Olympics - The Good Old Days

I really like watching the olympics, both winter and summer.
My favorite events in the Winter Olympics are the slalom skiing and the snowboarding events and hockey. The USA-Canada match yesterday was great; I have to say though that I would still like to see Canada get the gold on their home soil this year.

I found this article on wired.com, about some of the events which were held in the past in the olympics, but have since been discontinued:

The 1900 summer games included a swimming obstacle race with things like fences and boats for the competitors to navigate. Sadly, this event was never seen again at the Olympics, along with equestrian long jump and two-day cricket. It would be too awesome to watch Michael Phelps climbing out of the water to jump off a platform and then dive under a string of floating barrels.

That would be awesome! I would watch a swimming obstacle race or a horse long jump any day instead of ice dancing /*barf*

Another highlight was the first Olympic medal won by a person of African descent when Constantin Henriquez de Zubiera won a silver in the tug of war.

Tug of war? That is awesome. That is a sport that truly divides the men from the boys - even though it is usually played during recess...

The 1924 Olympics saw the first use of a 50-meter-long pool with marked lanes for races. In gymnastics, 23 men were awarded a perfect 10 in the rope-climbing event, which has since been discontinued.

Rope climb! It is like 8th grade gym class on a world-class competitive level! That is awesome. And all those guys got a perfect 10 - wow, we just don't have athletes these days like we used to!

I wouldn't mind seeing some of these events come back. They seem a lot more interesting than synchronized swimming or curling. Here's to the Olympics returning to their roots!

Today, here and there

1. Today is Canadian Thanksgiving.
   Happy Thanksgiving to all you Canucks! I'm going to celebrate by watching Canadian Football via Sopcast.
   BTW - I just found out last night that in Canadian Football, they only have 3 downs instead of 4, 12 players on the field instead of 11, and 110 yard fields. They also have gigantic end zones. Bummer the CFL wasn't successful in the US; everything except for the 3 downs sounds like it makes for a better game.
   
2. Today is also Columbus Day.
   So, happy Columbus Day to all the Americans out there, except of course to the Native Americans and everyone else who has an ideological objection to Columbus Day.
3. We found a new apartment to move into, and will be moving at the end of November.
   It is about double the size of where we live now, so we will have a lot more space and comfort. The new place has a big kitchen/dining area, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 2 balconies. Balázs will have his own room, and we will have an extra room for an office/guest room.
   We're happy to have found this place. It is owned by someone we know, and is actually in the same building as Shane and Marianna. We will be neighbors!

Happy Canada Day!

To all Canadian friends and/or all Canadiophiles - Happy Canada Day, eh!

Here's Jim Carrey on being Canadian:

Nerd Fact

Rosemary often says that my brain is full of "nerd facts" - silly facts that I bring up in sentences which begin like: "Did you know that..."

Here's the nerd fact for the day: Hungary is one of only 4 countries in the world that use the date format of yyyy/mm/dd. The only other countries that format their dates this way are Lithuania, China and Mongolia. This is interesting, because the main theories about the origin of the Hungarian people is that they are an eastern people group, with closer relations to Mongols than to the Slavic and Germanic peoples around them.

Another interesting thing is that the United States and its territories are the only places where the dating format is exclusively: mm/dd/yyyy - Canada and Kenya also use this format, but they use others as well.
Maybe we should conclude that this proves that Canadians and Kenyans actually descend from the USA.

Here's the map - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Date.png

Shopping Abroad (cont...)

A few months ago I wrote a post about shopping abroad, about how we love to go to grocery stores in other countries, and what things we like to buy in different places.

After our last trip to North America, in which we visited all 3 N.American countries (I don't know if Greenland counts as N.America or not...), I thought I should update the list.

Canada

• Buckley's - Cough medicine made from pine needles, among other things. This is probably one of the worst things I've ever tasted. Its kind of like getting slapped in the face or punched in the stomach, but it certainly works to help with congestion or a cough.
  
• Coffee Crisp - Candy bar. I haven't figured out quite yet if they have coffee in them, or if you are supposed to eat them with coffee, but either way, they are great.
  
• Kicking Horse Coffee - One of our favorite coffees. Rosemary says that she likes it better than Illy. We'll just have to find a way to get more of it once we run out :)
  

Mexico

• Food from street vendors, especially tacos (3 for $1!), frozen coconut dessert sticks, and corn on the cob.
• Tajín - chili seasoning for fruit. One of the best things in the world. We actually went to the village of El Tajín on our honeymoon!
• Vanilla extract. I'm not really sure why Rosemary always buys it there, but I'm sure there is a reason.

England

• Yorkshire tea.
  
