St Patrick's Day

For St Patrick’s Day, Amynah and I drive from Galway on the west coast of Ireland, to Roscommon, in the center/north of the country. Before leaving, my friend Eilis gave me a sprig of clover to attach to my shirt, assuring me that it was the tradition for the day. I saw no one else in the entire country so bedecked all day, so I can only assume it was actually some kind of tourist identification device.

After a very successful ancestor hunt in Roscommon (more on that later) Amynah and I made our way south. Now, I quickly became accustomed to driving on the other side of the road. What I have yet to get used to is Ireland’s frankly insane roads: major highways are barely wide enough for two cyclists to occupy side-by-side, there are no shoulders, and directional marking are rarely placed in such a way that they could actually be seen or understood by someone in need of them.

So, by the time we decided to stop on our way to Kerry, my nerves were pretty jangled. We pulled into a village called Rathkey, just past Limerick, where I am drafting these very words.

After dropping our bags, we wandered into the village to find a pub that might still be serving food. As we stopped on a street corner, discussing our options, a green-bedecked, cheerily intoxicated fellow spotted us – specifically Amynah.

Irish Guy: (to Amynah) Happy St Patrick’s!
Amynah: Thanks! Same to you.
Me: Hey, could you tell us a good pub where we can get something to eat?
Irish guy: Go over to the chip shop, get some food, go to the Black Lion Pub.
Me: They let you bring food in?
IG: Sure! Just go over to the chip shop, get some food, go to the Black Lion Pub.
Me: All right then.
IG: Where are you from?
Amynah: Canada.
IG: Canada, eh? All right then; go over to the chip shop, get some food, go to the Black Lion Pub.

He then wandered off, in the general direction of the Black Lion Pub. However, as Amynah was not in the mood for whatever was being served in the chip shop, we elected to skip it, and go straight to the pub ourselves.

The pub had a sign saying it was hosting a private function, but the smokers outside ushered us inside. We walked in, past a couple of men who looked like they were about to come to blows, and pulled up at the bar. I ordered a Guinness, and Amynah a lemonade. There was no food on offer, nor was the guy who invited us anywhere in sight.


_{Irish sprig}

The bar was a scene of debauchery: green clad, shouting Irish everywhere, wearing such traditional garb as lephrechaun beards and green cowboy hats. There was a tension in the air – it felt like fights were going to break out in every corner.

Then, suddenly, somebody put on the music. All at once, everyone stood up and started dancing, and the Black Lion became the happiest bar in Ireland. An older lady spotted me tapping my toes on the sideline, and dragged me on to the floor. Shortly thereafter, a man with an Irish flag painted on his face and a surely redundant “Kiss me I’m Irish” t-shirt did the same to Amynah, insisting that one of their friends capture the moment on their camera.

Released back to the bar, I finished my Guinness, and tried to settle up. In the meantime, Amynah was dragged out again, and the bartender poured me another Guinness on the house.

I was desperate to stay, but knew that any more of this on an empty stomach, and I’d never be able to make it to Kerry today, so we bid goodbye to our friends and returned to the hotel. But even in my Guinness-fog, I noticed that not a single soul in that bar was wearing a shamrock sprig.

Nothing west of here 'til Newfoundland

I'm in Ireland at the moment, sitting in what appears to be a converted horse barn on the University of Galway campus, waiting for Amynah to finish delivering a lecture on [fill in Amynah-specific science jargon here]. So far, we've driven around Connemara, eaten a lot of seafood, enjoyed the excellent hospitality of our Irish friends, and watched a lot of rugby.

Tomorrow, we're driving to Roscommon, in order that I may visit the land that spat out my ancestors with some violence back in 1847, then heading South. Regular updates for you to ignore with recommence on my return to Strasbourg.

In which I put something in my mouth other than my foot

I have a standing assignment with an airline magazine to recommend places of interest for businessmen planning to visit Strasbourg. Each one requires that I write a bit about at least three restaurants, one of which should be accompanied by a photo.

While I do like food, and I do like writing, I must admit I’m not well equipped to be a food writer. I have a friend in Montreal who does restaurant reviews for numerous publications. She would occasionally invite Amynah and I out with her, in order that we could help give her our impressions. I drove her nuts, because all I could offer when being asked my opinions was “S’good.” I’ve tried to broaden my palette of adjectives since then, but it’s not entirely natural for me.

For my featured restaurant this time, I chose the Atelier de gout, a fancier place in Strasbourg. We’d eaten there once or twice before and loved it: I still salivate a little bit when I remember the first appetizer I had there. It was pretty much just a fried egg, but the owners handpick all of their ingredients, insisting that they be both local and organically grown, and that made a huge difference. It was easily the best fried-egg I’ve ever eaten, rich and flavourful.

I popped by at lunch, to speak to the owner to get her permission to take my photos. She said not now – the lunch crowd was in, and were mostly businessmen who she felt would not want to be disturbed – and told me to return at 7:30 that evening. I left, thinking “Does she think they’ll believe the camera will steal their souls?”

That evening, I returned with Amynah, intent on treating her to a long-promised dinner. I snapped some pictures in the restaurants back dining area, but as I made my way forward, the owner told me that I had to ask the other diners if it was ok if I took their pictures. I thought this odd, but as there was only two other tables, went for it.


At the first table was a British guy who, judging from his accent and manner of speech, was taking a break from his normal employment of hurling bon mots across the aisle of the House of Lords. I explained what I was doing, and asked if it was ok if they were in the background of my photos, to which they said yes, Lord Duckeater adding “We don’t think it’s going to steal our souls, after all.” Great minds….

The second table was a little more awkward. There was a French couple, about my age seated there. The woman was well along in a pregnancy. I made my stumbling request in French, to which she replied “Why do you ask? Do you think this is not my husband?” (Either that, or she said “This isn’t my husband.” Either way, she gave permission for the photos).

In any case, this is just a long-winded way of doing my first food-specific blog post. I obviously have to do something to get you people’s interest: I’ve received two comments in the last three weeks, both from the same guy, one of which was to request that someone else to do the writing around here. It’s enough to give a guy a complex.


_{Cow butt, discretely covered by greenery}

After we dispensed with the complementary sushi samples, I started with Pimientos del piquillo farci de queue de bouef, roquette poivrée crunchy de “pain “brûlé”. This translates to red peppers stuffed with cow tail, served with salad and burnt toast; that, my friends, is why they write menus in French. Those peppers were more delicious than any dish featuring meat from that far back on a cow has any right to be.

