Adil

This is the most exposure anyone has ever had to Albania:


The simpsons 111

That is, until now! Watch this space for an in-depth, ground-breaking, behind-the-Iron-Curtain report of the fast times and stolen Mercedes of Albanian livin'.

Andorran Vignette

The lunchtime sun shines off the mountainside into the river valley and I pause in front of a restaurant jostled between duty-free electronics stores. I consider the menu taped to the stucco as the restauranteur approaches. "Come in! Eat! Its good." I sit down. "¿Hablas español?" "–Sí, sí" I respond as Mr Moustache hands me a menu, written entirely in Catalan. Some recognisable, but what is "Botifarra amb mongetes"? "Xipiros"? "Espatlla de xai lostadas"?

Fourty seconds of bewildered menu searching later, Mr Moustache returns. "Are you ready to order?"
—"No. This menu is Catalan, not Spanish."
—"It's the same thing!" Shakes his head, and walks away –presumably to get a new menu. However, he does not return, affronted by my horrible linguistic faux-pas.

The sun blazes through the azur and shadows make pavid slants. I realise I will never know what "xipiros" are. I walk across the street to the welcoming arms of a picture menu, happy for the glossy, unjudgemental embrace of its laminated photographs.

Fesbulous!

(Some musical accompaniment for your reading enjoyment; both in traditional and classic formats. Fesbulous photo album here.)



Morocco was so much like a trip to another planet, I'm not even sure where to start. (But I'm told the beginning is a very good place).

Flying on the morning of New Year's Day is never going to be fun, thus no one wants to do it and you can get fly to exotic Morocco on the cheap, which is what Polish and I did. When flying out of Paris you have two choices for airports: the shambolic slag-heap of Charles de Gaulle (watch for falling roof pieces!) or charming and efficient Orly. The only not-so charming thing about Orly is the special €7 monorail train you have to take to get there from the nearby train station. Why so expensive Orly? What gives? The monorail turned out to be one of the most expensive things of what turned out to be an otherwise fesbulous intercontinental holiday. Who knew I'd be back in Darkest Africa so soon?

Landing at Fes' cute-as-a-button little airport was sheer golden-afternoon gorgeousness, all breezy olive groves and mountains in the distance. And after struggling with some immigration-disorganisation, I was quickly struck by just how different everything really was. First thing I saw outside the airport doors: an old Berber lady with face tattoos walking between the orange trees. "This places is gonna be something else" I thought. As our dilapidated taxi lurched along to the hotel, I thought about how airport taxi rides in Asia often leave you with the feeling "this place is the same, only different." Fes, on the other hand, was different, period. Straight away there were minarets and goats in trees, djebellas and shepherds with sheep. Gliding past the Art Deco villas of the French-built 'Ville Nouvelle' towards the medieval Bab Boujeloud gate to the Old City, I couldn't help but feeling I was travelling through time rather than space. Our hotel, former British consulate and one-time host to young Winston Churchill, further added to my temporal confusion.

What a city! We walk down the Petit Talâa and the Grand Talâa –the old city's main streets, barely two meters wide. There are no cars in the Medina. Instead there are donkeys. Delivery donkeys, garbage donkeys, donkeys to pick up your Coke bottles and donkeys to carry camel hides to the smelly tanneries on the other side of the city. Some of you might have even gotten a postcard that was carried out of the Medina on a donkey (and not many people can say that!). We see veiled women at fountains, pigeons waiting to eaten, animal carcasses on hooks, a store full of pickles; the air smells of spices and smoke and the sound of Moroccan horns and drums tumbles out a dark archway. People offer us rugs, tangerines, tajines, pots, pot, Arabic clocks that sound the call to prayer, pewter teapots, Berber jewellery, slippers in ever colour, and at least two donkeys push us out of the way. –We've been there twenty minutes.

Fes is the most complete medieval city in the Arab world and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981. The old city is built in a basin, with a spider's web of lanes all sloping down to the Kairaouine Mosque at centre. It's one of the largest mosques in North Africa and, arguably, the most important university in the Islamic world. The city, its people and its 364 other mosques all spiral out from here. Yet strangely, this heart of Fes is almost completely hidden behind the urban fabric of buildings, houses and shops. The best non-Muslims can hope for is a glimpse through an open doorway between prayers. (Lots of stuff in Morocco is off-limits to us infidels). Despite the overt religiosity of the Fes, it didn't feel particularly conservative. There were lots of women out and about, as many without a headscarf as with. Full on veils were pretty rare - I only saw a few.

