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Europe planning

Three weeks of traveling in Europe does require a little bit of planning. With the euro being what it is, you have to do a bit of research to find deals on accommodations. One-star hotels and even hostels can end up costing over CDN$90/night, imagine staying in a five-star establishment!

So far, we have reservations at a hotel in Cologne and we bought our Grand Prix tickets for the European race in Germany. We're actively working on a hostel in Paris for one week and another hotel for the remaining two days (the hostel only allows us to stay for 7 days, and we're in Paris for 9, so we had to find a place close by to cover the difference). And we're still looking for a place to stay in Amsterdam when we land, and when we return from Germany (we have a couple of days in Amsterdam at the end of our stay). All this planning seems like a lot of work, but when we take off, we'll only have to worry about what we want to eat for dinner and what we'd like to visit the following day :-)

We're also looking for an online service where we could upload pictures as we are taking them. With the new digital camera, and an online photo album, you'll be able to travel with us almost in real-time. Cool!

New toy and wet and windy weekend

Behold! Below are two of my first pictures taken with my latest acquisition: a digital camera! I know, I know, welcome to the year 2000... But I was waiting for a good deal and to get some valuable feedback from other users. So far, I'm pretty happy with my purchase. I bought a Canon Power Shot A85, a 4.0 megapixels gadget. Canon is supposed to be a good brand, and the price of this specific model fell last Friday at Future Shop. So I figured, this would be a wise investment for Europe and all our weekend trips. It's also a great tool to keep this blog a little more lively. Who wants to read all this text :-) I haven't figured out the camera yet, I mean, I can point and shoot, but there are so many features to discover and master, it will take a while before I start taking masterpieces.

The long weekend was pleasant, nothing planned, a few shopping trips here and there, lots of sleeping in and a few movies, some running, cleaning, cooking, laundry, reading... All good. We stayed mostly indoors because it has been very windy for the past three days and today, it's raining. That's all quite acceptable, Spring is supposed to be wet, there's nothing like a dry Spring to accelerate an ultra dry Summer with lots of forest fires and infestations (trees are more susceptible to infestations and diseases when they haven't been watered properly). We plan to do a lot of camping this Summer, it would be sad if camping was prohibited because of extremely dry conditions.

Tucker playing with snakie the beast :-) 

Finally, the daffodils are coming out! 

Eat organic

It makes a difference on your health and the environment. This is a fun movie on the farming giants who are producing the majority of the meat, eggs and dairy products that we usually buy:

The meatrix

Little pleasures

In no specific order:

• reading before going to bed, until your eyes become all heavy
• having a coffee while reading the paper (I don't really buy the paper, but I do read some stuff online)
• going for a long walk in the Spring
• repotting plants

I think the beauty in all these pleasures is that you get to take some time to unwind. My days are usually filled with all kinds of projects and responsibilities, so any time I get to take my time feels really good.

I recently finished reading The Lexus and the Olive Tree, by Thomas L. Friedman. Friedman is an American journalist who has traveled extensively when he was bureau chief in Beirut and Jerusalem for the New York Times. The Lexus and the Olive Tree is a book on globalization that he wrote in 1999 (I have the revised 2000 version). I was curious to see how well the book had matured, considering that our world has changed substantially politically and economically in the past five years. 2000 was before the downturn of the stock market, before 9/11, before Afghanistan, before Iraq... Well, I was pleasantly surprise that the book was still very relevant today in explaining the nature and impact of globalization. The author describes the shock of globalization on emerging economies with interesting examples and anecdotes about the Lexus (globalization, the race for profit) and the olive tree (holding on to cultural differences). He also includes an analysis about why we cannot let globalization run wild and uncontrolled, especially when it comes to our environment. Unfortunately, I don't think we've done too well on that front since the book was first published.

Playing in the snow

For the first time this Winter, Tucker and Melissa were heading out to Whistler and the snow conditions were not terrible!

A friend of ours has a chalet rented for five days and we were invited to spend the weekend over. We left Saturday morning to be able to hit the slopes around noon. I rented myself a pretty nice board, and after quickly eating a couple of sandwitches, we were on board the gondola, headed for the top of the mountain. I have to say, the bottom part was pretty bare, with large patches of dirt showing up here and there. The trails for the mountain biking were showing up in some areas. But, as we approached the top (well, not the top top, but the top of the gondola ride), we saw more snow. We did only a couple of runs down, mostly because I still fall all the time and it takes me a long time to snowboard down. That was enough for me, especially that my legs were getting pretty tired. Now, a couple of runs down is quite a bit of exercise, the first one taking almost one hour. Whistler is definitely not your local mountain! I thought that Tucker would take off to get a final run on his own, but unfortunately, when we came back to the Roundhouse (at the top of the gondola), the peak of the mountain was engulfed in dark clouds and it was starting to snow pretty hard. So we had a couple of sports drinks and waited in line for the gondola back down.

And it snowed. Lots, big flakes, very wet flakes. When we made it to the chalet it was coming down hard. We met with the group, showered and had a drink (our own version of apres-ski), then headed off to the village for dinner. We picked a pretty expensive restaurant, unfortunately, not really what we wanted to do, as both Tucker and I are saving our money for the upcoming trip to Europe. Then, the group came back to the chalet to get changed and get ready to go out. I had a splitting headache, probably from one of my falls with the snowboard, so I decided to stay behind and go to bed. As expected, it was not a very good sleep, especially when the group came back to the chalet after an evening of partying. But it's to be expected, can't be too picky when you get to stay for free :-)

Sunday, we thought was going to be an exciting day on the slopes, with all the snow that had fallen. I was too sore to go back on a snowboard, but I was ready to rent skis and get more fresh air. Well, a group of early risers called us back to tell us that the conditions were terrible (heavy, packed snow) and since most of the lifts were closed because of high winds, there were some pretty long line-ups. So we stayed in, watched TV and gossiped, some took naps to catch up from the light sleep of the night before. We had an early dinner and drove back to Vancouver. We almost didn't make it back, part of the road washed out under the heavy rains and highway 99 was closed for a few hours Sunday morning. Fortunately, the road crews were quick to react and we couldn't even tell where the washout happened when we drove back.

