Wishing you and yours the best this holiday season.
It was a white Christmas in Calgary. I’d like to claim this is me out on the roads … 🙂
Instead — like Santa — I took flight on New Year’s Eve. Flew to Nanaimo and on to Parksville for Christmas day.
My two brothers and their wives were actually in Calgary this year. Randy cooked turkey for us on the 22nd.
Click PLAY or watch a News report on YouTube.
To cross distances on the terminal try the new YYC LINK.
related – A Peek Inside YYC’s New International Terminal VIDEO
I’m heading home for Christmas.
But I’ll be back. For sure.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
In Bermuda for 2 months, I’m staying most of that time in a basement suite near Flatts Village.
This is where Mark Twain stayed on his many visits.
Four of us are staying in Kelli’s house up the hill over Harrington Sound.
Tourists come to Flatts for the Aquarium. And sometimes stay for one of the restaurants. The scenery is great:Â beautiful pastel colored houses, picturesque fishing areas, palm trees.
The highlight for me is the changing of the tides under the Flatts Bridge.
One night we had dinner at a new restaurant called Village Pantry. I had brisket and banana bread pudding. Delicious.
We shared a bottle of 2012 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.
Consider this: You can buy a used Dodge Sprinter (the ultimate vehicle for van dwellers) for about $10,000 and outfit it for life on the road for another few thousand. …
Bikes. Kayak. Camping gear.
The #1 destination for tourists in Bermuda is the Royal Navy Dockyard.
In fact, the largest cruise ships land there.
It’s a tourist trap: shopping, restaurants, beach, mini-Golf, Dolphin Encounter. All seriously expensive.
The highlight for me is the National Museum of Bermuda.
The Commissioner’s House is the focal point.
Recommended.
Read a review.
The archetypical Bermuda house is a low, squared building with a stepped, white roof and pastel-painted walls …
The roofs are designed to catch water, of which there is no fresh supply in Bermuda apart from rain. The walls are designed to restrict damage from hurricanes and are required by law to be able to withstand windspeeds of over 100 mph (160 km/h). …
The government does not dictate paint colour. Increasingly the colours are getting less pastel, more vibrant.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Tiny Bermuda, population 65,000, is hosting one of the major sporting events of the world.
… June 2017 … contested between the Challenger who will be the winner of the 2017 Louis Vuitton Cup and the Defender, Oracle Team USA, the winner of the 2013 America’s Cup.
One of the attractive features in the successful Bermuda bid was its ability to accommodate coveted time slots in each of the respective teams’ home countries. …
Click PLAY or watch a preview on YouTube.
Most people don’t know much about Bermuda. They’ll know a LOT more after TV coverage of this event. 🙂
I stayed 5 nights in Rio’s BabilĂ´nia favela.
Here’s the balcony view.
It’s very tranquil in 2016. I’d recommend you stay there if vacationing in Rio.
Babilônia was controlled for years by drug traffickers linked to the Terceiro Comando (Third Command) organization. In June 2009 police occupied the area without firing a shot. It’s been pacified and gentrified.
The film Tropa de Elite (2007) is about the police actions in BabilĂ´nia in 1997, before the visit of the pope to Rio de Janeiro, when the elite squad BOPE (Special Police Operation Battalion) is assigned to eliminate the risks of the drug dealers in a dangerous slum nearby where the pope intends to be lodged. …
The movie is based on Elite da Tropa, a book by two BOPE policemen (BatalhĂŁo de Operações Policiais Especiais – Rio de Janeiro military police squads for special actions)
Elite Squad was an outstanding commercial success, and became a cultural phenomenon in Brazil. The film won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival. Its sequel, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, released in Brazil on October 8, 2010, holds industry records in the country for ticket sales and gross revenue.
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
Rick McCharles 