A Victorian Christmas

I'm in Victoria for Christmas, along with much of the family... the most that have been in the same place for Christmas at one time since 1986 I think. We've added on the new converts from the other families for padding. I'm staying at the big Yellow with Rossini, thus avoiding the crowds. The young ones are currently madly keen on shrimping and crab fishing, and promise to produce a meal for us tomorrow, in time for the arrival of Jeb's new girl. The usual underpinning of tension is surfacing now that the Shawville grandparents have decamped. Too bad, as long as we kept the two matriarchs apart things were actually pretty calm. The furnace failed today, after it dipped to below 3 degrees — we are proceeding quickly through the meager wood pile.

News from Denmark

Denmark is such a civilized, peaceful country. This took place a couple of nights ago in Copenhagen. The protesters don't want to be evicted from a "youth centre" that was donated to them about twenty years ago. As usual, the radical left wing shows its wonderful grasp of political strategy.

Real Stories

These ones were pretty funny.

Giving winter a bad name

Today everyone remembered why they fled the east. Transit slow-downs doesn't begin to describe the situation at UBC. The line in the picture is about the first quarter of a much longer and more annoying one waiting for the bus. They're having trouble clearing the streets, and now the freezing rain/rain/slush have started in earnest. Woo hoo. Tomorrow is my last class though, so maybe I won't have to go outside after that.

Giving winter a good name

Winter got a good name today in my books. I went to see the Polish ambassador give a speech today, which I would characterise as "lacklustre." However, it was a nice gesture of his to come at all since it meant we got another catered lunch.

Who says it doesn't snow in Vancouver?

I got to miss my lone class today because of snow. Shades of white Juan? Not quite. But valuable anyway. Plus our pipes froze. The cold water to the shower froze, so I had to call in my long suffering landlord to blow-dry it. Other than that, still working away on CAP papers, which are getting longer and more rambling by the day. Tomorrow I'm off to get a business card holder engraved for our long-suffering director. We're presenting it to him at his dinner party next week. Speaking of which, we went to a film tonight and HH + the other weird new prof were there too (though seperately)! The one who did the lecture about money in song. Conclusion: Money is important to culture, but just how? meh... who knows. Now let's listen to some more Chamillionaire. I'm going to miss HH when he leaves. He's probably the best prof I've ever had... well, maybe not as good as Curran ;-) Curse those rich Danish head hunters.

Rockin' the social network (again)

Facebook me!

These three are having too much fun

Ha ha. now you know what I'm doing now that I have to write papers. Wait until the end, it gets funnier.

gonna get my money's worth

I sat outside to do some reading today, just to prove I could. This mentality must help to explain why Vancouverites are so keen to sit on patios, porches, and various outdoor cafe set-ups, even in the harshest monsoon downpours. If they can find a tiny perch that isn't getting completely drenched, you can be sure to see people sipping their lattes outside, despite the fact that its really very cold, their hands are turning blue, and their newspaper keeps blowing away. Its also obligatory to maintain a rudy good disposition about all of this, as if to underline how nice the weather is in Vancouver. Its like Canadians abroad trying to prove how immune to the cold they are. These hapless idiots won't wear hats or gloves for anything, unless it gets to be at least ten degrees colder than it does at home. Or who sit out in Parisian cafés, sticking to the metal chairs and loudly exhorting everyone to join them. Or maybe they're just Vancouverites.

Centennarian Cuban

I heard a funny story on the radio about a 106 year old newfie living in Cuba. She moved to Cuba in 1924 after marrying a rich American philanthropist, and they went down there to play classical music. Her husband died four years before the revolution, and she's lived in the same house since then. Apparently Jean Chrétien and Castro both went to her hundredth birthday, but she couldn't remember Castro's name!! She misses Canada but not the winters.

Trenchfoot

After days of downpour it finally did clear. For a while...

