Waiting for the rain to stop

An interesting night; the power went off at 1:30 AM, and our sump pump shut off (they blew a transformer and substation in Canmore). I worked with my neighbour to get their generator running, and in that half half hour, 2" of water had built up in the basement. Plug in, and we were back in business. The power returned at 3:30 AM.

Since then, all has been quiet, with the water coming in...

Three hoses help moving the water across to the sump pump

...flowing across the house to the sump...

Little rapids in a doorway. 1" of water here.

...and then pumped out. The system's the same. My pump pumps 45 seconds, does nothing for 45 seconds, and then pumps again. Watch this video to see how much water it really is.

With the power on, and everything stable, there's really not much we can do. We could sweep water, but there's not much point because the water's flowing out as fast as its coming in. Letting it flow is less work and, since the water level is lower than at yesterday's peaks, causes no incremental damage. So we let the pump do its thing.

We went for a short walk in the rain (yes, it's still raining). In fact, it's quite pretty with notable new snow up on the mountain tops.

Mountains peek through the clouds 

New snow on Mt. Rundle

Just west of us, a creek is flowing through one of the hotel properties down on the frontage road.

That's pavement that the water cut through 

The new creek higher up

There is just a whole lot of water in the Bow River. We saw extensive flooding of the river valley.

The river. The TransCanada in the foreground

Every road and every bridge over a creek or river around here is closed or damaged. The aerial photos are awesome.

It's clearing up, finally. As I type this, the sun is out and the sky is blue, and for the first time in 48 hrs, it's not raining (but the radar says there's a thunderstorm about to hit).

Until the water stops coming into the basement, there's little we can do. When it stops, we'll have a bunch of cleanup to do.

Floods

We were warned of record rainfall coming, and they weren't kidding. It started raining last night and hasn't stopped.

All the yard work we started this week was designed to manage exactly this type of event. But we were a long way from being finished before the monsoons started.


Minor basement leaking started last night around 9 PM, and it was fully under control at midnight with the sump pump doing its job.

Water gushes beside the house from the sump discharge.

I got an AM wake up call from a good friend (and my real estate agent) asking if we needed help; he was on his way over but the road was blocked by flooding.

I went down to the basement and found the sump pump running continuously and ~1" of water in the whole basement.

Then the power went off. Without the sump pump, water quickly built up. The basement was leaking in at least a dozen places; many places on the wall were just weeping.

The weeping wall 

Another 

And another

Then we discovered a major leak. There's a pipe that runs between my well and my house. It's got the drinking water pipe in it, and the electrical conduit, too. Well, the water table rose so high that the pipe was full, and flowing into my house. It was coming in literally at 2 gal per minute.

Pouring in

We tried a bucket brigade for an hour; we were exhausted doing it. My fabulous neighbour hooked up his generator and our sump pump was back in business. The water level came down 2" but then started to rise as the rain kicked up again. I did some drainage modifications around the house to get more water moving away from the house. That helped.

A brick berm keeps the water away from my septic field

You can barely see the channel I dug, but it works

Water flows around the house

As of 2 PM, the sump pump finally caught up, and the water level in the basement started to recede, after topping out at 6".

At a peak, but not the worst

By 3:30 PM, the area around the sump was virtually water free, though water was still coming into the sump via the weeping tile. That's the good news.

Now the bad. From 3:30 PM onward, water came into the basement as fast as we could sweep it to the sump pump. The sump is in a low, but there are highs between there and the rest of the basement. So we have 3" of water in places, none in others, and after 5 hours, we were exhausted from sweeping. Three garden hoses are draining water to the sump, too. Water is steadily flowing in and out, and we can't stop the inflow, nor speed up the outflow. Things will only get better when the rain stops.

And it poured all afternoon.

There's huge flooding on multiple places on every road around here.

That's a BMW submerged on the TransCanada

All communities are isolated. A bridge between Banff and Canmore in the park has failed on the westbound lanes. Bridges in Canmore are being washed out; the videos are amazing. The Harvie Heights sewage treatment plant is under water as is the water treatment plant, so the hotels along the high have no water and shouldn't flush.

