Fastest Lap of the Isle of Man TT
Ride along a full, fastest lap of the Isle of Man motorcycle course. Man – that is just terrifying speed. It’s no wonder this motorcycle race often claims at least one life each year.
Speaking Latin in the Vatican
polýMATHY tries to speak Latin to a bunch of random religious at the Vatican. He said that out of 12 people he talked with, only 3 were able to speak it.
I think that’s correct. As someone that went to Catholic seminary, he is correct in saying Latin was not required. I took it as an elective since it’s such a good idea to be able to read the original documents in their original language. Latin is such a beautifully poetic and nuanced language, you lose a lot in translation to more simplistic languages like English.
Hardest hike in California
Cactus to Clouds is the toughest hike in California. It’s located near Palm Springs and is a mind-boggling 19.2 mile (one way! you take a tram back down) with 10,629ft of gain. Temperatures in the summer often reach triple digits. Apparently it’s been closed more often due to rescue operations for exhausted and dehydrated hikers.
Speaking Latin at the Vatican
polýMATHY tried to use his Latin to talk to random priests in the Vatican and it goes pretty well. One of my instructors did Latin translations at the Vatican.
I would would have been a barely functional novice with my Latin verbal skills (even when I was still taking classes and using it regularly). My Latin knowledge was almost exclusively read, not spoken – so it would have been rough times. I could listen to him and understand a good bit of what he was saying, but I would have struggled to respond.
Travel Namibia
Namibia is absolutely on my list of places I want to visit.
Anton somewhere takes the almost perfect road trip through the country. During his travels, he stops by Etosha National Park and goes animal spotting by visiting several of the numerous watering holes.
You can get a similar experience by watching the 24 hour live webcam of a watering hole from Gondwana Namib Park. There really is quite an amazing amount of animals that come to the water. It’s especially interesting in mornings/evening to see the different kinds of animals that show up at different parts of the day.
What Pioneers ate on the Oregon Trail
Tasting History with Max Miller shares what Oregon trail travelers ate.
First, at around 4am, they’d start fires to get breakfast going: bacon, johny cakes, and coffee. They often would milk the cows that they brought along, put the milk in a pale under the wagon, and the jostling would churn it into butter.
They had all kinds of other foods for their meals, including camas root and other items they found along the way.
Van Gogh Sunflowers
Here’s a room full of sunflowers for the Van Gogh exhibit in Chengdu China
I lived 30 miles from this incident
I wasn’t alive in 1968 when this accident happened, but I do remember visiting the base during a summer open house when I was quite young (likely around 5-7). I remember seeing all the fighter and bomber planes – even waiting in line to take a ride on one of the planes (but the wait was so long we ended up not doing it).
If this broken arrow accident had resulted in a nuclear detonation, I likely wouldn’t be here today since my parents lived so close.
This accident is also talked about in the absolutely fabulous books Command and Control by Eric Schlosser and might be also mentioned in the book Atomic Accidents by James Mahaffey.
Pyramiden Polar Escape
This gentleman in the village of Pyramiden was caught by surprise by a polar bear. He fired off a round from his rifle at the bear, but it still charged him. The man fled on foot until he got onto a snowmobile and just barely escaped (no pun intended).
It was a bold strategy since polar bear can run up to 25 MPH.
Retiring/living forever on a cruise ship
There’s been press about people moving full time to a cruise ship (The World Residences at Sea) during Covid.
Tips For Travellers asks how well this really works.
There are two ways to do this. One is to take many different boats during the year. The other is to buy a full-time residence.
The cheaper option is to hop between the cheapest cruise lines. In his video, he finds several people using several different methods.
Mario sticks to the cheap Caribbean cruises for 80% of the year and does not spending extra for port fees, excursions, drinks/food packages, etc. He targets about $200/day for cabin costs. With extras, Mario lives very frugally for a full year on the cruise ships on about $72,000-$100,000/year. Mama Lee also does this at about $175,000 for her more upscale life. Beatrice Meuler lived in an interior cabin on the QE2 for about $80,000. These match his investigation of a 9 month Royal Caribbean cruise that would cost about $112,000 for a balcony cabin with drinks, wifi, laundry, and a few excursions – but requires to be paid PER PERSON for a double occupancy.
Permanent residence on a single boat costs much more. Cabins on The World residences cost millions to buy, and annual fees often run around $113,000 (studio) to $1M (3 bedroom)/year depending on size of residence you buy. Storylines has studios start at $350,000 with $55,000/year maintenance costs – up to millions for the penthouses (along with up to a million a year in maintenance fees!)
Even if the costs work for you, there’s still other considerations.
- Crew and ships are not set up for aging customers. They expect passengers to be in shape/able-bodied. They aren’t set up like a retirement care facility if you’re not able bodied. This is not a retirement community.
- Medical facilities are not set up for dealing with serious or ongoing medical conditions. There is NO dental care. No medicine/pharmacy – that must all be done at ports. Getting medical coverage that covers all the places you are going is expensive.
- You still need to claim and have a home country/residency for banking, retirement accounts, taxes, etc.
- Surprisingly, loneliness and boredom are quite common. Many long-time residents stop going into the port cities because they’ve been there so many times. The same entertainment shows are done day after day – often for years. The constant changing passengers and so few people living long-term on ships means building any longer-term/meaningful relationships is very hard.
- You’ll still need to leave the ships and stay mobile. Ships go into drydock, covid shut cruising down for YEARS, and other situations mean you have to leave the ship for short and extended periods of time.
- Unless you buy a residence, you have to be booking dozens of cruises per year and working out all the details/fees. Economic conditions can change quickly (like COVID) and completely ruin plans/budgets.