Xyre » travel

The first batch of Rome photos

Sam — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:30:27 +0000

I’m back from Rome, safe and sound, though not really so healthy—I seem to have contracted the flu somewhere over the Atlantic. Oh well, it’s given me some time to start the arduous task of selecting editing the 2500+ photos I took, amounting to about 3.7 gigabytes of data. I am going to put these up by theme, starting with today’s installment of amusing and interesting signs (modern, not ancient or papal) in and around Rome. More photos and trip happenings will be recounted and posted as my schedule permits.

It is really good to be back in a country where you can cross the street without fear of being run over by two dozen mopeds.

On the road again

Sam — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 18:08:15 +0000

Once again I seem to have found myself in Vancouver International Airport (49 11 44 N 123 11 00 W), waiting to board the first of a series of flights that will take me from Vancouver to Rome. I am not taking my laptop on this trip, so I have been forced to pay for this hour of Internet time at one of these godawful kiosks scattered throughout the terminal. This kiosk consists of a computer with a display smaller than my laptop’s 13-inch screen, a bolted-down keyboard with a broken space bar, a trackpad located to the right (naturally) of the keyboard (judging by the distance between the keyboard and the trackpad, I would judge it probable that the designer of this kiosk had a right arm as long as the Trans-Canada Highway), no obvious way to make clicking motions or gestures with said trackpad, and a bare metal stool that makes the fabric-covered slabs of steel that Air Canada euphemistically calls ‘economy-class seats’ look downright luxurious by comparison. A few metres from me there is a gaggle of pre-teen girls with matching T-shirts loudly ordering coffee in heavily accented English from Starbucks while giggling and yapping even more loudly to one another in French, obviously thinking that nobody nearby can understand them. There’s still an hour before my flight boards, and I’ve run out of ‘useful’ things to do on the Internet that I’m now reduced to bored blogging. Sad.

At any rate, I’ll be more or less out of contact, unless by some miracle I manage to get some Internet access over the next week. I’ll be returning next weekend, hopefully with lots of good photos of Rome to spam all over this little corner of the Internet. So for now, ciao, and take care!

On the way to California

Sam — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 06:12:30 +0000

Northern California viewed from the air en route from Vancouver to San Francisco at daybreak is a fine enough sight, if you happen to like lots of rolling brown hills. The hills are brown because the vegetation is so sparse: aside from the inevitable pine trees, all there really is on the hillsides is browner grasses and bare dirt. And the hills don’t so much roll as thrust upwards and outwards in very large clusters. It almost looks as if someone has scooped up some dirt and squished it together between her fingers, dropping it back onto the ground in great heaps. Millions of years of plate tectonics have more or less dictated that California—its northern part together with its south—is destined to receive pretty much the ass end of the deal when it comes to geology. So if you happen to be fond of endless miles of not-so-gentle slopes and somewhat uninspiring evergreen forests—and I know more than a few people who seem to be—then the hills of Northern California would be for you.