The word of the day is not weltschmerz.
It was sunny yesterday, and again today. I am pleased. Also pleasing

• Yesterday I helped one of the Year 10 students figure out how to translate the following sentences (about Jennifer Lopez) into French: "There are some people who don't like her because they think she uses men. I don't care." Tutoring is fun.
• Later, my highly opinionated, thinks-I'm-greedy-for-wanting-an-end-to-time-zones little brother and I went to the Weakerthans concert at the Mean Fiddler. The opening bands were amusing, but from the time John Samson started singing until the last song of the second encore (My Favourite Chords) I could not stop beaming. Excellent musicianship, great lyrics that almost everyone was singing back at them, and we were front and centre against the edge of the stage. Based on his shoes and his wiry gauntness, I wouldn't be surprised if John Samson were vegan. Looks like he is.

And now, to class.
- posted by Christina @ 11:08 am

 
Ask and you shall receive
So I arrived early at the beginners team practice and Gillian (the coach) had two men from the regular team who need partners, one for novice-level waltz because his former partner has some awful illness, and one for beginner's latin (and possibly ballroom) because he's eligible to compete as a beginner though his normal ballroom partner isn't. Meaning both my partner and I should get to be the girl.

Novice waltzer and I danced together, he's very good and I didn't suck, neither of us wants to compete until next semester; it looks like I may be set for ballroom. The details still need to be worked out of course. But on top of being a good lead, he's smart and interesting, not to mention tall, dark and handsome. Details, shmetails.

Just to indulge in magical thinking for a second, if somehow posting what I wanted led to this, I also want the following:

1. peace on earth
2. politicians who actually work for the greater public good, and the intelligent public policy that would flow from that
3. no more tourists getting in everyone's way in the Tube
4. an end to time zones
5. 15 hours of daylight year round
6. an end to suffering, human and animal, except for people who deserve it and mosquitos
7. a clue as to what I should do when I grow up
8. someone to decide he or she needs to send me on a culinary tour of Italy next May.

- posted by Christina @ 12:52 am

 
Should we talk about the weather?
Today I saw blue sky! Not a whole sky's worth, but a little. Hooray. I miss Barcelona, and the beach. Hmm, sometime I will actually get my photos developed and post about the post-Stansted part of my trip there. In the meantime, there's a ridiculous amount of work (simulations, stats analyses, mathematical programming, management reports on all of the above) to be done between now and the start of next term, on top of the reading load for my seminar courses. It's probably a good thing I don't have a serious dance partner for now.

Anyway, to divert myself from Simul8 crashes, I just spent an hour reading non-operational research things, and am feeling like mouthing off about links:

One of the many reasons I hate British Columbian provincial politicians: first the NDP and now the Liberals keep exporting raw logs (link from the Tyee) when they could actually be helping the province realise more long term gains by encouraging the production of value-added products, increasing employment and decreasing the susceptibility to softwood tarrifs imposed by the USA. Duh. Maybe there's something obvious I'm missing here.

Related to forest use, kind of, the UN wants to help the great apes survive. I hope it works.

Crap, there was more but I need to get home to get my shoes and be back at ULU by 6. For now, Claire Miccio's letter from Edinburgh was cool, and Jonathan Bell's letter from London looks promising.


- posted by Christina @ 4:49 pm

 
Time sensitive photos
For the next two hours or so, you can view pictures of my dance partner and I here (there are a few other pictures, but I have a dorky expression in those and so won't link):
ballroom 1
ballroom 2
jive

I'm the one without glasses. And leading with my arm too low on her back. And endlessly self-critical.

The team photographer has limited web space, so the next batch goes up at midnight here.

