Top Ten Best Countries to Retire in

The Best Countries to Retire in 2014

First Published Date: February 19, 2014 ADawnJournal.com

Overseas retirement magazine InternationalLiving.com recently published its Annual Global Retirement Index 2014 featuring the best countries on earth to retire. The editors look at various criteria, such as cost of living, climate, real estate, health care, etc to compile their list of world’s best places to retire. Here are the top ten countries for 2014:

1. Panama

2. Ecuador

3. Malaysia

4. Costa Rica

5. Spain

6. Colombia

7. Mexico

8. Malta

9. Uruguay

10. Thailand

The full list has many countries in South America. However, personally I would be reluctant to live in countries like Colombia or Mexico. Asian hot spots like the Philippines and Thailand are not on top of the list. The reason South American countries are dominant is because data are collected from Canadian and American expat retirees, and distance played a significant role, as South American countries are lot closer to them than Asian countries. To view the full list, click The World’s Best Retirement havens .

European Greens Perform Above Expectations

Positive News For The Green Movement

First Published Date: June 26, 2009 ADawnJournal.com

The elections for the European Parliament at the beginning of June have presented some very positive news for the Green movement, against a backdrop of seeming apathy towards politics in general outside of economic protest votes. From a greatly reduced pie (736 parliamentary seats, down from 2004’s total of 785), the continent’s Green parties demonstrated a real rise in popularity, picking up an additional eleven seats, which took them from 43 in 2004 to a hugely impressive 54 seats. France and Germany were the epicentre of the improvement in the Green vote, each bestowing 14 seats on their respective Green parties, while most other countries voting for the parliament also delivered at least one seat.

This comes against the backdrop of what has been considered to be the “recession election”, which had threatened to become a procession of punishment for the governing parties in favour of some of the more cynical, populist parties. In the United Kingdom, where the unpopular Labour government has been the subject of scandal after scandal and is due to lose its place as the governing party at next year’s general election, the Greens increased their share of the vote by 2.5% – better than any of the established parties and considerably better than the highly publicized far-right British National Party. Due to the vagaries of the voting system, however, the Greens and the BNP ended up with two seats each, with much of the publicity going to the more headline-friendly far-right organization.

In France, however, the story was better yet, with the Greens taking third place behind the ruling centre-right coalition and the opposition Socialists. The interesting aspect to this story is that there has been a Europe-wide trend in the media pointing up issues such as immigration, national and cultural identity and issues that are euphemistically referred to as “family values”. The success and increase of the vote for the Green parties – even on a reduced turnout against the backdrop of voter apathy – does seem to point to a recognition among voters that the environment is important, and that Green politicians are well-placed to understand the challenges that we face as a world, and the issues that Europe as a continent is currently facing.

Among all the other matters that Green politics cover, there seems to be an increasing recognition that concern for the environment and for the economy are not mutually exclusive. Clean energy can be cheap energy, renewable energy can be affordable energy, and this can be a way of solving problems using joined-up thinking. Among the many initiatives supported by the pan-European Green parties are moves towards the improvement of public transport initiatives – reducing emissions and at the same time providing the public with a better choice – as well as issues of personal and individual freedoms. This Europe-wide endorsement of the Green message is one that can be taken as a positive sign that people are taking notice of the planet we share and will give to our children. Long may it continue.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on June 26, 2009.

Top Cities in The World

Mercer’s 2014 Top Highest Living Quality Cities in The World

First Published Date: March 9, 2014 ADawnJournal.com

International consulting company Mercer recently published its 2014 best cities in the world ranking and like any other rankings of this type, Canadian cities dominate the list. Let’s look at the world’s top best five cities for quality for life.

1. Vienna – Austria

2. Zurich – Switzerland

3. Auckland – New Zealand

4. Munich – Germany

5. Vancouver – Canada

Here are some highlights from the report:

– Vienna is the highest ranking and Baghdad is the lowest ranking city on earth.

– Vancouver is the top North American city.

– Singapore is the top Asian city.

– Dubai is the top Middle East and African city.

– Top five North American cities are Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and San Francisco.

– Bottom five North American cities are Mexico City, Detroit, St. Louis, Houston, and Miami.

– Political instability, crime rates, air pollution are some of the factors determining rankings.

Mercer publishes its Quality of Living Raking to help multinational corporations evaluate and compare the standard of living between their own countries and host foreign countries. View the full report here: Quality of Living City Rankings

New Aeroplan Program Highlights | What You Need to Know

Everything You Need to Know About Air Canada’s Refreshed Aeroplan

Air Canada Aeroplan starts a new airline loyalty flight on November 8, 2020 with a redesign of their Aeroplan program. Today, I will give you a brief summary of what’s important.

For detailed information, visit the Aeroplan Website. Also, you can watch my video on Aeroplan here:

New Aeroplan (Air Canada) | What You Must Know Now

Aeroplan New Earn Structures and Longer Expiration

The earning structures are changing from being based on miles flown to amounts spent. Points expiration will stretch from 12 months to 18 months. Also, there will be options to recover your points without a hefty penalty.

Those Hated Fuel/Carrier Surcharges Are Gone

The new Aeroplan will have no more fuel surcharges. Those ridiculous, pesky surcharges or fuel fees or carrier fees/surcharges will be eliminated. Instead, there will be a flat $39 Cad fee to book partner flights.

Every Seat Is A Reward Seat

A major complaint with the Aeroplan program was that there were no reward seats available. This will change. No more seat restrictions or blackouts. If you can buy a ticket, you will be able to book it with Aeroplan points under their new program. Canada seats will be available based on market value. There will be options to pay using points + cash or points only. Partners' seats will be based on fixed points.

There will be 4 travel zones: North America, South America, Atlantic, and Pacific.

There will be a variety of ways to use points such as to upgrade to business class, purchase Wi-Fi, pay baggage fees, enter elite lounges, etc.

Points Sharing

You will have the ability to pool points together to earn or redeem. Up to 8 members allowed. This is a good feature for families.

Stopovers + Open-Jaws

You will be able to add 5000 points to get a 2nd destination on a one-way trip. You can add Open-Jaws for free on a round-trip. I explained what an Open-Jaw is in the video.

Alexandria Day Trip – Part 9 | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 1 (Part 14)

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

Koshari (Kushari) Street Food | Alexandria Street Food

After finishing our Alexandria tour, we were heading down to our hotel in Giza. We were all hungry and the tour guide gave us options to go to a restaurant, which would kill another 45 minutes, or grab some street food on our way and keep driving.

Everyone chose to try street food without wasting time and there were a few Egyptian foods to choose from. Our tour guide recommended Koshari, also known as Egypt’s national food, and everyone seemed to agree.

This is a very popular food in Egypt. Wherever Egyptians go, they will eat Koshari. Guests are visiting? They will be offered Koshari. Every week Egyptians will eat Koshari at least 3-4 times.

Koshari is made of rice, macaroni or spaghetti or paste, lentils, chickpeas, spicy tomato sauce, beans, and vinegar sauce. Depending on where in Egypt you buy it from, there can be variations in ingredients, but it’s always got the same great taste.

I liked Koshari right away, but it was spicy. It’s a vegetarian dish, but so delicious that you won’t miss the meat. The one I ate had pasta in it. It felt like I was eating pasta, or chickpeas, or something else.

Koshari is savory, has satisfying depth and texture, and is out-of-this-world tasty. The taste was incredible and the memory of eating it while we were driving through rural Egypt was unforgettable.

Next day I will start the actual Egypt tour, starting with the Pyramids.