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When I walked into the lobby of the Kyiv International Airport, I was surrounded by bald men in leather jackets. Each of them was a taxi driver, and I was a Westerner – somebody with lots of money and no sense of direction. However, as I had read up on these men earlier, I chose to ignore them all.

"Those men aren't there anymore", my friend Kate told me. That isn't her real name, but her experience was real enough. These days the airport is empty, and visitors aren't allowed. However, those men are still waiting outside, and there's just a lot less of them.

"Also, please don't go with them. They aren't real taxi drivers. They're just trying to make money. It's better to just call an Uber."

The old ruins emerged from the grass like a forgotten obelisk. The walls stood tall and proud, yet crooked from time, buckling in on themselves. The only sound was the wind whistling between the empty sepulchre's shattered stones.

"Don't get too close", Jessica gestured to a nearby sign. "It's private property".

Although I doubt the owners of Wheatwyn-Bethlehem Care Corporation would care if I went inside the old church, it was probably for my own safety to stay outside. The stone window arches had begun to buckle, and any unnecessary strain could lead to collapse, and possibly death.

Without advanced permission from Nav Canada, you cannot fly a drone above Regina. If you choose to do so anyway, you open yourself up to a $1,000 fine for recreational users or a $5,000 fine for commercial users.

Additionally, if you fly an unregistered drone, you can be fined another $1,000, and if you don't have a licence to fly, you'll be fined an additional $1,000.

But before you rush out and take the $10 exam and register your drone for an additional $5 to prevent these fines, what if I told you there was another way?

It is a race against time to vaccinate the world against COVID-19, especially as case numbers rise and many countries are forced into their third or fourth lockdown. The new virus variants are expected and are a reasonable cause for concern. Some vaccines can slow the spread of it, but others are not as effective. However, this shouldn't be surprising, as even a 100% effective influenza vaccine is impossible to make, and we've been working on that since 1933.

For the sake of this article, however, we aren't talking about the COVID-19 vaccine or the possible "vaccine passports" that might soon be a reality. Instead, we are talking about current vaccine requirements that restrict international travel.

There aren't a lot of vaccine travel requirements, or "vaccine passports", in North America, Europe, or Antarctica (which kind of goes without saying, but I know somebody would ask), but in developing countries, it is very common. It is recommended to get vaccinated for illnesses like Hepatitis A and B, measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, varicella (chickenpox), influenza, rabies, and others, but it is not required. Some countries have additional recommended vaccines too, like Japanese encephalitis, but these are only recommended and are also not required.

Bananas are the second most popular fruit in North America, second only to apples. However, unlike apples, bananas in North American often only come in one flavour... or at least they do now. If you were eating bananas during the 1950s and 1960s, you were eating the Gros Michel banana, which is a sweeter, almost artificial tasting banana. However, because bananas were mass replicated and are so similar, they are also prone to disease. As a result, the highly destructive and deadly Panama disease attacked the bananas and wiped them out, causing a world-wide banana shortage.

The solution was to start selling a new type of banana. These are the Cavendish bananas and while they look similar, they don't taste as sweet. In fact, you can compare the difference between them by simply having a real banana and having candy bananas or banana-flavoured medicine or ice-cream. The banana flavour was extracted from the old bananas, which have a much stronger taste.

But banana flavours aside, what about the radiation? While I don't know if the Cavendish bananas are any more radioactive than the Gros Michel bananas, both are full of radioactive potassium. As bananas decay, they release K-40 atoms, which are slightly radioactive and can cause skin tissue damage. How severe is it? Bananas release 0.10 µSv / hour, which is equivalent to 1% of the daily amount of radiation you receive normally. This means if ate 100 bananas in a single hour, you double your daily amount of radiation. You'd also get a stomachache from all the fiber.

