Movies: Insurrection, 6, First Contact, ST (2009), 4, Generations, Beyond, 2, 5, Nemesis, Into Darkness, 3, 1, Section 31.

Using Google maps for hotels in the area of Southampton I was looking for the most affordable option that was commutable by train and had settled with the Travelodge in Winchester, Hampshire. I knew absolutely nothing of this place and had procrastinated due to my dislike of making plans and the rail option had jumped to be far greater than taking the bus to Winchester, and the weather was horrid as the tropical storm that devastated my home region was no having the same fun to the folks of the UK especially Scotland and Northern England. Due to this I had decided to go directly to Winchester.

From Heathrow Terminal 2 I had never taken the bus before and following the signage was pretty easy to the Bus terminal. Once there it was like any other bus terminal completely packed with people just waiting around for the bus and a complete mess of what platform any bus was going to arrive on. I had decided on the National Express 203 bus. Which as it turns out is actually 2 separate buses and I was to take the more expedited version.

After leaving the bus station the first stop was to Terminal 4, then Terminal 5. The bus driver was really friendly and announced when we were passing the parked Concorde jet so everyone could look out the window to see it. Once I arrived in Winchester, there was a public restroom I took advantage of and through stress of finding the connecting bus to down town I decided to just walk, the sun had just made its presence so it was a very nice slightly uphill stroll to the hotel.

My first impression of Winchester is that it was more of a small town vibes but was very British and much more what you picture from television of the UK then what you ever see in London. I did not rush at all but in the warm sun my coat was sweaty and I had booked for early check-in just so I could place me bags somewhere for the day. Given that it was no about noon, 8am in my home time. I was rather exhausted and slept a bit for the afternoon.

I then found out that my friend I was hoping to see had caught COVID so I would not be seeing her the next day that was disappointing but understandable, and I was very fearful of catching it prior to embarking on a 13-night Trans-Atlantic cruise. I woke about 5pm by which time it was raining again, go figure it is England of course. So I went to get a meal combo at the Tesco and then returned to the hotel for a fun night chatting with my sick friend, and took a nice shower and watched British TV.

The next morning it was sunny and I walked to the Winchester cathedral and took lots of amazing pictures until it was not sunny and in fact started to rain again. And rain incredible hard, so I paid admission and waited out the rain exploring the Great Hall, the little remaining portion of Winchester Castle. It was pretty impressive to see the history of the community and the role the town played in the Civil War.

This was where a lot of the conflicts happened. There is also an incredible large table hanging on the wall that according to legend was King Arthur’s knights roundtable. Where in reality the table is not that old like 1300’s old, and was later painted probably around time of Henry VIII, but for several generations it was believed to be true and many of the stories in the legend a pictured to be around Winchester, but that was just because the authors at the time it was written believed the story of the table.

Then the sun came out again and it was time to find some lunch, which was coffee and a selection of items from the Winchester Bakery, and set on the wet bench in the sun and listened to a musician perform with an animatronic skeleton on the drums. In the afternoon I spent the day in the Brooks shopping mall as it went back and forth from rain to sun, and rain with sun all day.

In all Winchester turned out to be an amazing choice to stay at over Southampton or London. I really want to return here to see more of the city.

I found the bus stop that I needed for the next morning, returned to the hotel and changed, rested, and chatted with my friend for a bit until it was time for dinner. Come dinner time I went to the pub and ordered a beer, only to learn the kitchen closed at 5pm. After having my beer, I went to the Mark and Spenser’s and picked up a meal combo there and a breakfast assortment of fruit and pastries for in the morning.

At 10:37am and 11:03am I would have still been in this class unaware of the world being changed forever. The class let out at 11:20am and prior to going to the cafeteria for lunch I returned to my dorm room on the 2nd floor of Harrington Hall. The room next to mine had two aspiring musicians and movie fanatics, one from Newfoundland the other a foreign student from Maine USA. On their television in the dimly lit room laid the Pentagon in exploded smoke as the plane had struck the building some time prior. I asked them what movie it was and they then told me what had happened, and that this was not a movie it was live TV. As we were taking it was 11:28am and the 2nd tower had fallen.

One does not go to university for a degree in Journalism without a keen interest in the news, so I powered on my computer, since I had a TV tuner card to view cable. I tuned in to ABC and just watched, I remember skipping dinner that day and just watching for survivors to be found, one after the other. When Peter Mansbridge took over the desk at CBC I switched to CBC Newsworld. One of the early questions was the Premier of NB safe since he was in Manhattan on that morning.

