Amsterdam with Tony and friends

Right. So I’m hella behind on my blogging. I owe posts (yes, I feel like I owe you, I care about my readers, all six of you) on the rest of Orkney, Amsterdam, Malta and whatever else I have sitting on my camera/in my brain. So here’s what I remember about Amsterdam, in just over a thousand words…

After staying up all night drinking shit vodka (it shouldn’t freeze!) with Kris, and on just two hours of sleep, I hopped an EasyJet to Amsterdam-Schipol to meet up with Tony, Meru and Kristian (who I’d travelled to Ireland with two years ago). It’s a good thing it’s a nice airport, as I ended up there for a while. My flight was late taking off, so I texted Kristian to say I might be a bit late, but would call as soon as I landed, so they’d know when to come meet me.

Ha. That worked. I waited at an airport bar, drinking Heineken, randomly receiving calls from Kristian that they were late or had missed the bus (with Tony yelling in the background to let him speak.) But you know what? I wasn’t bothered. It was the first time I felt really relaxed in a while. I had no where to go and nothing to do until they showed up, an occurrence which was out of my hands. So I sat, people watching and reading, sipping my pint, feeling pretty good despite my general exhaustion.

Tony finally showed up, and I’m always happy to see him, so that just added to the general feeling of GTs – and we weren’t even in Amsterdam yet.

Once we tracked down Meru (wandering in departures, inexplicably) and called Kristian (jogging around the airport, inexplicably), we caught the train into town, had some shitty KFC before finding some shitty tourist bar out of the rain where we had an overpriced shitty drink. It was awesome.

We wandered about through town, trying to find a coffee shop or pub that was still open. At some point, one of us asked a guy standing in the street for directions. Bart, as he turned out to be called, turned out to be a homeless guy, who gives tours of the red light district for hostel cash. He found our coffeeshop (it was closed), gave us directions to a beer pub (closed, but we returned later), and eventually found an open place – but not before taking us on a tour of the red light district. He took us down one hidden alley, just a few feet wide, with red lights and windows lining the sides. While women catcalled from open doors, British men (overwhelmingly) leered and cut deals, their sweaty skin and bald heads shining red in the light. Exiting that alley, we turned along an old church down a less busy strip, where Bart and I had this exchange:

Bart: The women on this street cost less.
Me: How come?
Bart: Because they’re fat. Do you want to see where the transvestites are?
Me: No… I think I’ll pass.

After running the gauntlet of prostitutes, Bart took us to a pub. After giving him all our change and a couple of five euro notes, he joined us for a pint (offering to buy his own, now he had enough cash, which I thought was rather sweet.) Anyway, if you ever go to Amsterdam, go to the zoo, as it came highly recommended by Bart.

The next day, after moving our gear from tents to a cabin, I rented a wobbly one-speed bike and we all rode into town for pancakes. They do weird things to pancakes in Amsterdam. Mine involved apples and bacon, and damn was it good. Afterwards, we did some beer shopping and aimless cycling – they have proper cycle lanes in this city, and I love it. There’re bikes everywhere. If I were mayor of London, my goal would be to make it like this. Forget cars. Forget trams. Get everyone on bikes.

I don’t really remember what else we did, but it probably involved drinking beer and cycling home and getting lost and possibly hot-boxing the cabin, but probably not.

On the last day, leaving Kristian behind in the cabin (possibly to hot-box it, possibly not), we took the bus and the metro into Amsterdam, stopping to sort out some travel-related stuff for the guys, before heading to the museum district, where we toured the Van Gogh museum. Pretty cool stuff, and I fell madly in love with one painting (as I tend to do). Tony ditched (as he tends to do in museums and Guiness tours) and we all arranged to meet up at the pub later that night. I finished with the museum, did a little shopping and headed to the flower market, which was pretty boring. It used to be a row of barges hawking flowers and bulbs, now it’s just some floating tat shops. From there, I walked back into the centre, shopping and photo-ing sex shops along the way, getting to the pub much too early. Which was fine by me, I gotta say.

