Greve-digging

_{Striking students. Sadly, I've nothing funnier to add to that}

As I’ve noted before, one of the joys of living where we do is never wanting for entertainment. From here we can see such wonders as the Cathedral light show, bike races or, famously, Napoleonic disco zombies.

One of the more frequent sights out my window are street protests, a sight Le Monde tells me is likely to become even more common in the days to come.

Today it was the students. Now, I don’t want to get into the ins and outs of why they’re striking, as I’d probably get it wrong anyhow, but I really must ask: what vital service are students providing that their striking would be a threat worth taking seriously? I was on “strike” for the first two years of my undergraduate degree, and no one - not even my professors - ever noticed.

In any case, what I’ve observed about these manifestations is that they all, without exception, feature a pickup truck bearing a small rock n’ roll combo, belting out rousing tunes custom composed for the occasion.


_{On the road again...}

Given that I was ill yesterday, and am therefore still a little giddy from lack of food, when today’s parade of discontent passed, I was left wondering how these guys come up with their songs. Is there a “Defending the social-contract in three-chords” songbook? Or are some gallic Lennon and McCartney spending their nights hopped up on bennies, churning out new lyrics for the cause du jour?

“Jacques, mon ami, what rhymes with Sarkozy?”

“Solidarité? It is close enough, no?”

“Ah, but we used that for the electricians strike, just last week. Our fans demand more of us!”

“I am not a machine, Jean-Paul. This is an art! One cannot just rhyme “revolution” with “etudiant” and call it poetry! There must be passion!”

"Do not be so hard on yourself Jacques. We cannot write an opus like "No to the reform of municipal blue-collar pensions" every time."

All right, I obviously need some lunch.

On a lighter note...

In French class yesterday we were doing an exercise to help us master the future conditional, in which we would ask each other questions like "If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?"

At one point, I was asked if I could eat any meal, with a dining companion of my choice, what and who would it be. Taking my role as class clown seriously, I answered duck (I do love me some duck), which I would eat with Kate Moss, adding "That way, there would be more food for me."

Later I was asked if I could be anyone in the world for 24 hours, who would it be, and what would I do. Again, thinking I was being clever, I answered Bill Gates, and I would give all my money to Mark Reynolds.

Topping me when his turn came, Gabor, my Hungarian classmate, answered without batting an eye "I'd be Kate Moss, and go to dinner with Mark."

Battle weary

_{Vimy memorial. Note the churned earth and sign to the right warning of unexploded shells}

Note – I suspect the following post is a wee bit self-righteous, and possibly even somewhat pompous. Forgive me, I do get worked up sometimes.

I had intended a Remembrance Day post here about my visit, with my family, to Vimy Ridge last month. Unfortunately, the day we went to the memorial I forgot to bring my camera, and thus decided to wait until my Dad’s CD of his pictures arrived. Given that my Dad’s a far superior photographer, you can count yourself lucky.

In any case, I’ve ranted about Vimy’s place in Canadian history before and my opinion on that score is unchanged.

That said, that despite the Parks/Heritage Canada presentation of the site, the memorial is very moving. It is staffed by fresh-faced college girls reciting troop numbers, pointing out soldiers’ graffiti and scrupulously avoiding the topic of just who all these Canadians were in France to kill. Ask where the German trenches were and a vague hand is waved “over there.” German cemeteries are nowhere in evidence, German casualties never mentioned. Overall, the displays in the visitors centre are more about the act of “remembrance” itself than about what, precisely, we are supposed to be remembering. Needless to say, the site repeats the old trope that so enrages me about how Vimy proved to Canadians what we, as a nation, could accomplish


_{Death's tool chest in the tunnels. Not historic enough}

At the risk of sounding needlessly provocative, what “we” achieved that day was monstrous. And it is this, no matter how much the myth-makers back home try to paper this over, is what the Vimy Memorial presents quite well.

The land around the battlefield is, ninety years on, pitted and scarred with shell craters, laden with unexploded ordnance. Two graveyards, filled with tombstones marked with nothing more than “A Canadian soldier” speak not just to the massacre here, but to the heartbreak of families back home who would never know what happened to their sons.


_{Canadian cemetery at Vimy}

Vimy was won underground – an enormous network consisting of miles of tunnels allowed troops to burst onto the battlefield undetected. In these, old grenades, rifles and barbed wire fencing rust away, handled occasionally by some English major from Bathurst or Toronto who explains how they were improved upon over the course of the war to better aid the massacre.

And this, to me, is what makes this a monstrosity. So much effort, so much human labour and ingenuity spent improving the efficiency of the machinery of death.

Adolph Hitler famously visited the Vimy memorial in the 1930s, having been a runner in that sector of the front; he was invalidated out just prior to the Canadian assault. After invading France, he specifically ordered that the Vimy memorial be spared the Nazi programme of destroying war monuments, reasoning that our memorial did not express triumph over an enemy, but rather sorrow over the loss. How anyone could walk through those cemeteries or see those tunnels and think to repeat the exercise, then or now, is beyond comprehension.


_{Memorial detail}

It does not take much of an imagination or sense of empathy to imagine what hell waiting in those tunnels must have been, feeling the reverberations of shells rumbling through the stone above you, knowing that eventually you would have to venture into the slaughter outside and, if you survived, walk up to a perfect stranger and kill him. It takes no great mental effort to imagine the lifetime of heartache a “Missing and presumed dead” telegram would bring a mother, wife, brother.

A word like “pride” has no place in reference to something like Vimy, and sadness is useless. I left Vimy angry, and I’m angry still.

Complaints choir

Just read this story about the Finnish complaints choir (video below, and it's hilarious).



The song is made of complaints submitted by choir members. My favourite from this one is "We always lose to Sweden in Eurovision and hockey." What would your complaint be? Mine would be people who zig-zag slowly across sidewalks, thwarting my attempts to pass them.

Share - it's good for the soul.

Ahead by a century

_{And we're off - the odometer at zero}

Our two-year anniversary having coincided with my parents visit, Amynah and I decided to celebrate it this weekend. The “weekend” in this case having started Thursday, in honour of All Saint’s Day.

We decided to go with a “two” theme for our celebrations, (as opposed to cotton or china, as is apparently traditional) and thus dragged out our two-wheeled means of transportation (both second-hand, appropriately enough). Our destination: Basel, over one hundred kilometers away (we thought it was 120 km. Oh, what naïve fools we were!)

I had made an offhand suggestion to do this some time ago, and earlier this week had, without any sincere regret, mentioned that it was a shame that we hadn’t had a chance to do it this summer. My wife, being insane, said we should so it now, on the first of November, when neither of us had really been biking much at all for months.

In preparation, in the days leading up to our journey, I resolutely refused to think about it, on the assumption that a) Amynah would come to her senses or b) if she didn’t, I was better to not be dreading the misery ahead.

Nonethless, I made sure the brand-new odometer my younger sister and her fiancé bought me for my birthday was functional, and invested in a bike lamp, rack and pannier bag.