This was a rough bus ride. We drove a while and ended up at the Chateau de Cruix. There was a great wine tasting here. Though the cheese was great the wine had trouble going down after puking so much the night before.

After dinner we had an easy nighty and skipped the party. We also went to the town Napoleon rallied the troops on his final return from exile.

The beads of water are dropping on my head in a nice warm shower as I awaken to hear the alarm sound that it is time to get up a begin the day. I am sitting in a stand up shower stall at the ibis Budget hotel in Paris. As I emerge from the shower to pack up to meet up with the tour group. I see the victim that the room has become. Where my bed was there was the remnants of of the Parisian dinner experience including the 5 bottles of previously consumed red wine on the bed and the bed of the person I was supposed to be sharing a room with. Though in reality he didn’t use the room that night, as in many nights of Contiki after a night on the town, he has stayed in one of the ladies rooms. Breakfast like usual was typical European so not the greatest but would do. I remember waiting on the bus for the hotel to notice what happened and make me pay for everything redecorated in the wine, but never happened. The bus moved! I was free! No, wait OMG, the bus is moving, breakfast does not want to stay down. I must keep it down, I was not going to be the one singled out in front of 52 other people for losing my breakfast. Then the morning song blares the pumping vibes of One Day/Reckoning Song by Asaf Avidan. “One Day baby we’ll be old.” for me that sounded like today, this was the worse hang over my 30 year old self had ever experienced.

After an about two hour drive that I slept through, we at Château de Fontainebleau which was an impressive looking palace with a big garden, that I could care less about. It was where Napoleon after exile returned to form up with his army to reconquer Paris. This is where I have one of only 2 photos from the day. Though all I cared about was finding the store and using the toilet and restocking on some water. Being in France and able to read French turned out to be a benefit here, as I remember several Australians in the group becoming the next victim of sparkling water.

After returning to the bus, we drove several more hours to the Contiki special stop over in Theizé just north of Lyon. The first excursion before we unpacked for dinner and the night was a wine tasting. I really don’t remember much other than listening to how they harvest and make wine and my tummy, yelling “I’m warning you, you better not be thinking about it!” There was samples of cheese freshly made as well that was incredibly good and I sipped at the wine, then chugged the little glass to make it gone, and then had to find the toilet fast. My tummy do warn me, not to do it.

After dinner was going to be the “P” party in the basement. I just wanted to die so I just laid down a bit and then went slept a very good sleep.

Start by going to the Arc de Triumph with the group then ditched them and explored the entire Champs-Élysées. Of special note was the amazing pastry in the back alley. Then from near the Louvre took the Metro to Bonne Nouvelle (Good news). I got out and seen 2 amazing Arches. Then want to the Musée des Arts et Métiers. The place was amazing. I saw a Kilogram and a satellite. After that I walked down to the Hotel de ville and the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. Caught the Metro again and went to Rodan’s house but ran out of time so walked back to meet the coach. Then went up a lot of steps to the church on the hill. Then the Parisian dinner where thought it was a good idea to polish off 4 bottles are wine. The fish dinner and onion soup was great. Then went to Nouvelle Eve and was very drunk, had a few glasses of Champane. When clapping I spilled a glass on Catherine. When show was over, we went to O’Sullivan’s but I was too drunk to be let in so I went to the hotel. Where I passed out and woke up with vomit all over. I then slept in the shower.

This day is by far one of the most memorable that I have ever had while travelling, I would say of this trip as a whole but this was also the trip that originated “the Amsterdam story”. Let’s start with the beginning, why did I ditch the group at the Arc? Mainly because they wanted to wait in the line to go to the top to take pictures, and it was a long line that had not opened yet. I do have photos, just not from the top.

From there I did walk down most of the Champs-Élysées, before cutting through a building to go to the back alley (Rue Ponthieu) where I found Boulangerie du Colisée. Going back to Champs-Élysées I took a picture from the middle of the street looking up to the Arc, before jumping on the Metro. I was taking the 9 train from FDR to Strasbourg Saint-Denis as “The Plan” but the plan did not exactly work out because I seen the “Bonne Nouvelle” station when the train stopped and I just had an urge to get out and see it, and mostly take a picture of the sign.

I just looked up the Arch that I told myself I was fortunate to get off at Bonne Nouvelle or I would have missed. As it turns out was “Statue St Denis” at the Metro station I intended to go to and would not have had to walk an extra 10 minutes to the Musée des Arts et Métiers.