So this pub. Tony noticed it the first day, the Old Nickel, because it had a sign up outside advertising 60 (or so) different beer. These are the things that catch Tony’s eye. The first night, it was closed – or so we thought. If you know the right people and what to say, it stays open past 4am… And now we know. The next day, we used it as a meeting place, and had a few pints from their rather impressive selection before moving on.

The last night, however, we parked ourselves at the bar, and Tony and the Bartender became best-friends-forever. Sensing a kindred spirit (maybe), the bartender started pulling out bottles of specialty beers, handing us books about the subject and showing us where it was made on maps. This man knows his stuff. After going thru a few bottles of beer – including a Laphroigh-like smokey beer – we cracked open a big bottle of Chimay, which tastes differently depending on the size of the bottle. The 20 euro one is pretty awesome, let me tell you.

We had dinner there, and Tony and I maybe or maybe not went to a sex show, which maybe or maybe not was hilarious and maybe or maybe not involved bananas. Maybe. Maybe not. Mmmm… potassium.

As I had a flight the next morning, Meru and I hopped a bus (sadly, not the right one) and trekked back – me, incredibly grumpy and tired – to the cabin, somewhat expecting Kristian on his bike to beat us there. Yeah, he didn’t. But he did have the key. I didn’t get much sleep, but enough to hop a flight back to London-Luton… and straight to work. Yeah, I was productive that day…

For a trillion more photos, go here.

Paris avec la DarNat

So here's what we actually did in Paris, in more detail than is strictly necessary... But really, this blog is more for me than it is for you.

DarNat were travelling with Daorcey's parents (Colin and Jannose) who were chaperoning a school trip around war sites in France and Belgium. As they had three days in Paris at the end of the tour, I figured I may as well hop the Eurostar and go for a visit.

As noted previously, we met at the Eiffel Tower, where we ditched the 20 teenagers (leaving them with their teachers and the tour guide) and headed to the Arc de Triomphe where we watched the mayhem that is the massive traffic circle (video).

We then trudged/metroed back to Bastille, where Daorcey got us lost looking for their hotel before heading to a supremely shit dinner (green beans!). Such a shame to have a bad dining experience in Paris... So we got a bottle of wine, and headed back to DarNat's hotel, where Daorcey and I got drunk and talked about media while Nat fell asleep -- but not before the return of Private Obvious. I returned to my hostel and crawled into bed in my darkened room, trying not to disturb my dutch roommates unnecessarily...



The next day, we again ditched the tour group, opting to walk to the Louvre along the river rather than go on a bus tour with the teenagers. The Louvre (video) is as it always is: frustratingly crowded and not worth the fuss. Amazing collection, horribly presented. Such a shame. But we did get to see Napoleon coronating himself this time... (which really deserves a post of it's own) and we did get to see the flying spaghetti monster (video).


We then rejoined the kids for an hour in Montmartre (video1, video2). If you've been there recently, you'll know all about the annoying dudes with the bracelet scam. If you haven't, and you plan to go, don't let anyone make you a bracelet. Anyway, some dude tried to get me to go along with his scam, and this exchange occurred:

Me, loudly: No, no, no.
Him, abrasively: You should go to Iraq and get your throat slit.

Excellent. After that, we were off to dinner at a crazy Greek restaurant in the Latin Quarter, where the waiters tried to get their hands all over the cuter girl teenagers, and where natalie confused one kid by telling him: "Love between two men is the purest form of love there is." This was prompted by a decorative plate illustrated by two men engaged in uh, love. Then we took the boat tour (video).

The next/last day, we were off to Versailles. Annoyingly, the employees of the palace had decided -- being French -- not to work for the first hour. Some sort of work to rule campaign. By the time they stopped striking, the lineups were massive -- but they were less lineups and more scrums. Scrums of European teenagers with mullets and skinny jeans. As you can imagine, it didn't take long for me to lose my temper.