November 5, 2006

Its November, so Vancouver is finally living up to its name as monsoon capital of Canada. Thank goodness, it would have been such a disappointment otherwise.

I'm developing a love/hate relationship with school. Sometimes its fun and interesting, and sometimes I just can't keep my eyes open, and can't wait to get a job and earn a bit of money, and be free from the constant tyranny of after-school obligation. I'm so interested in Korea these days, in a way that I never was while I was there. Now I suddenly want to enroll in Korean history classes and learn to write properly. I have so much more respect for all thing Korean now that I'm separated from them. I can't believe how much I've followed the cultural alienation seven steps thing... From interest and overwhelmement on arrival, to frustration and anger, to acceptance and then back to interest. Its hard to know if I miss my life there, with its easy money, easy life, easy travel, crazy neighbours, adventures and so on, or if I actually miss the Korean culture itself.

kreklin'

Its been a kreklin' good time. I've entered the world of the commuter, cursing the bus company for not putting on enough busses and silently bitching out the other commuters for not showering and having the courage to thwart regulations by contining to wear their backpacks on the bus. Other than that we went to see the Vancouver Giants crushing the lowly Spokane Chiefs the other night.

Forestry

We took a trip up to the mountains on the weekend, where I was horribly embarrassed in front of all the other power joggers because Corie kept on yammering away on her cell phone. I guess you can take the girl out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the girl. ;-)

Return of AFN

In Korea we used to subject ourselves to the horrors of the American Forces Network, and I now find myself missing their high quality programming, and especially the public service announcements! Thank god for the internet.



Keep in mind that this example has been selected as the cream of the crop from thousands upon thousands of similar examples... frankly this one's wit, production values, acting, and execution are truly award winning amongst the usual AFN parade.

Family

Filed under interesting stuff I come across in readings:

"There was no word for family in French or German before the seventeenth centuries to distinguish kin from the larger household of helpers. Rather, such words as Haus, demesne, and feu, described the household in a less privatised age. In English, the word family did not distinguish related people from servants and apprentices."

Agriculture

Grapes are among the many fruits and vegetables growing in and around the back garden.

Goin' down to China town

We visited China town this weekend discovering an infinite supply of halloween costumes, and at least one serene garden.

Skooled!

I got badly skooled today. I don't feel like talking about it if you really want to know. Maybe later.

Blackberries

I like blackberries, and apparently the vintage of 2006 is a most excellent one. Score one for the T-man.

Calling Mr. Stainforth : Barrister & Solicitor

I had my first class, that I wasn't teaching, in two years today. It was a third year law class which was enough to wilt my shallow pool of confidence, what with all the talk of trusts, revised competition law and 500 pound legal writs produced in the first five minutes. But on the plus side I finally met my fellow inmates at the institute, all of whom seem like stand up ladies and gents.

The apartment is coming together well, in a bottom of the IKEA and dollar store barell kind of way. Still getting used to the tiny eccentricities, like when we were sure the oven would explode any moment, but we couldn't figure out how to turn it off, so we didn't cook for a day and a half, only to learn that it was just a pilot light heating up the stove.

Grad School Confidential

I'm almost through with UBC indocrination sessions. And boy do I love them now.

I have yet to meet anyone in my programme, but I've met a lot of other people from all over the world. I'm actually really surprised by how many international students there are, according to our informal hands up survey, well over half the student body. So yesterday we went on my personal Booze Crooze II, it seems to be a popular frosh week activity. This one was basically the same as at King's, but perhaps a shade less drunk... hard to say though, I can barely remember all the way back then. It was fun and a un-hyperbollically spectacular night.

In other news, I do now have an apartment down by Commercial Drive. The landlords seem really cool, and its a fairly nice place, so hopefully it will be a good place to live. Much less mold encrusted than my last place. (excluding my parents' places) I've been making good friends with Chester, the local dog. He now trusts me well, and he likes to go on lengthy ambling walks with me, so we're a good match. I'll miss him when I move into my own place.