If you have not seen this museum, it is amazing and totally nerd fest, but with amazing art. There were measuring things to measure anything you could imagine and every type of technology that made possible the last two hundred years. Ther building itself is an old church and is one of the best attractions that no one tells you exists in Paris. Google Street View also has the entire inside of the museum.

The church with a lot of steps was The Basilica of Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre. This is an amazing view of Paris and filled with con-artists and pickpockets. There are 222 steps to get to the top, it was windy, cold, and wet both times I was in Paris to see this.

After this we went to a restaurant for a fancy dinner. I do remember that we sat at a long table and had an amazing dinner. There were five sets of bottles of white wine, red wine, and water on the table. The water and white wine were well enjoyed. I came up with the mission that we should not be wasting any of the wonderful red wine, so I finished off the remains of all five bottles of red wine. This was going to be a huge mistake.

As I left the place I remember getting feeling a bit intoxicated and started stumbling down the street with the group headed to take an obligatory photo in front of Moulin Rouge before going to the Cabaret show at Nouvelle Eve.

At the cabaret show there was free sparkling wine included in the admission, and despite better judgement, I drank some more. I don’t remember much of the show after the first number, I have two blurry pics that show nothing, and I do remember spilling wine all over Catherine who I was seated next to.

Upon leaving the show the group headed to the O’Sullivan’s Irish Pub, that I remembered from the 2010 trip to Paris, although this time I could not get in. Surprisingly, the bouncers don’t let in “very polite” over intoxicated people. My group convinced me to get into a taxi. I remember that this taxi driver was not very French, and I had insisted that drunk me only spoke French, so it ended up being a 35€ taxi ride back to the ibus Budget hotel. I remember saying “45 Rue du Dr Babinski” over and over at the guy in a drunken French accent.

When I got into my room, I vomited all over the bed and cleaned the sheets and slept in the shower. So nervous that I was going to be charged an extra cleaning fee since I also vomited on the roommate’s bed.

Continuation of a series from a Travel Log I found from my 2013 Contiki trip

Got up early and started the bus journey. Met the ferry and had breakfast.

Finally made it to Paris. We did a city tour by bus, had some snails then spent the night going up the Eiffel Tower. I took the stairs. It was difficult, but easier than the 1st time.

I did not want to go to the very top but like what the hell and did it anyways.

Then it was 12:30am by the time we got down and took a taxi home.

Day 1 – London

Great flight. Heathrow went quite quickly. I thought that I had food poisoning on the flight as I was very gassy.

Then I went to the Royal National dropped off my bags and then explored the city walked across Westminster Bridge seen the London Eye and Parliament. Then went to Canada Water to pick up a few items at the mall.

Went back to the hotel & checked into my room. Then I met my roommate Probin from Regina, SK. Went to see Westminster and Buckingham Palace. Then back to the Royal National for the meetup and drinks at London Pub.

This was written in the early 2000’s this segment was recorded over and I no longer have the video. It originally aired on Rogers Television on a news program called Focus NB.

Lead: There are many disabilities faced by New Brunswickers. One of the most noticeable is cultural deafness. Our Reporter Charles Frees-Melvin brings us the difficulties faced by the Deaf in day-to-day life.

Stand-up: Deafness is a condition faced by several hundred residents in this province. Many people are unaware of some of the difficulties faced by these people. Gerald Frazee stressed that the biggest concern is the need of interpreters to be present.

Gerald: (48:47-48:59) 12 sec

“Culturally I am deaf and a lot of what goes on in the world I perceive with my eyes, so probably the biggest concern for me would to make sure interpreters are present”

VO: Mr. Frazee can’t stress enough the troubles he would faces trying to cope with day-to-day life without an interpreter.

Gerald: (49:08-49:21) 13 sec

“Oh, Gosh it’s chaos, the communication breaks down, writing back and forth isn’t adequate enough only having an interpreter there are we able to interpret adequately.”

VO: Joanne Burke also agrees with the need for interpreters.

Joanne: (49:24-49:55) 31 sec

“Without the interpreter present I have to rely fully on my Children, and it’s not their responsibility they’re not professionally trained so we have to hire a professionally trained interpreter. and then we can communicate and make designs that we need. For us English is our second language, and not necessarily do we know it so by having the interpreter present, being able to communicate in our language of American sign language we have the confidence to make the decision we need to make.”

VO: Another difficulty is the lack of Public Tele-Type devices so the deaf can make phone calls. Mike Clark definitely thinks that stores and malls should be equipped with these devices for their deaf patrons.