The forecast for Thursday was sunny, with highs in the low teens. However, the day dawned with a thick, cold fog blanketing Alsace, and temperatures hovering around five degrees. Also, I had the beginnings of a migraine.

Deciding to ignore it, and I still in the hopes that Amynah would admit to the whole enterprise being a practical joke, we saddled up, and headed to the Rhine-Rhone canal, that we were planning on following pretty much all the way to Switzerland.

It was not to be. Somewhere past Illkirch, we hit a “deviation” which sent us wandering through farmer’s fields and the empty little villages of Hipsheim and Nordhouse. This added at least 15 km, one hour of map-contemplating backtracking, and two or three extra degrees of pain in my head.


_{The detour through the land that God forgot}

After getting back on the canal (after asking about six different sets of direction from six different people) we stopped for lunch at the fifty km mark. Damp and cold from the fog, nauseous from my headache and already aching, we decided to call it a day if we made it as far a Selestat, another 25 km away. Ignoring the strong smells emanating from the nearby hog barn, we choked down our sandwiches and pushed on.

Then, a miracle occurred – a cruel, terrible miracle. The fog began to lift, the clouds parted, and the sun came out. Suddenly our miserable slog through a brume-choked wasteland became a pleasant ride through sun blessed Autumnal countryside. Worse, my headache, which in retrospect I am convinced was my body urgently hammering the “Eject! Eject!” button, went away.

Soon, the villages began to fly by: Witternheim, Bindernheim, Wittleheim, Boesesheim, Schlobsheim, Hessenheim, Marckolsheim, Artzenheim, Baltzenheim, Kunheim… they all blended into one glorious “heim.”

We did, however, keep losing the route. At the 90 km mark, we stopped in a village (Bielsheim) and accosted a spandex-clad gentleman on a kitted-out racing bike, figuring he’d know all the local routes. His wide-eyed reply, on being asked where the route to Basel was, “Oh, you’re ambitious.”

Failing to take that as the warning it was, we pushed on. Sunset greeted us near Nambsheim, just as we hit the 100 km mark.

Soon, we were biking in the dark. And let me tell you, dark in an Alsatian village on All Saints Day is dark indeed. Worse, the fog of the morning arrived for an encore performance, penetrating our clothes, and chilling us to our very bones.

Soon, we were reduced to pedaling, half-frozen automatons, half-hoping the few cars that would appears out of nowhere in the foggy night would put us out of our misery. Balgau, Blodelsheim, Rumersheim-le-Haut… at Blantzheim we gave up on the bike paths, as my headlamp was failing in the cold and the only illumination we had was therefore coming from passing cars on the highway (Amynah’s bike had a generator-powered lamp but, as she was wearing a white jacket while I was wearing a black coat over a black fleece over a black t-shirt, I needed her nice and visible behind me).

Ottmarsheim, Petit-Landau, St Martin, Niffer, Kembs… we were beginning to run out of time. It was pushing 8 pm, and the last train left Basel back to Strasbourg at 9:20. We hadn’t brought enough for dinner, and I was paying less attention to the road – after the 130 km mark – than I was to the visions of the Basel Burger King, the only representative of that fine culinary institution I’ve seen in Continental Europe. My half-congealed brain wondered whether I should order two Whoppers at the same time, or each singly, to receive them at maximum heat. The coffee, I decided, would be poured directly over my feet which, having done nothing but sit on my pedals all day, had frozen solid.

Richardhaueser, Rosenau, Village-Nuef… at St Louis we were fooled by the directional signs which, in an effort to reduce traffic through their downtown, directed those seeking Basel to the Autoroute, a passage not recommended for two exhaused Canadians on bikes. After that detour, we zipped through Swiss customs, cheering and whooping. Though they don’t check passports there anymore (thank god: we had forgotten ours) we wanted to stop and tell the guards “Do you know where we just came from?”


_{Happy to be in Basel, and Basel's happy we're there.}

At this point it was about 9:30 so, after snapping a photo of the carnival the people of Basel were throwing in honour of our accomplishment, we headed directly to the train station, with a plan to buy our tickets, and then run to the Burger King across the street. We got to the wicket, and the lady told us that the last train was leaving in five minutes, on track 12 – a four-minute walk away.

“Burger King….” I moaned, piteously, as Amynah started to run to the platform. We caught the train, and sat, shivering, sore, devoid of thought. Whatever sense of accomplishment I felt (it’s still sinking in) was overwhelmed by the unpleasant sensation of what it feels like to cry burger-deprived tears when you don’t actually have any liquid left in your body.


_{It's hard to read because of the crappy light, but trust me, it says 163 km. It took us 12 hours (nine and three quarters of actual riding) at just under 17 km/hr average. Given that Amynah rides a bike stitched together from old tin cans that has only three speeds, I will choose to believe this is impressive.}

First day and already hated by my classmates

So, French classes started yesterday. As part of a getting-to-know us exercise, my French teacher asked the motley crew that is my cohort about our travel experiences. For some reason, rather than asking me where I'd been, she asked me for a bad travel experience. I replied that I don't believe in bad experiences, just good stories. I then launched - in French - into this sorry tale.

My saga of suffering and woe was so well received, that she made it a homework assignment for everyone in the class to tell their own travel story for the next class. This includes me, despite my heroic efforts yesterday. Any readers have any favourites?

The Roof of Europe

_{Eiger, Eiger, shining bright...}

There has probably been no phrase I’ve repeated so much since my arrival in France, upon encountering some new, old, or particularly Euro thing as “I can’t wait to show my parents this!” Why this is, I’m not sure – I guess you never really get over the desire to impress your folks.

In any case, my parents came for a visit about two weeks ago, thus the blog silence. It was an eye-opening experience. Your parents are always the ones who are on top of things: my Mom’s hyper-organized, my Dad able to navigate his way across the country and in strange cities effortlessly.

It was a little different this time. The only specific goals they had, after the Paris portion of their trip, was the Vimy Ridge memorial near Arras. Everything else was up in the air, other than a caution that they weren’t too interested in churches and castles.

This was awkward - as my parents, historically speaking, they're supposed to be in charge. Also, as anyone who has been paying attention to this blog knows, castles and churches are a bit of a specialty of mine, so I was left at a bit of a loss as to what to do with them for a week before heading north. The answer, as usual, came from my beloved, who suggested we head to the Alps. Where Amynah had been to Basel several times, the inner reaches of Switzerland had thus far eluded us.

Saturday, after a few days of taking them on my usual, top-secret tour of Strasbourg and the highlights of the Alsace region, we piled in the car and headed to the Jungfrau. At 4,158 metres it is probably the highest mountain I’d ever been on.

Fortunately, you don’t have to actually climb the Jungfrau. Instead, you take the Jungfraubahn, a train that goes up incredibly steep slopes with the aid of a third cog-rail, inside the mountain, through a tunnel hewn out the mountain leading to the peak.

