DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

   The Ghost City – an apocalyptic inspiration for filmmakers for as long as I can remember. There is nothing more surreal than witnessing an abandoned city, and writers through the ages have grabbed hold of this fact with both hands. Introducing us to all forms of abandonment. From the 1948 Ghost-Town-Western ‘Yellow Sky’ starring Gregory Peck, to the deserted London streets of Danny Boyle’s ’28 Days Later’. The frightful tension associated with popular 90′s video game ‘Silent Hill’, to the post-apocalyptic nothingness of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-winning novel ‘The Road’. The theme is well-trodden, everywhere you may choose to glance. An excellent backdrop to any form of entertainment, whether it be film, literature or anything else for that matter.    There is however some degree of foundation to this surreality. The ghost town is common among the Americas, especially in the Central and Southern states. Surveys suggest that there are around 6,000 abandoned sites of settl

   The Canadian Tulip Festival , now in its 59th year, has grown to become the largest Tulip Festival in the world. It preserves the local heritage of Canada’s role in freeing the Dutch during World War II, and the symbolic tulip; a gift in perpetuity to the Canadian people for providing a safe harbour to the Dutch Royal Family at that time. The festival’s mandate is to preserve this heritage and celebrate the tulip as a symbol of international friendship by engaging local organizers, volunteers, artists, performers, tourists and festival-goers in what has become an annual ritual of spring and one of Canada’s best loved and well-known cultural events. Princess Juliana of the Netherlands   In the fall of 1945, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands presented Ottawa with 100,000 tulip bulbs. The gift was given in appreciation of the safe haven that members of Holland’s exiled royal family received during the World War II in Ottawa and in recognition of the role which Canadian tro