Marilyn and I have developed a mutually beneficial morning routine which seems to work very well on these days when we don’t have very much planned. We seem to wake at about 7 and I like to get up straight away. Marilyn prefers to stay in bed for a bit longer, reading and enjoying a cup and a bit of coffee.
I use the time when I have the loungeroom to myself to watch the news on TV and browse Youtube to see if there is anything interesting to look at. Although I know there are enormous hidden depths to Youtube, I’ve only been interested in re-visiting places we’ve been or places we’d like to go to if circumstances were different. I can spend hours walking through the streets of Takayama, recognising museums we’ve visited and even shops we’ve been in. The presenters use little hand-held action cameras, recording on SD cards, rather than the clumsy video gear of bygone days
I find it enormously valuable when I’m planning hypothetical trips: what are the logistics of catching a ferry trip across the Straits of Gibraltar from Tarifa to Tangier and how would we get from the ferry terminal to a hotel in town, for example? It’s all there, on Youtube, and explained with live pictures and in words easy to understand.
However, yesterday I was looking at videos of the fjords of Norway and heard the surprising news that engineers were planning to drill a tunnel between two fjords to allow cruise ships to take a short cut. Not just small boats but very large, 60000 tonne passenger vessels. It was a very professionally-produced video from a group called B1M and, looking further afield I found that they have also reported on the construction of a highway around the Atlantic coast of Norway which will have more bridges and tunnels than conventional roads, and given details of a highway which will allow trucks to drive from Denmark to the Mediterranean Sea, driving through the mountains rather than over them.
These are extraordinary engineering feats and, potentially, much more interesting than following someone’s meandering through the Canadian forests. I might have to expand my searches.
No comments:
Post a Comment