North America

City Hall

Philadelphia’s City Hall is one of our favorite buildings. It’s the most ornate and largest City Hall in the country and was almost torn down two times. It’s located at 1 Penn Square and was the tallest building in the world from 1894 to 1908 surpassing the Eiffel Tower and Washington monuments. It remained the tallest building in Philly until  the construction of 1 Liberty Place that formally ended the gentlemen’s agreement limiting the height of the city’s buildings (no building was built taller than City Hall until Liberty Place was constructed 1984-1987). Continue reading →

Fairmont Water Works & Fairmont Park

Fairmont Water Works was designed by Frederich Gaff and is Philadelphia’s second municipal waterworks. It was built between 1812 and 1872. It was in use till 1909 when they had to close due to water being too polluted from population and industry growth; there were newer and updated facilities that took it’s place. In 1976 the water works was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Continue reading →

Schuylkill Regatta & Boathouse Row

We were in Philadelphia for Halloween weekend. Not only is Philly our home away from home, we go annually for Eastern State Penitentiary’s fundraiser “Terror Behind the Walls.” It’s a haunted house set up in an abandoned jail. We enjoy haunted houses and find it fun, we don’t care to dress up for Halloween. October is a happening month for Philly. Some friends took their kids to the Harry Potter fest on another weekend. Continue reading →

The Lachine Canal & Canada Malting Silos

Walking along the river front, we happened upon The Canada Malting complex which was built in 1904 by David Jerome Spence. It’s now abandoned and in “deep disrepair.” It was fun exploring the area and part of us wanted to go through the hole in the fence and get a closer look but we decided to be good and observe from afar. Continue reading →

Notre Dame Basilica

Notre Dame Basilica is located in Old Montreal. The basilica had a few incarnations. The version we see today was designed by New York based architect James O’Donnell, an Irish Protestant. The first stone was laid on September 1, 1824. When construction was finished, Notre Dame was the largest church in North America for over 50 years.  Continue reading →

Montreal

This summer we had the pleasure of going to Montreal which is the second most populated city in Canada after Toronto. It was originally named “Ville-Marie” after Mount Royal (the three peaked hill) in the center of the city. It’s located on the Island of Montreal which is an island between the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. It is the second most populated river island in the world after Zhongshan Dao in China. It is also known as the Hochelaga Archipelago or the Montreal Islands. Continue reading →

Dyker Frights

Dyker Frights is the creation of graphic designer Anthony George. He’s lived in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn for 17 years. It’s a really cool neighborhood thing and next door neighbors allow him to use their front yards. He’s been doing this for the last 12 years. Every year you can check this out around Halloween on 79th Street between 11th and 12th Avenues. Continue reading →

Vancouver

“You guys from Bay Ridge?” This guy comes up to us. We were caught of guard and thinking who the heck did we bump into in Vancouver. We didn’t even recognize him. Turns out it’s this guy who has seen Victor on the train going to work and remembers seeing us walking around our neighborhood. They were on the last leg of their cruise vacation. We laugh about it till this day. What a small world. It was our last day and we spent it walking everywhere. Continue reading →

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

Capilano is a nice convenient way to see nature. They provide a shuttle bus from Vancouver to the bridge park  year round. I’ve been wanting to come here since seeing it on the TV show Psych. I’d watch the British Colombia episodes a few times a year because I wanted to visit that bad and it looked pretty. Continue reading →