We're assuming our well water is contaminated, even though our well is over 120' deep. We're impressed its even working, given the water pouring out of the electrical cable leading to it. Our septic tank appears happy, but the groundwater has risen so much, we're concerned about backflow in the field. So it's "flush when you have to" and no showers or laundry.

So long as the power stays on, we will sit in stasis until it stops raining, pumping out the water as it comes in. We quit sweeping at 8 PM, had dinner and nearly collapsed. As of 10 PM, there was a steady 2" of water in the basement, the sump pump's doing it's thing, the water's still pouring in...and it's raining heavily.

We're in the midst of the green

Apps for Traveling in Rome

I downloaded a few apps that helped a lot while in Italy, and the trip would have been a lot more problematic without my phone. Some apps and examples:

• An app I loved was Ulmon Rome (by Ulmon GmbH), a simple off-line map of Rome that is FAR more detailed than Apple Maps and Google Maps. My only complaint was that the metro stations aren’t clearly marked on the map, but everything else including bus stops was. Neither Apple or Google mas have a lot of sights, and so orienting yourself is tough. Ulmon also always shows you what direction you’re facing on the map, and sometimes it's even correct. It has built in travel guide info, but I never used it.
• TrueMaps HD Roma wasn’t as good as Ulmon, but it had the nice feature of tapping on a street and having the street and name clearly highlighted. Handy in a place where streets change names every few blocks.
• The best app I ran into for helping ride busses (and I tried 3, including "Rome Next Bus" by Yeh Tsung Ming, and "Rome Bus" by Movenda) was ProBus Rome (which got its start as an Android app -- by Christian Alferano). The best feature was you could pick any bus number and get a quick map of the route with every stop shown – then follow along with the bouncing blue ball as you rode, helping you to not miss a bus stop and end up past where you wanted to go. However, the route planning was merely OK, telling you to walk to specifically numbered stops to make connections without telling you where they were ("walk 100 m to stop 75367"). Worse, the estimated times for bus arrivals random at best, and hopelessly wrong sometimes (like Sundays). 
• I had a free, off-line Italian-English dictionary called “It-E Dictionary” (by StillPig) that was helpful. It didn’t do well on phrases but was good for individual words.
• I downloaded the IT Italy app to get a cab, but never used it. Works all over Italy, and is in English. I never had to use it because I learned that the best way to get a cab in Rome is by going to a cab rank, and I found this official website that listed them all.
• I should mention an app from a taxi group called 3570.IT, since Italy has been notorious for cab rip offs. The 3570.IT group (named after their website) feature a bunch of guaranteed services and good quality cabs. I probably would have used these dudes had I not had a cab rank so close.
• I checked in on-line with KLM’s app and had boarding passes on my phone.
• The Vatican has an app that offers “guided tours” of its major sights. I didn’t know about it until we got there, and didn’t use it, but it’s free.

Non-app reasons to have my phone:

When riding TrenItalia trains, you can book on line, and they e-mail you the confirmation. Once on the train, sit in the correct seat and when the conductor comes to check your ticket, you just show him the e-mail and the PNR code on the phone’s screen. Very handy for those of us without ready access to a printer. In addition, most trains you would want to take require reservations because they are so busy, so booking ahead on-line enables planning and allows you to buy tickets in advance, though you can get to the station and take your chances on buying a ticket.

Apps I got that were a waste of time:

• Free Wi-Fi In Rome will tell you where all the free wi-fi spots are. Except that you have to register with your Italian cell phone number to use the app. And free Wi-Fi sites are everywhere, and clearly marked, so the app’s kinda useless.
• I downloaded Orari Penisola Sorrentino (by Steffano Fattorusso), an app that had the schedules for the Circumvesuviana trains between Naples, Pompei, Ercolano & Sorrento. Except the app only works while connected (and there’s actually no TIM service at all in Sorrento), and the train scheds are in every pamphlet given away by the towns, plus posted in the train stations.
• Talking Italian Phrasebook (by CoolGorilla) was a hoot of an app. It has a bunch of phrases in it that were useful, and they were spoken out loud by a female voice. But the app was sponsored by Fiat, and so the phrases included such useful gems as "I love your new Fiat 500", "Can you take me for a drive in your Fiat 500?" and "I love the way your new Fiat 500 corners". Still, the phrase "I think you're undressing me with your eyes" which was in the app did come up from time to time.