_{Looking back on the cog-train. My Mom admirably resisted the urge to tell me to stop sticking my head out the window.}

At the peak is an enormous metal and glass building that wouldn’t look out of place as the setting of the villain’s pad in a James Bond film (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was filmed nearby). Since there aren’t exactly any competing businesses in the region, the station was filled with overpriced restaurants and overpriced winterwear.


_{My elders, wondering what possessed them to leave late-Autumn Canada for a colder locale on their vacation.}

Fortunately, we had brought our own and ventured out onto the viewing deck. I was immediately hit with a blast of homesickness, in the form of – 15 degree temperatures, the likes of which I haven’t experienced in nearly two years. Refreshing! The platform was haunted by some very furry-looking black birds. Why they were there and what they ate were a mystery, but they didn’t seem nearly as uncomfortable as the many visitors at the station from India, none of whom, presumably fooled by hundreds of Bollywood movies featuring sari-clad starlets frolicking in Alpine snow, seemed to have brought gloves.


_{Where the heck am I?}

Inside, the station featured an ice-palace, featuring well-crafted polar tableaux. These, for some reason, included a representation of an igloo. Given that this is a structure already normally made of ice, seemed to me to make the Swiss copy somewhat redundant.


_{Ghost penguins!}

The Star Chamber

_{The tuna moose, courtesy Craig Martin. Thanks Craig!}

We join our intrepid trio where we left off in our last installment of “And this guy wants us to visit him?”

Last we saw Val, Andy and my own fine self, we were wet, tired, frustrated and hungry in the Alsatian village of Ottrott, having utterly failed in our second attempt to see the Medieval castle there. We elected to regroup over lunch.

Driving into town, (population 300, not including livestock) we espied a sign for the local restaurant. Parking the car, we trudged dinner-ward, minds dancing with visions of choucroutte and tartes flambées. Alas, arriving at the door of the establishment, we were crushed, upon reading and laboriously translating the sign hanging on the door, to learn the restaurant was closed.

For lunch.

Muttering many a dark imprecations against the French, Frenchness and France, our merry trio returned to the car, and headed to the nearby village of Klingenthal, the ultimate destination of our ill-fated bike trip two days before.

We stopped upon spotting a sign for a Restaurant l’Etoile which promised cuisine moderne. This is code for “Not cabbage and ham.” As I was in the mood for cabbage and ham, I was disappointed, but not about to argue with the increasingly murderous looks Val was shooting in my direction which promised that her cold, wet hands would soon be wrapped around my throat were a plate of something not in front of her post haste.

We dragged our muddy, damp selves inside, and ordered the 15 Euro menu. Though my French has improved greatly since arriving here, vast swathes of technical jargon remain beyond my ken. This includes the broad, and highly specialized category of “things French people do to food.”

The only item I caught, in fact, was “tuna,” which was supposed to be the appetizer. What form this tuna was supposed to come in was a mystery, though were I to hazard a guess I would have said “mousse.”*

Things went hairy immediately, when Andy attempted to order a coffee. I reluctantly translated this request to our waitress, who immediately blanched. “But are you going to eat?” she demanded. I replied yes, at which point she took a step back, looking at us with suspicion mixed with distaste. I quickly explained to Andy that coffee comes after the meal, and changed the order, lest we be thrown out entirely for food heresy.

This illustrates a theory I’ve developed about French waiters. Parisian waiters are famous for their rudeness, even within the rather high standards for such things in France. Some credit this to the lack of tipping, but I’ve another theory. In North America (and almost everywhere else I’ve eaten) the waiter sees his job as bringing you the food you order. In France, they see themselves as experts, there to guide you through your dining experience and enforce the norms and values that govern French cuisine. Ordering coffee before your meal violates customs so sancrosanct they were enshrined in the Treaty of Wesphalia. When we declined to order any wine, her contempt was palpable.

This incident set the tone for the next episode. Our waitress returned, making it very clear she felt we should be grateful that mud-stained wretches such as ourselves were even allowed to breath the rarefied air of her restaurant. She set down a porcelain cup, similar in size to a tea mug in front of each of us, filled with a steaming white liquid.

Andy immediately tasted a spoonful, reporting that it tasted like chowder. He went to take another but, panicked, I stopped him. “It might be sauce for the fish!” I said, terrified that the waitress would come back with our tuna, see us slurping the condiments and toss us back out into the rain.

However, a few minutes passed, and the waitress didn’t show. Andy decided that, as he believed all France now knew him as the Bermuda-shorts guy, he had nothing to lose and started spooning up the gloop. For my part, I would take furtive sips when I was sure the waitress was out of sight, while Val, risking nothing, had none at all.

It was Val that saved us, in the end. Soon though, our autocratic attendant returned, to be confronted with three teacups in varying degrees of fullness. Stymied by our tri-partite strategy, she elected to attack the closest target, turning on Val with eyes of fire; “Do you not like it?” “No, no, it’s great! I’m just slow” said Val, grabbing her spoon.

I am convinced that if Val too had eaten any of hers, the tuna-tyrant would have informed us with a sneer that we were eating our gravy and asked us to leave.**

<sub>* Please, someone with art or photoshop skills: can you make me a tuna-moose? It would make me so happy.

** In the interests of fairness, I must add that the chef greeted us personally and was very friendly. He gave us pretty much all of his leftover desserts, meaning we each received a slice of cheesecake, a slice of chocolate torte, a slice of wildberry pie and of apple pie.</sub>

Waiting for Ottrott

Amynah and I have had a lot of visitors here in the 15 or so months we’ve been in France – well over twenty in fact. Right now I’m catching a breather between my younger sister’s visit and that of my parents, who are expected in about a week’s time.

Most of the time when people come to visit, I give them my Strasbourg city tour, a harrowing ordeal that has left more than one participant in need of first aid by its end. I like to describe it as “being hit over the head repeatedly with a fact hammer.” I intend to put up a pictorial version of this before I leave, but not before, lest I spoil the joy for others. Past visitors are required to swear a strict oath of secrecy to not reveal the tour’s details, should they remember any through their haze of pain and exhaustion.

Outside of Strasbourg, things get a little dicey – I like exploring the region, but get a little bored hitting the same highlights again and again. Thus, when I discovered Val and Andy have recently taken up biking, I was happy to lead them on an exploratory bike tour.

My goal was a place called Ottrott, which has the nearest medieval castle to Strasbourg in the region. We started late, having a hardy breakfast in the local café before wandering down to my favoured bike shop to pick up Val and Andy’s steeds.

They were not pleased. Turns out when Val told me they were into biking, she meant the kind you might see on the Tour de France - narrow tires, thin seats, frames that were not constructed from recycled Panzers.

That’s not quite what they got.



The beasts with which I saddled them were large, and decorated with baskets in which a family of four could, if not live, then store a year’s worth of groceries. Undeterred, we hit the trail, and were soon on our way to Ottrott, via the Rainbows and Ponies Trail.