"Life, I say, is short and the sword is always hanging over us, and we do not know how soon it will drop. It is not worthwhile to be sinful then. That is all I have to say. Good-bye, and God bless you all." ­

Those were the final words John Morrison spoke before a black cap was pulled over his face and the Lord's Prayer was said to him. He would then croak "Deliver us from evil" and with a dull thud, he was dead.

John Morrison was executed on January 24, 1901, at the North-West Territorial Jail and Lunatic Asylum in Regina for the murder of a family of eight. He was not a good man.

The year is 2022 and the COVID-19 pandemic was so last decade. Regina, like most cities, is trying to revive its incapacitated tourism industry. People want to go to festivals and concerts but are still leery about getting too close to strangers. After all, they might not have COVID, but they might have something else, you know?

But Regina is special. They will be hosting the first Grey Cup in three years (sorry Steve). People will be swarming into the city from across the country – and beyond – to celebrate the great game of football. Every sports camera in the country will be watching the city.

But just like before the pandemic, Tourism Regina is underfunded. It is staffed by passionate, determined, hard-working individuals, but they do not have the funding to prop-up a battered tourism industry alone. Instead, grassroots programs and small businesses must take the lead. So, with that in mind, here are some ways I would improve Regina's tourism industry in 2022 and beyond.

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching and if you forgot to get something for your significant other (or yourself), I don't blame you. With everything going on these days, it is tough to remember a holiday that was made to capitalize on something as priceless as love. But I think we can all agree that if you are going to spend money telling somebody you love them, you'll want to spend that money locally. From bakeries to candy stores to charcuterie boards, there is something in Regina for that special person in your life.

In December I bought a $50 chocolate box from Dessart Sweets with every intention of unboxing it and make a video about it. However, the chocolate temptation got the best of me and I ate the entire box in a single sitting. The box has a wide variety of chocolates in it, ranging from specialty-flavoured KitKat bars to European specialities to unique chocolate bars like the Charleston Chew.

If chocolate is not your thing, Dessart Sweets also has miscellaneous candy boxes for the same price. They also have imported chocolate and candy boxes for the broken-hearted globetrotter in your life.

As of last week, I am officially in the final year of my 20s. That has me a little worried because they say it is the 30s when you are forced to finally grow-up... and I really do not want to do that. So, with that sense of impending doom in mind, I decided to embrace my inner child and find some birthday "freebies" around Regina.

There was just a pesky little pandemic in the way.

Because of this, I didn't feel it was right (or safe) to visit a dozen stores around the city, many of them restaurants, asking for free things. A lot of small businesses are hurting right now and asking for free things "just because" doesn't help them at all.

Just over a year ago I wrote an article about the glockenspiel that once stood in downtown Regina. I had fond memories of the glockenspiel as a child and was sad when they took it down to renovate the park. I was even more sad when they didn't put it back up, and I was angry when I discovered it was sitting in a junkyard (sorry, outdoor "storage facility") for the past ten years. That article got a lot of attention, from both the public, the city and the press. Today, efforts are being made to restore the bell back to its original location.

I'm telling you this because preserving heritage – may it be a 25-year-old bell, or a fourth century building – is important. Without heritage, we lose who we are. Often, the desire to move society forward steps over the heritage and causes it to get lost. As impressive as tall glass buildings might be, nothing is better than a smoky red brick structure.

 Saskatchewan is beginning to realize how important this is – and thankfully it's happening now and not in a few decades after everything is gone. But, our neighbours have been on the heritage preservation band train for several years now, especially in Alberta.

Earlier this year I was featured on Dates In the States, an American-based travel blog. They interview various different bloggers to share their travel stories so I was really excited when they approached me. It was a pleasure to work with Crystal and Shane and I love their work, so I thought I would return the favour and interview them back.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself, your blog and how it all got started.

My name is Crystal and I am the writer and creator of Dates in the States. Shane, my boyfriend, is the brains and helps me come up with the content and ideas. Without him, Dates in the States wouldn't be where it is now! We've recently grown our social media exponentially, created an online course, and a Patreon Membership for our followers.