Something we did see a lot of, however, was buckets and buckets of icy rain our second, third and forth days there. We got wet looking for the best fes-hat shops. We got wet searching the souks for socks. We got wet getting lost. "Will it rain tomorrow?" I ask. –"Only Allah can say" the fes-hat man answers. Barring a direct line to the Big Guy, I remember a valuable travel lesson: it always pays to carry an umbrella (meaning, of course, that you can't leave it in your suitcase at the hotel). "Inshallah it will stop raining soon," but it never really did. We were often wet and cold, but it didn't stop us from rockin' the casbah (though the shareef don't like it).

Overall, I give Fes five muezzins out of five for its dirt-cheap plates and rugs, delicious couscous and pastilla, and general medieval Arab fezmazingness. If I had to do it again, I'd go outside of diluvian flood season, I'd go up to the Merenid tombs where you can get a panorama of the entire old city, and I'd spend more time just wandering the tangled maze of alleys getting lost (which is something that we definitely did not do at all; no taking a wrong turn and walking into the teen hustler section of Fes, no sirree, that did not happen at all). If you decide to go; read The Spider's House by Paul Bowles and watch the Morocco Ab Fab episode.

I'm calling it now: Fes is my new favourite place on the Dark Continent. And though I wasn't able to sell Polish in the market for 2000 dirhams, I have to thank him nonetheless. Shukran for laughing in the rain and for rockin' Moroccan!

Shukran Fes! Truly Fesbulous.

Rock the Casbah!

Morocco was amazing! Fes is like a trip through a time warp. Photo album and blog post to follow, but in the mean time:

French Toast calling T-Dot. Can you read me T-Dot?

Flight was très normale— totally Dullsville, as per Air Canada standard. Settling in fine, though I though I was going to kill myself and many people around me trying to lug my 80lb suitcase through the many ups and downs of the Paris Métro. The neighbourhood is nice, quite convenient and the apartment is all old-school Parisian mouldings and marble fireplace, which is swank. The roomie seems a bit kooky, but I think it'll be doable for sure. I didn't wake up to him watching me sleep last night, so I guess things are on the right track.

BranTom were in town yesterday and today as they made a train connexion in Paris en route to a friend's wedding in northern Italy. It was so nice to see them and have them around to help me acclimatise a bit. Then it seems as though R&R will make a continental jaunt la semain prochaine and Madame Sly is perhaps hot on their heels. Seems as though I'll be spending more time with Toronto peeps now that I live in Paris than I ever did when we actually lived on the same continent. Strange since virtually no one showed even the slightest interest in coming to visit me in Tokyo...

But I digress. I do have to say that things haven't been all pâtisseries and poodles since I arrived. Ever since I found out that this was going to be a three year deal, I've felt a lot of trepidation about pulling myself up again after so long away and after settling into a really stellar and great bunch of people. While the city is beautiful, it feels very isolating in a way that Tokyo never did (clearly bizarre since Tokyo is definitely the more alien of the two). Perhaps it's because of the shared language that everything seems so tantalisingly close in Paris , but just beyond the surface I can see that I'm still culturally a continent away. So much history and tradition that I just know nothing about (which strangely enough was not the case when I went to Tokyo).

Also I need to find a job toute suite as the lack of cash flow is giving me heart palpitations every time I have to pay for something in this très, très expensive city. I have two weeks now before classes start so hopefully I'll be able to sort something out soon.

Trusting that all is well in Toronto, Japan, or where ever you are reading this.

À bientôt !

Iceland

Check out this gorgeous Sigur Rós video. It's called Viðrar vel til loftárása (or "Good Weather for Airstrikes" for anyone who didn't pay attention during Icelandic class in high school).

Why is everyone and everything from Iceland so beautiful and weird? Does it have something to do with the fact that there are no trees? Or perhaps a combination of geo-thermal activity and whale consumption which addles the brain? Whatever the reason, all signs say "Get thee to a Björkery!" — I hear Icelandair offers cheap stopovers on its flights from North America to Europe. Maybe I can arrange something when I'm enroute to Paris this fall... (assuming I ever get my school documents sorted out).

And as a sidenote, why are European passport stamps so lame-o and boring? I know most Europeans are too busy smoking cigarettes and getting laid to worry about dull-as-dishwater passport stamps, but really, can't they even pretend like they're trying?

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times

...........

No doubt you’ve all been desperately wondering how my exams in Paris went and have been sitting on tenterhooks this whole time, straining with burstant anticipation — but I’ll make you read to the end to find out. There’s no easy shortcuts for loyal WTTMB readers I'm afraid.

The trip started off with a highly unglamorous Air Canada night flight to London, featuring frayed upholstery seats and haggard battleaxe flight attendants asking “chicken or beef?”, “chicken or beef?”, “chicken or beef?” — Hey Air Canada; I’ve been answering that same bloody question since I was seven! Why not try something different for a change; curry or fish?, stir-fry or lamb? Christ, anything really! I know that decent airline food is within the realm of the possible, as I had it on Lufthansa in November. Would it kill you to actually make an effort (even though you're a monopoly and can do as you please), couldn't you at least pretend to care about the customer experience a little?