After about 18 km, Val started to complain she was thirsty, so we made a quick detour into Ergursheim. I asked a passerby for directions to a store where I might by water, and he directed me to a tobacconiste up the street. It was closed. We wandered on a little further and I asked some guy on a scooter leaving the village town hall the same question. He directed me to a hose behind the building, the water from which we slurped straight from the tap. This, and some apples we picked up from a local farmer, proved to be the only nourishment we’d get for the next five hours.

I won’t bore you with details of the bike trip. My repeated claims that Ottrott “was just around the corner” “just over this hill” “it’s only one village away” were met at first by cheers, then frowns, then sneers. As our protein reserves and hydration petered out my claims of Ottrott’s proximity were met only with grunts. At the end, these had given way to piteous cries for mercy. Needless to say, that while we made it to Ottrott the town, by the time we got there we were too tired to actually climb up to the castle. *

Rather than bike back, we coasted downhill into nearby Obernai and caught the commuter train back to Strasbourg, on which poor Andy was mercilessly mocked by French teenagers for his horribly square bike and plus pas chic Bermuda shorts.

Despite this ordeal, and the five-hour walking tour of Strasbourg we took the next day, I refused to give up. So on their last day in town we rented a car and drove out to Ottrott once more. That it was pouring rain didn’t deter me, nor did Val and Andy’s disingenuous claims of not being that interested in the castle – I do not suffer defeat lightly.

Therefore, we set up the mountain, mud running in rivers around our feet, in quest of the chateaux. It took an hour and a half (not including the inadvertent detour where we managed to walk right past it (fine medieval marauders we would be!) and by the time we got there – disoriented, shivering, legs trembling, clothed in muddy, sopping rags - it was closed. Which is to say, it is always closed – it had been sealed off for fear of collapse for years, a handy fact my guidebook had utterly failed to mention.

That my sister was still speaking to me is a testament either to her inherently forgiving nature or the fact that I had the keys to our only means off the mountain.

* To be fair, there were a lot of unexpected detours on the bike trip, one of which was to a village called Klingenthal, that prides itself as being a manufacturer of "armes blanches (swords) for the King of France. Way to pick a stable, long-term industry there, Klingenthal town fathers!



_{This I'm just throwing in here on the principal that blogs should have entertainment. The singer's name is Camille - she's like a French Bjork, but less aggressively weird. I think I'm becoming a fan, but am reserving judgement until I get a tranlsation of the lyrics to confirm she's not singing "Hit me baby one more time" or something.}

Rome redux

_{Trevi Fountain}

As Travis noted in the comments in my previous post, I have a certain fascination for Catholic religious iconography. There’s a number of reasons for this, almost none of which have anything to do with my own religious heritage (having been dunked as an infant, I can ignore it until the penultimate moment, say sorry, and still get a ticket to the Big Show. Betcha they regret letting word of that little loophole out).

For one with my interests (Amynah might characterize it as an obsession) all roads lead to Rome (I just came up with that phrase. Remember it).

_{St Pete's}

We didn’t see the Pope, but I did see dozens of priests (all on cell phones) a few monks, two bishops, nuns in every hue of habit from black to deep blue and, in a sighting that would probably earn me twenty points on a scavenger hunt, an honest to goodness cardinal.

_{Nun, keeping an eye on St Peter's square, plotting something}

Because we arrived only an hour before closing, we didn’t see much in St Peter’s itself: the area with Pete’s grave was barred off. We saw a couple of pickled Popes in glass caskets, many Pope statues (only one, interestingly, that was depicted praying) and Michelangelo’s Pieta, his only signed work.

_Pieta

Outside the many, many churches of Rome, we saw plenty of old Roman ruins. The Colosseum (named, I learned, after a long destroyed and brobdignagan statue of my favourite Emperor and yours, Nero) was surprisingly only a ten minute tour, while the Forum and Palantine hill next to it was another hour. We took another No Name tour for this one, and they were just as competent and the previous one. The guide, Marco, was a particular hit with the many older ladies in our group, who were practically cooing over him.

_{Ye olde hockey arena: Senators vs Bruins tonight!}

We ran across another ruin in the middle of town. To go by the prominence of the signs there, it was primarily built as a shelter for feral cats (all of which, we were assured, were spayed). It also might have been a temple complex, but that seemed to be of far less importance.

_{Temple to Bobbus Barkerius}

Coming from a town where traffic is practically banned downtown, Rome’s traffic was quite a noisy shock. Half the population rides scooters, even while dressed for a five-star dinner. These tend to arrive in flocks, desperately trying to stay ahead of the four-wheeled traffic bearing down on them from behind. The buses, we discovered, have two speeds: barreling and hurtling. Cars do not stop at crosswalks, and waiting for a gap in traffic is a mugs game (they don’t call it the Eternal City for nothing). The accepted means of getting across seems to be: pick a saint, pray to it, close eyes, start walking. Amynah, being fearless, just gave drivers an “I dare you” look and strode into the chaos while Val, Andy and I scampered in her wake.


_{Piazza de la Scooter Sacra}

Near the Forum (and also where we saw the Cardinal) there was some sort of street festival going on. It's hard to make out from the picture, but this is a faux church steeple, on which a full band is being carried, bouncing up and down in time to the dancer/porters below. When we left the party, they were playing a high energy Italian version of Petula Clark's "Downtown." When Amynah asked a spectator what it was for, he tried to convince her to stay and join the dancing.



In our wanderings, we also ran across a post-wedding photo shoot. This crowd of twenty was the bridal party. There's no shortage of lovely backdrops for wedding photos - puts my Holiday Inn pictures to shame. Mind you, our photographer never made our wedding party do this:


And, just because I took a lot of pictures of the thing, and this is the best of the lot, I give you St Peter's, again, over the Tiber. Enjoy!

Rome, preview

_{Roman sunset, Vatican in lower right}

Just got back from Rome. Had a wonderful, if exhausting time. I’m a little torn on how to describe it – as previous commenters have noted, long, drawn out descriptions of my suffering seem to be the main draw here. And while there was plenty of that earlier in the week (subject of a later post) Rome was incredible.

The only anguish (other than in my feet) was mental, on the second day. We (Amynah, my sister and Andy, her fiancé) were trying to get into the Vatican museums. The lineup was incredibly long. As were approaching the end of it, a shady looking guy with a Russian accent approached us with an offer for a thirty Euro tour that would get us in two hours earlier than everyone else with an accredited guide.

Not wanting to stand around in the late-September heat we agreed, even if we were fairly sure we were being taken for suckers. We trooped to the office of “No Name Tours” (honestly the name) and picked up our radio devices through which we would hear our guide. We were then escorted to our guide, who had bribed a Korean guide to let us in ahead of his group. Our group was then brought in six at a time – which fooled no one, and led to someone behind us telling our guide off.