I am noticing that the world is moving to more information available on-line. There’s a lot of weakness in that system, most notably places where phones don’t work (like, say, in train tunnels) but I’m now convinced that a portable data device like an iPhone or iPad is essential to get around.

A busy day at the OK Corral

Lots happened today. Dudes with big machinery showed up to make the dirt pile in my back yard go away, and commence the process of putting my yard back together.

And so he starts 

Working around the kitchen 

One of 6 dump truck loads of fill hauled away 

The back yard, coarsely sculpted

In the middle of the day, a big thunderstorm blew through. We were eating lunch outside at the time, and watched it from the garage.

Ominous clouds in the gap 

Swirling in the peaks

And the wildlife was around today. Hummingbirds...

Bird on a Wire

...butterflies...

A Mourning Cloak butterfly, looking worse for wear

...and a grizzly bear. Yep, a bear. We were sitting on the front deck having tea when a grizzly bear ambled down the road eating the dandelions.

The other side of our flower pots 

Lunch time!! 

Certainly not aggressive behaviour... 

That would be an ear tag and radio collar 

Mmm, mmm, good 

He can eat all he likes

That would be Bear 136, also known as Split Lip, who calls Banff park home, and weighs in at 225 kg (that's 496 lbs). I ran across this article talking about him being out and about in December of last year, and this video of him shot by Banff park.

We scooted inside and took the above photos from our living room window. We also called Kananaskis Emergency Services, who dispatched a Fish and Wildlife officer. While Mr. 136 was doing nothing wrong, the opportunity for him to have trouble happen due to his presence was fairly high, so they shooed him out of my 'hood. 

I am happy to live where this can happen. I am sad that he had to be shooed away, but understand that it's for the best for him and for the others who live in the neighbourhood. He looked very fat, happy and healthy, not stressed, aware but not bothered, and happy to munch on dandelions as long as they were there. I spend time as a volunteer Wildlife Ambassador trying to help people understand that we can co-exist quite peacefully with these wonderful animals, if we do so being aware that they are around, and giving them the space that they need to hang out. We live in his living and dining room (today was clearly proof of that), and we're the bad roommates that cause the disturbance, not him.

Mr. 136 is welcome back any time.

Using my iPhone in Italy

Before leaving Canada, I did a bunch of research on how best to enable me to use my iPhone in Italy. While in Italy my phone was a godsend (generally; my next post will be about useful and useless apps), so the strategy of setting it up to be useful was a smart one. I wasn’t expecting to receive or make calls or texts (in the month, no one called me, I made one call, I got one text and sent none), but knew data was something I needed, and needed a lot of.

Looking at Telus’ plans for overseas, their have a couple of deals. Their Combo Travel Pass 50 deal cost $50 for the month I was here, and while the talk/text rates were OK (50 min free calls, 50 free texts), it gave me only 50 Mb of data, with every extra meg costing $1 (and as I type this in late May, I have already used 525 MB).

Before leaving Canada, I paid Telus $35 for the one-time procedure to unlock my phone, enabling the use of another carrier’s SIM card. I looked at this as an investment in future trips, including the US. I’m just betting that a future iPhone will introduce dual-SIM capability for travelling. KC’s looking at getting a phone; I’d lean towards a dual-SIM one for this exact reason.

My pre-trip research on SIM card options led me to TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile). I did look at Vodaphone and WIND, but liked TIM’s options better.  On my first day here, I bought a TIM SIM card from the TIM office in Termini station. Nice people, spoke English, knew what I wanted, helped me get it working. I paid €15 and was assigned an Italian phone number. This got me a “plan” with unlimited Italian talk, text and 500 MB of data for 2 weeks – or so I thought.