I landed in Londinium all bleary-eyed for a weekend of limey English fun with Madame Sly and The Boys (BranTom, and the rare and elusive David). I also met Sly’s manfriend and I must say that I thumbsupingly approve with wholeheartitude.

I rode some giant slides and saw the Gilbert & George exhibit (which was a tad repetitive) at the Tate Modern, and saw Harry Potter’s magic wand in Equus (which was excellent). I also partook in some shopping, but rather little buying except socks and underpants at Topshop, the underpants of which were sadly rather lacklustre.

Also rather lacking in lustre was the fact that a single “tube” ride now costs 4£!! Absolutely ridiculous! And in keeping in the expensive transport vein, it was soon time to hop on the pricey Eurostar for a quick jaunt through the Chunnel. Annoyingly, some dippy airhead blonde from an American tour group interrupted my fervent studying while the train was waiting to pull out of Waterloo Station: “Uuuh, you’re like, in my seat.” “No. I’m not.” —But actually I was! Whether the fault of the travel agent or my own, I was booked on the train departing half hour previous to the train I was on! After some freaky-deaky panicking and running around in the five minutes before the train left, I managed to track down a conductor who said I could take any empty seat. Thank god.

Arrival in Paris; lovely, coupled with some massive high-grade anxiety vis-à-vis Monday’s do-or-die French language test. Said test written Monday afternoon. Outcome: not horrible, but not great. The answer to one question was clearly “choquer” (to be shocked), but I was convinced that this was a French-Canadian anglicism and didn’t want to loose points for a wrong answer so I answered nothing. (For inquiring minds, choquer, origin English, is a world used in France French). Glad I know that tidbit now.

The next few days were characterised by lots of wandering and walking. Paris is so almost impossibly lovely that it feels like a Disney version of what Paris should look like rather than the real deal, which it actually is. I kept having to remind myself that people actually live in these buildings, and soon I could too. Exciting. Louvre: Mona Lisa (bigger than I thought, since everyone goes on about how small it is – I was expecting a postage stamp); famous statues (didn’t really get what made them more famous than the hundreds of other similar-looking classical statues); fat American tourists (overheard in the Oriental antiquities section: “Oh Herb, look, this is for them Orien-tails”).

Moment of reckoning; checked first stage test results on the internet: I passed to stage two. Yeay moi! That means I got to spend five hours on beautiful, sunny Good Friday writing stage two of the entrance exam, hurray! Second part of the exam, consisting of translations, went pretty well I felt. Only snafu was an inability to translate the word ‘compelling,’ but otherwise good. Results will be posted in mid-May. Doits croisés!

Madame Sly, with manfriend in tow, came to the City of Light subsequent to exams so that we could celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ together. Because of Easter and various crossed wires, we had quite the time trying to secure accommodation and ended up having numerous hijinx sorting everything out (part of which involved a night squished onto the narrowest beds in the world, and considerable bleeding from the head after cracking my noggin on a window-frame attempting to gain access to a hotel balcony. Hours of Parisian head-bleeding fun for the whole family!).

We had some fun shopping adventures and got fat on delicious food, floating along in a kir royale haze. I noticed a penchant for excess on the manfriend’s part (he ordered a drink that came in a fishbowl and a steak that was bigger than his head), so clearly he’s a perfect match for Sly.

Despite gonging of the church-bells that went on most of Easter Sunday morning, people all seemed bemused when I wished them a ‘Joyeuses Pâques.’ A surprising amount of stuff was also open as we wandered around Montmartre . Silly secular French heathens.

Sarah and manfriend trotted off back to Jolly Ol’ Sunday evening and I headed out to Charles de Gaulle airport the next morning. Prettiness aside, the airport was terribly designed and I was constantly worried about slabs of roof falling off on my head.

All in all, I would give this trip four bowler hat-wearing poodles out of five (minus points for exam stress and severe damage to the cranium). Paris is just so beautiful it’s ridiculous. What could be better than a city where you can buy pastries on every streetcorner and expect a bottle of wine with lunch? Nuthin', that's what. So fingers crossed cause gay Paree here I come! —Oh, and in all honesty, I haven't the slightest clue where all this rude Frenchmen business comes from. For the most part, I found people almost unfailingly cheerful and terribly nice. Every transaction was a little exchange, a joke or a building of rapport. I found people on the whole entierly charming. (The real rude people were the American tourists). Bleeding heads and tourists aside, I had a fantastic time.

Did you actually skip all the way to the end, just to find out how I did? Aww, that's sweet of you. I genuinely appreciate your interest in my well-being. Now get back to paragraph two where you're supposed to be.