We made it to the second round in each dance (waltz, quickstep, cha cha, jive) before getting eliminated. It wasn't as much of a culture shock as I expected and after the first jittery, adrenaline-full round it was a lot of fun, but:

1. I hate leading mostly because I'm bad at it but also because I don't want to be the guy, I want to be the girl;
2. My partner has a very busy schedule and doesn't think she'll be making it to team practices that often;
3. I want to win at some point and want to get as good as all the sparkly, sequiny, advanced dancers, which requires more practice; hence
4. I want need a man. For a dance partner, that is. Otherwise, like a fish needs a bicycle, or something.

If you know any guys at any University of London college who might be remotely decent dancers and willing to practice 2 or 3 nights a week, let me know.

- posted by Christina @ 10:07 pm

 
Bush, protests and all that
This afternoon was my first tutoring session in a year 10 French class at a girls' comprehensive near Tufnell Park. As part of LSE's aim of widening participation in higher education, LSE students provide classroom support at various schools around London for a half day a week for 12 or so weeks, and potentially at the same time act as mentors/inspiration for kids who might not otherwise go on to university. There were only 10 girls in class this afternoon. According to the teacher, the rest were all at the protests, having discovered they had a political conscience.

I don't like attending protests. I don't like marching, I don't like chanting, I don't like being swept up in a wave of people. I don't like that many people there won't have thought through their position and are just bitching. They should probably give time or money to Medecins Sans Frontieres or the Red Cross. But many of them will have thought it through. There's a difference between bitching and showing up for what you believe.

John disagrees with a comment I posted on his blog. He's right, we're not disagreeing that much with each other (and I hold John in at least as high esteem as he holds me). I would much rather discuss differences in opinion than yell over them and whoever yells the loudest feels like they've won.

But dismissing non-violent protest as substance-free and ineffective doesn't work for me. Are you saying the Freedom Riders would have had more of an impact staying at home, writing their representatives and voting? I don't see it.

Many people are obviously (and to my mind, justifiably) bothered by Bush's foreign policy. They don't have much say on Britain's involvement until the next election. They can't vote against Bush, and don't have George Soros's money. Yes, there are other means of expressing displeasure with the actions of a government, foreign or not.

I much prefer marches and slogans, even stupid ones, to bombings.
- posted by Christina @ 6:04 pm

 
Mexico bus trips
Instead of typing up my account of Barcelona, I've been working on homework and going to dance practice, or 'Hot Girl-on-Girl Action', as I have taken to referring to it. There aren't enough men on the beginner's team and the jive routine leaves my partner and I out of breath and sweaty. She's a very nice vet-in-training, we're competing in Warwick this Sunday... apparently all-women teams get the benefit of the doubt, so we might actually be scored higher. Learning how to lead properly is actually useful, I suppose.

Anyway, my parents' adventures in Mexico are entertaining and I feel they web publishing. Here's my mum on Mexican bus trips:

Art described our local bus trip from Pie de la Cuesta to downtown Acapulco as his scariest bus ride ever. I was sitting across the aisle from him and only knew it was

1. an old bus, which we recognized as getting close to our stop by the quantities of smoke coming our way;
2. spewing more smoke from the gear shift column;
3. travelling one of my least favourite type of roads, leaning over the edge of a cliff, with the guy I was sitting beside the only thing between me and the beautiful beach 300 feet below; and
4. likely privately owned, as the driver had decorated the windshield and parts above quite extensively and personally, but with no religious ornamentation, so, hey, if the driver wasn’t worried, this was just another bus.

What Art told me after: he could see the rear wheels through the floorboards (that’s not something we have any right to complain about, as we have owned a couple of trucks like that), but the real kicker -- the local guy he was sitting beside crossed himself six times (honest, Art was counting).

For me, the ride from Chihuahua to Creel still holds the record. A highway bus that appeared to be, and must have been, in great condition. Combined with a super driver, who demonstrated his quick reflexes and driving skills in several close encounters. But he drove extremely aggressively, on a very winding road and was either hyperactive or in a strongly amphetamine induced state. He could not stop moving the entire time. Wiping off the dash, the wheel, and anything else within reach. We were barely out of the line of his wiping arm, in the front seats, and the scenery was fantastic, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the driver.