There are three things Salt Lake City is known for: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ted Bundy and skiing. Since we talked about the former already, and I'm no good at the latter, you can probably guess what this article is about.

From 1974 to 1978 Ted Bundy kidnapped, murdered and raped young women and girls across the United States. Between 1974 and 1975, he spent much of his time killing in Idaho, Utah, and Colorado, with his base being in Salt Lake City.

Bundy moved to Salt Lake City to attend the University of Utah Law School, and left his girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer in Seattle, Washington. However, he was not faithful to Kloepfer (besides the raping part) and would date at least a dozen other women while in Salt Lake City.

We have arrived in Germany and St. Goar! Flip told us that German's have the lowest cultural pride in the world -- and I believe this. However, in my opinion, Germany is kind of like that weird kid at school that gets picked on for doing nothing (World War I and the Treaty of Versailles) and finally snaps (World War II), but is still found responsible for his actions.

Flip also told us how and why Hitler came to power, what happened to Berlin after the war, why the wall was built and why it fell in 1989. I learned all about this in history class and I know the majority of people lived through the falling of the Berlin Wall, so I don't think another history lesson is needed. After yesterday's rant, I don't think you'll want another lesson for a while.

Flip went over what we were doing the next few days in St. Goar, Munich and Innsbruck, Austria. We also got a copy of all he optional tours. The website didn't say anything about the group photo in Venice, nor the Venetian dinner we can have. We can also get our own t-shirts!

While getting ready for my excursion around town, I thought I would straighten my hair again. Bad idea. While I was doing my hair, I suddenly heard a loud pop! sound and a whole bunch of smoke emitted from my power converter. I changed the fuse in it, but the whole thing has a very strange, almost burnt smell to it. I hope the fuse is the only thing that blew! I'm only 1/6th done my trip and I don't want to lose my camera again!

I may try the power converter out somewhere else when I come back to see if I can still charge my camera. Maybe. The last thing I want to do is wreck it any further or have my camera burst into smoke also!

I'll write more later. The sun is up and I'm going to hit the town -- with my semi-straightened hair.

After my blunder yesterday, I only had one plan for today: travel to Tsuen Wan and meet my pen-pal Iris.

As a result, from about the time I got up at 9 AM until 2 PM, I did nothing in my hotel. After traveling to so many different cities the past few weeks, I needed a day. I unpacked my clothing, repacked it neatly, organized all my papers and souvenirs by city, checked on my wax hand to make sure it didn't break (it hadn't, thankfully) and got ready. Because we were meeting later in the day I wasn't as worried about the heat, but I knew it was still going to be another muggy day.

Two o'clock came, and armed with my gifts and tablet, I left my hotel and headed towards Olympic Stadium. I went North like yesterday, switched trains at the Lai King station, and headed West to Tsuen Wan. The whole trip took about a half hour.

Frank Albo is known to many as "The Dan Brown of Canada". He gained this informal title through his many decades of research, interviews and investigations into the secrets of the Manitoba Legislature. Through his work, he claims that Winnipeg was meant to have a much larger role in Canada – going so far to say that it was to be the "Jerusalem of the New World".

It may sound odd, but there are a lot of strange motifs within the Manitoba Legislature that otherwise wouldn't make sense. These include being the exact dimensions of King Solomon's Temple, having medusas and demons guarding the entrances, and a "black star" of sacrifice beneath the rotunda. Stranger still is that none of these symbols are in the visually similar Saskatchewan Legislature which was constructed about the same time and for the same purpose. For some reason, the Manitoba Legislature was uniquely created in this manner.

Albo's research has not only gotten a lot of attention in Canada, but international attention too. One of these people was His Excellency Konstantin Zhigalov, Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan. While visiting Winnipeg in 2014, Zhigalov attended Albo's tour. After it concluded, Zhigalov pulled Albo aside and invited him to the capital of Kazakhstan. The request was peculiar, but the moment Albo arrived, he knew exactly why he was chosen.