TIM sends lots of texts, always in Italian, always confusing, but mostly pushing features and promos, such as this one.

Whatever the heck that means

I started off getting one or two texts a day, then it tapered off. After about 8 days, I got one of many text messages from TIM in Italian. This one looked like this:

Huh?

The translation made no sense so I ignored it; something about my minutes and seconds being full (when I had made no calls). The next day, my phone was still working (or so I thought) but the 3G logo was no longer there, and I had no data access. I was in Sorrento with wi-fi at the time, so ignored it. On the way home, I stopped in at the Termini TIM office to find out what the message meant and why I had no more data access.

They told me that I understood my plan wrong. That €15 broke down to €10 for the phone number and €5 for the talk/text/data plan. The plan I was on gave me unlimited Italian talk, texts and 500 MB of data for €5 per WEEK. When my week was up, my phone would accept incoming calls, but I could make no calls, and I would get no data whatsoever. Also, I actually had unlimited data in that week, but the data rate would slow by 80% after 500 MB.

No biggie. Still cheap, relative to Telus. Paid €5, they did some magic, turned the phone on and off, and I was back in business I got these texts after I had paid.

Proof I had paid

I was warned I had to pay by week, and could not pay in advance. They gave me instructions as to how to top up – sounding simple, but…

Topping up another €5 a week later was a little harder until I figured it out. At least I understood the text message, for it was the same.

To top up, I was told to buy a €5 card (a “reccaricard” or something like that) in a tabacci or grocery store, so I bought two to always have a spare. Those cards came in €5, €10, €25 and €50, so I was careful to buy €5 cards. The grocery store gave me a receipt for each €5 card with a 25-digit code on it. I was told by the TIM store to phone TIMs service number, 40916, a free call to enter the code. I did. An automated service but all in rapid-fire Italian. I hung up.

I did some ‘net searching on how to change the language on 40916 to English. I found one place that said could text the word ENGLISH to 40916, but that didn't work. I finally found a procedure on a downloadable English pamphlet from their Brazilian subsidiary’s website (TIM is a worldwide company). In any case, it worked (1-1-1-5, I think was the sequence). So I listened to the prompts, switched the language, then entered the 25-digit code. About an hour later, I got yet more texts (in Italian, shown above) that told me the top-up worked. Except my phone still showed no 3G, and I could get no data. Thinking back to how the dudes in the TIM store made it work, I powered the phone down, and back on again, and 3G was re-enabled.

By dialing 40916 I could get a status update on my account. But with my account the status was always the same, since I had unlimited call time and texts. It was the same right to the moment I was cut off, and there was virtually no warning on the 40916 as to when that was coming (I got one warning text in the middle of my stay). In fact, my first €5 lasted 9 days, my second €5 lasted 5 days, my 3rd lasted 7 days – it was kind of random, actually.

The next time I got the text message that I needed to top-up, I pulled out the little receipt, called 40916, entered the 25-digit code, waited an hour, turned the phone on and off, and I was working again. Easy, once you know how.

I just wish TIM would give me a warning that I was about to run out, instead of telling me I had. It would also be nice if I could have put in €10 for 14 days, instead of €5 every 7-ish days.

In any case, here’s the math comparing what I did to what Telus would have cost:
Telus: $50 for 50 MB, plus 475 more MB for $1/MB = $525 for the month

TIM: €15 for the card and the first top up, plus €15 for 3 more top ups = €30 for the month, or about $40 CDN for the month plus the one time unlock of $35.

I’d say it was a good move on my part.

My SIM card is good for one year from the date of the last €5 top up then dies and the number no longer works. So it's an ideal pay-as-you-go plan for travellers. I can go back in 6 months, pay €5, and start using it again. So if anyone needs an Italian phone number and SIM card, send me a note. I'm not using it, but it's good through June 2014.

The last quarter

With but 2 days left in Rome, we looked at the map on the wall where I marked all the places we walked. There was white space: The Quirnale and Veneto.