House Hunting

I'm house hunting in Vancouver right now. So far I've viewed 4 places, and 1 has been really nice. Predictably that one sold right away, so I'm left with the tacky shacks. But there still seems to be a pool out there, so I'm not losing hope. I'm looking at the area around Broadview and Commercial Drive. The area seems really nice, but unfortunately that makes it popular. I'm staying at a friend of Susan's in False Creek, so I'm not hemmorhaging money yet.

Dead Fish

I spent a couple of days in Norway Bay up on the Ottawa River. Unfortunately somebody dumped poison in the bay itself so the beaches were covered with dead fish, and that totally killed the holiday mood. The cottage is about a million percent better than its former shag carpet and 70s surplus store paint scheme days though, so the lack of swimming wasn't utterly disastrous.





My main annoyance these days is that everyone I know seems to be constantly sick. I find it so irritating when other people are sick because its so hard to know if they're screwing with you or if they actually are sick. And then even if they are sick, I find it hard to empathize because it always seems like a really lame problem that they shouldn't complain about. I know its pretty mean to say, because as soon as I feel sick I can totally empathize with everyone, and it stops everything in my life. But in between whiles it just seems like everyone else is a hypochondriac whinger.

Christiania

My uncle took me to visit his old haunts in Christiania. He hasn't lived there in 20 years, but he still knows a lot of the people in there. Christiania, which was established as a community 'seperate' from Denmark in the middle of Copenhagen has changed a fair bit in recent years. They used to sell hash openly in the market and the police didn't bother them, but now they come on a daily basis. The inhabitants have even posted a sign which says how many times the police have been there that day. The government is trying to 'normalize' the area, but there's obviously a lot of opposition, so things move slowly. No hash anymore though. Well, you can imagine that's not strictly true. Anyway, I saw his old house and some of the cool houses his friends have built. They're a lot nicer than when he was there apparently. Back then they stole their electricity which meant it was unreliable, and they didn't have any toilets. But he lived there for 10 years, so it can't have been too bad. It shows a bit though that he's moved out and lives in a posh apartment down the street!

We're back to beautiful Danish summer weather after a day of rain. I've been fairly successful in eating my favourite Danish foods, we had mediste pølse (sausages) yesterday and æbleskiver (apple pastries) for dessert.

Downtown

I was in town yesterday, and it was a beautiful sunny day, even though they said it would piss rain. It turns out that was moved to today. Anyway, its funny how you suddenly get to the touristy part of town, and everyone speaks another language, but if you stay away from there its just Danish. There were a million Americans down there, as charming as usual. I used to like Strøget, but it seems so crowded and lame now. There's just too many people, and all of the stores are either ludicrously expensive, or very ticky tacky tourist traps. I prefer going up to Østerbro or Nørrebro which are a lot nicer to look at, and less crowded. Yesterday there was a protest against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon at the American embassy, which of course makes a lot of sense. The transpo network was in a total uproar yesterday too because of a derailment or something. Now that's all the Danes can talk about, and there's talk of firing the minister of transport! It seems like they're getting to the end of their ropes for some reason, even though this was the second sunniest month in the entire history of Denmark. Today I'm going to try to find a fascist-stlye fitness hall I've been told about, and buy some replacement bowls for my dad.

Beaching it up

I've spent most of my time in Denmark on the beach so far. My uncle is on holidays so he's pretty happy to spend time down there, and my youngest cousine tags along too. There's a giant new beach that they've just opened near to my grandmother's house, with lots of cool diving and sunbathing features I've never seen before. I went out to Solrød yesterday, and everything is pretty much the same as ever. I also went to our old beach there, which was a lot less crowded, and just as nice. I miss having someone in Solrød to keep down the fort that I can visit from time to time.

sommer i Danmark

I have fled north only to find Denmark wrapped in the same killer heat wave. Fortunately, being by the sea and a few degrees further north things aren't nearly as bad here. My grandmother is having a bad time of it though, so I hope it cools off soon. I haven't done much here so far, other than talk with my grandmother, catching up on the criminal underbelly of the family.

