Living in Grand Cayman

This week I had the privilege of visiting the lovely island of Bermuda.

The first thing I would say is that its a really nice place ; in part I have to say its a lot like Cayman.  The buildings are very “British Colonial” and the overall feel of the place is safe, clean and and overall nice place.  Where it differs is that it is somewhat “hilly” although there are no mountains.

One other big difference is the number of scooters that are around.  In Bermuda the law states that there can only be one car per residence.  So most people have a scooter to get around town.  Its funny to see ladies with high heels and executives in suits on their little Honda scooter zipping around town.

Here is a scooter parking lot in downtown Hamilton.  Everywhere you look there are scooters parked in the street.

Right in Hamilton, the world headquarters of Bacardi ; who knew!  This sure was lovely ; note the dual waterfalls.  Also, the lawn was one of the most perfectly manicured I have ever seen.

View from “Blu” restaurant of Pitts Bay.  Very nice.

I saw quite a few of these when going for a run one morning. (note : running in Bermuda with the hills is soooo much more difficult than Cayman).    Cutting though this rock to make the roads must have been quite a job.

Ok … the finale.   As the title of my post says “When in Rome … ” so I dressed like the Bermudians 🙂  This is acceptable business attire here. It definitely felt funny to wear shorts like that with a tie, and of course the socks!

My trip to Bermuda was very quick but I really hope to get to go back at one point.

In the last few weeks, I have been travelling around the USA on one of my many business trips. As I always do, I make sure to check out neat places in the evenings and week-ends when possible.

My first cool place to go see was in San Diego. I was in LA for a week, so took all day Sunday to go and see the USS Midway which is at a dock in downtown San Diego.  The USS Midway is a decommissioned Aircraft carrier.  She is now a museum.  I figured I would need +-2h to visit this vessel;  it took me over 4h in what seemed like 30 minutes. It was sooooo interesting.  The drive from Los Angeles to San Diego was only about 2h on silky smooth highways,

Here is this massive ship!

On the deck of the aircraft carrier, there were many military jets to see up close.

Here I am in the Captains chair!

This was the REAL value of the visit.  For almost all the things to see and do, there were volunteers to guide you along and provide details/explanations.  That being said, almost all of them are retired military staff ; many of them actually served on this very ship.  The gentleman below was a pilot who did hundreds of landings/takeoffs on the Midway.  Absolutely fascinating stories.

Here was my ride for the drive to San Diego 🙂

Next stop.   This was my most anticipated visit of my trip.  For many years I had wanted to visit … Dealey Plaza, the place were President Kennedy was gunned down in 1963 in downtown Dallas, Texas.

Here I am standing, in the middle of Elm Ave, at the exact spot where he was fatally wounded.   The spot where Lee H. Oswald allegedly fired his shots are from the building on the left, on the right side, 2nd window from the top.  Lets just say that it is quite far away!

There I am, like all the other crazy tourists, standing in the middle of the street, dodging traffic just for a picture. 

Now from inside the “Texas school book depository”.  On the 6th and 7th floors, there is now a museum dedicated to the entire assassination event.   Very interesting.  I took about 2h to see everything.

This is the view from (almost) where Oswald would have taken the shots.

Finally, being an true nerd, I went off the beaten path for this JFK story.  I suspect most people will stop at the museum and Dealey Plaza.   Here, as you can see is someone’s backyard in a somewhat sketchy part of town.  If you are a JFK buff, you already know what this is.  Cool isn’t it?  It has barely changed in over 60 years.  If you have no clue what this is, see the picture below this one.

Oswald and the infamous backyard photo with his rifle.

New posts about Cayman coming soon 🙂

As my long time readers may recall, I always go to Las Vegas for a conference each year. I always try to go for a quick road trip after one of the conference days. Vegas is fun, but I also find it great to leave the action and see something else. This year, on a recommendation from my sister, I decided to check out the “Valley of fire”, which is under 1h away from Las Vegas.

As in previous years, my awesome buddy Mathieu, who I only get to see 1-2 times per year joined me in Las Vegas.   So here we are!

As usual, the roads were immaculate and as expected, the scenery was really pretty.  Lots of reddish mountains, hence the name!

This view made it all worth it!

This arch, which is simply called “Arch rock” was definitely one of the highlights of this trip.

Oh … so we are in the desert and its July.  This was the hottest we saw.  For non F people, this is +-44c.   HOT!!!!!!

Back to the madness of Las Vegas and all its evening traffic on The Strip.

