Being a government building in service of the people of British Columbia, entry is free after a 10 minute lineup to complete a security check. There are guided tours available from Monday to Friday several times a day, but entry is restricted by appointments only on the weekends. Even though Read more…
The Devil’s Mountain is a man made hill in former West Berlin to provide the NSA with a vantage point with which to build a spy station on. The spy station was used to intercept messages transmitted from East Germany since West Berlin was an exclave of West Germany. It Read more…
On our way to Fort Langley, Marcus and I decided to swing by 0th Avenue in Surrey to literally look at the US. It’s probably not an ‘iconic place’ that belongs in league with the Eiffel Tower, but it is ‘cool’ in the sense that the US-Canada border is the Read more…
The official residence of the Queen’s representative in Canada, the Governor General, is Rideau Hall in Ottawa. The grounds of the residence are free to visit most days of the year except when special events or state matters prohibit public access. The residence of the Prime Minister is just across Read more…
There are three Air Force bases still in operation in Switzerland that operate fighter jets on a weekly basis. Of the three, Meiringen Air Base near Brienz is the most well-known for offering public access and weekly events. On a normal day, you can drive across its runway in a Read more…
Four times a year, or once every 12 weeks, the national parliament in Bern is open to the public on a Saturday. One such Saturday, I roamed into the halls of legislation in both the upper and lower houses of parliament. While the Nationalrat is something of a House of Read more…
Headquartered on the shore of Lake Geneva in Geneva, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is one of the most well-recognised international organisations in the world to the likes of the World Health Organisation and the United Nations, which are both in the neighbouring area. Once a year, the WTO selects Read more…
Geneva already has a Doctors Without Borders, so allow me to make this pun: CERN is science without borders. Located underground across both Switzerland and France, the donut-shaped LHC is over 26km in circumference and advances scientific knowledge. It’s too complicated for me to understand so I’d highly recommended you Read more…
Originally built for the League of Nations in the first half of the 19th century, the United Nations’ building in Geneva is a major focal point of global politics. With the UNCHR, the ILO, UNHCRH, WTO all in Geneva, it’s no wonder that Geneva hosts delegations from almost every country Read more…
Although the VPL has dozens of branches all over the city, my favorite location is the central library in downtown Vancouver. You might have noticed that I have an affinity for libraries having visited the Peabody Library, the Grimm Zentrum, and the Library of Congress on several occasions The central Read more…