Disreputable Planet

Given the opportunity there aren’t many places in the wouldn’t go; Kyrgyzstan, Chad, you name it. But one place I would not go is Burma. —Now don’t get me wrong, I’d love to go. It’s supposed to be beautifully amazing. However, democratically elected leader and Noble Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi asked tourist not to visit Burma after the military seized power in 1988.

Since the coup, the military junta has done heaps of annoying and terrible things like: change the name of the country (to obnoxious and unfamiliar Myanmar); moved the capital (to Naypyidaw, a dusty, purpose-built settlement in the middle of nowhere); crippled the economy, tortured and killed pro-democracy activists; and persecuted ethnic minorities. In short, they are total douchbags. They have also kept Aung San Suu Kyi under an unflinching and unwavering house arrest which has prevented her from seeing her British-born children for the past 18 years, and kept her away from her husband’s funeral in 1999 (whom she’d hadn’t seen since 1989).

The jerk-faced Burmese military likes to have a finger in every pie and controls almost all aspects of the tourism industry (or more correctly most all aspects of every industry): hotels; transportation; restaurants; businesses; whatever’s going, you know they’re cashing in on it. Tourist dollars go straight into military coffers and provide much-needed foreign exchange to prop-up to the regime. Because this money allows the military junta to buy arms, consolidate their power, and smother dissent, Ang San Suu Kyi has asked foreign tourists to spend their money elsewhere and to not visit Burma.

Back in November (when I wanted to write this post, but didn’t have time), Lonely Planet published its fifth edition guide to Burma (nauseatingly referred to as ‘Myanmar’). That’s one-two-three-four-five editions of a guide to a country that shouldn’t even be on the tourist radar at all. Why are they publishing this guidebook? To go against the wishes of a nation’s democratically elected leader and put money in the pockets of a brutalitarian regime is totally irresponsible.

They do include a two-page “Should You Go to "Myanmar"?” section, which *of course* tells you should go (because otherwise you’re not going to buy their guidebook), arguing the trickle-down benefit to the local people. Realistically, if you are seriously concerned about the plight of the average Burmese person, I’m sure your money would have a much bigger impact and be of more benefit if you were to donate it to the Burma Campaign, rather than staying in a government-run hotel and wondering how that helps the local people when employees don’t get paid for months at a time then get beaten up if they try to complain.

Conversely, if you are a humble adventure tourist in search of a nice place for a vacation, there are plenty of countries in the world (without a self-imposed travel ban) where the local people are just as deserving of your tourist ¥¥¥ as the Burmese.

Anyway you dice it, this guidebook to Burma is bad news. People should not be going there, pointe finale. Lonely Planet, I’m calling you out for ignoring your moral duty and the request of Ms Suu Kyi, in the hopes of turning a quick buck. Shame on you! Your Lonely Planet Guide to “Myanmar” puts dollar signs ahead of social responsibility, and supports an oppressive and brutal dictatorship. –Because of this, I’m banishing Lonely Planet guidebooks from my bookshelf forever. You are: Dead to Me!

(If you stop publishing Burma guidebooks, or if the travel ban is lifted, you might get off my list, if you’re lucky. I probably still ixnay your guidebooks though for being such kowtowing, lackey jerks in the first place).

The Amazing Race: West Africa Edition

Overall, I would categorise the trip as “awesome” with a third-worldness factor of 10++. Even after living in China and Mexico, West Africa still seemed mega-poor in comparison. Garbage-eating vultures, open sewers, guinea worm parasites; you name it, West Africa has it en masse. Ghana seemed to have more potholes than roads, and Togo means corruption and bad government in the local Ewe language. (Bénin had smooth pavement and laid-back people, but we only saw a tiny slice of the country, so I’ll reserve judgement on that one). Despite the poverty, the trip was faaantastic. The few minor annoyances (over-charging taxi drivers, border hassle) were more than made up for by the super-friendly people who would wave and laugh and ask “Ça va?” every time us silly yovos walked by. Bonus props to the Ghanaian border guard who bought us all water because we were having trouble digging some Ghanaian change out of our luggage to pay the vendor.

I didn’t really know what to expect on this trip; travelling to some of the poorest countries in the world, with three girls (one of whom had never third-worlded it before), and an ATM card that I didn’t have confidence would work. I’ll let my photos do most of the talking for me, but if you’d like some additional text, both Jenni and Ashley’s blogs have excellent travelogue postings about our trip.