_{Ceiling in one wing of Vatican museum, which will have to do in lieu of the Sistine Chapel, which I wasn't allowed to photograph}

Our guide also proceeded to get into an aguement inside the museum – while his radio was still broadcasting to his charges – with another guide. He then explained that he and the other guy have a history “but it’s ok, we’re friends, sort of.” Anyway, despite all of this, he was quite knowledgeable, and very entertaining, if not entirely intentionally. If you’re ever in Rome, I highly recommend them. Their office is in the back of a van in the dark alley by the Papal dumpster.


_Cookie?

Mycology

_{Photo courtesy my French teacher. I believe she took the photo in order to stick it to all of us who didn't go out picking with her this Sunday. Gotta love the French.}

My younger sister and her fiancé are coming in to town tonight; we have many long bike rides and a trip to Rome planned with them, so posting will be light (not that anyone seems to care).

In any case, right now I need to get the apartment looking welcomingly slovenly (up from sty-like) for them, and then Amynah and I are going to enjoy a dinner of fresh mushrooms, (pictured here), as picked by my French teacher this very weekend. I will thus spare you the harrowing tale of how we spent this weekend helping people move to Lipsheim and the 77-km bike ride we took on the previous weekend because, frankly, I'm sure you people are sick of reading about my suffering.

Also, I leave you with thd video below, because it's hard not to smile after watching it. Further proof that l care about you, dear readers, even though you never call. Are you sleeping enough? Are you eating well? I worry....

How best to comemmorate a mime?

How else, but a moment of silence?

When first I moved to Strasbourg, I comforted myself that my near-total lack of language competence would matter little, as I was convinced that the locals would all be as fluent as their native son, Marcel Marceau (née Marcel Mangel) in the inaudible arts. It proved not to be, as I learned to my sorrow on my first foray into town search of a telephone booth.

I've moved beyond that now, but nonetheless, in honour of the entertainer's death this weekend at age 84, I'm putting a blank CD on the stereo and cranking the volume.

Trying to Finnish me off

_{Abbey of Mulbach, where we started Sunday's hike. Had I known what I was in for, I might have popped in for word or two}


I arbitrarily decided that this weekend was going to be my birthday weekend, and what a weekend it was. I don’t mean to brag, but it was one of those weekends that I vaguely fantasized about in those long, snow-fever months prior to moving here.

Saturday, Amynah and I walked to Kehl, Germany, about an hour away, in order to meet up with my French teacher and her husband. She’s Alsatian, he’s British. We were surprised to walk in to have a party in full swing, as they had also invited some Irish friends of theirs who work for the Council of Europe one of whom had, in turn, brought her Mum and sister. We sat around and drank a German rosé (very good, believe or not) and filling our gullets with a selection of homemade tartes (Amynah’s contribution was a tomato and olive concoction the recipe for which, if you like a good tarte, you should really get from her).

Afterwards we all wandered over to the Jardin de deux rives where the Strasbourg orchestra was holding a free concert. We sat off to the side of the stage, which threw off the acoustics, but it was enjoyable nonetheless, and not just because I found the conductor’s pronunciation of “Leonard Bernstein” hilarious (Vanessa Wagner of those Wagners, was the featured pianist. She was excellent).

Anyway, after the concert we returned to my teacher’s where the whisky soon made an appearance (I mentioned all the other guests were Irish, right?). We didn’t make it home until about 1 AM.

This was a bad move, as we had a date with destiny the next morning, destiny, in this case taking the form of that force of nature known as Sami the Finn.

Sami the Finn had suggested a hike in the Vosges, specifically the Grand Ballon, the highest peak in that not inconsiderable pack of hills. He had chosen a route that would start us pretty much at the bottom and, over the course of 22 km, take us one vertical kilometer and back (the peak is 1440 m, we started at about 350m).

_{At 700 m. Halfway there!}

My camera ran out of batteries after I took about three pictures, so I never got a shot of the top. This is probably a good thing, as I was therefore unable to capture us at hour six, scavenging through the underbrush, desperate for nourishment, hands and faces stained a purplish hue as we shoved blackberries and blueberries into our slavering mouths.

Oh, the humanity.


_{We spotted these at roughly the same time my hunger had reached the point I caught myself saying to Sami "Yes, I know the red mushrooms are toxic. But how toxic, exactly?"}

There are worse things than fresh air and gorging oneself on wild berries I suppose (like gorging oneself on fresh cheese and sausage in the restaurant 50 metres away from the site of our feeding frenzy, which also served those same berries in pie-form). Nonetheless, I am not ashamed to admit I wept like a baby this morning when I had to negotiate the four flights of stairs in my building after discovering my legs had been replaced overnight with those of an arthritic octogenarian.

Heidelberg, Basel, Springfield

_{Heidelberg, about which this post is not, really.}

It's been a while since I've written about travelling around our neck of the woods. We were in Basel again this weekend, to see the Tinguely Museum, which showcases the Rube Goldberg like devices of artist Jean Tinguely. They were awesome, and as soon as I have a workshop, time, and some facilty with electronic motors I fully intend to make some mechanized art of my own, though I'd probably stop short of making a skull-bedecked automobile of death.

After having been properly cultured (and purchasing an honest-to-goodness Tinguely of our own, coutesy of his "drawing machine" and the aesthetic advice of two Swiss toddlers), we went to see the Simpson's Movie.

This, I am unashamed to admit, was the chief purpose of the visit for me, as it didn't play here in English and Basel is only 90 minutes away by train. Yes, I travelled to a completely different country in order to see a movie that was based on a television programme I barely watched. It was pretty good, but the funniest line came from the British kids sitting behind us who, at the end of the movie, asked "Who is Tom Hanks?" Also amusing: the movie, predictably enough for Switzerland, started right on time, and had a ten-minute intermission for a chocolate gathering break. Very civilized.

As to the title of the post: went to Heidelberg, Germany a couple of weeks ago. It's a nice university town. Our friend Dominique* took us and showed us around, as she'd studied there years before. It's nestled in a river valley, and guarded by an enormous castle which contains, for some reason I cannot determine, Germany's national pharmacy museum. It also had the largest wine-barrel in Germany which, as you can imagine, is a very large wine barrel indeed. Bigger even than a breadbox.


_{Heidelberg, with castle in the hills, taken from the "Philospher's Walk." At least, I think it was the Philosopher's Walk, therefore it was.}


*_{The very generous and cultured Dominique is French Belgian, with all that this implies. We were at a dinner with her recently where she started to bash the Dutch national cuisine, saying"Those people will just eat anything!" with such vehement disdain as to cause me to re-evaluate my own tendency to consider this very quality as one of my more attractive traits as a dinner guest.}

Tram attack

Met with my friend Caner last night - we meet weekly for a language exchange. Ususally we just walk around the island for two hours chatting (mainly in French, so lord knows what he gets out of it) before he gets on the tram to go home.