- posted by Christina @ 10:01 pm

 
Burn
I just learned most of the buildings that formed my high school are, as of last week, apparently a pile of smoking rubble. I think they were going to demolish it anyway. My brother and I visited the building on the last full day of classes in December 2001, before the school migrated to its new site. I said goodbye. But knowing that all the classrooms, and all my old lockers, and the west wing bandroom and the grad council room and the costume room back stage in the performing arts centre where PhDNovelist and I were surly costume mistresses who would sing "leave me alone, please go away, I'm doing fine, just go away" to the tune of the Carol of the Bells... that all that burned feels strange.

Kelowna had much worse and more dramatic fires this year, of course. But I'm a bit sad anyway.

- posted by Christina @ 2:28 pm

 
Terre de nos aieux
Last night Mel Cappe, Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, hosted a reception at his residence on Grosvenor Square as part of the "Targeted Recruitment Initiative to bring high-performing and motivated Canadian postgraduate students studying in the United Kingdom and at other universities abroad into the Public Service of Canada." It was fun, edifying and stirring of Canadian pride. I'm a fan of having my tax dollars used to allow me to hang out with high-performing and motivated Canadian postgraduate students. I did not partake of the Moosehead, but those who did seemed happy with that use of their tax dollars too.

I mingled some, and then spent a large portion of the evening talking to two London Business School Vancouverites. One of them grew up in Prince Rupert, and had a funny Bella Bella story when I mentioned that's where my mum grew up. He was on his parents' boat and they were on their way down the coast. They stopped in Bella Bella to refuel. Some kid was on the dock and said "It's Bill's fuel, he's visiting Fred." When asked where Fred was, he said, "It's the blue house." An hour later LBSGuy went looking for his dad, who hadn't come back yet. Every house on the road was blue.

LBSGuy also worked on the IPO for my most recent employer while at KPMG, which was cool. He was all, "you didn't work in Workflow, did you? Workflow is an auditing nightmare. It's all software!"

I am a fan of Mel and Marni Cappe. With Bush's visit and all, of course people were asking about Iraq and relations with the American Ambassador in London, and with the British. But the most entertaining thing I learned from the High Commissioner was about the Italian Embassy. The Canadian residence is beautiful, and when someone commented on that, he said, "You haven't seen anything. My neighbour, the Italian Ambassador, has a palazzo." Apparently when Mussolini had to twist Grandi's arm to get him to go to London as ambassador in1932, he sweetened the pot by telling Grandi to go to the Italian national gallery and pick out anything he wanted to furnish the residence in London. There are murano glass chandeliers the size of trees, and other amazing art.

I also learned how I will know I have arrived, should I ever do so: in the foyer to my residence, there will be a ladies' cloakroom and a gentlemen's cloakroom, each of which will have an attached w.c. with at least 3 stalls each. Oh, and I'll have work by Evergon on the walls of my atrium.

I have pictures and memories of Barcelona, but those will have to wait until tomorrow.

Note: edited Wednesday to add a few missing apostrophes and the bit about the Italian embassy. In searching for more info on Grandi, I got a link to a book about the Curzon sisters, who never had to worry about arriving as they were already there. My favourite sentence from Publishers Weekly: "The eldest, Irene, never married, devoting herself first to the pursuit of foxes and married men, and later to charity work and the bottle."
- posted by Christina @ 7:52 pm

 
Barcelona: the Good, the Bad, and the Stupid.
(this wasn't actually posted until January 2004)

A trip report, in convenient bullet-point format.

Leaving London:

The Bad:
• The moment when you hear the bus driver get a radio message that there's an accident ahead and he replies that he's already past the place he could turn off so he's stuck. And you look at the clock and think "we might miss our flight."
• Realising you have 12 hours to kill in an airport, and you can't even get through to the duty free.
• Spending enough time in an airport washroom stall that the people in green vests knock to make sure you're okay.
• The internet kiosk has the most ridiculous "keyboard" in the history of everything, making it hard to get your £1 for 15 minutes worth and making it look like you can't spell.
• Inability to access LSE's webmail from internet kiosk means you can't retrieve calling card details from your inbox and kill time calling North American friends in the middle of the night.