I spent not a bad day in Paris, I finally found the Latin quarter, and the beaches that they construct along the banks of the Seine during the summer (which I didn't find too appealing what with the extreme heat stroke, crowds and crummy/expensive swimming opportunities). The night in the airport was better than I thought because there were so few other over-nighters, so I had the pick of the spots, a quiet long bench, and I actually slept a fair bit. Its going to be good to sleep in a real bed for once! I haven't since that first rain shower in Champagne.

Beaune

In the end I decided to go for a trip to Beaune, not too far from Dijon. Beaune turned out to be a nice place, full to the brims with wine and, for some unknown reason, Dutch tourists. I stopped at a chateau, and had a beef burgundy, which they claimed was medium, but by Canadian standards as most definetely rare. This afternoon I'm back in Dijon, bumming around, going to sell my bike, might go to a movie, have to book tickets back to Paris. Continuing in my tradition, the flight leaves at 7AM, so I'll probably just sleep at the airport again. Yeah. Looking forward to that.

Hot

The heat has settled in big time. We're getting about 36 degrees during the days, and no lower than 20 at night, so the temperature is slowly building up. Its not even cool in the mornings any more. Then there's all sorts of depressing reports about people dying of "hyperthermia", so all things considered, I'm pretty much at the end of the biking portion of this trip. I'm in Dijon, as I have been since yesterday, after a gruelling trip from Besançon. I stopped for most of the day in a nice country town, spending much time touring the church and visiting the nicely chilled grocery store. Today I again plan on visiting as many churches as possible, the malls, and possibly the movie theatre. I'm not exactly sure what I will do for the next couple of days, it depends on whether the heat gets worse, stays the same or gets better. I might take some day trips from here, or just stay here and enjoy the city, or head back to Paris in preparation for my flight to DK on Wednesday.

Besançon was nice, very nice setting, lots of services, and as the local press was lamenting, not that many tourist.

De retour à l'hexagone

Getting out of Switzerland was a lot harder than getting in. I rode along the lakes to Neutchatel, which was beatiful, thankfully, because it proved murderous getting out of their little Valley. I knew it would be hard, but the switchbacks after switchbacks were utterly exhausting. It probably took me four hours to get over the mountain at the lakeedge, and that was just the first one!!! Fortunately I found a gorgeous alpine meadow at the top, that I stayed in and ate swiss chocolate for a good long time. The cows all had huge cow bells, and the herder was yodelling (sort of), so it was a just reward. I think this mountain was about 1200 m, so I'm very glad I didn't get into any of the really big beasts. The really depressing thing was reading the next day about the guys on the tour who do several LARGER peaks and 200 km in about 5 hours, and are then considered really crummy if they fall a minute behind. I did about two peaks and maybe 40 km that day in about 12 hours. I guess I put it down to their not having to haul around so much baggage. Yeah, that's it.



So back to France, where it is oppressively hot again. It isn't so bad in the countryside where its nice and cool at night, but its too hot for daytime riding. I covered a lot of territory in the morning and late afternoon though, and I'm now in Besançon. I haven't explored much yet, but it looks like a very nice town to ride out the heat wave. Supposedly we're looking at 38 degrees tomorrow. The temperatures they give are always a bit inflated I find, but I get the drift that it will be hot. I'll probably stay for another day to rest up after several days of mountainous biking.

Holy Swiss balls! Its Switzerland!

I am in Beil in northwestern Switzerland. I went from Colmar across the Rhine which has a long bike path, and eventually made it to Basel. It turns out that Switzerland is a paradise for cyclists and campers because it has an excellent network, very well signalled, and they give out free maps and guides to it all, so I decided to stay a while. I have travelled south through the lower foothills of the Alps, but they are still mountains by my standards. Will now head west and back into France after a couple of days ambling through the lower parts of the Alps. Its funny how the language will change from French to German from town to town here. It also makes me realise how good my French is compared to my German. Also swiss food is a lot crummier than French. If they could just combine the Swiss cycle networks and French bakeries and restaurants, THAT would be a nice place to visit.

