Nor'easter

It seems like many years since we have had a storm of this magnitude.While nor'easters are certainly common here between October and April, this weekend's storm appeared to carry an extra punch. Wind gusts as high as 74 MPH, combined with 5-plus inches of rain, knocked down trees and power lines across the northeast. Many low lying coastal areas are flooded, with the hardest hit regions being Fairfield and Nassau Counties.

The nor'easter I measure all others by, was one I did not witness personally. The 1992 storm combined severe wind and rain with high tides that flooded entire neighborhoods. Many harborside bars still display photos of one of their regulars rowing down the street or wading through water up to their waist. The high-water mark at the City Island Yacht Club remains visible on the clubhouse exterior. I have met numerous people who lost boats or had their homes damaged from that storm.

On Sunday during a break from the winds, I visited a boatyard in Old Saybrook. I had hoped to go out to some of the beach areas, but flooded streets and downed trees prevented me from doing so.The few boats  in the water were now tied to docks that were submerged. The hauled boats meanwhile, sat in a flooded yard. Hopefully that is the extent of the damage.  

While this weekend's storm was not as destructive as the 1992 nor'easter,  the effects of it will be visible for years. I am sure along many stretches of Long Island Sound,  there are  beaches that have been altered, homes damaged, piers destroyed,and lives lost.

Beaufort Wind Scale

If You Plan To Visit Argentina

Turismo en Argentina attracts many persons and I just wrote articles about this beautiful country. It covers so different zones that is really difficult to plan the trip and include all the interesting places to visit. So it is better, if you begin with one city as Buenos Aires, or the most important for you destinations.

The list of the Hoteles en Argentina will help you to find cities where you want to stop and to choose prices and conditions that meet your wishes. This site offers you a special search tool that allows you to mark services you would like to have in the hotel. The other tool will show you only the hotels of the category you are looking for.

The special pages of the Hoteles en Buenos Aires contain not only descriptions. You can see the position of the hotel on the map, the list of services and the photos. A little tool allows you to check availability of the rooms for the period of your stay in Buenos Aires.

Tired from the life of the big cities? Plan a vacation in San Carlos de Bariloche where mountains, lakes and wild nature offer the possibilities of all related activities. Book your Hoteles en Bariloche and forget civilization. Partecipate on the excursions in the region and enjoy chocolates. Mmmm... inexpressible impressions...

Picture of the Day Catch-Up, March 4-11, 2010

It's been a busy week or so, involving a lot of shoveling and swearing, so I've not posted in a while. Let's get caught up!

March 4th, 2010: Here are some guineos, which are sort of like hard little bananas. We cut them from a tree in our yard, and Angela made them into a cevice. Here's how to cook them.

March 5th, 2010: I've been working a lot in the yard while we have nice weather. I've also been gradually doing small projects to bring the "Crappy Casita" up to par, and make it less crappy. On this day I was putting a bit of primer on some of the new wood. This is the back door.

March 6th, 2010: I discovered a while ago that when you put your ipod on shuffle, it doesn't actually seem that random. In fact, I liked the song mix a lot more when I played the songs alphabetically. Technically, when you have a lot of songs in a row --all beginning with "Only...," for example-- then it's not really random, but it does make for a better and more interesting mix. Try it out!

March 7th, 2010: These are my "Smart Guy Glasses," which are actually construction goggles. They do make me look like a huge nerd, though. I've never had to use glasses, so this way I can vicariously live the life of a vision-impaired person.
I was using them today to keep chunks of cement out of my eyes while I was banging cinder blocks with a huge pickaxe.
Destruction can be fun.

March 8th, 2010: We'd been meaning to get a gate for a while, but after the local loser tried to steal our internet antenna, we were a bit more motivated to put one in. Plus, the empty columns in the front of our yard had looked pretty stupid the last year or so. So, a guy named Francisco from down the hill came and built us a gate, with the help of Eduardo (in the white hat).

March 9th, 2010: A very beautiful day in Berl�n de San Ram�n.

March 10, 2010: A closet door in Angela's office. It used to be a really cheap, gaudy color, but now, after my full weekend of painting a year ago, it's just merely ugly.

March 11, 2010: Our backup cat Chubby got neutered yesterday. Angela tried to make a cone for him out of a file folder, but he ripped it off in a matter of minutes.

So, that's it for now. Remember, there are always more pictures, including some interesting leftovers, that you can check out by following the links below. In the meantime, thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Ohhh... Monaco...

Monaco is one of the most interesting o beautiful places I've ever visited in my life. I think about it from time to time with nostalgia and dream to have the possibility to go there more often.

I went there with my friends and we wanted to see the most important places: the palace of princes, built in XIII century, the Oceanographic Institute, the prison .. :-) don't laugh, it's in a fantastic place near the garden for the children.


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The harbour has nothing tooo interesting except the possibility to see the underwater life of the port. There was a ship with windows at underwater level. It was a rarity at that times. But the price was too high for us, 300 francs (I think) for person.


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The town is very nice, there is not soil because there are only rocks and houses everywhere, but there are gardens and pools on the roofs and terraces.

Why I liked it so much? Maybe because it's a carefully created by princes "fable" about this principality. If you think about it, you will surely agree, we have a very romantique imagination abut this place. A legend, a fable.

A real fable we've seen in the evening for the old casino of Monte Carlo. Incredible cars arrived for the entrance and the women wearing long ball dresses went out these cars and entered the building. I've never seen such cars and clothes in real life more.


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Castle In Prague

Prague is a city where it seems there is something that influences the mind of the visitors. My friends and different persons I met tell about Prague with such emotions! They have not enough words to describe it.

I never was in this city and can only post here the photos I found in the free gallery I use normally for my posts.
Here is the castel of Prague that is and was always residence of the kings and than of the presidents. They say, it's the biggest area for presidents in the world, and probably the biggest castel's area in the world (Guinness book). What is interesting, there are streets for simple residents there, too.


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The most impressing building there is Saint Vitus's Cathedral. It's belltower is 96 m high and you can walk up 278 steps till 56 m high situating landing. In the same turm there is the biggest bell of the Czech Republic. It has a name (Sigmund) and is in use from 1549


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Walk on Tuesday 16th

We have a walk starting from the ancient abbey of Relec (between Plouneour Menez and Cloitre St-Thegonnec, access off main Carhaix/Morlaix road or Poullaouen/Morlaix route) at 2pm. This is a long walk up onto the heights of the Monts d'Arr�e, with quite a few steep sections. If there is rain before, the going will be very muddy in places. On the other hand it is one of my top favourite walks in Brittany, and highly recommended for superb views and moorland landscape.

Great Lakes: Baikal

With this post I want to begin the discovery of the great lakes and the first of them had to be Baikal. It is my big dream to visit it. I even have relatives that live not too far from this lake, but I never had time to go there. I lived always in the European part of the SU and I needed too much time and money for such a journey. So, I think, it will remain only a dream for me, forever.

But they say, there are different reasons to visit those places.


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First of all, the splendid nature. Than marvelous persons (the people in wild places are very good -something like this I just had in my life when I visited Karelia). Finally great food and mystic places. They tell about real shamans and healers. There are many interesting fishes and animals -there is even a seal there!

Unfortunatelly, my friends write me -and I partecipated at the action of protest too- the government of Russia wants to open a dangerous fabric. And to destroy the entire eco-system.


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