For the main course I ordered a Chevreau de lait rôti, pommes grenailles, jus aux épices de couscous et huile d’argan. Basically, this is not just a cute fuzzy lamb goat, but a suckling lamb goat. And potatoes. Yes, I’m a monster. The meat was a little rich for my taste, but is was cooked to perfection, tender and flavourful.


_{Yes, meat garnished with more meat.}

For her part, Amynah ordered the bar farci aux legumes “comme sur la Riviera” purée de pommes rattes à l’huile d’olive. In other words, fish. Specifically, sea bass, stuffed with vegetables. I only had a small bite myself, but Amynah was raving about it throughout the meal, so I can only conclude it met her high culinary standards.


_{Fish heads, fish heads, shiny happy fish heads....}

For dessert, Amynah ordered something that I’m sure had a fancy French name, but it’s not on the menu I took with me, so I will have to resort to English:A giant lump of chocolate material bristling with chocolate wafers, sitting in a puddle of crême Anglaise. Wasn’t that poetic? It was too rich for my blood, but Amynah seemed pretty blissed out.



Feeling especially French, I ordered an espresso to finish off my meal, a tradition I normally avoid – it was almost 11PM at this point, but I was carried away. I ended up lying awake all night, but the owner threw it in gratis, so I guess it was worth it.

Blades of Gory II: The comeuppance

_{Qi doing the rounds}

Amynah was in Nice* for a conference this past weekend, leaving me alone to amuse myself. While normally, in Amynah’s absence, I quickly devolve into an unshaven, pajama-clad, video game-playing mess, this weekend I barely managed to spend time at home.

On Saturday, my friend Qi called me up and asked if I’d like to go skating with her. Qi had only gone skating for the first time in her life the week before, and enjoyed it enough that she wanted to improve, and evidently felt I’d be able to help her.

I must confess a dark secret: I cannot really skate that well. I cannot stop quickly, turn in a controlled fashion, go very fast, or skate backwards. But, I hadn’t fallen at all last time I went out, and so felt reasonably well equipped to help Qi in her quest for skating competence.

When we arrived, we discovered that the normal ice-hockey rink was closed for a hockey game (Go Etoiles Noires!), and so everyone was crammed into the Ludique rink (the etymological resemblance to ludicrous is no accident) with the hormone-addled teenagers flying about to pounding French dance music.


_Qi!

Qi and I gingerly stepped onto the ice, at which point I discovered another problem: my rented skates were as sharp as brie.** They blades were so worn that I had about as much control over my direction as a curling stone, only without the sweepers guiding my way.***

We scooted around the rink for a while, mostly avoiding injury to ourselves and others. Qi gained rapidly in confidence and ability, despite her tendency to suddenly execute rapid pirouettes with little or no provocation, and she did tumble a couple of times (“I see people here, and people there, and a small gap between them. Then I fall down.”)

After an hour, on our twentieth or so circuit, we emerged from the traffic-choke point near the DJ booth. Suddenly, an alarmingly heedless 8-year old on a sugar rush zipped by Qi and I. She started to stumble, I tried to turn to hold her up, but to no avail: my skate caught on a divot in the ice, and we both went down, me badly twisting my knee in the process.

Humiliatingly, I had to be helped off the ice by the security guy. Qi, pitying me, bought me a tea, but soon returned to the ice for a final few spins, while I watched from the sidelines like the fragile old man I have apparently become.

<sub>* I am trying to talk Amynah into doing to do a guest-blog post about the city – comment here to convince her to do it!

** Yes, cheese metaphors: I’ve been here too long.

*** Ah, that’s the kind of robust Canadian metaphor I’ve been looking for. Hurry Hard!</sub>

I'm also afraid of loud noises and mimes

From today's Globe and Mail, yours truly, reporting from Basel, Switzerland:

Distorted, terrifying faces lurched out of the darkness at every turn. My ears were ringing, assaulted by the unrelenting din of diabolic music reverberating throughout the city. A group of unearthly creatures bore down on me, drums clattering death rattles. I pressed myself into a doorway hoping they would pass me by - a friend had already gone missing, swallowed into the maelstrom of the freaks who had taken over the night. Frankly, I wasn't entirely sure I'd ever see him again.

And it goes on like that.

The family that brays together

This is a family of goats we passed on our hike this weekend. The Billy was bleating at us, making sure we kept our distance, while the Kid imitated his every move. It was adorable. Meanwhile, the Mother goat approached us, but quickly lost interest once she determined we had no food to offer, wandering off and leaving her menfolk to continue with their macho posturing.

It makes you feel like dancing

From the rather unpromising terrain of the medical effects of the economic crisis the Irish Times has unearthed a fascinating bit of Strasbourg history:

Writing recently in the Lancet, US medical historian John Waller describes episodes of unstoppable dancing in the streets in what seems to have been mass hysteria.

The largest recorded outbreak was in Strasbourg in 1518. Involving about 400 people, at one point the fevered dancing claimed the lives of some 15 people a day, such was the intensity of their dancing in high summer temperatures.

Perhaps dancing is too refined a description. Those afflicted writhed in pain, screamed for help and begged for mercy in a clearly involuntary act of mass movement.

Apparently, the hysteria was likely the result of a combination of pre-existing beliefs in a type of curse favoured by the local river gods, and collective stress over an upsurge of disease and famine. The article is worth reading, and not only because it explains the popularity of the seizure-combating St Vitus around these parts.

So far, there has been no return of this illness to the city, though I can't be responsible for what I do when ABBA comes on my iPod.


_{Apparently, this footage is from King Gustav of Sweden's wedding reception. Yes, ABBA dressed as 18th century royalty for the occasion. Those kids were totally punk.}

First hike of the year

_{The Nideck waterfall. The chateau's on top of the waterfall, which is appropriately fairy-tale-esque}

I feel like I’ve been hibernating for the last several months – I’ve barely been on my bike except to go to French class in months, my last major outing was in December, while the last one before that was early November.

This weekend was almost sunny, and actually warm – thirteen degrees! The birds were singing from every tree, the streets were crowded with ghostly apparitions of winter-maddened Strasbourgers blinking in the first natural light to grace these parts in months; it finally felt like spring had sprung.

So it was with some delight that I accepted an invitation from our friend Lama to join her, Mirna and Irina on a hike in the Vosges. As always, I suspect the invitation was more for Amynah than me, but my beloved had work in her lab, so they had to settle for me.

Amynah thus spent Sunday afternoon under florescent lights, making science. Meanwhile, I was somewhere past Oberhaslach, lost and floundering through the muck and snow in the vicinity of the Chateau Nideck.