Now, I'm still sore and my head still hurts. I'm definitely not in shape for serious snowboarding. But our Saturday runs went really well. Tucker was following me and said I was turning quite nicely, really getting into the motion. Sweet!

Peeewww!

There should be laws against using massive amounts of perfume. I am always amazed how some people on the bus or in my building smell like they bathe in that stuff. And usually, not a pleasant and discreet perfume, but the worst pick in the Calvin Klein rack. What is it? Are their nose burnt by years of abuse and they can no longer smell themselves? There's a gentleman who works on the floor above us and heaven forbid that you get stuck in the elevator with him. He also smokes, which makes the combination simply terrifying for my sensitive nostrils. How do you handle a situation like this, in a polite way? "Excuse me Sir, but you smell!" seems a bit abrupt.

Tonight, another guy on the SkyTrain was walking out of the station ahead of me, there were probably 20-30 other commuters between us and I could still smell him. Eau de Way Too Much is my call ;)

Oh, and this morning, I picked up my first copy of Metro. It's a free daily that's distributed for public transit patrons to read on their way to or from work. Montreal also has this paper, so does Toronto. I thought, fun! However, you cannot expect this paper to run any original or controversial stories. It is owned by CanWest, a company that also owns The Vancouver Sun AND The Province, the two major newspapers in Vancouver. Equivalents would be The Gazette and Le Journal de Montreal. At least Montreal papers are somewhat diverse. Here, news sound the same no matter where you read them. Except on this site.

It was a great weekend to be outside

Sunny weather, not too cold, Spring has arrived in Vancouver. Oh, this doesn't mean that we will get Summer before out East, we just have a much longer Spring, that's all.

Daffodils, cherry blossoms, yellow bushes, there are flowers everywhere. My daffodils are being lazy, but I think they are just stretching the pleasure of seeing flowers pop out everywhere.

Two trips on the North Shore, Deep Cove and Lynn Valley trail, a BBQ dinner, two movies, a bottle of red, checking out used kayaks, having a picnic next to a rushing river, I wonder why I can't wait to hit my bed. All this lovely and busy time spent enjoying myself means this week will be about work. At least three visits to the gym, two of them to run (the Sun Run is fast approaching), a couple of hours of studying CCNA content, some work on the newsletter template for the Canadian Cancer Society, a presentation on ROI (return on investment) for technical writers, and some thinking about an upcoming article I am writing for an online newsletter. And my day-to-day work, obviously ;) Busy, yes. But after such a lovely weekend, that's OK.

No need for big words!

Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity In Words of Four Letters or Less.

Enough said.

Life is good...

When you can have dinner and a night at the Vancouver Symphony for $19.43. I had a lovely evening with my coworker and his wife tonight. We drove downtown directly after work, picked up some rush tickets to see the Carmina Burana, ate some yummy falafel on the corner of Smythe and Granville, and sat in the second balcony at the Orpheum for a musical treat. The first piece of the night was from a local composer, Peter Hannan, who mixes a classical orchestra with electronic sounds of a synthesizer. The result is very hard to describe but very "visual". Images rush through your head as your are listening to the piece, vibrant colors and flashes. Never heard anything quite like this before...

Funny what you can get done if you wake up early!

I started my weekend by waking up at 8:00 on Saturday. I don't know why, I just felt like I wasn't going to fall back asleep and decided to make the most of it. I had my breakfast and coffee, did a load of laundry, did some work for an STC committee I volunteer for, and ran 40 minutes along the seawall, all before noon. The run was a little bit tough, especially the last 20 minutes, on the way back home, because it started raining and I was facing the wind. But it felt so good afterwards, I could wave my fist up at the sky and shout "that's it? nice try..."

The rest of the day resembled more a typical Saturday. Dropped by Tucker's place, together, we did some research on the places where we'd like to stay during our upcoming trip, then drove to Chinatown because Tucker wanted to buy a large cleaver to prepare a stir-fry that night. We found the large (and heavy) cleaver, bought some wine at the liquor store, headed back home. Tucker prepared dinner, and I enjoyed watching :-) We both have the same problem, neither of our kitchens is large enough for two people to cook at the same time (especially when one is using a large and heavy cleaver), so unfortunately, one of us has to do all the work while the other is sitting around, waiting. Now and then, the person waiting will ask "can I help?" and the one cooking will say "no, everything's fine"... It's a game that is played every now and then.

Sunday, well, is not over yet, but it's always the day where you end up having all these chores to do: more laundry, cleaning, dishes, recycling and garbage, a bit of online correspondence and research, some cooking for the upcoming week, grocery shopping, and then, next thing you know, a new week has started.

Recent read

My latest read was a book by Beryl Markham called West with the Night. This was a truly inspiring book that kept me hooked night after night (and for not so many nights, because I read through it quite quickly). Beryl Markham is a woman who moves to Africa at an early age and lived there in the early to mid 20th century. She did many things that women would not even think of doing back then. She learned Swahili, hunted with natives, trained race horses and later in life, became a bush pilot. She was also the first pilot to cross the Atlantic East to West in 1936. You can imagine that no story coming from life of this extraordinary woman was boring :-) She was slightly chewed up by a lion, not always treated well by her horses, bit by all kinds of bugs...