“A Detour is a choice between two tasks, each with its own pros and cons”

Accra versus Lomé

Accra (pronounced ah-KRÁ, not AK’ra as I had thought all this time) didn’t really make sense to me as a city. There seemed to be no central commercial area at all, just a lot of disjointed, spread-out buildings high on 70s ‘futuristic’ mishmash and low on colonial charm. Often times we would be driving along in the taxi and I’d have the feeling we were driving down country lanes, not in the middle of a two-million-strong metropolis. I thought the British were supposed to be good city-builders — I’m not sure what they had in mind in Accra, but they certainly didn’t achieve it. I spent most of my time there wondering where the city actually was. And despite the fact that the city has a pretty beautiful beach-side location, you’d hardly know it. The only things down by the water are disused stadia, slums, a prison, and overgrown monuments to past presidents full of crumbling concrete and weeds. The one thing Accra did have was a sushi restaurant run by real Japanese people! As I stared across the street at it, all I could think of was ‘How on earth did they end up in Ghana?’ —That’d be an interesting story no doubt.

Lomé, by contrast, did feel like a real city – a threadbare city only a palm frond away from falling apart at the seams – but an understandable city nonetheless. The market and commercial area in the centre, administrative buildings over there, residential area over here, and a beautiful (if under-used) beach along the waterfront. Apparently, back in the day, Lomé used to be the hoppin’ and happenin’ hub of West Africa. IR geeks among us might recognise the Lomé Convention which gathered together all the developing world movers and shakers in order to gain preferential access to the EU market of their former colonial overlords. But that was way back in 1975 before greedy graft and corrupt politics took over and wound Lomé down into the sleepy afterthought it is today. I dug the sandy streets, cool palm-lined boulevards and rare colonial building that would peek out behind the bougainvillea.


“A Roadblock is a task which only one team member may perform”

In my case, that would be using my French to deal with belligerent Togolese taxi drivers who took us down scary dirt tracks at night, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, in order to avoid paying-off the guards at military checkpoints along the main route (thereby saving himself somewhere in the region of 50¢). Other than this situation, I was happy to be able to put my French to use in a non-work environment for once. Finally it comes in handy! And I was also happy that K and Jenni held their own in French –I didn’t have to be the intermediary in all their market haggling and restaurant ordering. Bon travaille K and Jenni! Deux étoiles d'or!

It was also great to be able to speak French without struggling with a France-y French pronunciation. I could be as flat I wanted because it was easier for the people there to understand. I loved it! I wish I could do the same at work too, unfortunately I don't think that would fly with the pure laine Québécois.

Another thing I was called on to do a few times by K was to 'be the man' in dealings with officials and drivers. I think this offended Jenni's feminist sensibilities, but that's just the way things are over there. Generally K would start off the bargaining, (she obviously knew much more about it than anyone else), and I would standby in case the haggling started to take a turn south 'cause K was getting no props from the men. Then I'd step in and wow them with my superior and monotone French, announcing that XXX was our final price. Generally I think our "good cop, bad cop" routine got us good results and fair prices (even if our taxi drivers didn't always know where they were going).


“Warning: Yield Ahead”

The people, food, history, beaches and culture all make West Africa a fantastic travel destination. The only major drawback in my mind (apart from parasites of course) was the transportation system – or more correctly, the lack thereof. Getting from A to B seemed to be the cause of pretty much all our hassles and headaches during the trip. Since all transportation is essentially private vehicles being hired out, you're always dealing with aggressive touts, 'the tourist price', dilapidated, rusting vehicles spewing exhaust and drivers who don't know the way. Now I realise that these governments have a priority to feed their people ahead of building zippy expressways and nice trains, but the serious lack of infrastructure can only exacerbate the region's poor economic development. Companies aren't exactly going to be jumping over each other to invest in a place where it might take almost four hours to move their goods 120 kms (as it took us to travel from Accra to Cape Coast).

But like I said, everything else was amazing, and I wouldn't let a couple of hot and dusty taxi rides across the savannah deter anyone from having their very own West African adventure. Here are my hot tips and quick picks for anyone out there considering a jaunt to 'the Dark Continent':

HIGHLIGHTS:
• the beaches, especially Anomabo Beach in Ghana
• the food, especially gari foto (like couscous), Jollof rice (kind of fried rice), brochettes (spicy grilled meat on sticks), and palava sauce
• village visit
• market shopping (somehow always immensely more satisfying that shopping in a store)

• Elmina town; beautiful setting, oozing colonial atmosphere thanks to a UNESCO programme promoting preservation and economic development of heritage buildings

BE SURE TO:
• Pick up some CDs of West African music – people hawk them everywhere for cheap on the side of the street – also, Rough Guides has some good compilations of West African music if you want to get in the mood before you go.
• Figure out the visa situation ahead of time. I saved myself 85$ over Jenni and Ashely by getting one single-entry visa and one transit visa for Ghana instead of getting a multiple-entry visa like they did. We all saved ourselves 35$ by getting our Togolese visa at the border rather than at the embassy in Ottawa.
• Find out if you’re your bank card will work there – mine didn’t, despite assurances from my bank that it ‘probably’ would. I was prepared for the possibility and got cash advances on my Visa. (Mastercard is useless in West Africa). Ashley’s card worked in Ghana, but wouldn’t work in Togo.
• Brush up on your French – trying to get by with English only might be possible but tricky in Togo and Bénin. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you just muddle through the murky memory of your high school French text. Learning a few words of Twi (in Ghana), or Ewe (in Togo) will get you big smiles and maybe a lower price in the market.