_{Lama insisted on taking a photo of me in the Chateau, and then backed as far away from me as possible to take it.}

I didn’t actually take a photo of said Chateau – all that was left of it was a restored tower and the remains of a lookout. I rather regret this now, as apparently Nideck is probably one of the few local castles that anyone outside of Alsace might have heard of, having featured in an extremely anti-climatic fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm about parasitic giants and their parenting difficulties.


_{This is the remains of a completely different castle in the same vicinity: "Look out attackers, or we'll drop a tower on you!}

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

_{This tram station is lying to you}

Each of the stations for Strasbourg’s hyper-modern tram system have one of these giant cylinders: they keep people apprised of expected arrival times, service disruptions, and contain a automated kiosk at which you can purchase your tickets.

On the top third or so of each is a white sign that explains the station’s name. The one at Longstrosse/Grand Rue (Alsatian and French for “Long Road”) in downtown explains that the stations name comes not from the street, as you would expect, but rather honours Berthe Langstross, a circus performer renowned for her ability to eat the inedible: she ate an entire bicycle over the course of two days, and an entire tram car over the course of five days. She died, says the sign, after a long and filling career while attempting to eat a “Big Bertha” artillery piece.



All of the tram stops have fanciful explanations like this. I find it charming, that in a city as overstuffed with history as Strasbourg, that they still feel the need to manufacture more.

*_{Speaking of local history, I highly recommend my friend David’s
most recent post on the subject of his uncle-in-law’s experience in the Second World War. It’s stories like that that make you understand why the city might prefer to make up absurdist circus performers than dwell on less pleasant tales.}

They're like the Beatles, but hard rock

The Prussian Empire only occupied Strasbourg for less than fifty years, but in that time they left plenty of overweening architecture for me to make fun of (there’s some good stuff too, but I’ll get to that later).

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Four Men Bridge.



Imaginatively named for the presence of sculptures of (count ‘em!) four men on its corners, the Black Forest Bridge was built in 1906. And while other public works from the era erred on the side of modesty, the Four Men Bridge aims for impact. Its statuary is designed to celebrate Prussian industry, with the chiseled physiques of the quartet bent to various labours valued by the Kaiser: fishing, digging, hauling, and flexing shirtlessly.



Today the bridge is called Pont John F. Kennedy, presumably due to its proximity to the American Consulate here. I suppose that back-handed honour wasn't the worst thing that ever happened to him.

<sub>P.S. - My last post was terribly depressing, considering that all I really wanted to do was publicly thank Qi for an awesome dinner. I apologize: I blame the stubborn persistence of February.

Today the sun is shining, the temperature is forecast to hit double digits by the end of the week, and Amynah spotted a bush of some sort that appeared to be sprouting flowers. As these buds are the only items of natural colour visible in the entire city, I plan to return to said bush with a sacrificial offering, and worship it. It’s located on a fairly busy street corner, so I expect my new shrubbery-based religion will have thousands of adherents by the end of the day, or at least until tulip season.</sub>

That reminds me of a story...

Saturday, Amynah and I were invited by our friend Qi to celebrate the Chinese New Year with an enormous dinner at Qi's apartment. We are, of course, already several weeks into the Year of the Ox, but Qi had been so occupied with various other celebrations organized by the local Chinese associations to which she belongs that she couldn’t organize her own party before now.

The feast was amazing – though operating with only a microwave and three hotplates, Qi somehow managed to prepare a dinner with two different kinds of fish, at least two different kinds of chicken, noodles, lamb, vegetables and shrimp. There were 8 people in total, everyone ate until they were stuffed, and yet there were still mounds of excellent food left over.

Anyway, at some point in the evening, after I had been reminded of and therefore shared at length some anecdote or another from my vast store of such things, Qi paused and looked at me, and said “Ah Mark, you always have a funny story.”

While my natural paranoia is making me question whether I’m one of those conversation-hogging party-boors, I am choosing instead to take it as a compliment. All of which is a long-winded way of bringing myself around to today’s blog post. You all might have noticed that I’ve considerably increased my rate of posting here, at least this month. Part of that is due to my natural procrastinatory ways, part of it is boredom, part is a genuine desire to keep in touch with people, but I’m also trying to keep the writing muscles limber.

However, coming up with topics three times a week is pretty tough – I’m not really interested turning this into a current events blog and I can’t go on poorly-conceived hikes every week. I’m planning on posting more about local attractions in the weeks to come, but am unsure how much people are really interested in local nicknames for obscure landmarks. I’ve already sunk so low as to mail myself a postcard for your edification. How much worse can I get?

Much worse, it turns out, as I resort to what Qi accurately identified as my favourite phrase: “that reminds me of a story.” This morning, I was walking back from dropping Amynah off at her tram stop, when I was cornered by a rather aggressive panhandler, who claimed that he had to make it to a job interview in a distant suburb, and needed money for a bus. I offered him a transit ticket. Stymied, he replied he needed money for a petit pain, for which he wanted a Euro. A small bread costs 55 centimes at my local baker, so I gave him that, resentful for having given into what was obviously a con.

I contrast this to one time when I was accosted for money in Halifax. It was late at night, and I was returning from a movie with my friend Natalie. We passed a shabbily dressed guy on Quinpool Road, who asked if we could “spare some change for a poor Cape Bretoner.” Being a proud Caper herself, Nat gave him a Loonie, and we continued on to Nat’s place, where I dropped her off. As I made my way back to my apartment, I passed the same panhandler again, who once more asked me for money.

I apologized, and said I had none, but then he recognized me: “Oh, you already gave me money!” (I hadn’t – I didn’t have a cent on me).

Then he asked me my name, which I told him: “Oh, that’s a good Biblical name, a good Biblical name. You’re a good man. Here, let me give you some money.”

A panhandler trying to give me money? I looked at my clothes: ripped jeans, a stained government surplus prison-guard coat, ratty sneakers. Maybe it was time to upgrade the wardrobe.

In any case, I refused his cash, but I ended up talking to the man, crouching in the bushes behind the Canadian Tire store while he drank a mixture of Lysol and Coke (he offered to share, but I turned him down: I don’t really enjoy Coke). Turns out he had been married once, and lived in Toronto, before his drinking got away from him. He’d been on the streets for seven years, and still missed his wife fiercely.

All of this was sad enough, but the worst was yet to come: he told me that his grown son, who I would guess couldn’t have been much older than thirty, was apparently living on the streets too, sleeping and begging somewhere near the Halifax Commons. Father and son would cross paths once in a while, but otherwise each was living rough, in the same city, each alone. I never saw him again, but I still think of that man once in a while. I hope things got better for him.