Colmar and the Fete nationale

Today's break is in ... Colmar!!! This is southern Alsace now, and by the end of today I should be approaching the Swiss border. I'm going to make a quick trip into the mountainous nation just to prove what a masochist I am. I did my first really hard core mountainous biking yesterday, travelling to the top of the local mountain to see the castle of Haut Koenigsburg. HK was rebuilt in the very early 20th century by Kaiser Wilhelm II when this part of the world was still German. The reconstruction is apparently quite accurat to the state of a 17th century castle, except for a fez megalomaniacal touches on the part of Guillaume, as they call him in France. Other than that I spent the day travelling down the wine route stopping in various picturesque villages, full to the brims with Danes. The campground I was at last night could easily have been in Jutland for all the Danes. (other than the surly receptionist) I was also exceptionally tired after waking at 6.00 and then biking up mountains, but unfortunately it was the fete nationale, and there was a long and vigorous fireworks show followed by a concert. o well.

Pictures

Here's a random assortment of the many pics taken while here. No time to explain.











Landscape of Lorraine;

strassin'

Now I'm in Strasbourg, and again I think its the best place I've been. Maybe I just have a very short term memory, or maybe I'm always just so happy to get somewhere that I always think where I am is the best place yet. Strasbourg is awesome. Its a real blend of German and French, with interesting results. Good restaurants. I ate lebanese tonight and it was excellent. SOrt of like Turish delight but better presentation, less rice, and more expensive. Plus it came with a half flask of wine so now I'm pretty much happy regardless. I spent my afternoon in the Jewish quarter zith kids in Yammukahs [sp?] running around. I'm pretty good at biking now, I did Metz-Nancy the other day, rest in Nancy, evening out, day between there and here. Now some rest and relaxation. I'm eating tonnes of bread which is ridiculously cheap and good. Other than that, nutella, cheese spread, and then restaurants between whiles. I was in Sarrebourg, for lunch and siesta the other day, a lot nicer than they said in the tourist guide!!!! Too bad about Zizou!! The French media still talk of nothing else. Speculating about the outrages that Matarazzi must have said. ZZ is going to get the legion of honour on Bastille Day. Looking forward to that, except its supposed to be so hot that there can't be any fireworks. Yeah!!!! Will be heading south through ALsace in the next days.

Ich bin ein Lorrainer... oder ein Lothringer?

I'm in Lorraine, specifically Metz, where german culture begins to show itself a bit, that is trenches, pillboxes, and cemetaries. (sorry) That was Verdun anyway, my last stop on the road. The trenches and craters really are still there, but covered in giant fir trees now. Metz I'm enjoying, its probably the city that has impressed me the most, possibly because I didn't know that it even existed until a few weeks ago, and it turns out to be a beatiful, peaceful, cafe lined city in the best European tradition. The cathedral outdoes any I've ever seen. And the campground is right in town, so convenient.

Maybe I'm enjoying it because of the emotional highs that accompany it. On the way here the inevitable finally happened, and I got a total flat tire. My little pump was inadequate to refilling it enough to locate holes, so I was stuck. Fortunately not TOO far from Metz, but still far enough. I had no choice but to walk the rest of the way. I was pretty annoyed because I had been making good time, but since it was Saturday afternoon everything that would fix a bike would inevitably be closed by the time I got there, and everything closes on Sunday. Then I got sort of lost getting into the city because the signage is a lot worse than any other city I've been to. So by then I was pretty hungry and despirited at the prospect of two days till i could continue. Fortunately I happened upon a workaholic car garage, whose owner used to be a bike mechanic and he fixed everything up!!! Such luck, I can hardly believe it. He even tightened everything up and greased it.