Last night, as we were approaching Homme de fer ("Iron Man" - the main tram station on the island) Caner slowed down, looking ahead with great concetration. A couple of 20-somethings in track suits were shoving each other around on the station platform. Lacking any sense of what they were saying (the slang of wannabe-gangster French youth is utterly beyond my ken) I didn't think anything of it - it looked exactly like the kind of confrontation where Jerk A pushes Jerk B, Jerk B pushes back, and then Jerk A goes in for the kill just slowly enough to allow his friends to hold him back, insults are exchanged and the party breaks up.

Not this time. This time, Jerk A punched Jerk B in the face, hard enough that he went down hard and didn't get back up quickly enough to prevent Jerk A from kicking Jerk B at least twice while he was down, once in the side of his head. Jerk A and his friends then walked away, completely unmolested.

Caner and I were too far away to do anything - it was all over by the time I realized what was going on. No one on the platform intervened, save for a couple of the guys friends who eventually helped him up. Caner and I arrived at the station in time to hear him refuse to deal with the "flics" (police) or even an ambulance (which it really looked like he needed).

Anyway, I was quite upset by the whole thing. There's nothing like seeing a prone man get kicked in the face in full view of 50-odd immobile people to shake your faith in human decency.

Malgre nous

There's an interesting article in today's Globe and Mail about some Alsatian veterens fighting for recognition from the French government for their forced service in the German army during WWII.

In any case, I link to it because it's easier than explaining what I did this weekend.


Ok, to be more clear, I wrote it. Go read it and tell me how wonderful I am.

Edit: The web version of the Globe has a "readers comments" section. I would recommend you not read them - there's nothing like internet message boards to make you despair for the future of humanity.

Yeah, Napoleonic disco zombies. So?

I’ve had one or two requests to explain the Napoleonic disco zombies I mentioned a couple of posts ago.

Now, I never in my life figured that my immense descriptive talents would be called on to further expand upon Napoleonic disco zombies – I mean, I thought this was as pithy and succinct a word-picture as one could draw. Not enough, apparently.

As I hinted at, there had been some sort of official public entertainment happening nightly outside our apartment every night last week. All of them seemed to be percussion based, (except for the hair-metal mushrooms, who eschewed instruments for pre-recorded tunes, the better to facilitate their mycological moshing) so we stopped paying attention to the ruckus fairly early on.

The Napoleonic disco zombies caught our attention, as they were doing their thing outside our apartment as we were on our way to catch a movie (which one? “Planet Terror” – also about zombies. Cue the Twilight Zone music).

Anyway, they were exactly what my carefully crafted name for them implies: a bunch of zombies, dressed up as Napoleonic soldiers, had Napoleon’s soldiers fought in shiny, sequined colours drawn from a neon rainbow.

How these Napoleonic disco zombies came to be is another question. My theory is that they are vaguely like locusts: they awake only once every thirty years, taking on the clothes and manner of whomever had the misfortune of encountering them last. Their prey at the time of their last feeding (in 1977) were an unwitting gang of historical-reenactors, celebrating the successful conclusion of their remembrance of the 172nd anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz. Disco-fuelled mayhem ensued.

Thirty years from now, I fully expect some bewildered blogger to be attempting to describe the emo zombies outside his window. And thus the circle of life continues.

And Saturday's entertainment...

Giant mushroms, dancing to Aerosmith's "Walk this way."

It's like I'm back in high school.

Seen out the window this week...

Tonight: Accordion playing stiltwalkers and their piano-playing accomplices.

Tuesday: A troupe of Napoleonic disco-zombies playing drums.

It is beginning to dawn on me that perhaps there is some kind of festival happening hereabouts.

Must go. I hear didgeridoos.

Hava Nagila

Since Amynah and I rarely, if ever, pick up the local paper and the web-news I have for Strasbourg is somewhat less than up-to-date, we are often bewildered as to what and why things are happening outside our window.

Case in point, last night as the sun went down, throbbing tribal drums began to echo in the distance. As the sound drew closer, I looked out my window to see a blast of fire on the street below. Fire-breathing jugglers do not, in themselves, rank high in the grand scheme of bewildering events chez nous, though I will admit I am confused as to who the guy pulling the cart was – the Gimp from Pulp Fiction? A local ne'er do well sentenced to public humiliation?


_{Crappy photo, but Gimp-man is in upper right. Public executions are illegal now, right?}

An historical curiosity, in keeping with the Medieval feel of last night's show: due to the flame-broiled festival happening outside, the 10:05 PM bell on the cathedral did not ring. That bell, the last of the day, rings for about ten minutes, a long, slow, deep mournful tolling. I’ve been told that in the Middle Ages, it was the bell to tell the Jewish residents of Strasbourg that it was time for their curfew, and is supposedly rung these days only to memorialize their suffering.

I’m less certain it is actually so innocuous. For last night was the very first time the bell didn’t ring since we’ve been here. And what happened? A klezmer band set up outside our apartment and partied until almost midnight. Coincidence, or celebration?

Attica! Attica! Attica!

One of Strasbourg’s many attractions is the bewildering number of theatres they have here. There are four on the island alone and a megaplex twenty minutes away. The joy of this is that there is almost always something playing, either a new release or something older in one of the two repertory cinemas (two! Montreal, with ten times the population only had two that I was aware of).

Anyway, the other night Amynah and I went out to see Dog Day Afternoon, a classic from 1975 with Al Pacino. It was based on a true story of a New York bank robbery that went wrong, turning into a hostage situation.

What struck me, (and I’m sure I’m not the only person to make this observation) was the near total lack of music. Were this movie made today, every scene would have music cues telling the audience when to be tense, when to be uplifted, when to be amused.

Here, the suspense was kept up only by the actors and the audience’s understanding of the inevitable: you know they can’t get away with it, you know they know they can’t get away with it. The actors are sweaty, stumbling over their words, never say anything tough or witty sounding or Hollywood. Jangling, overloud telephones, long shots of chattering helicopters, blaring sirens and megaphones – those are the only sound cues, and it works.

* Amynah’s observation as we left the theatre: “People don’t really rob banks anymore, do they? Where are the Bonnie and Clydes today? It shows a lack of entrepreneurial spirit in the criminal class.”

The Flaming Knees

_{She-who-does-not-want-to-be-on-my-blog on the Rhine, on a previous bike trip}

Were I to be murdered today and my body stripped of all identification, the police would be able to learn the following things from my corpse: given the sunburn on the back of my hands and on top of my knees, I was probably biking. Moreover, I was biking mostly in a northerly and easterly direction, given the burns on the backs of my legs (indicating directionality, much like moss on a tree trunk). Also, that I was wearing aviator-style sunglasses, my shorts went precisely to "here," my socks precisely to "there" and I evidently dropped a blob of sunscreen on the centre of my right knee, leaving that joint with an appearance not unlike a pink-frosted doughnut with a creamy centre.