Foxy boxing

_{Yes, I know my handwriting is a crime against the epistolary arts}

Well, the great postbox mystery of 2009 is semi-solved – I had put the card in the mailbox Monday night, and by Wednesday, it had returned to me, bearing the cancellation mark of La Poste. Of course, I still have no idea why the French postal system operates a Royal Mail box in Strasbourg. I’m considering putting another postcard in there with a pen attached, and a post-it bearing asking whatever postal employee whose job it is to empty this box to explain it to me. Or would that be crazy?

As long as I’m writing this, I might as well explain where the postcard itself came from. Last week, one of the PhD students in Amynah’s lab successfully defended his dissertation, thus becoming “Dr X” (for real – his first name is Xavier. If either of my names started with X, I’d get a PhD, recruit some henchmen, buy some lasers, and insist on being called called “Dr X.”) As is the custom, there was a celebratory dinner afterwards, at a restaurant called “Au Renard Prechant.” Roughly half the restaurant is in an old chapel.


_{The restaurant: you can see the old chapel windows on the right side. Image from over here.}

I arrived late, as I was coming from an English tutorial (in which I was the tutor, not the tutee), and ended up sitting at the end of the table with Alain, Amynah’s boss’s husband, and Celia, a colleague of Amynah’s. I ordered some kind of fish stuffed with cabbage - it was excellent.

Now, “Renard Prechant” translates as “The preaching fox.” Strasbourg’s proselytizing predator evidently had quite an impact on the people of the city – in addition to the restaurant, there are two streets named after it. Curious, I asked Alain if he knew where the name came from. He didn’t, and flagged the owner over to our table: “My friend here is a Canadian, and a species of journalist. He wants to know how the restaurant got its name,” he asked, in French.

Thrilled to be speaking to “a species of journalist,” the restaurateur bustled off, returning with a postcard (the very one pictured above!), and a photocopied newspaper article. In the 19th century, according to the card, the street which passes by the restaurant was a canal that connected the Ill river to the Rhine. The building was occupied by a certain Mr Fuchs (which means Fox), who made his living by fishing from the water than ran by his home. This means was insufficient for him to feed his family however, and so he decided to “liberate” some ducks that were the property of his neighbour.

He was caught and sentenced for the theft. In what the postcard described “revenge,” the entire story was immortalized by a friend of his, who painted a fresco in the adjoining chapel of a fox preaching to a congregation of ducks.

Ahh, but that story is just for the children, said our host, who had by now returned with complimentary shots of schnapps for Alain, myself, and Celia, who wasn’t really interested in the conversation but happy to reap the reward of sitting next to someone as cool as myself. He unfolded the newspaper clipping, which described a recent art exhibition in Strasbourg.

That same fresco was described therin, but the origin story was considerably different. According to it, in the Middle Ages, Geiler de Kaysersberg* (a traveling, preaching superstar of the age) used to deliver sermons in this very chapel/restaurant, which, at the time, was attached to a convent. Geiler evidently possessed sharp, animalistic features that earned him the nickname "the fox": thus, the preaching fox.

* Geiler will return to these pages, once I start posting the good stuff from my city-tour. Yeah – a promise to talk more about a Medieval priest – that’s my idea of a teaser.

On Her Majesty's Secret Postal Service

_{A lonely outpost of Empire}

Near our old apartment next to Place Gutenberg is a bizarre relic of unknown provenance: a bright red metal postbox from Great Britain, complete with Queen Elizabeth's monogram stamped on the lower part. Adding to the mystery, there is a notice of what appear to be active postal pick-up times written in French.

Now, Strasbourg's vocation as the soi disant Capital of Europe mean there are an awful lot of Brits here, but I think even the Royal Mail would find it hard to justify daily pick-up a thousand kilometers away from British soil. I can't even begin to imagine who I might ask to explain the box's presence here, but my curiosity would not let the matter rest.

And so, armed with a postcard I was given at a local restaurant (there's a story there too) and a local stamp, I ventured forth to answer at least part of this enigma.


_{I think I look ridiculous in this photo, but Amynah thinks it's hilarious, and so, amusing her being more important to me than my dignity, I post it here for you.}

If the postal pick-up times on the box are to be believed, I should receive a postcard from myself by the end of the week. I'll let you know how it goes.

Well, if this writing for free on the internet thing doesn't work out...

I don’t often link to my professional writing here on View of the Marching Fishes, though whether that is from modesty or shame I cannot say. However, a lot of the work I do is un-credited ghost writing or press materials, and I do tire of the blank looks I get when I tell people I’m a freelance writer – not quite a journalist, not quite a communications person.

In any case, a few recent articles I did for my former employer are now online, giving me the opportunity to point to an example of how I spend my days. Better yet, one is in French, so those few local readers I have can enjoy my brilliant prose in their own language. Not to mention, if these nutcases are going to pay me, it’s the least I can do to send some eyeballs their way.

The first was printed in Headway, McGill’s research magazine of which I once had charge. It has improved greatly since those dark days, a state of affairs for which I am happy to take full credit, as I helped convince the current editor to take over.

The second article is actually just the first article en Français in McGill’s alumni magazine, whose editor evidently feels my prose could only improve in translation.

On the topic of alumni magazines, St Francis Xavier University’s magazine reprinted the piece I wrote for the Globe and Mail on my father and grandfather a while back: you have to download the whole magazine as a PDF to get to my article (it's not a huge file).

_{(I’m also usually in the CNRS International magazine linked on the right there, but half the time my articles are on particle physics, so I’ve no idea if they’re intelligible. That my editor there keeps assigning me pieces on this topic is either a mark of confidence, or a sign that, unlike me, all her other writers have the sense to stick to those areas they actually understand. Other than that, it’s a great general science publication).}

War Gate: not just a good name for a bad movie

_{The sign translates roughly as "Do not feed the invasive animals" on which someone has scrawled, "Humans are the invasive animals." I had no idea water rats were literate, let alone able to reach that high.}

Our friend Victor arrives tomorrow for a brief visit, and I also need to prepare for an interview in which I will be asking a theoretical physicist how he determined the mass of a proton. It involves gluons and quarks, and I'm terrified.

So, only a quick post, on the "Strasbourg's hidden wonders" theme.


_{I kept waiting for the aliens to pop out, but none did. Presumably, they were awaiting contact from the dominant Earthling species, namely, a water rat.}

This is in the "Kriegstor" park - "The War Gate" - left over from the enormous, fortified ditch the Prussians built around Strasbourg prior to the First World War. Despite the name, and gun emplacements, it makes for a nice stroll in the daytime. It is filled with the gardens of local greenthumbs, who, in warmer weather, will use their allotted plot as a proxy backyard, hosting barbecues and playing badminton with the neighbours.

During the night, from what I understand, it's the place to go if you're looking for the kind of pharmaceuticals your doctor won't prescribe. But you didn't hear that from me.