The Stupid:
• Not allowing time for the bus being late and for RyanAir closing their gates early, even though you almost suggest to your travelling companion that you take the Stansted Express train instead of the bus for the time vs. money trade-off.
• Going to the Body Shop with the express purpose of getting conditioner, picking out a shampoo and a conditioner because they had a "buy shampoo, get a free conditioner" deal and then wondering the next day in the shower why the conditioner is foaming. And remembering how you noticed that the Banana shampoo and conditioner looked awfully similar, yet picked the wrong one anyway.
• Ordering the second bottle of wine, even after your flatmate questions the wisdom of this. If you feel so relaxed and amused by your predicament after your half of the first bottle, shouldn't you feel even better after a second?
• Not staking out spots on the benches earlier, so that both of you could sleep on a padded surface, instead of trading off time on the cold hard floor. In this matter too, you think about it, and then ignore your good instincts.

The Good:
• Seeing parts of London that are new to you from the not-so-express National Express.
• Watching an amazing sunset under a lavender flannel sky and filling your camera's memory card with crazy, bus-jiggled shots of it
• Pret vegetarian sushi and "No Nasties" soda for dinner
• The Body Shop clerk is from Atlanta, has lived in England for 15 years, and is moving back to the States in a few months. You and your flatmate bond with him in North American solidarity. He is very sympathetic after he asks how your day is going and you say, "well, we missed our flight..."
• Monsoon having a sale on clothes that look good on you
• O'Neills playing a good cover of Stuck in the Middle With You and another of Like A Prayer, not the Bigod 20 one.
• O'Neills closing at 11:17, the bar guy announcing "If you're not leaving, it's time to be leaving" to everyone and sparing you from potential further bad decisions about wine.
• Not wasting 3 hours going back and forth to London to sleep in your own bed, thus risking the chance of missing the rebooked flight.

Barcelona:
Actually, I'm getting tired of bullets and the second person singular. Plus everything about Barcelona other than my health and, at times, the weather, falls solidly under The Good. I slept for most of the flight, and then for most of the 80 minute bus ride from Girona airport to the drop off point in Barcelona. Every time I'd wake up the view was similar: misty hills, nice trees, highway, sometimes a few houses on the hilltops. The outskirts of Barcelona reminded me of the outskirts of Tijuana on the way to Ensenada, from the sheer number of houses crammed onto the sides of green hills.

We took the metro to the Jaume I stop, and walked to the Hostal Levante "en el centro del Barrio Gotico", with its marble floors and good shower and bathroom attached to a clean room with 3 very comfortable single beds and a balcony overlooking a pensione canadiense (complete with flag hanging from their balcony), all for £80 per night between the three of us. Future ThinkTanker's friend from MIT was incredibly nice about us standing her up -- she enjoyed having Friday night to herself, having transfered to a single for the night and revelled in ten hours sleep. After showers, Future ThinkTanker and I felt human enough to start enjoying the city.

Barcelona is totally lovely and much warmer than London (14C when we first arrived, probably 20C Sunday afternoon). The day was cloudy but bright, nicely matching my hazy but mild hangover. We grabbed sandwiches (Maoz Falafel for me, so delicious with the self-serve add on vegetables) and ate in the Placa Reial. We then rambled along La Rambla, checking out the market (according to MITFriend, they sell bull testicles there) and the birds and plants. The human statues on the Ramblas are of higher quality than those in other cities. The first one we saw was a man on a toilet. MITFriend verified that he wasn't wearing underwear. Past the Placa de Catalunya we followed Passeig de Gracia to the Illa de la Discordia, with its three beautiful but very distinct-from-each-other houses by Domenech i Montaner, Puig i Cadafalch, and Gaudi. Loveliness.