Short of that, the weather has improved a lot, I'm headed south to Nancy and the east to Strasbourg. The French papers should really just be rename the Zinedine Zidane express, since that's all they really cover now. I'm now used to speedo wearing Dutchmen wandering around in the morning, and may take up the habit myself if I'm not careful.

Champagne

As is the tradition with these bike trips, the weather is not cooperating fully. Apparently large portions of France, including this part, are under an orange level 2 heat advisory. That hasn't been a huge problem, it just ,means I need to make sure to be near some shady form of civilization around 11.30. Unfortunately there's now an additional advisory for "orages tempestueuses". That's something I really don't want to deal with, so as the wind picked up and the sky turned black, I was forced to stay in a much more upscale hotel than I really wanted to tonight. What little scraps of the budget were left are now blown away in the wind. On the upside, I get to stay in a relatively nice hotel, rather than a field full of snotty nosed kids.

On the topic of weather, the French paper I've taken to reading has very poetic descriptions of the weather, invoking the wrath of the gods, the zodiac, and putting it in rhyming phrases on occasion.

Anyway, I'm in Epernay, heart of Champagne, and I'd say its the nicest town I've been to so far. Not to disparage the other towns, but Epernay pulls everything together. I've been following the Marne through countless little towns, all competing to get more stars on their "flower rating" which is officially posted at the entry to each and every little collection of stone houses. So far the main difficulty is timing travel stages with arrivals for "siesta" and a good lunch in town, then a long rest, and then travel ending at an appropriate camp site.

France is officially soccer crazy now; it dominates the papers, mostly with ecstatic homages to Zinedine Zidane and the rest of the "old men". I'm going to Reims tomorrow {as long as apollo remains calm] so I may take in the game there. Either that or at some random campground.

I'm pretty exhausted, yesterday I stopped during the day in Chateau-Thierry, and I could barely walk. I just sat and ate a huge bowl of spaghetti, went up the ra,parts and collapsed under a tree next to a donkee. That night I ran into a British couple going to visit Disneyland, and they insisted I have some beers, so the night was a lot better. Now I'm off to take a long bath. May as well get my money's worth.

countryside

Nova Scotia isn't the only place zithout Sundqy shopping. So is rurql frqnce. Here I am finqlly, resting in the heqt of the dqy in Meaux. I have a pretty good rooute planned qfter meeting q fellow cyclist on the trqin. I'm going qlong the Marne into southern Champagne. Last night was crazy. I went to the Chqmps Elysees and I don't think i ever saw so many people.

Bike life

SO, I'm now ready to get off my feet. Fortunately I bought my bike to replace foot pain with knee pain. After a week in Paris I'm ready to set off tomorrow morning. I'm heading northest toward Meaux, and Reims. I spent today getting the bike and other last minute bits and pieces. Actually I spent about an hour at the sporting goods store getting food, pumps, ,maps and the like. Tonight France plays Brazil which should be fun, especially if France wins. Last time they didn't stop honking or singing until well into the night. Unfortunately that wqs Spain, and this is Brazil, a whole new ball game.

The past week in Paris went by far too quickly. Corie and I walked a thousand miles. We had a good time, and sampled all the food of Paris, especially the non-French cuisine somehow. Today after she left I had a bike for the first time, so I drove around enough to determine that I'm glad not to be driving in Paris, and I visited the new musée du quay branly, which was cool but not wildly spectacular.

Paris at last

I will try to write a quick message on the French keyboard, which i am not used to. I talked to Aalborg U; and they were cool. it seems like a nice school. *

I camped out my night in Aalborg, and wouldn:t you know it, there was q storm. Not too much sleep that night. next day i took q bus to Hamburg with a bunch of internationql students, chinese and ukrainian. we passed through kiel and it seemed very happening. World cup fever i guess; anyway, short time in Hamburg and on to Brussels, which i wasn:t overly impressed with. Mqybe it was the time of day or something but it just seemed inordinately boring for a city that size; slept all the wqy to Paris, got to the hotel; they were awesome. And so far Paris is living up to expectations: I;m off to the airport to get Corie now!