Legion Etranger and entranger indeed

From time to time the French Foreign Legion will set up a recruitment booth in front of the local shopping mall where Amynah and I do our grocery shopping. I’ve never popped in, but I was always curious: everything I knew about the Foreign Legion came from Snoopy cartoons.

Now that Amynah and I are entering into the home stretch of our time here in France, we’ve been looking for gainful employment back home (hint, hint, for anyone who wants to employ a writer or a neuroscientist. Or a dishwasher and a neuroscientist – I’m not fussy). As such, I looked a little more closely into the Foreign Legion. I wasn’t seriously thinking of enlisting (not least because they require a minimum of three-years of service) but I thought they might make for an interesting article.

And boy, was I not disappointed. Not only does the Foreign Legion still exist, it still operates more-or-less along the same lines as when it was founded – a way for young men in trouble to start their lives afresh. It is only open to foreigners: if you are French, you have to apply under another nationality (Canada and Switzerland are popular cover nations). You are not allowed to apply under you own name: the Legion gives you a new one when you sign up (thus foiling my half-formed plans to sign up as “Marc Renaud”).

At the end of your three years, not only will recruits have a new name, several murderous new skills, and proficiency in a presumably very salty French, but they will also have earned French citizenship: “If only we’d thought of that when we moved here,” said Amynah, to my horror. She was less keen on the idea when I told her that I would also have to deny our marriage.

The Legion has a long and distinguished battle history, and still attracts recruits from around the world, through their fairly slick website. It is possible to purchase books on the Foreign Legion there, as well as replicas of their famous kepi.

But, this being France, their offerings are considerably classier than that: alongside Legion branded t-shirts and ball caps, one can also buy their own wine and, my personal favourite, an official Foreign Legion Asparagus Serving Plate. Times have changed: you would never have seen Sergeant Snoupi allowing his troops such luxuries.

If you're related to me, you're probably not reading this.

Some time ago, I added the Google Analytics program to this blog. I figured that there was no reason why Google should know everything about who reads this thing, and not me.

It’s been illuminating, to say the least. Roughly half my meager traffic is comprised of repeat readers, but there are a surprising number who stumble upon this dusty corner of the Internet via search terms.

This is a cheap n’ easy way to generate blog posts, but my lord, the ways people find this blog are sometimes hilarious.

By far, the most popular search words that deposit people here are “naked germans” “naked sauna” and similar variants, which presumably bring people to this post. I also learned that those hippie naturalists are not nearly so peaceful as they appear, given the number of people looking for “nude marching” and variants. The Revolution is Upon Us! No Longer Will We Need Suffer the Tyranny of Foundation Garments!

Some people are apparently looking for me directly – these include people who searched for my name (with other identifiers), the blog’s name (including someone who specifically wanted to know what “View of the marching fishes” had to say about “naked Germans”), and one perspicacious individual that was looking for a “nude man exposed in glasses.” Outta luck, big guy! *Mark hurriedly removes glasses, too.*

Other oddities include someone who came by to tell me “I feel like a Guinness” (I would suggest looking for one somewhere other than the internet) and a plaintive cry of “leave me alone in French.” Say it, sister.

What is truly surprising is where my traffic is coming from – or rather, where it isn’t coming from. I’ve had (presumably unclothed-Teuton-seeking) hits the furthest corners of the world. They tend not to return. I also apparently have semi-regular readers in towns where, to the best of my knowledge, I know no one. So you know, you mysterious folks, I’m grateful for your patronage. About half my traffic is direct, and a third through search engines. Only five were referrals via facebook, making me wonder why I bother to post my notes there.

My largest readership (and large is a relative term) is from Canada, obviously, in particular Montreal and Toronto. I’m also big here in Strasbourg, although I suspect a large portion of my hits are from my own post-edit-post-edit style of work. These aren’t surprises. A surprise is that I’ve not one reader from my original hometown, despite the fact that I’ve 6 close family members there, most of whom should have seen my Facebook notices of new posts. Abandoned! By my own flesh and blood!

But they're fearsome poodles

My occasional tour of Strasbourg’s lesser sights continues…


This is the “Pont de Fonderie,” built in 1881. It is also called the Lion’s Bridge, for the animals standing guard on the four corners.

According to one of my guidebooks, when the bridge was completed, locals dubbed it “Poodle’s Bridge,” in order to mock the less-than-overwhelming size of the titular felines. As a result, I’ve always felt a certain sympathy for the bridge’s designer, who was surely struggling to bring the project in under budget. The poodles lions are not, after all, structurally important. It must sting, as an architect, to have your efforts denigrated in this way, or compared to an amphibian, (as in Halifax’s Green Toad) or a pickle (London’s Gherkin, which is actually one of the more flattering comparisons Londoners could have drawn).



On the other hand, the architect might have chosen his diminutive decorations on purpose: the bridge leads directly to the then-new Justice Courts, built by the Prussian occupiers of Strasbourg after the 1871 war to enforce the Kaiser’s law. I like to think our bridge builder was making a subversive statement.

Blades of Gory

This past weekend, Amynah and I organized a small skating party at the local ice-rink. I managed not to fall, despite not having been on skates in over fours years, and not having been particularly skilled at the activity to begin with.

People seemed to enjoy themselves, even those novices who came from climes in which ice is something that belongs in your drink, not under your feet.

Skating, while not exactly alien to locals (they do boast a professional hockey team here, after all) is a decidedly minority pursuit. The line-ups to get in were tremendous, not because there were so many people, but because there’s only one skating facility in town, and almost everyone needed to rent their skates. As I came here from a neighbourhood in Montreal in which I had a choice of three outdoor rinks within a ten-minute walk, and in which skate ownership was more common than bicycle ownership, this was a shock.

More surprising was the reactions Amynah got from her colleagues when she invited them to join. While the younger members of her lab were happy to give it a shot, many of the older members were aghast: “Last time I went skating, three of my friends had to go to the hospital!” “You have to wear really thick skiing gloves – otherwise, if you fall, you could have your fingers cut off by a skate blade!” (This from a girl who climbs cliffsides for fun).

With these alarming stories in my head, I went into the “Iceberg” (as the rink is called) with a certain sense of forboding. How chaotic are the rinks that people are losing digits? Were paramedics on site? It turned out to not be so bad. While there were many bruises to go around, and at least one strained tendon sustained when one of our over-enthusiastic Argentinian friends took a tumble, the most danger I faced was the risk of soap in my eye from the fake “snow” falling from the section of the rink with the dance music (well, that and the six-year-old girl with whom I collided. Don't worry: I'm ok).