We eventually got into the building, speedwalked through some very fancy rooms (video) to the other Coronation of Napoleon painting and then ditched out to the gardens... After opting to not go back to Paris with the group, we rented bikes and cycled around Marie Antoinette's crazy town, got yelled at by French police (apparently, being English isn't an excuse) and then trained it back to Paris, where we walked around the Latin Quarter -- andI finally got to look around Shakespeare and Co, the most amazing bookstore ever; none of the books on the top floor are for sale, but you can hang out and read them -- before going for dinner near Republique.

And then we tried to go to bed, while the teenagers tried to get drunk. We both eventually succeeded.


More pics live here and videos live here.

Screechy Paris

The catchphrase -- if you can call it that -- of this trip to Paris seemed to be, well, screeching.

These videos are probably only funny to myself and DarNat, but hey, that's good enough for me.












To me, that's damn funny. Go here for video one, video two or video three.

Shout out to my Parkland homies!

I like posting to this thing from airports, as you may have noticed. Am at the shiny Ottawa International at the moment, awaiting a flight to Montreal's Trudeau where I transfer to my last flight to Heathrow.

(They've given me a whole hour to make the transfer; so if I'm not back in London by Saturday morning, blame Air Canada... and you know what song just popped into my head? The South Park "Blame Canada" thing. Urge to make a spoof "Blame Air Canada" jingle is suddenly overwhelming... It's got to be better than the Celine Dion theme song. /End random aside.)

So I've spent the past day (tired, because of kittens -- details and pictures to follow) gettin' my visa and visitin' Parkland expats. I know two people who also once lived in the neighbourhood I grew up in (um, called Parkland) and both now live in Ottawa. That's fascinating to me, but probably not to you. But really, this post isn't about you. It's about me, killing boredom. If it happens to cause you boredom, that's not really my concern. So suck it.

Anyway, I like the idea of a Parkland coup. South can take over Parliament (he got us in after hours, so I guess he can get past security) and Ryan can run the Army. Me, I'll be in Tim Hortons, drying out my socks. (Ottawa may be lacking snow, but it's still magically wet and slushy.

Freaks!

So I head back to London (via Ottawa, again) on Thursday. Yesterday, we (M/T/M, DarNat, EvilAnna plus extra bonus Ben!) went to the Hop for my last pint of Fog and my last Canadian (mushroom and bacon) pizza for the next year or so.

Depressing. I mean, how could I leave such people behind:

More pictures (courtesy Anna) are here. Some of them are actually nice.

Christmas in Calgary, photographically

A few pictures -- hey, it's better than me rambling, right?

Looking out the back door

The view from the back windows of my parent's De Winton house.
They've seen deer and moose back there; I've heard coyotes.
Not bad for a golf course.

~

Christmas morning
Is my dad rather too excited to be getting a box of socks?
~

Michelle and her Bunny
My Grandfather bought her a frighteningly life-like stuffed rabbit.
Made with real rabbit? Who knows...
~

High Roller!
Brandon and one of two poker sets he was gifted with that day.
~

Lap dog
Can't even put the puppy down to unwrap gifts...
~

Preggers and me and Calgary
View of downtown -- and the mountains, if you squint --
from the parking lot of the Max Bell arena
~

Hockey!
Brandon's brother's team at the midget tournament.
No, that doesn't mean he's short.
~

Zamboni
My British friends, this is a zamboni,
in case it ever comes up in conversation again.
~

Action shot
Richard (little brother of Brandon) on the ice.
~

Action shot #2
Daorcey in action, with a perogy, after more beer
and vodka than he can usually take.
~

That's a lot of pictures. Sorry if you've got dialup -- but damn, get with the now, man!

Edit: Blogger did weird things to the photos. They've been reposted...

Big Green Gathering

I've now been inaugerated into the ways of the British Festival -- well, sort of. We were only there two nights over the last weekend (as opposed to five) and it was a pretty fluffy festival (so I'm told), but good times were had nonetheless.

