International Challenge

 

 

My ability to communicate here abruptly came to a halt after last Tuesday.  It was rather frustrating on many levels.  

I had another conference to go to last week to present some research findings.  This time the conference was being held at Western University in London, Ontario.  It was actually a good conference and my results were found very interesting and thought provoking by the many who were there.  

However, communication and electronica overall was a DISASTER.  As soon as my wife and I crossed into Canada, our phones failed to function.  However, our cellular plan has within its service, the ability too use the services across all of North America (Canada, Mexico, and of course, the United States).  We were dismayed and frustrated as we had hopes and needs to use our phones for navigating in London, Ontario as we searched for fun at times I was not at the conference.  

By late Friday, we had figured out what was the problem.  Our cellular carrier as well as apparently 3 other common cellular carries in the U.S. work with some specific international company to "bridge" the service when U.S. citizens are out of the United States.  What we heard (from hotel folks who were inundated by lots of people trying to figure this out) was that this company had some sort of software issue that effectively shut down any cross-border ability to use cellular data for the carriers they work with.  And our cellular carrier was one of those.  

The worst part of this (beyond not being able to use the phone) was that it also rendered my COMPUTER worthless as well because the U has this damnable multifactor authentication system that REQUIRES when logging into the computer, verification of identity by typing in an array of numbers sent to your cell phone.  Without putting in those numbers, the computer would not allow you to log on.  

So, we were electronica free from Wednesday (the day we left) until our return.  In many ways it was pleasant, but not being able to access e-mail (after I told my students I would faithfully look at e-mail to help them while I was gone) and the loss of the phone's ability to provide navigation directions in the city were missed.  

Still, while there we did have some nice experiences:

1.  We were able to see a temporary exhibit about Banksy, the artist especially known for his grafitti work.  It was both an overview of his art but also a historical review of his artistic life.  I have always liked his work since I became aware of it in the early 2000s.  The exhibit was exceptionally interesting and was an exciting and unexpected find while we were there.  My wife and I made t-shirts (for mine, I used a replica of one his stencils to make a rat similar to one of Banksy's rats... I will wear it running).

2.  We had some very nice Ethiopian food at a restaurant named Enat.  Ethiopian food is always amazing.  The spicy lentils are always especially good.  Injera bread is a personal favorite too.  

3.  We also had some delicious Thai food (Bangkok Pad Thai Resturaunt).  My choice was to have a vegetable red curry.  

4.  We also dined at a delicious vegetarian Chinese restaurant named Zen Garden.  The most exciting thing was in how delicious their dim sum was.  The dough had a beautiful texture along with a slight sweetness that complimented the contents well.  

5.  My wife and I attended Mass on Saturday at St. Peter's Cathedral Basilica.  It was exceptionally beautiful inside.  Unexpectedly, the cathedral's music was all the same of that which we are used to in our diocese.  That is often NOT the case.  In other trips (both in Canada and the U.S.) different dioceses often have quite diverse music preferences. We also sang "O Canada" at the end of Mass in celebration of the upcoming (yesterday, on Monday) of Canada Day. 

Overall the trip was a very nice experience.  However, London, Ontario was also surprisingly more "run down" and rather far more "grungy" than we were expecting.  Generally, in all of our years of traveling to different places in Canada, we were always rather impressed with the overall very neat and tidy atmosphere that we would find wherever we would go in Canada (big city [ie Toronto, Montreal], or small village) compared to most places in the U.S.  I am thinking that London, Ontario must have had some significant difficulty as a city following Covid-19, as it felt like it was struggling in a variety of ways.  

* * * * * 

• Ran 8.3 miles (~13km) yesterday and ran 10.5 miles (~17km) this morning. 

• Yes, I DID look for a potential pipe store to visit in London, Ontario.  But, prior to leaving on the trip, I could not locate a single one in the city.  I also looked for a cigar lounge in the city to no avail.  I was surprised for how large a city London, Ontario is for Canada, that it did not have at least ONE real pipe shop. 
  

• Apparently cannabis is far more popular than tobacco in London, Ontario for I saw AT LEAST six different cannabis shops, including TWO of them that were specifically highlighted as being owned and operated by the indigenous people of Ontario. 

I will try to do a comments post for tomorrow since I was unable to post yesterday and wanted to talk about why I was away in today's post.  

PipeTobacco