the city for a few days and a few things are top of mind:

• It amazes me how the city does not start until 8PM. We were at a restaurant last night, arrived at 8:00PM and it was empty. We were asked to wait until 8:30 (when they opened) and it did not get busy until 10PM.
• Lots of people speak English except the cab drivers. I have yet to meet one who speaks English. BUT they all listen to English music, often bad 90s English music.
• I can’t believe that they still allow smoking in restaurants. But there must be something going on, because in some places I see people standing outside, but in others .. they are smoking inside. Maybe it is a timing thing (i.e. After 9PM … you know, dinner time).
• Scooter drivers are almost as crazy as British scooter drivers (but not quite). They love to pop down the middle of the stopped cars at a light, jumping the queue. And scooters are everywhere.

• I am with a few colleagues and I was laughing as they went through the ‘no iron shock’. What do you mean I cannot have an iron and I have to pay housekeeping to iron a shirt? Welcome to Europe.
• I was shocked when I read the local news and the current state of the Spanish economy. The collapse of the real estate market (and the foreign investment) has been a major contributor to the current unemployment rate of 19% with 40% of young people out of work. Terrible.

Even though it has rained every day (being inside, not like it makes a difference), I remain in awe of European beauty. The architecture, even if run down, is beautiful. And from some reason, a cappuccino in Barcelona just tastes better? Excuse the photos, my camera died and I lost the USB .. so camera on BB.

There is a huge Green theme at World Mobile Congress this year. Although not relevant to Canada, it was very interesting to see the radio systems that could be put up in remove areas, powered by the sun or wind. They were everywhere.

The last time I was in the Frankfurt airport was on the way through to Prague in early 2007. I was on my way interview for a role in England. I remember one thing, walking off the plane at 6AM (like I just did) and being hit by the smell of smoke. Inside the airport were these odd stands with vents in them and people all around them, smoking. The idea being that people would smoke and the vents would suck in the fumes. It did not work, the whole place smelled like smoke.

Since being here last, looks like they have upgraded.

This tunnel felt very European for some reason. I have no idea why, but déjà vu of London.

As we flew into the city, the sun was rising and it is cold like home (-4). What I noticed out the window was a lack of streetlights. Had this been a North American city, it would have been completely lit up.

Different is interesting.

I have not been to Europe for 8 months and I do not relish the flight there. The flight going East is always the worst, you lose the hours (5-6) and never get sleep (I have yet to succumb to the fix that my fellow travelers continue to recommend – a hard hitting pill). You get off the red eye, a full day ahead with little to no sleep, and your body clock upside down.

I love the flight West. All you have to do is not go to bed. Stay up those extra 6 or 8 hours and then when you finally do go to sleep, at 4AM home time but 10PM local time, you are completely exhausted and have a high chance of getting 7 hours solid sleep. The benefit being that you are on the only one in the gym at 5AM ….

That being said, I cannot wait for Mobile World Congress. Fantastic event.

I have been travelling a lot over the last 6 months, Montreal, St. John, Halifax, Calgary … Vancouver. The coming few months are no change with trips to Vancouver, Montreal, Barcelona (Mobile World Congress, can’t wait!), Aruba and Costa Rica planned. These are just the ones I know of … I had to turn down Jamaica and Bahamas.

Our upcoming trip to Costa Rica will be amazing. We are staying at the Lapa Rios ecolodge in the middle of the jungle, very remote. We land in San Jose and take a 45 minute flight into the jungle. We cannot wait. Swimming with dolphins, hikes into the jungle, waking up to Monkeys and Parrots on your doorstep. A life adventure.

That being said I am breaking one of my key travel rules on this trip, never fly on a third world airline. They just sent me a note that they are delaying our plane in March, which will fly us from the capital into the jungle, due to operational issues. I hope they get if fixed before we arrive.

From my Blackberry 9700 (Yes, I finally upgraded from my trusty PALM Pro). One of the most spectacular sunrises I have seen in the last couple months. I wish I had brought a real camera.

But the water looks REALLY cold.

The above was shot from Signal Hill, the spot where the inventor Marconi sent the first transatlantic wireless message. (Correction: I presumed he was Canadian immigrant, he was actually an Italian Fascist).

It is also the spot where the British finished off the French in 1762.

And the spot where many European bound ships left to help fight the Nazis.

Great place. New time I will being my 200mm, maybe I will see a whale.

If you are Canadian, you live in Toronto (or Ontario or Quebec – somewhere in the Eastern time zone), you know where I am. The jingle keeps popping into my head.

To quote:

I hate to burst your bubble…the best place we found for gelato in Italy, after having travelled from Sicily to Rome up the coast on a 3 week trip was a small place in Taormina, Sicily called "Pasticceria Gelateria D’Amore" where the fresh flavours and fruit shaped/flavoured ice cream was to die for!

Noted, for the next time in Italy. Via.

Everywhere you go in Italy you see gelato. Very quickly you learn that not all gelato is the same and a local explained it to us best, ‘The more stuff on top of the gelato in the display, the more artificial it is’.

It worked, the below looked very cool but wasn’t that great.

The best gelato? Florence, at a place called Grom  where their slogan is “Il Gelato Come Una Volta” or ‘Gelato the old fashioned way’. A quick web search shows that they have shops around Italy and now in New York, Paris and Tokyo. I love this statement in their ‘about us’ section:

What makes us happy? A child smiling while eating a Grom’s gelato.