Summer is festival-time in England. The famous one is Glastonbury, but there are tons of others, too. We went to something called the Big Green Gathering, which was more focused on eco-friendly-ness than music -- tho there was a lot of that, too.

Aside from fields and fields of thousands of tents and camper vans, the festival was full of all sorts of crazy, flakey, hippy-shiznit, including booths for massage and gong baths and zero balancing -- whatever that is -- and rock circles and tea tents and lots of shops of clothes and accessories for the modern hippy (who, judging by this festival, is as commerical as the rest of us).

The best bits -- for me, anyway -- were the horse drawn carts (because: pony pony pony pony) and the music everywhere. It was just nice and relaxed no matter what you were doing.

But how -- some of you may ask -- can a festival of music, ect, be eco friendly? Think of all the energy going power amps and lights and speakers and stuff? Oh, but they thought of that. All the power used was generated by sun, wind, and in some cases, legs:


Safest way to cycle when drunk! In order to power the speakers and lights at this music tent at night, people had to cycle. If too many people got lazy and stepped off this contraption, the music faltered and died, and everyone groaned. But then someone (including myself at one point) would hop on, and it'd be good happy party times again.

I want -- really very much -- to start a club powered in this way. Imagine the bikes, up on platforms above the crowd, sort of like dancers in cages the way some dance bars have. And then just hire some hotties of both gender, put them in skimpy outfits, and make them cycle for the night. Maybe have a few cycling contraptions for the public to use, too -- and they will, 'cause it's actually quite fun. Anyone care to fund this?

Amusingly, on the way out, the bus from the train station broke down. Not so amusingly -- as we were filthy and sunburnt and exhausted and had to work the next day -- Amir's car broke down on the way home, just down the hill from Stonehenge. I blame the druids.

More pictures (of the fest, not druids) are here.

. . .

Also some photos of the weekend before, when we escaped London to go celebrate Pier and Leila's birthday's at their new house, which is just outside a small town, which is just outside Salisbury -- ie, the middle of nowhere. But, it should be noted, the middle of nowhere is often a very pretty place and very nice place to be.

Evian, uh, France

My last day in Geneva, we couldn't decide what to do. I wanted to go to CERN, but you need to book a month ahead (which I will totally do next time). So we were walking back and forth, checking the in'ernet, and eventually picked some Genevan suburb.

At this point, Val called. Kris explained to her where we were going, and her response was: "No, no no -- there's nothing there. We'll go to Evian. I'll drive. Meet me in five minutes." (A prime example of the "shiny things" way of life which Kris is spreading across Europe...)

Val and Kris... In France

So. We went to Evian.

It's about an hour and a half from Geneva, also along Lac Leman. While driving along the road, we passed something that looked like a border crossing, but disused. Huh. Weird.

A few moments later, we drove past a school with Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité written across the front. Weird, eh, to have the slogan for the French revolution on a Swiss school? Crazy.

We keep driving. Eventually, we arrive in Evian. There are French flags in the air, yet we still think we're in Switzerland.

I go to take money out of the bank, and it totally inexplicably gives me euros. I walk back to Kris and Val, and this conversation occurs:

Me: That bank machine gave me euros.
Kris: Did you ask for euros?
Me: No... are we in France?

Only then -- after all the evidence -- do we realize: we're in France. Evian -- with the very patriotic red, white and blue label -- is French bottled water. (Whoever heard of Swiss water?)

Ad-tastic

In our defense, Geneva is a French-speaking city. And it's not like anyone checked our passports or anything (thankfully). So we hung out, eating ice cream and drinking bottle water -- as I had euros to spend, and hey, when in Rome... -- for twenty minutes before heading back so I could catch my flight back to London.

Am I a jetsetter or what? Switzerland, France, England -- all in one day...

Les images d'Evian sont ici.

Geneva, Geneva

Right. I've been writing this in little bits, because Blogger has sucked lately, and because I've been lazy. So it might be a wee bit on the rambly nonsensical side...