All of this is the result of a 60-odd kilometer bike ride Amynah and I took with Sami the Finn. It was only supposed to be 45 km, according to the guidebook* I purchased, but we took a fifteen kilometer detour in order to have fresh baked “tarte aux quetches” (it’s like a plum) cooked by one of Amynah’s lab-mates, who was looking after her parents house in a tiny little farm village in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty good, but not 15 km of good.

Given that I had taken a 30 km bike ride the day before into Germany (past a facility that had been, at various times, a sanatorium for epileptics, to a hospital for epileptics, a death camp for epileptics and now a research centre for epilepsy). In any case, Given that it has been raining for about a month straight, we’d not been biking much for the last while, so a 90 km weekend in the blazing sun was not, perhaps, the best advised decision I’ve ever made.

Sami the Finn is up for another, more ambitious ride this coming weekend. Amynah and I might be washing each others hair.

* Even eliminating my poor French as a factor, this has to be one of the worst guidebooks I’ve ever seen. The “map” consisted of a hand-drawn loop with town names scattered on it: no landmarks, distances or sense of scale. The accompanying “directions” consisted of gems such as “cross the village and take the small road that leads to the woods.” Cross the village in which direction? Small road compared to what? How do we know it leads to the forest unless we go to the end? Does this street have a name? (“Petit rue de fôret” would be too much to ask for, I guess).

I never have to leave my apartment for anything

_{I love the smell of ephedrine in the morning!}

Cathedral light shows, oom-pah band concerts, every no-talent busker in the Rhine region - they all eventually pass by my door. Including the "Tour d'Alsace" which kicked off from in front of the Cathedral this afternoon. I've no idea where they were going, but they sure were in a hurry.

Deja vu

_{Where Donna Summer goes to pray}

Amynah and I have now been here for a year, meaning that we’re now experiencing things for the second time. For instance, each year the city sponsors a light show on the Cathedral, synchronized with classical music. It lasts about fifteen minutes and happens three times a night, every night, for the whole summer. Last year’s was all-Mozart, in honour of the 300th (I am not going to check that for accuracy) anniversary of his visit to this city.* Last year, before we had a lot of books or friends, it stood in as our t.v., playing plotless re-runs at top volume every night. This year it’s a mix of twangy modern stuff and bits of Beethoven’s Ninth.

They also have a nightly light show on the river – last year there were laser fountains and vomiting gargoyles. I regret not taking pictures, because this year there are strobe lights and bad French poetry. When my cousin Stephen was visiting we wandered the length of the island, looking for something even marginally entertaining, only to be accosted by a city volunteer who asked us what we thought. Being Canadian, I told her I thought it was great, and that we don’t have things like this in North America, when really I should have told her that I’ve had more entertainment with a flashlight and shadow puppets.


_{Before the crowds. View from our window}

This weekend was the Braderie, which I understand is a French tradition. Effectively, it is a giant yard sale for retailers desperate to get rid of their summer stock, not to mention itinerant merchants hawking cheap sunglasses and skanky lingerie.** It makes the St Laurent street sale in Montreal look like a kid's lemonade stand. In any case, good deals are possible, if you can get to them. The entire island turned into a giant outdoor mall, and people from all over Alsace and the nearby bits of Germany packed into the streets, wandering like stunned cattle while being hectored by mega-phone wielding mop salesmen.

I ended up getting myself some new shoes, which I purchased and continue to love despite the fact they pinch my toes and will make to me walk like C3PO.


_{Your feet want to be my feet, admit it}

* He stayed in a building down our street known today as La Mauresse or, in English “The Black Lady” named after one of the owner's more exotic servants in the 1500s. Strasbourg wasn't exactly the most cosmopolitan place back then: "Hey, you guys remember that black lady who used to work in the house where that Austrian fiddle player stayed? She sure was black, weren't she? Let's name the place after her!"

** Nothing against skanky lingerie, but who the heck buys from a sidewalk vendor in front of hundreds of bargain-hunting French grannies?

Hot Potter? Harry Fuzz?

_{wwwbritfilms.tv}

So, this is pretty overdue, but I saw Hot Fuzzin Berlin. Why was I in a movie whilst in Berlin, you might ask, when the delights of Ku-Damm and Checkpoint Charlie beckoned? Well, because while Strasbourg certainly has its charms, the chance to enjoy the delights of a city that not only recognizes that time has progressed since 1689, but embraces the fact (out of politeness, we won't dwell on their motivation for that) meant that Amynah and I spent much of our time in malls, train stations and on the subway, simply to remind ourselves of the joys of urban living. It's amazing how beautiful neon is, shining on rain slicked roads, especially when those roads are entirely devoid of cobbles.

Right: Hot Fuzz. I'd been looking forward to it for months. I loved Shaun of the Dead, and I harbour a not-so-secret love of big dumb action movies. Hot Fuzz managed to both flatter my "I'm too smart for Die Hard" pretensions, while still pandering to my "God, I loved Die Hard" inner self.

Even the first half, which was pretty slow, managed to be consistently funny in that not all that subtle British way - even better that every minute of it paid off once stuff started blowing up.
Oddly, Amynah's favourite moment was when the Farmer's Mom got kicked in the face, which I thought was a little broad. My favourite was when, in the midst of the grocery store battle, blonde Supercop (I forget his name) found it necessary to recount how, the night before, he had told the big Jaws-from-Moonraker-like-villain "play time's over" before bashing him on the head with a flowerpot. Totally the sort of exchange I could imagine me and any of my guy friends having, were we in the middle of gun fight in a grocery store. Anyway, seeing Hot Fuzz managed to utterly overcome any of my residual nasty feelings I had for the city that resulted from the weather and my travel ineptitude. Easily the best movie I’ve seen all year, and quite possibly in my entire life.

Also on movies, I saw Harry Potter last week. I will admit I have not nor have any intention to read the books, though I pretend to no virtue as a result. In any case a recurring gripe*, about the movies that I suspect must be shared by the books, given how integral it appears to the plots. To wit: Why is it that Rowling and her script doctors haven't come up with a better way to create tension other than "I have something to tell you, but I can't tell you now" even though THERE"S NO F**ING REASON WHY NOT!!! Minor case in point from the last movie: big hairy guy (Hagrid?) drags the kids into the woods, telling them "I've something to show you, but it's a big secret" thus setting up the introduction to his brother, who of course picks up Hermione before an explanation or introduction could be effected. Why not just say "Here kids, I have to introduce you to my Brobdignagian special needs half brother. He lives in the woods. Follow me!"
If it only happened the once it would be annoying, but basically the ENTIRE PLOT of the last movie was driven by this cheap gimmick. I know it’s only children’s lit, but for the love of Buddha, even Snow White managed to keep up tension better than that.

* <sub>I debated about posting this for a while, and only did so at the request of my friend Julie, for whom this note was originally composed. I beg the mercy of the Potter fans that have apparently commandeered the Internet to discuss the book. I do not want my final vision in life to be a horde of pointy hated uber-fans waving “wands” in my face and yelling “Indignantus spittleus!” until I am drowned.