• If you use a digital camera, be sure to show people the pictures you take of them – they love it

• Eat at 'Country Kitchen' in Accra for some dee-licious food with fancy Ghanaians

IF I'D HAD MORE TIME:
• Mole National Park in the north of Ghana is supposed to be the best place in the world to get close to elephants
• Abomey in Bénin was the capital of a huge West African kingdom in pre-colonial days and you can visit the restored palaces
• Tamberma country in the isolated far north of Togo where people live in fortress-like homes built for protection against slave-raiders from Abomey
• Kumasi in central Ghana reportedly has the best market in West Africa and palaces of the Asante kings dot the city

So, what are you waiting for!? Go buy your ticket already!

Mid-Trip Report

We are now in enjoying Togo after our stay in Ghana. Here are the highlights so far: Elmina, Anomabo Beach, delicious Ghanian food, cinematic beachfront Togolese border-post.

Having a great time. Details to follow.

Hope you are all well back home.

Eco Granola Hippy Travel

In a bit of last minute preparation for my jaunt to Africa, I’ve been investigating ways to make my trip “climate neutral,” whereby the pollution generated by my air travel is offset by investment in reforestation and renewable energy sources.

Air travel is one of the largest producers of CO₂ gas and releases emissions high in the atmosphere, where the climate change impact is even greater. I was somewhat horrified to learn, for example, that my return flight to Ghana will contribute as much to climate change as an average household's gas and electricity use over a whole year! Yikes!

Rough Guides together with Lonely Planet and others in the travel industry are supporting a carbon offset scheme run by climatecare.org. They have interesting projects which would seem to have direct and beneficial impact to local people, such as distributing fluorescent lightbulbs in Central Asia or efficient cook-stoves in Bangladesh. (There's also carbonzero.ca if you'd prefer a Canadian slant on carbon neutralisation).

Offsetting my flight is going to cost about 40$, a tiny fraction of what I paid for my ticket, and definitely money well spent. While I generally dislike all the additional fees that come along with buying a plane ticket, I would support a mandatory ‘climate change tax’ to be included. If IATA made this mandatory for all air travel, the impact it could have would be tremendous.

.

If off to the airport in about an hour. Enjoy my blog while I'm gone!

Jeff Probst: "Tilley hats represent your life on the island"

See Jennifer's blog to watch my Africa travel companions Jenni and Ash go head to head in a What Not To Wear: Africa Version as they hash out the demerits of money belts and hole-y underwear. They've been warned that at the first sign of Jeff Probst-esque clothing, I’m ditching them in the market with their safari vests and cargo shorts so they can embarrass themselves without me.

Besides, I’ll be too busy on the beach ogling sexy Euro travelers to try to save them from their heinous fashion crimes.

Just remember ladies, “khaki” is an Arabic world for “Hello, I’m a fatty tourist dumb-dumb with lots of expensive camera equipment. Please steal and take advantage of me.”

Best Moose Ever!

This past weekend I went camping in Algonquin Park with some friends. It was the first time I’d ever been up to Algonquin ever and the first time I’d been camping in about ten years as well. Superfun. Although it was stoopidly cold on the Friday night, otherwise the weather was really cooperative considering the forecast before going up had been horrible and rainy. We really lucked out in that when it did rain, we were either asleep in the tent or driving in the car. So all in all a Best Algonquin Ever!

We even saw some moose, which were actually pretty boring. I wanted to make loud noises and wild gestures to get them to do something interesting, like stampede or gore me with their antlers, but instead they just stood there in the swamp calmly eating grass like some dumb animal, with blatant disregard for my entertainment needs.

I had really hoped to see a porcupine, because I think they are really freaky and I’ve never seen one in the wild before. However, despite much treetop staring, all my efforts were in vain and I went home un-porcupined. I did come up with the next biggest haut-couture fashion item though; first it was stingray leather, then ostrich leg skin, and now porcupine pelts! –I’m calling John Galliano as we speak– All I have to do is to get Paris Hilton wearing a porcupine quill handbag on the red carpet and BAM, we’re millionaires. I can’t wait. –And I thought camping was a running-water, refrigerated insult to our pioneer ancestors who struggled so hard to build a civilisation and get away from all that dirt and clean air, but instead it’s a treasure trove of high-fashion accoutrements! Who knew?