We then took the metro to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's unfinished cathedral. Other than this one I have no complaints about the Barcelona metro, but Passeig De Gracia is a crazy, crazy metro station -- to get to the purple line we needed, we had to walk along the green line, up the stairs, down a long hallway, past the yellow line, down an escalator... It reminded me of that interminable joke from elementary school "up the purple stairs, down the purple hallway, up the purple stairs, down the purple hallway." I can't remember the punchline of that joke though. Did it involve a monkey?

Anyway, the Sagrada Familia is awe-inducing despite the scaffolding; it's still under construction and might be done in another 50 years. I was starting to feel like a germinous, coughing, sneezing piece of plague on a stick, yet I enjoyed climbing the "like, 35 stories tall, I think" (TM random American girl on whom we were eavesdropping, it's actually about 21 stories I think) long path up through winding, endless, dark circular staircases, to a bridge with a wonderful view of the city and the rest of the cathedral, and then down again. This wasn't a stairmasteresque athletic feat -- so many people were pausing above to take pictures that you could only climb a few steps at a time.

By 4, I was feeling feverish on top of everything else, so I headed back to the hotel for a nap while Future ThinkTanker and MITFriend went to the Miro museum. They returned at 8, and at 9 we joined two other LSE Americans from Future ThinkTanker's programme to share tapas and sangria in Port Vell, looking across the water at Barcelona's trade centre. The tapas were good, but when we went wandering in La Ribera looking for a place to go dancing, we found an even better tapas bar just as it started to rain, Sagardi, part of some Basque chain. They set out platters of tapas of yumminess on a toothpick on bread, and you settle up by paying 1.10 euros for each of the used toothpicks on your plate.

At midnight my cough was getting awful again, so Future ThinkTanker and MITFriend used my impending demise as an excuse to head back to the hotel and avoid dancing. The other two told us the next day they didn't manage to find a club, but found yet another excellent source of tapas, staying out until 3.

The alarm didn't go off Sunday morning, so we didn't get quite as early a start as planned. By eleven Future ThinkTanker and I were having breakfast in drizzle at Parc Guell, Gaudi's beautiful, crazy park. The Hall of the Hundred Columns (actually, there are 86 according to Berlitz) has excellent accoustics, as proved by the violinist busker. The buskers all over Barcelona were great. I tried to get a few of them on video with my digital camera, but the sound capture was turned off. Duh.

We took a cab back to the Cathedral in the centre of the Barri Gotic, because the rain was getting worse and we were meeting our travel companions to watch the Catalan dancing at noon in front of the Cathedral. Senor Cabdriver was super friendly, as was everyone in Barcelona (not in your face about it, but warm and kindly), and we made halting conversation in what I think was Spanish but might have been Catalan. In my case it was Spanish with French words thrown in inadvertently here and there. He commented on the rotten weather, and on how we were going from "del monte al mar" in our short cab ride. He also pointed out the Illa de la Discordia as we passed and offered to stop so we could take pictures, but we somehow managed to explain we'd already done that.

I think it was the Rough Guide online that listed the Catalan dancing as one of their must sees, and it was interesting. But there were about 10 to 20 dancers (mostly cute old people), another 20 musicians, and 300 people with cameras watching them. After watching the dancing and saying goodbye to Future ThinkTanker's friends from her programme, who were embarking on a modernist walking tour before spending another 2 days in Barcelona eating tapas (envy!), Future ThinkTanker and MITFriend and I headed for the beach.

Just after we reached the sand of Platja Barceloneta the sun finally came out for the first time all weekend. Sun, sand, and the Mediterranean full of cute euro surfer boys. It was great. I considered going swimming, but decided against it because a) it wouldn't help get rid of my cold and b) while my underwear was of the black tank and black brief variety, so it wouldn't have been indecent, travelling back to London in damp clothes seemed like a losing proposition. Instead of suffering sand in the feet of the tights, I convinced the other two to go wading and got my Mediterranean thrills vicariously.