• Rubina black current drink.

What about you? What products do you make sure to buy when you travel to different places?

British Columbia: Land of Dykes

On our trip to America, after we left California, we got the chance to visit our friends Rob and Kitty, who live in Langley, BC.
We had a great time with them, and they showed us around the Vancouver area.

British Columbia is beautiful, and definitely a place where I would like to spend a lot more time. It was quite foggy while we were there, so we weren't able to really see the mountains, so we are planning that someday we have to go back in the summer time to get the full effect.

If I could sum up my impression of BC in just a few words, they would be: Dutch, Bald Eagles, Skid Row, and Dykes.

• Dutch. In Langley there are a lot of Dutch people. They're cool I guess. I love their stroopwafels.
  
• Bald Eagles. As we were driving down the highway, we drove through a bird sanctuary, where we saw probably at least 20 bald eagles. This was crazy to me, since it is pretty rare to see them - at least for me. I think I had only seen 1 bald eagle in my life before this, and then in just 5 min time I saw 20! It was very cool.
• Skid Row. Rob took me through the city of Vancouver at night, and I was very impressed with how clean and modern it is. And then Rob, who used to be a Vancouver police officer, said, Hey, let me show you Skid Row (not the band!). I was expecting the usual run down stuff, but this was beyond that - like something out of a gangster film. But the weird part was that it was only for a few blocks, and outside of that few-block radius of the skids it was super nice again. For example - the main tourist walking area is only like 2 blocks away from this part of town with abandoned buildings, boarded up windows, and lots of people on the streets.
• Dykes. As we were driving around one day, Kitty tells us - Yea, Rob and I used to live right over here. I used to love going out at night and walking around the dykes. There are a lot of dykes in this area; they are really nice.
  Rosemary and I found this to be very funny!
  Here's why:
  

  dyke (also: dike)

  1. n. an embankment for controlling or holding back the waters of the sea or a river.
     
  2. n. Offensive Slang, Used as a disparaging term for a lesbian.
  3. n. Chiefly Australian Slang. a urinal.
     
  
  We quickly figured out that Kitty, a very godly lady, was not speaking of the same kind of dykes that we were thinking of...
  
  Either way, I will always remember British Columbia as: The Land of Dykes.
  

Alternative Holidays

Today we tried to call some of our friends in the States, and were frustrated to find that no one was answering their phones. Then we realized - oh yea, today is a holiday!
Today is Columbus Day in the United States. But, after reading up a little bit on Columbus Day, I came to find that the States are not so united in the celebration of this holiday.
For example, Nevada does not even celebrate the holiday. Other states celebrate different holidays in place of Columbus Day - such as "Native American Day" in South Dakota, "Indigenous Peoples' Day" in the People's Republic of Berkeley, California, and "Discoverers' Day" in Hawaii - rather than celebrate a man who mistreated Native Americans, and whose arrival led to the demise of their culture and society.
Denver (whoot, whoot!) has the longest-running Columbus Day parade in the United States, and it has been protested for the last 20 years by Native American groups, who aren't a big fan of Christopher Columbus.
Also non-fans of Columbus are the Venezuelans, who celebrate "Día de la Resistencia Indígena" (Day of Indigenous Resistance) on this day, to celebrate the resistance to European settlement in the Americas. On the 2004 Day of Indigenous Resistance, activists toppled a statue of Columbus in Caracas. One Venezuelan writer wrote: "Just like the statue of Saddam in Baghdad, that of Columbus the tyrant also fell this October 12, 2004 in Caracas."
Interestingly, in the US Virgin Islands the day is celebrated as "Puerto Rico-Virgin Islands Friendship Day," while in Puerto Rico they choose to celebrate Columbus Day. LOL! That seems like a one-sided friendship - like when Person A says they're good friends with Person B, but Person B says they don't even know who Person A is! Good luck US Virgin Islands - don't give up! Maybe in time, you will win Puerto Rico's affection.

In other holiday news - today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada.
In case you think that the Canadians stole the whole Thanksgiving holiday from the United States - think again.
Although the first recorded Thanksgiving celebration in North America was held in Florida by Spanish explorers in 1565, the first Thanksgiving celebration in Canada took place in 1578, in what is now Newfoundland and Labrador province, and was organized by explorer Martin Frobisher to give thanks to God for having survived his journey. The first of the famous Thanksgiving celebrations by the English settlers in Virginia was in 1619, some 38 years later!

So, Happy Thanksgiving to our dear Canadian friends, happy Columbus Day or whatever it is called where you live to those of you in the USA, and to those of you who live in Nevada or most other places in the world - have a nice Monday!