Category: Travel
thoughts on 100,000 miles
I had the opportunity several weeks back to drive an old Hyundai Excel – this thing had to be like 100 years old and had about 4 zillion miles on it. I don’t know anyone that owns a new Hyundai, I think they come off the assembly line with 100,000 miles on them. I am just impressed that these cars last so damn long. I was immediately reminded of my roommate’s Hyundai that he had in college our Junior and Senior years… for the amount of use it got, it was certainly the best bang for the buck out there!
I think everyone should own one of these at least once in their lives or live with someone who does.
100,000 Miles!!
I am very excited… last Saturday afternoon (Oct 23), my car made the big jump from:
to
I can’t believe I have had my car that long… I can’t believe that I spend that much time in my car! I can’t believe that I have driven the equivalent of 4 times around the planet at the equator!
Comments on a Canadian wedding
I must say that being back in not only Canada, but Powell River, two weeks back was probably one of the trippiest things that I have experienced in a long time. Actually I cannot possibly express enough thanks to those that invited, housed and put up with me that weekend because I had more fun than you could possibly realize.
However, I just want to say that the only thing which did not cause me JOY on this JOYous day, were the comments of a few rabidly-anti-american folks :).
Moreover, it needs to be stated that when bears come up in more than one conversation about unrelated incidents – there are too many bears in the area.
Canadian Speed
The posted speed limits in Canada are just too damn slow… and the worse thing is that Canadian cops are *soo* much better at enforcing the speeding laws than American ones are.
YVR
I have been doing some travelling this past weekend up to Canada. Some observations from the Vancouver airport from where I had *quite* a bit of time to kill…
- I couldn’t believe that I actually saw sparrows inside the airport. It seemed a little scary that after all the security that you had to go through to enter the international transit lounge, it was still apparently porous enough to still allow birds to fly in and out. It raises the spectre of nuclear tipped Al Qaeda sparrows of mass destruction…
- I really like the Vancouver airport because while it is very new and shiny, it retains it’s personality. It is very distinctly Canadian and doesn’t look like so many identical airports in Europe and Asia.
- It seems to me that they would sell more porn if the newsstands weren’t staffed only by young cute girls.
The Canada Files
This is one of those long running projects that I have been meaning to do for a while, but had always found enough actually important things to do to never have gotten around to it. It first came to mind when I was living in Canada, then becoming engaged to a Canadian and making subsequent trips back to the frozen north added fuel to the fire. Well finally, I have managed to procrastinate away enough important things to make time for this… a reasonable compilation of my rant, raves and observations of and in Canada.
And now presenting…
Toronto Maple Leaves
It doesn’t happen very often. One doesn’t usually have an experience that totally reshapes the way that they think about something, one that fundamentally alters their view of reality. I have had one such an event in my life. This was the second.
It all started two weeks back, I went to Josh and Hiroko’s place to meet their new baby Sarah when Josh made a comment about my hat.
His observation was an obvious one really, I actually feel a little silly for not noticing it myself… "The plural of leaf," he said, "is not leafs, it’s leaves."
Dumfounded, I stared at him. Of course I knew that he was right, but how could this be? How could a Canadian product not use absolutely correct English? And more importantly, could it be that an American speaks better English than a Canadian??
"No, no no… that’s just crazy talk," I told myself… there is no way that such a thing could possibly be true. For the benefit of the Americans in the audience, let me digress for a second to highlight the three primary reasons why this is the case: (1) Canada’s closer ties to England (apparently Queen Elizabeth is still the ruler of Canada, no joke) makes their English better than ours… apparently, (2) their fine English educational system eschews speaking "American" and thinks that a grade 13 is a good thing and (3) well because Canadians say so… vehemently… In Canada, if you say anything vehemently enough, it becomes true. Especially if it is about the United States.
Determined to find a reasonable explanation for this I dusted off my old dictionary (for the first time since high school probably!). Thumbing through the book, I arrived at the letter L and located the word leaf.
Josh was certainly correct, the plural form of the noun leaf is leaves. However, I then noticed the transitive verb form of the word leaf is leafs. Of course… "to thumb or turn, as the pages of a book or magazine, in a casual or cursory inspection of the contents"
Slowly the pieces began to fall into place in my head. Maple Leafs is not a noun, as I mistakenly thought, but a verb phrase, to describe a tree that reads.
I imagine that the "Maple Leafs" must’ve originally been some sort of literacy program, a way to encourage kids to read with their mascot the book-reading-maple-tree. The popularity of this image, the famous tree "leafing" through a book must’ve been the inspiration for the "Toronto Maple Leafs."
That must be the reason… I will never look at hockey the same way again.
Friend of the Devil
I first saw this ad in the back of an airline magazine a couple of years back and it truly frightened me… This is definitively the scariest woman I have ever seen in an advertisement – I mean, is this the face that you want greeting you when travelling to a new city?? It is reasons like this, that people are scared of New Yorkers!
And just in case you are still wondering whether or not this woman is a serial killer or possessed by the devil, look at the phone number… 666…
9/11 + 1, a little later in the day…
I was one of the few people brave (foolish) enough to take a flight on the September 11 anniversary. Not only was the flight on September 11, but, it was a morning, cross-country flight that left New York city on United airlines. As you can see from the above picture, the plane was barely 20% full. There were lots of people wearing patriotic clothes as well as many FDNY t-shirts, though nobody went crazy (with their costume). The other group making a statement were quite a few Jews in traditional garb.
9/11 + 1
Well, just got back from 2 weeks in New York City, probably one of the best trips I have ever taken… it was quite a crazy trip and we did some rather ridiculous things that most definitely changed my life… as I have nothing to complain about, I will save the details for another time and section… More later…
Obligatory rant: As expected, the transition to a new DSL provider (as described in the following entry) went poorly and that is why the site was down till now… for those of you that missed it…
Salim's World 