We walked to the Olympic area and the casino, found nowhere reasonably priced to eat lunch, and walked back, enjoying the sun all the way. I coughed and blew my nose a lot and felt feverish. Back at the harbour we had delicious and affordable vegetarian paella and sangria. I followed it up with champagne (well, cava) sorbet, but should have gone for the lemon instead. We returned to the hotel to pick up our bags, at which point there was an hour and a half before the airport shuttle left Barcelona. FutureThinkTanker and I were feeling uber-cautious, so we only spent half an hour in a Navegaweb after wishing MITFriend a safe journey on her train ride home. I really like Outlook and Explorer in Spanish. ¿Don't Enviar and Busqueda and Atras sound better than Send and Search and Back? Our caution was useful, as first we went down the wrong street from the metro and then we were waiting a block away from the pickup point. There were at least three busloads of people waiting, and because it wasn't obvious where the bus would be stopping, it was more of an "exuberant wedge" (from PJ O'Rourke's description of the Italian approach to queueing) than a queue. FutureThinkTanker and I were the last two to board the second coach.

Returning to London:

The Good
• Catching your plane
• Finishing The Lovely Bones on the plane
• Getting off the plane quickly and onto the first monorail to the terminal, thus getting through customs faster than everyone else

The Stupid
• not having checked the Stansted Express repair schedule; discovering once you've finally got your bags and headed to the replacement bus service area that they've changed the night they don't run from Sundays to Saturdays, and if you'd known that you would have taken the train on Friday and not missed your flight

The Bad
• The Stansted Express pausing for a few minutes in the middle of nowhere for a vaguely-explained technical problem
• Arriving at Liverpool street station just minutes after the last Central and Circle line trains
• Getting on the last Hammersmith line train only to hear there are delays further along the line
• Sitting on the tube at Liverpool St Station for about 25 minutes before it heads out, because of delays
• Sitting on the tube at two other stations for about 5 minutes while it waits for delays further along the line to clear up
• Getting out at Edgeware Road and not seeing a bus, and having to wait more than a minute in the cold for a cab

The truly Excellent
• arriving home, even if it is 2 or 3 hours after your plane landed
• sleeping in your own bed, even if it's not as great as the one in the hotel

Miscellany:

Documentation:

• Because Future Thinktanker prefers travelling with an agenda, once we had rebooked our tickets and got some food, she wrote out a schedule for how we would fill our time on the bag from Pret. It was:

  
  6p    *Food, Christina downs sushi -> NO NASTIES
  
                               discussion of false economies
  
        *Shopping -- mag, conditioner, books
  
  7p    *debate merit of $ [actually pounds] on email
  
        *Nike store
  
  8p    *phil. discussion re. nature choice [on whether it was better that we weren't
  
  allowed to go through security now and thus didn't have to decide], ONeill's
  
  9p          |
  
  10p    DRINKING
  
  11p         |
  
  12a
  
       }      Christina sleeps
  
  1a
  
  2a
  
       }      Future ThinkTanker sleeps
  
  3a
  
  4a    * CHECK IN *
  
  5a
  
  6a    * BOARD FLT *
  
  

  
  
• We used the same bag to write funny things down in O'Neill's but almost everything written in pink highlighter is indecipherable. What I can make out is this:
  
  • Lamb & Chicken... Chicken Rules [on Taza, downstairs from our flat, where along with shawarma, of which the chicken is apparently the right choice, they also have vegetarian sandwiches like falafel, hummous or aubergine. Aubergine rules too]
  • mold = is old [on our dislike of the mold growing on our bathroom ceiling]
  • Napoleon complex Canadian flag tie dye guy "Is it really that big or is he from Zimbabwe" [her speculation that the guy with, instead of the traditional patch, a big Canadian flag hanging like a cape from the back of his backpack might be overcompensating for more dubious national origins]
  • Be Strong
  • So drunk. Two bottles of wine.