** If anyone calls me a muggle, I swear to God I will not be responsible for what I do.</sub>

Eastern boys and Western girls

_{Marx and Engels contemplate the New World Order}

Sorry all for sporadic updating, but with all the visitors we’ve had over the last month (still not quite done yet!) it’s been tough finding the time or energy to keep up on this thing.

The other reason is because there’s only so much “life sure is different here” or “I just visited bleah bleah and it was grand” that I’m sure people want to read.

Because I am aware my lifestyle of café’s, fine wines and marathon dinners can inspire a certain amount of schadenfreunde, I am going to talk about Berlin, where Amynah and I visited last week.

The occasion was a scientific conference where Amynah was giving a talk (it went well). Since she showed up a couple of days before me, and was sharing a room with another woman from her lab, I was booked into another hotel closer to the centre of the city. We would then stay together in the same hotel on the last night (that’s three hotels total: mine, hers and ours).

However, your faithful correspondent, being a fateful combination of cocky and disorganized forgot what hotel he was booked into. Amynah, having prepared for this eventuality, had written down detailed instructions as to how to get there from the airport, but I managed to lose them.


_{Bombed out church, with pool noodles}

In ignorance of my ignorance, I made no preparations for my trip until 11 AM on the morning I was supposed to leave. I was shocked to learn the instructions were gone and more shocked to learn that my flight was leaving an hour earlier than I believed AND that the one train I likely to get me to the airport on time was leaving in an hour.

Panicked, I grabbed a black-and-white print out of Berlin’s colour coded subway map (think about that one for a second, if you will) threw my crap into a bag, scribbled down the address from the one hotel reservation confirmation I had in my email and dashed out the door. I got to the train station just as my train pulled out.

I bought a ticket for the next train which, according to the incomprehensible train schedule which seemed to indicate that in addition to leaving an hour later, my train seemed to pull into Basel at roughly the same time my flight would be boarding if it reached Basel at all (the parenthesis is a terrifying thing in a train schedule). I hedged my bets and bought a ticket.

I then hopped a tram back to my apartment (I had no tickets to do so, but I was desperate) in order to grab a bite to eat, try to locate Amynah’s directions, and do some perfunctory cleaning for Amynah’s Aunts and sisters who were due back from Rome before our return. I failed at two out of the three – Amynah’s Aunts scrubbed the whole place before our return and the directrions have not materialized to this day.

I then dashed back to the tram stop, intent on buying tickets so I could ride it legally. I pulled out my new Euro-sized wallet (purchased in Spain) only to discover my bank card was missing. Cursing, I hopped the next tram (keeping a weather eye out for le contrôle) and went back to the train station. Back in the ticket kiosk, I ask an attendant if my card had turned up. He disappeared in the back office for a minute… two minutes,.. three minutes…. My train was leaving in five. He came out said, no, but he’d check with another colleague and disappeared again before I could object. Another three minutes elapsed before he came out and began to instruct me on how to lodge a missing goods form. (See footnote)

“Non merci” I squawked, dashing to my platform.

You guys know how in the olden movies, you always see people running across the platform as the whistle blows and the train pulls out of the station? Yeah, well, it was like that, only not at all romantic.(See footnote two)

The scene at the Basel train station was the same. I had Swiss francs left over from a previous trip, but not enough coins for the shuttle bus. I therefore had to run into a Swiss bank and get change for a twenty (apropos of nothing, Switzerland has the ugliest money I’ve ever seen) and dash back out as the bus left the station. I arrived at the airport just as the Easyjet folks were closing down check in.


_{Berlin S-Bahn and U-Bahn system. And yes, the U2 line does go through Zoo Station. Image from www.morpha.de}

By contrast, Berlin transportation was remarkably simple. A bus took me to the commuter train, which took me to my hotel. Amynah was supposed to meet me there, but wasn’t, so I checked in and waited in my room. After a while, I got worried that she hadn’t turned up and went downstairs, only to have the phone handed to me by the desk clerk telling me my wife was on the other end.

“Why are you there?” she asked.

“Where are you?” I asked back.

“I’m at the hotel you’re supposed to be in,” she said.

Now, just to be clear, I thought that this was HER hotel, the presence of a third hotel never having registered in my tiny little brain. So when Amynah insisted I meet her at some subway station I’d never heard of, I just though she was being needlessly difficult and cut her off before she was finished giving me directions and said “Yeah yeah, I’ll meet you there.”

By midnight, an hour later, Amynah is fuming in the rain at the Guntzlestrasse U-bahn station while I am fuming in the rain at the Berlinerstrasse U-bahn, three blocks away.

Finally, my rage (directed entirely at myself, the Idiot King) gave way to concern about Amynah and I hopped on the U-Bahn to go out to the boonies where she was staying. I get to that station, and disembark only to see that there was only one more train going back, leaving in five minutes.

Rather than be utterly stranded, I boarded it – there was only one guy in my car – and looked out the window where the last outbound train had pulled into the station. I saw Amynah step off the train just as mine began to pull out of the station. I was thus inspired to treat my cowering fellow passenger to an impromptu lesson of the more powerful English swear words.

Things did get better from there - Berlin has some good bagels, and Amynah and I took great delight in the big-city pleasures afforded by Potzdammerplatz (movies! neon! concrete and glass! modernity!) I took very few photos, which are here for your edification.

Footnote:: The loss of my bank card, which is also a credit card, meant that Amynah spent the better part of one of our few days in Berlin desperately trying to reach my French bank in order to cancel it. It also meant I had no money, short of what Amynah gave me. I picked up my new one today, and attempted to stuff into the oversized card holder in my oversized Spanish wallet I recently purchased to hold my oversized French driver's license. Lo and behold, there was my bank card, slipped out of view, excatly where I'd left it. Idiot.

Footnote two: Adding to the 50's movie feel of this incident, as the train set off, a trio of police entered the car and demanded to see everyone's idenitification cards, terrorizing a family of Chinese tourists who weren't expecting this sort of treatment outside their own homeland. On the other hand, absolutely no one checked my passport as I entered Switzeland. So there you go - it's easier to travel between countries than it is within them, apparently.

A propos of something

Congratulations Maeve and Dave!*


* NB, for those of you lacking context, this photo does not depict Maeve and Dave but rather Thomas and Julian, their brand new sons. Having not met the gentlemen, I cannot tell you which is which.

A propos of nothing

...but every time I read Heather Mallick's online column for CBC, I am left with a mental image of her sitting at her desk with a highball in her right hand and another in her left, from which she takes alternating sips to draw strength for her writing process, which consists of closing her eyes and repeatedly bashing her computer keyboard with her forehead. My alternate theory was that her column is composed by a large team of dispomanic monkeys, but I doubt monkeys could so consistently manage slip in gratuitous U.S. bashing week after week (this column, she managed to "zing" Dick Cheney in a column about office casual fashions. I suspect she exists only to make Rebecca Eckler and her ilk look coherant).