Next Stop: Togo!

mm

As of yesterday, when I booked and paid for my plane ticket, I am on my way to Togo and Ghana at the end of October for ten days. I am so excited! It should be totally awesome!

For those of you darling readers from my Japan social circle; I lived one year with a lovely girl from Vermont named Katie who is currently now working for the Peace Corps in Togo. So after two years being hounded by my other roommate at the time, Jennifer (whom some of you may have met when she came to visit me in Tokyo), I am finally on board for this African expedition! All systems set to go. Or is that all systems set Togo! Hahahaha, I’m so witty.

I have had a tonne of fun trying to extract information about visas from lovely West African consular workers in Ottawa.

GHANA
ME: I'm not sure what I should put in the 'references' section of the visa application form.
GHANIAN EMBASSY LADY: You put down the hotel you staying in and one person you know in Ghana.
ME: Okay, but I don't know anyone in Ghana.
GEL: (incredulous) You don't know anyone in Ghana!?
ME: Um, no.
GEL: (sharp suck of air).
ME: ...
GEL: Well, just the hotel is fine then.
ME: Only one reference is okay?
GEL: Yes. No problem.

TOGO
ME: Hi. I'm phoning to find out if tourist visas for Togo are available at the border with Ghana.
TOGO EMBASSY STAFF: What!?
ME: Are visas for tourists available at the border with Ghana?
TES: I really don't know...
ME: ...
TES: ...
ME: Uh, is there someone in the consular section I could speak to?
TES: Oh mon dieu!
(put on hold)
TES#2: Yes?
ME: Are tourist visas available at the border with Ghana?
TES#2: One moment.
(on hold again)
TES#1: It's do-able.
ME: So visas are available at the border?
TES#1: Yes. You can do it.
ME: Thank you.

And of course my favourite; phoning the Bénin embassy:

ME: (ring, ring, ring!)
BENIN EMBASSY RECEPTIONIST: Hello.
ME: Um, is this the Embassy of Benin?
BER: Yes.
ME: Could you please fax me a visa application form?
BER: You're going to get it from the internet. benin.ca.
ME: ...Uh, okay--
BER: Goodbye. (click)


I’m not even exactly sure what the point of a visa is anyway. They seem pretty lackadaisical about the whole process and I highly doubt that anyone ever looks at the forms ever again. For example, why do they need to know the address of my employer, ? They should just call it “Tourist Tax Grab” and say “Give us 70$ to come to our country” and save everyone all the paperwork. I’d be fine with that – way less headaches.

Visa hassles or not, I am totally stoaked! Africa won't know what hit it!

For your New York City audiual-visual enjoyment

This is the first time I’ve written a blog posting (below) to go along with a set of vacation photos, so you’ll have to excuse the occasional repetition between the two. I didn’t necessarily want my poor old Grandmère reading about my gay sexcapades on previous posts. But for your enjoyment and consideration, I’ve uploaded some music to play along while you ponder my pics and peruse my post. I couldn’t figure out any way to upload the songs only, so you get some music videos as an added bonus. (Does anyone know how to upload an audio file to Blogspot by the way?)

I hope you all have as much fun enjoying my Big Apple experience as I did! I look forward to all your wonderful comments. If you I didn't email you the link to the online photo album, just let me know, and I'll pass it on again. NYC rawks.

Seventh avenue meets Broadway

New York is awesome! After plans to go away camping on the August long weekend fell through, I decided to put the time that I’d already booked off work to good use and take a bite out of the Big Apple. Strange that for someone who’d been all over the world, I’d never been to NYC –even though it’s only 45 minutes away by plane. I was totally stoked to rectify that situation with a five-day trip there. I even managed to find an insanely cheap airfare on usually expence Air Canada, thereby saving me the trauma of the very un-shinkansen-ish 13-hour train ride (218$ versus the train’s 196$ seemed barely logical).

I stayed with my friend Andrew, another former Tokyoite, in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Bed-Stuy. Apparently this is ‘ghetto’ –Lil’ Kim was even born here– but I found it quite friendly actually. (About a million times less scary than Vancouver’s Hastings & Main; no syringes on the pavement or passed-out Native crack-whores. Just yummy Popeye’s Chicken and Dunkin’ Donuts). Being from Canada, I don’t really feel I have that much experience with ghettos, but I’ve always imagined them to be hostile and dangerous (since that’s what TV told me to believe). That didn’t really seem to be the case with Bed-Stuy –at least not the part I saw anyway. And although the JMZ subway line wasn’t working for part of the time while I was there, it was still just a short hop across the Williamsburg Bridge to the Lower East Side, so it was super-convenient. Bed-Stuy put ya lighters up!