Anyways.... Okay, so I went to Geneva eons ago -- uh, last weekend -- to visit Kris. After arriving on Friday -- and waiting in line at passport control behind three Brits who were debating whether the UK is or is not part of the EU -- Kris and I took the bus (expensive, but efficient) to the dorm room he's staying in while interning/fellowshipping at the UN. The view from his 12th floor flat is ridiculous; you can see the mountains and the lake:

Geneva is set in a mountain valley along part of a very large lake, the sea-like Lac Leman. It's most famous landmark is a massive fountain, the jet d'eau. But because it was freakishly windy (or something) the fountain wasn't on the first day. Nor the second. In fact, the entire time I was there, it was on for about an hour:


After wandering along the waterfront, admiring the many flags and private banks and watch companies, we headed to a restaurant/bar and ordered some "traditional" Swiss meal involving potatoes. Weirdly, during dinner, a friend of Kris' walked by. So we joined her table, and were swiftly joined by a half-dozen other friends.

One fun thing about Geneva is that it's not really Swiss. It's not really "international", either. It's more "NGO". Every conversation started with the question: "Where are you from?" -- because no one is from Geneva, or even Switzerland, here. They are from Ghana or Colombia or Canada or where ever else. (I spoke to one Swiss person the entire weekend; he was a waiter.)

The next question is invariably: "What are you doing here?" The answer to which usually involves an acronym with the letters "UN", or -- in small cases -- the Red Cross or some other NGO.

Another fun thing about Geneva is their answer to beer pitchers:

Yes folks, that holds 3L of sweet, precious beer. The mind boggles.

The next day we walked around the city, did some grocery shopping, checked out the Old Town and sat in a park.

European cities -- based on my limited knowledge -- seem to all have Old Towns, and they are all usually about the same: tiny, narrow cobbled streets -- lined with antique shops and galleries and cafes -- leading up a hill to a massive cathedral. While they are lovely, it's a bit repetitive. I mean, really, Europe is old. I get it. This must be why Paris' La Defense and even London's Canary Wharf are so well-loved. They're different.


But one thing I'll never tire of is the urban parks that Europe -- again with the "in my limited experience" bit -- does so incredibly well. The park we hung out in was fabulous. We walked in past old men playing chess with massive toy-like sets -- the pawns were a foot high! -- while people looked on, fascinated to watch.

After buying ice cream and drinks, we sprawled in the grass near an old mansion -- currently used for after parties and similar -- in sight of the carved stone of the Reformation Wall, while kids played football and some random guy practiced his numchuck skills. Europeans know (knew?) how to create useful, beautiful public space.

After parking around, Kris made dinner. Was it stuffed peppers? You know it was. There was also a ridiculously lame joke involving me being gifted a rooster decoration from Kris' Colombian friend, Andreas. If you know what Latin American guys are like, and if you know a synonym for "rooster," you can probably figure out the basis of the joke.

The next day, we hit up the very well-done Red Cross Museum, which managed to be interactive in the way most modern museums try to be, but fail. But, as is true of its many endevours, the Red Cross does not often fail.

Then, using his security pass, Kris got me into the UN. Did I have a shit eating grin on my face upon seeing the main hall? You bet I did:

So awesome. Like when South got us into Parliament after hours, except this time, we had to dodge security guards.

That night, we went to go see Mission: Impossible: 3 -- the silliest punctuated movie, ever -- because the baddie is an arms dealer, and Kris is with UNIDIR, who track such things. So Kris, myself, a fellow intern, and their boss -- the hilarious Valerie -- went to go see the film. Did it suck? Yes. Of course it did. Was it cool seeing it with people who actually knew arms dealers? Hell yes.

(And, to steal Will's film review shorthand: Lessons learned from M:i:3... True love cures headaches.)

The next -- and final day -- in Geneva, we went to Evian. Which deserves a post of its own... later.

Pictures are here.