So here is the trip ; Las Vegas to Valley of fire via a northern route and back via Lake Mead and Hoover Dam.  Makes for a really nice and surprisingly quick Las Vegas road trip.   Definitely worth it.  Make sure to bring plenty of water with you ; if you get out of your car at anytime, dehydration could come really fast.  Note that you will also cross 2 national park which will incur 2 x 10$ fee (per car)  Well worth it anyway.

A few weeks ago, I had a business trip in Los Angeles.  I got there on Saturday afternoon, so had some time to enjoy the area. Last year, as some readers may recall I went out to the Mojave desert (https://micho.org/cayblog/?p=1525)

This year, since I had+-1.5 days, I expanded my horizons and drove all the way to San Francisco, a city I had long wanted to visit.  In total, I had +- 32h for this trip including driving time (+-12h) and sleep (+-7) . As you will see below, I packed in probably 3-days of sightseeing in under 1-day of actual visit time.  Got my rental car at 1pm Saturday and needed to be back in LA Sunday PM.   I hit the road immediately ; my only goal was to get to SF at a reasonable time to get a good nights sleep and ready for my first visit Sunday AM.

First stop : Alcatraz.   The most important visit for me.  I was attracted by the mystique and history of this place. Here we are approaching the island by ferry.  Ferry ride from SF is +- 15 minutes.   I had signed up (via Internet a few weeks prior) for the first ferry of the morning out to The Rock.

The main cell block which is the main attraction.  This visit was great and met all my expectations.   You can “feel” the history (and horror) of this place.  So glad I made the long drive.

Next stop ; drive down Lombard street.  This is the “curvy road” you see in many movies and pictures of San Francisco.

Quick stop to see the “Painted ladies”.  Fans of the TV 1990’s sitcom “Full House” will instantly recognize the view.

Next stop : Golden Gate Bridge.  Wow, what a beautiful bridge. I walked across about 2/3 of the way.  The day was perfect for a walk here as you can see the blue skies.  The view from the bridge of the city and Alcatraz was fabulous.  There were even some dolphins swimming near the base of the bridge.  I had initially planned to simply drive across the Golden Gate, but walking it was 1000x better.

Starting the drive back south towards LA.  Nerd stuff :  stop to see the GooglePlex located in Mountain View.

… and Apple a few minutes further south in Cupertino.

My ride for this trip (Photo added per request of one my most faithful readers) 🙂  It was a lovely 2011 S60 Volvo Turbo.  Here it is parked on Steiner Street, right in front of the Painted Ladies (got really lucky for parking … very popular area!)  Having a comfortable car for so many miles in so little time definitely made this trip that much more enjoyable.

Here is the summary of this trip … most of it along I-5.  Nothing much to see, but the road is in superb condition so its quite an enjoyable drive.  The ideal route would have been along the coast, but would have taken a few hours more, a luxury I unfortunately did not have on this trip if all my stops and plans were to work out.  Got back to my hotel in Los Angeles at +-10pm, needless to say totally exhausted … having flown in from New York on Saturday morning and essentially got to LAX and drove to SF almost immediately.  This road trip was so much worth it though!

I recently had the privilege of spending a few days on the lovely island of Barbados.

I found the island to be somewhat similar to Cayman in terms of development and friendly people, it is however a much bigger island and also much further from Miami (a 3.5h flight) that I expected. Although I did not have a lot of time, I did get some time at the beach and to see a few local attractions.

First up, the beach near my hotel.  Very nice.

This was my favorite part on the beach.  Starting just a few hundred feet from my hotel, there was a boardwalk that was +-1/2mile long.  Awesome for an early morning jog.  Actually, at 6am this boardwalk was already full of walkers and runners enjoying the scenery.  I cant blame them.

View from the restaurant where I had lunch with some work colleagues.   Great view.

Did you know that the first rum ever produced (invented?) was from Barbados? I certainly did not.  Well, it turns out that the Mount Gay Rum company, which produces its rum entirely in Barbados started production in 1703. We got a nice visit of the facilities one evening as organized by our local office. Very nice.

Of course, we got to taste the various types of rum ; the main difference of the different types are the age/color.  When tasting them back to back you can really tell the difference.  That was some strong stuff 🙂

Finally, an evening at Bert’s sports bar. This place is owned by Eugene Melnyk, a Canadian expat who is also the owner of the Ottawa Senators hockey team.   There are TV’s all over the place to see the hockey games.  I was lucky enough to go on an evening where my home team, the Montreal Canadians were playing ; it was definitely “Hockey Night in Barbados” with nachos, pizza and local beer!  Awesome