It worked.

For some reason, photosynths are not showing up on blog entries. I love this technology, my synth of the Fontana di Trevi can be found here.

We stayed at the Hotel Imperiale while in Rome, which is quite central and leant itself to quick subway access and the opportunity to roam .. Rome. One of the challenges of travelling in Europe is that the hotels are old and often accommodate no more than 3 per room (Spain is notorious for this), which means 2 rooms. In this case, across from each other – which has not happened often – but was an interesting start.

We dropped everything and headed out the door. We had mapped a first day walking route, thanks to a tour book and an article on the plane which highlighted the ‘Top 10 things to see in Rome’ (good timing).The first stop was the Trevi Fountain, just beautiful:

In 1730 Pope Clement XII organized a contest in which Nicola Salvi initially lost to Alessandro Galilei — but due to the outcry in Rome over the fact that a Florentine won, Salvi was awarded the commission anyway.^[8] Work began in 1732, and the fountain was completed in 1762, long after Clement’s death, when Pietro Bracci‘s Oceanus (god of all water) was set in the central niche.

Salvi died in 1751, with his work half-finished, but before he went he made sure a stubborn barber’s unsightly sign would not spoil the ensemble, hiding it behind a sculpted vase, called by Romans the asso di coppe, "the "Ace of Cups".

The Trevi Fountain was finished in 1762 by Giuseppe Pannini, who substituted the present allegories for planned sculptures of Agrippa and "Trivia", the Roman virgin.

Walking through the city quickly gives you a feel for Rome, the cafes, the hustle and everywhere you look, amazing architecture. We headed east to the Temple Adrioano and then down to the Pantheon.

The Pantheon (pronounced /pænˈθiː.ən/ or /ˈpænθi.ən/,^[1] Latin: Pantheon,^{[nb 1]} from Greek: Πάνθεον, meaning "Every god") is a building in Rome, originally built by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt in the early 2nd century AD. A near-contemporary writer, Cassius Dio, speculates that the name comes from the statues of many gods placed around the building, or from the resemblance of the dome to the heavens.^[2] The intended degree of inclusiveness of the dedication to "all" the gods is debated.^{[citation needed]} Since the French Revolution, when the church of Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, was deconsecrated and turned into a secular monument, the Panthéon, the generic term pantheon may be applied to any building in which illustrious dead are honoured or buried.^[1]

The building is circular with a portico of three ranks of huge granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a pediment opening into the rotunda, under a coffered, concrete dome, with a central opening (oculus) open to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon’s dome is still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. The height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 43.3 metres (142 ft).^[3] A rectangular structure links the portico with the rotunda. It is one of the best preserved of all Roman buildings. It has been in continuous use throughout its history. Since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been used as a Roman Catholic church dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs" but informally known as "Santa Maria Rotonda."^[4]

The plaza was busy, but not full. Many people enjoying the sun. How unique it must be to be to walk out of your apartment and lounge in front of the Pantheon …or it is probably like in England where people don’t really think about it, that is just the way it is. The building itself is spectacular. Personally, I found it interesting to walk in and see how the Christian symbols dominate a building built for non-Christian gods.

The entryway.

The tomb of the first king of Italy.

I cannot ascertain if this is Mary or another, but it is pretty good bet that it is Mary.

The people lounging in the glorious Roman sun around one of many obelisks removed from Egypt.

Canadians could learn from the European’s flair for color.

We sat and enjoyed a gelato beside the Pantheon (one of many this trip), although the pig head was a bit disconcerting (and for sale)

We continued our trek to the cat sanctuary.

One of the things that is different between the North American and UK school system is breaks. We are just reviewing the boys upcoming school term and the breaks still exist, but they are often 1 or 2 days long – hard to travel. In the UK, they have one and two week breaks scattered throughout the year. This makes travelling much more flexible and frequent.

Last April, our spring term break was focused on Italy. It is a place where Narda has been, but I have not. To go to Rome was high on the ‘must do’ list. Our agent planned a 12 day trip that covered Rome, Florence and Venice. Having finished the last of the pictures (finally), I will post on the different cities. It was an amazing trip.

It all started in Rome, the birthplace of civilization. It is truly amazing what the Roman’s accomplished so early in our history, citizenship for everyone, plumbing, democracy and on and on, before the world was plunged back into medieval times. As you drive into Rome, that proud history was everywhere and the architecture is breathtaking. We knew it would be a good trip.

Even the most common of streets is filled with character.

A few weekends ago our family went to Owl Whitewater Rafting on the Ottawa river. The drive there gives you a real feel for just how big Canada is, driving for hours and hours through the forests. It also makes you wonder how some of these small businesses survive on a 3 month season.

All along the road were motels. I had to snap a shot of this one, and I had to wonder … who would stay there …

On the rafting side, it was amazing. Owl is a great outfit. The staff were great. The river was at 10’ so we were able to do all the rapids. The food was good and the facilities were simple but clean. After all .. we were ‘roughing it’. What I did not realize is that Ottawa has the 2nd largest set of rapids in North America. It was pretty amazing.

I had a waterproof camera along for the ride. Lots of fun.

And we were lucky enough to have the sun come out.

A cool Canadian adventure.