Lessons Learned:
• Hypothetically, sorrows drown easier on one bottle of wine than two. The second bottle might make it easier to sleep on the floor. This still doesn't make it a good idea.
• Read the label. Twice. One more time.
• Always take the Stansted Express on the way to Stansted. And double-check their repair schedule.
• Hotels with good beds and showers rock.
• Barcelona is lovely. Take more film.
• The Tube is always going to break down when it is most annoying.
• My inner Cassandra should be heeded more often.

- posted by Christina @ 8:56 am

 
Enablers
All I have to say is: two bottles of wine in 1.5 hours -- what the fuk were we thinking? I blame Future thinkTanker, bt in fact I wa the one who ordered the second bottle. Sleep was easy, and it wasn't exactly in shifts, but we traded off who got the floor. I am surprisingly unmiserable.

I will most likely delete this post.

Very soon we will be allowed to check in. We have not yet visited the chapel. The Stansted airport has nice people in green vests who check that you're ok and advise you to drink more water when you're worshiping the automated toilets. Not that I have any personal knowledge of this or anything. How old am I again?
- posted by Christina @ 4:22 am

 
Dumbass dumb
Where am I supposed to be right now?
Barcelona

Where am I?
Stansted Airport

Why?
Because Future ThankTanker and I took the bus out here instead of the train to save £3, and the bus hit traffic. The bus pulled up half an hour later than it was scheduled to, we ran to our checkin area, but it was already closed, and had been for 15 minutes. So we paid £40 to reschedule our flight for 6 a.m. tomorrow and are spending the night in the airport.

This, my friends, is a perfect example of false economy.

It would just be a funny adventure (I've never spent the night in an airport, or missed a flight before) but Future Thinktanker's friend is waiting in Barcelona for us and we feel guilty.

We have devised a schedule to occupy us for the 12 hours of airport time (almost 3 down). First up was eating. Then shopping. I now have Body Shop conditioner and a dress to wear to the Canadian High Commission Monday night. (RGH ths keyboard is HORRIBLE and STICKY) I also have two books but have been working on my paparzzi skills, trying to take good shots of the cute bookstore clerk, instead. Next up is drinking and philosophical discussion, and then we sleep in shifts.

I'm actuallly rather amused by the whole thing. I've always hated airports and been paranoid about missing flights, and other than the guilt (there's a chapel here, that's on the agenda for later too) it's actually kind of fun. As people to get stuck in an airport go, Future Thinktanker is first rate. And as epensive travel mistakes go, I know people who have suffered worse (hi Tim).

I think I had more to say, but this keyboard is truly awful.
- posted by Christina @ 9:22 pm

 
Mexican travel commentary
From my mother this time, on Acapulco:

not in as great a shopping territory here, unless we went to downtown Aca, which won't happen, as I would prefer to never do that again.
- posted by Christina @ 10:39 am

 
Iconoclassic
This evening I attended a public lecture on the future. Ian Pearson both scared the shit out of me and amused me, as futurologists are wont to do. I don't want candy with embedded microprocessors that set up cell phone networks. Or video tattoos. Or computer-composed novels.

Instead of smart candy, I am all about the sorbet. After the talk I went out for Thai food with another Canadian, and a postprandial walk on the Waterloo bridge (a frequent subject of Monet's). We then went to the Savoy Hotel, where they were kind enough to serve us dessert at a couch in the Thames Foyer even though it was from the restaurant's dinner menu. Excellent wild strawberry/lime and rosemary sorbets (though not on the higher plane of that Parisian raspberry sorbet). I love that if you're polite and willing to pay, you can be as "iconoclassic" (my dining companion's neologism, perfectly suited to the Savoy) as you like in nice hotels.
- posted by Christina @ 1:33 am

 
"Night closed around us"
On the weekend I braved the damp, chill air to watch the Lord Mayor's Show. Good, solid English pomp and circumstance in enjoyable parade format. John explains the difference between the Mayor and the Lord Mayor. I loved the orchestra on bikes, the one on horseback, and all the cute kids in costumes. Photos will be posted sooner or later. I also saw the latest Matrix (verdict: that's an awfully well-filmed video game) and drank with some Irish friends of friends, all of whom had great stories I can't possibly do justice to here.