Greatest. Statue. Ever.

_{Madame Josephine Peur-Soleil de Grand Chapeau. The hat was so the dog could get some shade as well}

Yesterday, Amynah and I decided to pop our heads into the three-part museum located in the Palais Rohan. We’d somehow managed to avoid it during the two years we’ve been living here, but as the first Sunday of every month is free, and I was getting a little cabin-feverish, we took the plunge. And I am glad we did, for we saw what must rank as the greatest masterwork of art ever created.


_{Nope, the masterpiece was not this ceramic boar's head serving-dish complete with detailed, glistening viscera. Yes, that's a bit of its spine there in the center. Bonne appetit!}

At first, the museum seemed unlikely to blow my mind as thoroughly as it did. There were the usual assortment of broken pottery and spear tips in the archeological section, and while the Arts Decoratif section held some interesting (and freaky) items, there were entire rooms of Virgins and Crucifixes that didn’t strike me as being notable improvements on the theme.


_{Is it just me, or is Mary rolling her eyes at the crying and the weeping and the wah-wah-wah?}

It was in the Beaux Arts section where I had my encounter with genius. There was a table of small sculptures on a table, unremarkable except that they were almost all of animals, usually in the process of eating one another. Set in amongst these was the jewel of the museum’s collection.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “Rodeo Gorilla.”



Yes, this is a sculpture of a Great Ape riding an angry bull. It is, without a doubt, the greatest work of art ever created by the hand of man. Better even than Van Gogh's "Dragon on a Motorcycle."

Breaking news!

So, there is an enormous General Strike here in France. There are, according to the radio broadcast to which I occasionally listen, protesting the increasing cost of living, layoffs, the economic crisis, to protect the 35-hour work week , stop university and education reforms, for public service integrity, against capitalism, for fuzzy kittens and against bad weather.



There are supposedly 65,000 people on the streets of Paris, (if you’re reading this now-ish, check out the webcam on Place Bastille here.


_{The brewers are on strike! This is more serious than I had thought.}

In Strasbourg, there are apparently 10,000 people on the streets. I ventured out, just as if I were a real reporter, on the assumption that they’d be congregating on either Place Kleber or Place de Republique. I tried to get to the head of the line, causing at least one union goon to follow me, presumably thinking I was a narc or something. The fact that I'm wearing a second-hand Canadian prison guard's jacket probably did not help.


_{The theatre people are on strike? But what will we do without... hey, did you guys see that funny youtube video that's been going around?}

In any case, they appeared to be marching in circles, and when I gave up tracking them, the lead marchers were just about to catch up to those at the end of the line, thus completing a striker’s doughnut, that would presumably march around the downtown until their megaphone batteries ran out.

Premature nostalgia

_{Thick, chunky ice}

This should be our last year in Strasbourg, if all works according to plan. As such, Amynah and I have found ourselves saying "We're really going to miss such-and-such a Euro-thing" with greater frequency. I've been going out of my way to take photos of images from our daily life, as insurance against future senility.

In any case, one of the things we're going to miss terribly from Strasbourg is the bike paths. There are hundreds of kilometers of dedicated bike lanes in this city, and drivers actually respect cyclists rights to be on the road. One case in point is the Rhine-Rhone canal, a short, tree-lined portion of which serves as Amynah's bike route to her work in the suburb of Illkirch.

Most mornings, we both hop on our bikes and pedal the seven and a half kilometers to her lab (I go along for the exercise). The nature of the paths mean that we need only share the road with cars for one kilometer of virtually traffic-free road between our apartment and the lab.

Yesterday, on my way to French class, I paused and snapped a few shots of the waterway, which has been more-or-less frozen over for the last few weeks.


_{Thin, smooth ice}

The town is small enough that you start to recognize the other cyclists on their way to work, especially now the weather has eliminated all but us and the hard-core bikers. My favourite is an older lady, who manages to be out on the path with her two dogs both in the morning and in the evening when we return. The long haired, high-strung poodle-like creature she keeps on a leash, but her bulldog needs no restraint: every time he sees a cyclist coming, he freezes, terrified, as if any movement would invite an attack from this strangely speedy, legless species of humanoid.

Tongue tied twisted

I’ve been doing a lot of language exchanges of late, as well as taking a regular French class. In addition, at my former French teacher’s urging, I’m making some moves towards teaching English on a semi-professional basis here. As such, I’ve been thinking a lot about language.

The cliché in Canada is that the French and English are “Two Solitudes,” a phrase popularized by the novel of that title by Hugh MacLennan, that has come to signify the divisions between the two cultures. I prefer to remember that the phrase originated with Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote that: “Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.”

While the whole is certainly a lot more positive than the bit MacLennan excised for his title, I can’t help but notice that while Rilke’s love requires protection, touching and greeting of his solitudes, it does not demand that they speak to one another. This was wise.

In a country where it is somehow perfectly acceptable to say "Je cherche le parking pour le weekend," and the foreign content of last year's Eurovision song contest entry was decried in Parliament, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would invent the English Doormat Prize, which names and shames those who pollute the purity of the tongue with English. So far, I am happy to report that they haven't discovered this blog.

As my far-more linguistically gifted friend David has already noted, communication is difficult when some of the concepts don’t exist in the other language. This strike-ridden, revolution-prone country apparently lacks a word for “cranky,” while the Anglo-Saxon peoples – a culture that created the laugh track and the music of John Tesh – have no easy way to express ennui.

However, it isn’t the foreign concepts that cause the real problems, it’s the faux amis - those words that should mean the same, but don’t. At a dinner this weekend, my friend Sebastien told us how, in his previous life as a video-game tester, he noted that the French version of sports game told players, once their team had been eliminated, that they were “Over seasoned” (while this might have been referring to the fact their goose was cooked, Sebastien advised his employers to modify it to better reflect the English “season over.”)*

Of course, Amynah still possesses the best language mix-up story of our time in France. It was her first week in her lab. She didn’t really know where things were, and so asked Audrey the technician where she could find some chemicals with which she could fix her cell samples. Audrey’s eyes widened, “Err… umm… at a pharmacy,” she replied in French. “At a pharmacy? These are pretty common things to have in a lab. Why don’t you have some here?” asked Amynah.

It was only after some confusion that Audrey conveyed to Amynah she had called the chemicals she needed “preservatifs” – and had thus asked Audrey for access to the lab’s supply of condoms.