When I landed in LaGuardia, I was greeted by the pilot’s 9AM weather report of 34°C! The trip, while being totally awesome and amazing, had the salient feature of being very much like a tropical sauna. Especially the subway stations –no bloody air conditioning! While the subway cars themselves were comfortable (and generally un-graffitti-ed), the platforms were absolutely stifling. I’m talking worse than Tokyo on the worst day! After I dropped off my suitcase at my friend’s office on the Upper West Side, I sweated my way down Central Park and ran though some sprinklers to cool down. Fun! Continued on to Times Square, partaking in a rather disappointing NYC vendor-cart hot dog (Toronto’s vendor dogs are far superior and far larger). Then did a bit of shopping at ‘Century 21’ –a crazy, designer-discount madness across the street from the World Trade Center site. And by ‘a bit’ I mean I went totally crazy. I did sooo much shopping on this trip, spent far too much money of course, but I was able to get some tokyoitis shopping bugs out of my system (for now). Tonnes of fun stuff in New York – though I wasn’t able to track down any good underpants in fancy department stores like Saks or Bloomingdale’s. I even braved Macy’s crazy wooden escalators to no avail. I guess I’ll just have to depend on my lovely Tokyo friends for that (hint-wink-nudge).

The next day I braved the morning rush hour trains with my friend as he went to work in Manhattan (not even close to Tokyo's train-pushers rush hour BTW). I had a commuter’s breakfast at Grand Central Station and then maximised my geekosity and co-leveraged my nerdness with a tour of the super-sexy United Nations. God, I am such a nerd!! I totally loved it. It’s always wicked to see a place that you’ve seen in so often in photos but never in person. I did not love, however, the obnoxious, white ültra-Republican from Ohio who clearly did not like the U.N. –What happens when a country doesn’t pay their dues?,” tour guide explains, –“Well that doesn’t seem very effective!” “What’s the point of making a resolution if it’s not legally binding?” “Why don’t all countries participate equally in peace-keeping missions?” Gawd, I’m thinking, if you don’t like the U.N., why did you even bother coming on this tour? No one forced you. It’s like taking a holiday in Switzerland, but you hate coo-coo clocks and are allergic to chocolate and cheese! I hope that family had a horrible return trip to their whitey, suburban Americana lala-land. Serves them right! I still had a fabulous time, and Meredith suggested I apply as a U.N. tour guide myself –I’d be well qualified with my cunning linguistic skill.

U.N. tour followed by more shopping (naturally). And all this talk of shopping has reminded me one of the things I noticed most about New York was that it’s majorly all about the cash money. Even in Tokyo, where everyone has a Vuitton bag, or Hong Kong, a place founded on commerce alone, don’t come close to rivaling the sheer ostentation and blingyness of the Big Apple. Who has it, where you spend it, how you got it. Money money money moh-ney! So, obviously right up my alley –haha.

Saturday saw Andrew and me hitting the MoMA for an art overload. Too much art! It’s almost stupid how much art is all together there at the same place. It was a bit of a late start to the day, so by the time we were MoMAed-out, it was time for some shopping pick-me-up with the fancy people on Fifth Avenue. As I mentioned, no luck with the expensive underwear, but still totally fun. I brought the book Breakfast at Tiffany’s to read with me on the trip, so I simply had to recreate all my favourite Holly Golightly scenes. (So gay!).

Sunday I was able to meet up with Jane for another art overload at the Guggenheim. They were having an exhibition of Zaha Hadid, an up-and-coming Iraqi-born British archi-supertech à la Frank Gehry. She had some really cool designs –including a BMW car factory in Hannover where cars on the production line move through the office space on conveyor-belts enroute to other parts of the factory. However the archi-speak (as well as the art-speak from the MoMA the day previous) was a bit difficult to stomach at times. Ex: “While squarer than her previous outputs, the contextuality remains firmly Hadidian.”

Jane and I then met up with Andrew and proceeded to eat the biggest piece of meat I’ve ever seen at delicious Café Habana. Seriously, this thing was bigger than my head –I have no idea who could possibly eat that much meat all at once, but I certainly did give it the ol college try (and failed miserably, the uneaten mass of pork chop staring back from my place in a mocking gesture of defiance).

I rounded out the rest of the weekend with drinks avec Meredith, Sunday night gay bar, the top of the Empire State Building and more shopping (of course more shopping!).

So, in summery:
New York City: gritty urban realism
............................ghetto fabulous
............................Pet Shop Boys versus Lil’ Kim
Shopping: ........ Century 21, Filene’s Basement
Food: ................ Café Habana
Subway Stations: like a monsoon pressure cooker in a global warming heat wave
UN tour guide: . Austrian
Don’t Miss: ....... Chrysler Building Lobby
Overall: ............. Awesome!