There's really not much up here, which probably explains why we had never been in the neighbourhood before. It started for us at the Quattro Fontane -- the 4 fountains just up from Piazza Barberini. Built in 1593, there's a fountain on each cortner of the intersection of the road with Via XX Settembre.

In need of cleaning 

#2 of 4

Being the peak of the Quirinale hill, there's cool views in 4 directions down hill.

A quiet Saturday afternoon

We wandered up XX Settembre past a bunch of Government buildings including the Ministries of Agriculture and Finance -- a dead quiet space on a Saturday afternoon, and as the guidebook advertised: "Not one of Rome's most appealing thoroughfares by any means". We passed some closed churches, including the mini-Pantheon of the San Bernardo al Terme.

It's round

Sitting at this corner was the really nice Fontana dell'Acqua Felice, the terminus of one of the original aqueducts of Rome.

Impressive facade, and in the middle... 

...is Moses 

Nice lions out front

There's not much more past this down XX Settembre. You pass even more uninteresting government buildings, then the rather uninteresting and well fortified British Embassy, before reaching the Porta Pia, one of the original gated in the Aurelian Wall, and the gate through which the unified Italian Army marched to kick out the French and take back their city in 1870.

The city side 

The outside

Just down the road from here is the Canadian Embassy and not a heck of a lot of anything else interesting to us tourists.

On our way down, we had passed a few churches that were closed for the afternoon, so we headed back and went inside -- and found tour groups, of all things. The star attraction: the hopelessly over decorated Baroque church of Santa Maria della Vitoria. Popular with tour groups for several reasons: the gross overkill of the decorations...

Lots of stuff 

The ceiling 

The back of the church

...the Bernini sculture inside of The Ecstasy of St. Teresa...

Rather pretty

...and the fact that this was a setting in Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. This was the church that represented fire and had a bit of a bonfire in it.

Not finding this quarter all that interesting, we headed to one final church we wanted to see in a roundabout route -- and ran across the back of a huge palace.

Monsterous

It turned out to be the US Embassy, with all sorts of antenna, tons of surveillance cameras, and a fountain with snakes in front of it.

A unique thing to have at the entrance

We came back down Via Veneto to our last and likely most bizarre stop for our whole trip: the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini church. No, they don't make coffee here. It's the home of the Capuchin monks. The church itself was closed for renovations, but no matter, we came for the crypts which are located under the church.

In 1631 the remains of thousands of Capuchin friars were exhumed and transferred to the crypt. The bones were arranged along the walls, and the friars began to bury their own dead here, as well as the bodies of poor Romans, whose tomb was under the floor of the present Mass chapel.

The crypt, or ossuary, now contains the remains of 4,000 friars buried between 1500 and 1870, during which time the Roman Catholic Church permitted burial in and under churches. The underground crypt is divided into five chapels, lit only by dim natural light seeping in through cracks, and small fluorescent lamps. The crypt walls are decorated with bones in elaborate fashion, making this crypt a macabre work of art. Some of the skeletons are intact and draped with Franciscan habits, but for the most part, individual bones are used to create elaborate ornamental designs. There are 6 chapels, including the Crypt of the Skulls, the Crypt of the Pelvises and the Crypt of the Leg Bones and Thigh Bones.


Just right off weird. Photos were not allowed, but this link will take you to the Wikipedia page on the crypt where there are some photos, and a link to a bad YouTube video of the crypts.

Those of you who are Dan Brown fans will remember from The DaVinci Code that the bad guy Silas wore a celice belt and flogged himself with the a nasty set of ropes called The Punishment.

Yep, that's a celice belt

Turns out the Silas character was a member of the Capuchin order. They had the flogging ropes in the museum, too, covered in centuries old caked blood.

On our way back home, we saw the hoards at the Trevi Fountain again. Still silly.

Why are they all here?

That's about it for Rome. Our last day was spent at the Porta Portese market picking up souvenirs for friends.

The pot department 

The pet department

I've prepped a couple more posts on Rome learnings that will be coming, but that's it for most of the travelogue.