* _{Similar confusion probably earned me quite a reputation in Toronto, where I was at a student journalism conference many, many years ago. A Filipino cleaning lady entered my room in the morning, where I was lying in bed, recovering from the party the night before. A quick glance told her all she needed to know: “So, you are over hung?” "Yep! Be sure to tell everyone you know!"}

A sacred trust, broken

_{To be fair, there's never anyone on this street even in the busy season}

For most of the year, it is easy to forget that Strasbourg is not a very large city. The streets are always packed with musicians entertaining the hordes of tourists. There are farmers’ markets on one public square or another almost every day. In our part of town at least, the streets are almost always lively.

All of this builds to the climax of the year, the Christmas markets, which in terms of tourism, is the car-chase-helicopter-explosion-guitar-solo-in Stairway-to-Heaven-soprano-sings-aria-and-stabs-lover-grande-finale of the year.

Then, in January, the city dies.

It’s shocking – you get so used to elbowing your way through stunned, camera wielding herds of Germans, Italians, Americans and Japanese that the ability to walk unimpeded on the sidewalks is disorienting. The only life on the streets near where we are – a neighbourhood whose only businesses are souvenir shops and tourist-restaurants – is provided by bored waiters smoking in their doorways. The occasional solitary traveler, desolately wandering the cobbles like a duckling separated from its mother, elicits pity rather than my usual annoyance.

It’s quiet. Too quiet.

A couple of weeks ago, I won a commission to write a brief city guide for a small airline that will be starting service to Strasbourg. I was expected to include recommendations for what cultural events were going in town.

I checked the local museums website – all of the special exhibitions finish before the article would be published. I checked the city’s website – nothing. The local convention centre? Nada. Finally, I called the city’s tourism office: nothing was happening for the foreseeable future, they told me, adding that the only event that I knew should be happening in the relevant time period hasn’t been scheduled yet.

Writing about Strasbourg professionally was a little strange in other ways as well. I earned the commission on the basis of being a knowledgeable local writer. However, I quickly learned the limits of my local knowledge, which leans heavily to history, rather than anything a visiting businessman would need to know. The article format demanded that I describe three local hotels. As I live here, I’ve never had cause to use any of the local hotels – though I was able to get recommendations from friends who have. Our local friends also directed me to the best local bars and restaurants, making me less “the guy with the local knowledge” so much as “the guy who knows people with local knowledge.”

Worst, for my conscience, was that I wrote about “The Super Secret Location,” which is a betrayal to you, my loyal readers.


The “Super Secret Location” (SSL) is a place in town to which I take all of my visitors, after I make them swear an oath to never reveal its nature to others who may visit me later. The SSL is almost never visited by other tourists, and in fact is not even terribly well-known to natives.

I have never blogged about the SSL, because I know I have readers who may still visit me, and I do not want to ruin the surprise for them. I had planned to do so once I could be fairly sure no more readers were en route. And yet, when faced with a pressing deadline and the lure of filthy British money, I crumbled like... a crumbly thing.

Can you ever forgive me?

C'est ironique, n'est pas?

_{EU Parliament in Strasbourg}

Strasbourg is the crucible of post-state internationalism – chosen to host many of the institutions of the European Union, it is a symbol of the ideal that universal values of tolerance, cooperation and the primacy of law can transcend the nation state. But while people may agree on the little things here – shared currencies, open borders, common immigration and defense – I recently learned that no mercy is shown to those that broach the big taboos.

The scene was a dinner at the home of Brigitte, Amynah’s boss. We had enjoyed a wonderful meal, and had just retired to the living room for dessert and coffee. Some mellow acoustic music was playing in the background.

For some reason, perhaps rendered heedless to social mores by the relaxed atmosphere, I made the observation that many of France’s popular musicians – male artists in particular – do not feel obligated to include anything resembling “melody” in their songs, preferring to recite their lyrics as if reading a monologue in a high school drama class while striving mightily to ignore the guitars strumming behind them (though I didn’t put it quite like that at the time).


_{Now here’s a group that can write a tune}

My hosts reacted as if I had used the tricolour to wrap a Big Mac. Qeulle horreur! Brigitte’s husband Alain immediately rushed to their music collection to dig up examples of French music that would prove me wrong: it didn’t go well.

Ageless superstar Johnny Holliday?* “Isn’t he actually Belgian?”

(several English-language pop songs play, while Alain rummages through their collection_

Charles Aznavour? ? “I think he’s Armenian.”

(a few Rolling Stones songs play)

Finally, Alain did manage to dig up a few singers who had hits in the eighties: “See! this guy is singing. He died just after this album was released. Or this one! Of course, he’s dead now too.”

Finally, Brigitte satisfied national honour by stating, “Well, in English songs, the lyrics don’t mean anything anyway. It’s nonsense! In French music, the lyrics tell stories!” (And what stories they tell! )**

A very good book I read on France before moving here pointed out that the French are always the first to point out the flaws of their country: the social tensions, the strikes, the snobbiness. Of course, the author pointed out, they don’t mean a word of it, and won’t stand for outsiders to make the same observations themselves.


This is not a strictly French trait. I laughed when I learned that my friend Félicie thought Canadians look like Maple Joe, the face of of Canadian syrup here in France. Then Amynah silenced me when she pointed out that a surprisingly large percentage of Canadians, including a fair number of my best friends, are hairy, flannel-shirt wearing weekend woodsmen.

And we do get defensive, about the silliest things. Amynah had another encounter with someone from her institute along the same lines: “You Canadians, you don’t have a sense of irony.”

For some reason, this upset Amynah and I all out of proportion to the offense. No sense of irony? Us? The country that produced John Candy, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, Jim Carrey and, more recently, Michael Cera? Let alone Celine Dion, whose fans I firmly believe must be irony connaisseurs ? Heck, one of us wrote the Anthem of Irony . We can do irony. We just don’t know what it means .

* _{Note on the linked video: The past is a different country; they do things cheesier there).}

** _{For those who don't want to read the whole thing: Escaped gorilla rapes a judge.}

The razor's edge

All right, no one has specifically asked about the State of the Beard, but I have received one or two recent comments on it, so I feel I should bring you all up to speed.

Here’s the summary of opinion so far:

“I like your "beard". I'm thinking Russian mobster or Belgian butcher” (from my friend Tim, who’s proficiency with facial hair entitles him to use the sarcasm quotes).

“It's masculine and sexy” from Headbang8, proprietor of the awesomely titled Deutschland über Elvis .

Agreeing with my own assessment that I looked like Evil Spock, my friend and occasional editor Daniel observed “You even have the facial expression of coldly rational Vulcan disdain down pat.” Technically, that wasn’t an opinion on the beard, but I’ll throw it onto the “positive” pile.

My mild-mannered friend Travis, who rarely ventures an opinion on anything, was so awed by my facial ornament that he resorted to prayer: “Holy sweet suffering jesus ...okay, I kinda like the 'stache.” That’s a “pro,” right?

