Killer Mosquitoe Swarm Attacks Regina

I skipped a long bike workout last night. I sometimes do that if I’m feeling fatigued, or the weather is not nice, but this time the reason for missing my workout was inexcusable. I went golfing! Yes, me, golfing. I was invited to the driving range by a couple of friends last night. They asked me to join their group for the annual corporate golf tournament and I think they felt that I needed some practice before the big day. They even promised to supply beer. I had no choice, they forced me to go.

I golf once a year and this was my annual trip to the range in preparation for the annual corporate golf tournament (May 29^th). When we got there, the sun was shining, 27 degrees Celsius, and a light breeze was blowing. We wacked a few into the outfield (except for me which couldn’t get any past the 50m mark..) and were having a pretty good time. Everyone was happy, orderly and were generally having a good time.

All of a sudden, a swarm of killer flies surrounded the tee boxes and proceeded to feed on the golfers like a pack of vicious vampire bats or wolves finishing off their prey. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating a little… they were mosquitoes, and I got bit about a dozen or more times. My point here has nothing to do with the mosquitoes, but rather the reaction of the golfers. It was really interesting to watch and would have been interesting to interview each of them afterwards to get their perspectives on the situation. Some golfers ran to the clubhouse in a panicked frenzy (we’ve already established that I can exaggerate), some slapped a few of the hungry bugs and then headed to the club house for a respite, some kept hitting balls and slapped the thirsty critters between swings (me), but the real pros simply reached into their golf bags, put on bug spray and continued driving balls without worry.

This made me think about the reasons why I dislike the game of golf. I now realize that it’s not because golf is a frustrating activity no matter how well I hit the ball, nor is it because it takes decades to master, it’s not because it takes way too long to play 18 holes, nor because you’re often forced to make small talk with other players, nor is it because no matter how hard I swing the club I never, ever get an adrenalin rush. No. Once I put a lot of thought into it and applied the theory of Occam’s Razor, I came to the realization that it’s because I just plain suck at the game.

But following the bug incident, I now have one more excuse at my disposal, just in case I have a bad game on the 29^th. ;-)

Cheers

R

Deja Vu!!
I couldn't figure out how to change the title of the blog so I created a new one that's not called Erotrip.
(turns out you cant change the blog title...)
So I posted the last few posts from the Eurotrp blog over here and will make this my permanent home.

Update your browsers, here is the new link -->http://www.tritanium1.blogspot.com/

Back in Regina now. We had a rather long but fortunately uneventful flight back from Amsterdam on Friday. I'm still getting used to the time change - finding it hard to stay awake in the afternoon and seem to be waking up at 5am and being fully awake!! I could get used to that.. Now if only I could learn to get up and make the best of the time between 5 and 8am.

Kelsey and I suffered from culture shock a little while in Europe, especially with the population density. I now realize that we live in the least populated province of the country which boasts one of the lowest population density in the world. We were a little shocked by having to cram our bodies into the tram or subway.. Guess we're just not used to having people in our "personal space" - reminds me of the Sienfeld- Close Talker episode..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGVSIkEi3mM




Cheers, R

We are doing well in Amsterdam :-) This is a city that I could get used to as people are friendly and cycle everywehere. someone should try to replicate this in North America to see if it would work. The city of the future is 1500 years old!!






The garbage workers are on strike so there are piles of garbage everywhere and lots of floating rubbish in the canals everywhere but I still love the city and just have to imagine that the garbage doesn't exist and that there are flowers everywhere.













So far while in Amsterdam, Kelsey and I have seen many many sights including a the Van Gouh Museum, the maritime museum/science center, lots of sight seeing and a canal tour. Today we plan on renting bikes and touring around a little more.













The people here are great, the food is amazing and I love the progressiveness of the city.

More pictures at

http://s817.photobucket.com/home/tritaniumr1

The 3 words that best describe Paris are as follows and I quote: "chaotic, expensive and selfserving"

Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed our time there very much, but found that an overall sence of confusion everywhere twinned with an overtone of "it's not my problem" and backed with a feeling of "every man / woman for themself" feeling.

It was interesting coming from London where the tubes are very well organized and easy to follow to Paris where the traffic patterns within the public transit are not intuative and in my opinion are not well engineered.

OK enough with the complaining and on to the good stuff.

We saw so much culture, art and architecture that we quickly hit overload. We went to the Muse de Louvre on our first day out. There are no words to describe the Louvre and it something that everyone should experience at least once in their life. We spent quite a bit of time in the sculpture wing. I am still in awe that we were standing a mere foot away to sculptures that were carved 3-5 thousand years ago!!!

The Eiffel tower was very impressive, especiallysince it was build 125 years ago.

We spent quite a bit of time walking around the canals and around the city admirring the city itself.

On our last day there we walked the champ elysse from Le Grand Palais to the Arc de Triomph (sp). Then spend the rest of the day shopping in the area. I had to use the toillets in the afternoon but couldnt find one, then finally, I saw 'the sign'. It was a beautiful pink sign that said 'WC" with an arrow. we followed the sign for about a half km, but when I finally reached what was to be my destination, I looked in to see a designer bathroom shop. I must have looked confused and perplexed when the tall french woman asked if she could help me; I replied that I needed to use a washroom. Her response was "well of course sir, the cost is 2 euros and you can choose whichever designer you wish". I gave her my 2 euros and chose the Yves sait laurent designed decor for my stay.