Radio Europe

Here I am in Aalborg and already I'm very impressed. I tuned into the radio and the first song they played was a remix of the Baywatch theme! Almost as good as London radio; they spend much of the day making prank calls to German people and getting them to translate rude things like "I want to cover you with cream and lick it off". Classic!! They were pretty jazzed about the game with Sweden despite the horrendous screw ups, mostly because they still get to play Ecuador.

Its a good thing I got out of London though, because in one day I managed to completely ruin my budget and will have to cut out food on the later days of the trip to compensate. It was a nice day and I stayed awake except for a couple of cat naps in Hyde Park.

Last night was a blast, sleeping at Stansted for the second, and hopefully last, time in my life. The number of transient backpackers trying to get a bit of sleep there is quite amazing, and so are the number of alarms that go off on a regular basis. I was so tired though that I did get a few hours of sleep and woke up realising that I'd slept past the opening of the check in counters. Big mistake. Ryanair seems to afford the 1 pence flights by reducing the number of check in personnel. So I spent a lovely morning fighting back throngs and protecting my turf in a mass of humanity to put the Titanic to shame.

Then this morning I checked out Aarhus, where it was pissing rain, and then I passed out on a train to AAlborg, and here I am searching for somewhere to stay tonight.

Halifax

I've made it as far as Halifax. Currently I'm staying in Tantallon with JnD. Its been really good weather and the Oilers won last night, so I've been feeling a good vibe so far. I saw a lot of Halifax today, including C and I, though I(he) was feeling a bit under the weather. Too bad, so sad. Hamilton was interesting, and it seems that I got out of there just in time, as there's a horrible heat warning there right now. J is doing well, going to Heidelberg in August to study for three years. J has changed a bit, but is definetely the same guy underneath. Hamilton pretty much lived up to its reputation, on the main drag downtown it features a porn shop, a 24 hour bingo parlour, pawn shops, a dollar store, and payday loan stores. My cabbie told me they named the airport after the biggest crook in Hamilton's history. Isn't that always the way?

Heading out

My long awaited trip is beginning tomorrow. I'll begin with a visit to J in Hamilton, before heading to Halifax on Saturday. I'll be visiting J and D as well as sundry others in Halifax before finally hitting London. It'll be fun to see Halifax again, even if they don't have craps anymore. I arrive in London at 4AM which is midnight in Halifax, so basically that night will disappear for me. I'm probably going straight to Hyde Park and be a vagrant for a while, sleeping until they kick me out. Depending on how much energy I have, I'll see what I can do. Then I'm flying out of Stansted the next morning at 6AM, so I'll have to sleep there. I'm flying to Aarhus, then I'll have to transfer to Aalborg and go for a series of gruelling interviews at Aalborg U. By then I predict that I'll pretty much be a babbling lunatic (more so than usual) so no doubt I'll impress them enormously. On the 23rd or 24th I'll catch a bus to Hamburg, and then another to Paris in time for Corie's flight from Shanghai at 5PM on the 25th. So for that first period I'm subscribing to the school of frantic, city a day travel, which we all know is the most fun. Fortunately we have the "perfect hotel" in Paris. No really, that's its name, so I can sleep for a week there. Its located in Montmartre, and my parents stayed there during Euro 2000 when France won the tournament, so I'm hoping for a repeat. (NOt bloody likely with the way they played against the Swiss)