Noted fashion plate Victor felt that “The new facial hair arrangement is just screaming for a beret,” which I will choose to interpret as positive. He was seconded by Julie who also took the time to make a veiled crack at my scrawniness.

My friend Nat picked up the national stereotype theme: “Very French. Where's your musket?” Presumably, this was also referencing Amynah’s opinion that I looked like D’Artagnan, a nickname enthusiastically embraced by the technician in her lab.

On the negative side, my friend Zack, while agreeing that I looked like I should be out buckling some swash, also diplomatically pointed out a certain incoherent quality to the project: “A splendid lack of connectivity.”

My Dad, a man who has been sporting a full beard since before I hit puberty, and a moustache since at least the advent of photography, advise me that with my new look to “keep away from guys named Bush when you’re tying your shoes.”

Battling back through the tide of negativity, my older sister Andrea mentioned I looked like one of my childhood heroes:


My sister-in-law Zahra was the most succinct of all: ”You look mean.”

But what finally made up my mind for me was this: I realized that I looked like Tom Cruise’s character from the movie Tropic Thunder (albeit thinner, and with more shag on top).



This, combined with Amynah’s daily, semi-subtle demands to know how much longer I planned to keep the experiment going, was enough to make up my mind. The beard is gone. Long live the beard!

Now I’m thinking of growing a mullet.

Apparently, I'm the camel, Heaven's the needle

French labour law being what it is, the owners of the apartment in which Amynah and I are currently living thought it would be more cost –efficient to continue to pay for their cleaning lady to come in once a week than it would be to break their contract and re-hire her on their return. We'll say her name is Margaret - she hails from Poland. She spent many years working in Milan and so her French is heavily spiced with Italian.

Having a cleaning lady is not something natural to me. Given that my Mom’s nickname is “Red” for her political leanings, I feel like I’m betraying fundamental principles allowing someone else to clean up my mess while I futz around on my computer.

For her part, Margaret seems to like us fine: I’m apparently one of the few clients that makes a point of talking to her, and given that it’s just Amynah and I here, the apartment doesn’t get too messy.

One thing I am often bothered by with Margaret is her tendency to speak to me as if I am a moron. I get that a lot here in France – I speak like a 4-year old on a sugar rush in French, without the coherence, so I understand why people tend to not take me very seriously. However her French isn’t so much better than mine, so there was likely some other cause. I discovered why yesterday, when I asked her how her Christmas had been.


_{Margaret's buddy, hanging out in the Cathedral}

Terrible, it turns out. She didn’t get to return home to Poland this year, and thus spent Noël in Strasbourg. Margaret is deeply Catholic, and started off on an impassioned, very long, and increasingly loud rant about the spiritual emptiness of the French, how everyone has forgotten about the Nativity and is focused entirely on presents and champagne.

As she went on, her ire illuminated the failing of “The French,” gradually focusing in on “The People in Her Neighbourhood” shining briefly on “Some of Her Clients” before inevitably focusing a white-hot spotlight on “Me.”

“Here you have this big apartment, a fancy car, spending time on your computer, but in the end, what will it all mean? When you die – and you will die – and they put you in the ground, what then? God gives you everything, and all he asks is that you believe! When you go up to Heaven, they will ask you – do you remember that cleaning lady in Strasbourg, so many years ago? Do you remember what she told you? What will you say?” (“That I don’t own a car, and the apartment’s not mine,” I thought).

I am, as a rule, fascinated in religions in general and how their adherents negotiate the modern world while staying true to their faith, though I usually don’t making dinner conversation out of it. That said, I fully understand Margaret's impulse: she likes me, she believes in the redemptive power of Christ, and believing I'd not already made his acquaintance, felt it her Christian duty to introduce me to the Lord.

To say my soul is in peril is one thing. But to imply that I’m some sort of patrician, idling away my days on the back of Amynah’s labour, my lily-white hands too delicate to scrub my own floors? That upset me: Red Sharon’s son is no bourgeois parasite!

Maybe I should give her next Wednesday off and clean the place up myself. That’ll show her.

Snow. Fall.

It has finally snowed in Strasbourg – only a few centimeters, but it has actually stayed on the ground, and looks to remain there, in snow form, for at least a few days to come. It’s only a few centimeters, nothing like the drifts that have accumulated in my parent’s backyards that are allowing chickadees to march up to a birdfeeder normally suspended four feet off the ground.

While I have been regaling wide-eyed Europeans with tales of –40 temperatures, and blizzards that force Canadians to use second floor windows to enter their homes, I must admit that winter here poses its own challenges.

The trick to surviving winter is to be prepared for it – I am not. Cocky about Euro-temperatures, when I moved here I failed to bring a winter coat, and even now own only two decent sweaters, both of which have been in heavy rotation for the past month.

My forecasting failings are nothing compared to Strasbourg’s. Despite being located at a latitude nearly as far north as Edmonton’s, the city appears to own but one salting truck, at which children stop and stare when it passes, startled that such a thing exists. Sidewalks are not salted, and are rarely sanded. If there is a snowplow operating anywhere in the vicinity, I have seen no evidence of it. Needless to say, no one owns snow shovels: I saw one poor soul trying to clear a driveway with a leafblower.

The “storm” started yesterday – I biked Amynah into her work, seven kilometers along a bike path that follows the Rhone-Rhine Canal. It was cold, but there were only a few isolated, innocent-looking flakes. Over the course of the day, these ominously increased in number and before long it was clear that they were here to stay.

I had a French class at Amynah’s institute that afternoon – since I knew she’d have to get her bike back, I decided to ignore my (largely hypothetical) better judgment and pedal in, so that we could bike back together. For the most part, it wasn’t a problem: I was well covered, I had headphones keeping me distracted from the cold and I had the whole path to myself.

However, because nothing is salted, sanded, or plowed, parts of the route had been compacted by car tires into pure ice. Unheeding, the Beastie Boys “Sabotage”on the iPod inspiring me to foolish feats of velocity, I attempted to make a left turn.

What happened was the bike rotated ninety degrees, but did not change course at all, its momentum carrying it – and me – forward over the ice. The wheels went out from under me; I hit the road and proceeded to slide about three meters on my side in a dramatic powdery-white explosion. Had I been in a race I’m sure I’d have made “Wipeouts of the Week” on some sports channel. However spectacular my fall, there was little damage done – I’ve wrenched my left shoulder, but it doesn’t seem serious (of course, I thought that the last time I fell off my bike here, only to discover I’d broken my arm).

Worse than any physical damage is the loss of any authority I might have had for making fun of how the French drive in the snow.