Mike: (59:15-59:41) 26 sec

“A lot of deaf people go into stores or into companies and they have absolutely no devices for us to make phone calls. We must have a teletypewriter. It is a device that deaf people use to make phone calls we need to make in public.”

VO: (Insert Name) and (Insert Name) say they want to see devices installed so that they can become more independent. And that New Brunswick is far behind other provinces in meeting their needs.

Group 3: (04:29-05:21) 52 sec.

“In Ontario they have a lot of services for deaf individuals, flashing alarms for fire in public places, TTY to make calls. When they are in the public however in Saint John there is nothing isn’t anything like that for deaf people, no fire alarms, TTY, every time I have to go to the mall, I have to get a hearing person to make a call for me, but I want to be independent. I don’t want to have to rely on someone else.”

Stand up: A special thanks to Interpreter Shelly Williams for assisting us with the interpretations. In Saint John, I’m Charles Frees-Melvin, for Focus NB.

Weldon Creek #3 Bridge, built in 1923, is 18.3 metres long.

Point Wolfe Covered Bridge, built in 1992, is 28.8 metres long.

Millstream River #5 Covered Bridge, built in 1911, is 28.9 metres long.

Smith Creek #5 Covered Bridge, built in 1910, is 28 metres long. This is the bridge on the 1992 125th Canada quarter for New Brunswick.

Trout Creek #4 Covered Bridge, built in 1905, is 20.1 metres long.

Trout Creek #5 Bridge, was built in 1923, and is 17.8 metres long.

Mirkish Inlet #1 built in 1920 is 66.5 metres long.

When I visited this bridge it was under renovations.

Gaspereau River #2 Bridge, built in 1912 is 49.8 metres long.

Mill Brook #0.5 Bridge, built in 1900, is 24.5 metres long. This bridge is the oldest in New Brunswick and is near a really cool end of an old larger bridge.

Coverdale River #3 Bridge, is officially not in service but is used by a farmer to get to his cow pasture. It is difficult to find from the road without GPS as it looks like a driveway. Built-in 1943 the bridge is 30.5 metres long.

Turtle Creek #4 Bridge, built-in 1912, is 19.5 metres long. It was moved to its present location and has a great view of the lake. It was one of a few bridges with the sloping roof at the ends which I would imagine make it worse in the rain but improves the aesthetics.

This bridge unused to the side of the new road, hidden off the main road was built in 1942 and is 23.2 metres long. It is a nice bridge but hard to see and there were so many mosquitos.

Magnetic Hill Covered Bridge, was built in 1983, the bridge is 17.5 metres long.

Petitcodiac River #3, built in 1927 is 37.6 metres long.

Odellach River #2, built in 1918 is 18.3 metres long.

Quisibis River #2, built in 1951 is 16.9 metres long.

Green River #3, built in 1925 is 28.9 metres long.

Baker Brook #2, built in 1939 is 28.9 metres long.

Kouchibouguacis River #5, built in 1950 is 41.5 metres long.

Graham Creek, built in 1928 is 41.1 metres long.

Tynemouth Creek, built in 1927 is 28.7 metres long.

Vaughan Creek, built in 1935 is 21.8 metres long.

Hardscrabble #2, built in 1946 is 21.9 metres long.

Belleisle Creek #2, built in 1903 is 21.6 metres long.

Darlings Island, built in 1914 is 41.7 metres long.

Hammond River #3, built in 1914 is 55.7 metres long.

Bloomfield Creek, built in 1917 is 44.5 metres long.

Moosehorn Creek #1.5, built in 1915 is 28.9 metres long.

Sawmill Creek #0.5, built in 1908 is 32.5 metres long.

Shepody River #3, built in 1903 is 18.6 metres long.

Forty Five River #1, built in 1914 is 28.7 metres long.

As it turned out there was a roofing nail embedded in my right shoe on the bottom, extending to the heal where the pain was coming from.

Little Lepreau River #1.5, built in 1910, this bridge is 31.9 metres.

This is a disused bridge right next to a modern causeway. There is a little packing area and the other side goes nowhere.

Kennebecasis River #23, built in 1911 is 17.7 metres long.

Kennebecasis River #9, built in 1911 is 22.5 metres long.

Smith Creek #1, built in 1927 is 36.7 metres long.

Kennebecasis River #7.5, built in 1908 is 34.2 metres long.

Ward’s Creek #2, built in 1909 is 17.4 metres long.