Summer in Ottawa

I've been enjoying summer in Ottawa, since its been unusually nice; no smog alerts, hazy grey skies, humidexes in the 40s, or brownouts. My Dad has almost moved, and my belongings are now all officially out of Hillcrest. I'll just need to work out what to do with them, and decide what to bring with me on my trip. I've never had to pack so lightly for such a long period of time. I officially have "65 litres" of space, but will have to keep it less than that for the stuff I pick up en route. My itinerary is pretty much set now: A quick trip to Halifax, then out on the 20th, one day in London, 2 in northern Jutland, down to Paris until July 1st, and then biking from there. Probably I'll strike east toward champagne, Verdun, Alsace, then south toward Besancon, down toward Lyon, and then as far south as I can get, hopefully into Provence, depending on weather and time and money. Then I'll jet back to Copenhagen to visit the family, and then back to London for the return to Canada on the 6th of August.

Mapping

This is a map to find where we used to live. Nobody cares I realise, but this is from Google Earth of Daegu/Taegu, including our old haunts. (some anyway) We lived in Beommul, in the south east of the city, and spent most of our time there and in Jisan, or down the famous country road. Siji and downtown were our satellite hotspots.

Doppelganger

I ran into a younger edition of James the other day! What do you think?

hottawa

I'm back in Ottawa, where its getting revved up for a hot summer. After coming back from the Sound, the most important thing we did was create a big Indian dinner for my grandmother, which all the cousins worked on. The crowning glory being the yellow jello "jillo" for my aunt, followed by a rousing 7 player game of "racing demon" which I now have a much renewed respect for. Unfortunately its another one of these quick witted games that I really suck at. Jules and I did collosally badly, and would probably have lost even if we'd combined our efforts. Still it was fun, and I will somehow have to find some way to practice for the rematch at Farmor's 100th.

Here are some pics from the trip



here are some more

Dezo

As promised, I visited Desolation Sound, known to the Victorian sailing set as Dezo. Desolation isn't quite the adjective that I would choose, surely Captain Cook had found somewhere more desolate than that in all his world travels. The really misleading name is the "Sunshine Coast" which it is a part of...

Its a long trip up there, and we arrived at the Little River ferry terminal with about 2 hours to spare. The older generation got heavily involved in bridge, much to the disgust of Dix, who has formed an anti-bridge alliance amongst the non-converted. They were a lot happier though, because it was pissing rain the whole time, and the non-bridge crowd had nothing to do but stand around in the parking lot. Eventually we ordered a pizza to keep our spirits up.

The following day we kayaked, and I can proudly say that my boat was the only one which managed to keep all of its passengers throughout the journey. Other than the baby boat, which stayed firmly in the inner harbour. The picture here included makes it look rather more dramatic than it actually was, but don't let that take away from the hushed amazement about my skills.

Later that day we ventured into the real desolation sound for dinner on a little boat. The captain could call bald eagles, and he would throw them food which they would swoop down to eat. I've never seen so many eagles before. They've made a really good comeback from the DDT years. The mountains up desolation sound are spectacular, as mountains tend to be. Our dinner consisted of Crab and prawns, which he gave us useful instruction in eating, for which we were grateful. We got another earful of bagpipes out on the sound, upsetting many and delighting a few.

Today we had wild excitement, touring Powell River and it pulp and paper facilities waiting for a ferry again.

Turning 90

My grandmother turned 90 today. Its quite a feat if you think about it, and still enough to stop many in their tracks. The average age at the party today was probably well above 60, but I still managed to have a good time. I met many of these random people who know who you are, but you have no idea who they are. Weird as it sounds, it actually makes conversation a lot easier, because they know exactyly what to talk about. Plus these elderly people have often done a lot and been a lot of places by the time you get around to talking with them. I met not just one, but several people who had lived in Korea during the 1970s, which is interesting for me since by our standards anyone who had been there since 2002 was old blood. Other than that a lot of blathering, piping, drinking, and eating.

We're heading up the coast to desolation sound starting tomorrow, for what sounds like a rip roaring holiday.

Here's various pics of the birthday girl, but for more go to the link.


This is the link to other photos