Day 062 of Our Winter: This is the very first picture taken in 2026 at a couple of minutes after midnight along the Galle Face Green in Colombo Sri Lanka.
The real day didn't start until breakfast around eight and a half hours later.
We knew that we had paid for breakfast at the Steuart by Citrus in Colombo. We thought it might be prepared for us from a menu. However, we were lucky to have the option to celebrate with a Sinhalese buffet breakfast. It was prepared for staff, but we chose that over some eggs and sausages. It, of course, started with milk rice. All the mandatory items were ticked off as well. What would a holiday be without traditional konda kavum oil cakes?
We had enough time before we checked out to have a little exercise to walk off the extra carbs. We just walked down to the port and a short loop around the Fort area. It was interesting to realize that Jay's sisters had not only never been to Galle Face Green on a celebration as they did last night. Also, they really had never walked around some of the streets in that part of downtown. Jay and I have been making a regular habit of it since 1986. In actuality, they really have had no reason to spend a lot of time there but it still seemed strange.
We finally checked out at a bit before 11:30 on this slow moving morning. I used PickMe to order a car to get us to Majestic City. It was a great day to visit the food court of that 1990s mall for some take-away lunch to being back to Nugegoda.
After we had our four boxes in hand, we used one of the sister's phone to get another PickMe rideshare to complete the journey. Surprisingly, the same driver was waiting.
Everyone now relies on GPS apps to get around. I've read up on how selfish hordes of similar drivers use them and end up overrunning little neighbourhoods not set up for such traffic flow, all to save thirty seconds off the complete route. The thing is, it doesn't work. All the traffic forces new choke points. Welcome to getting around in a new year!
We liked the food and did little else today other than eat it. Well, I spend some more quality time learning about how to use AI Ajith. I'm not going to be able to suggest he'll achieve consciousness this year, but Google Gemini, with all its shortcomings, is a miracle of modern computer science.
An incredibly complex AI is a better way to frame technology in 2026 than looking at the impact of selfish GPS software.