I didn't go to the Remembrance Day ceremony on Sunday. As usual, I spent the 11th of November thinking about my grandfathers and other relatives and the choices they made during WWII. My last course of the day was about the history of Operational Research, the way it was established and used in England during the war. At the end of class we walked down to see the statues of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris (Commander in Chief Bomber Command, Royal Air Force 1942 - 1945) and Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowling (Commander in Chief Fighter Command, Royal Air Force 1936 - 1940) outside a church on the Strand.

Both men had O.R. teams supporting them, but while Lord Dowding was using it to strengthen defenses (mostly through the use of radar), 'Bomber' Harris implemented the controversial bombing raids on civilian populations. As some people wondered what this had to do with O.R., our class read the inscriptions on the statues.

Lord Dowding's:

AIR CHIEF MARSHAL LORD DOWDING WAS COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF FIGHTER COMMAND, ROYAL AIR FORCE, FROM ITS FORMATION IN 1936 UNTIL NOVEMBER 1940. HE WAS THUS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PREPARATION FOR AND THE CONDUCT OF THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN.

WITH REMARKABLE FORESIGHT, HE ENSURED THE EQUIPMENT OF HIS COMMAND WITH MONOPLANE FIGHTERS, THE HURRICANE AND THE SPITFIRE. HE WAS AMONG THE FIRST TO APPRECIATE THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF R.D.F. (RADAR) AND OF AN EFFECTIVE COMMAND AND CONTROL SYSTEM FOR HIS SQUADRONS. THEY WERE READY WHEN WAR CAME.

IN THE PRELIMINARY STAGES OF THAT WAR, HE THOROUGHLY TRAINED HIS MINIMAL FORCES AND CONSERVED THEM AGAINST STRONG POLITICAL PRESSURE TO DISPERSE AND MISUSE THEM. HIS WISE AND PRUDENT JUDGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP HELPED TO ENSURE VICTORY AGAINST OVERWHELMING ODDS AND THUS PREVENTED THE LOSS OF THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN AND PROBABLY THE WHOLE WAR.

TO HIM, THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN AND OF THE FREE WORLD OWE LARGELY THE WAY OF LIFE AND THE LIBERTIES THEY ENJOY TODAY.

Sir Harris's inscription is way briefer and a tribute to his crews, not to him:

IN MEMORY OF A GREAT COMMANDER AND OF THE BRAVE CREWS OF BOMBER COMMAND. MORE THAN 55,000 OF WHOM LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM.

THE NATION OWES THEM ALL AN IMMENSE DEBT.

The inscriptions on each statue are telling, but it was Harris's statue with a remembrance wreath in front of it, with more good writing on the card:

'As the flarepath disappeared below the port wing and night closed around us, I looked at the familiar faces of my crew, dim in the glow of cockpit lighting. I realised that here was a brotherhood that could never be destroyed and understood why England could never be defeated."
-Lord Cheshire, VC, OM, DSO and two bars, DFC

- posted by Christina @ 1:05 am

 
Fake milk
Future ThinkTanker helpfully sent me this Slate article about milk substitutes. I never really liked milk, but I have the following quibbles with their methodology:

1. Low fat soy/rice milk does tend to be "white-colored water". The fatty stuff tastes better. Fat-free So Good is decent, but maybe they don't sell it outside Canada.
2. They didn't try Silk Chocolate. It is delicious, has great dunkability, and is not even remotely vegetably tasting (unless you're arguing chocolate a vegetable.) Wasserstein does note he's a fan of chocolate soy milk. I think they should have run a separate blind test for chocolate milks and pseudomilks. Who needs plain to be like the real thing (other than in baking) when you can drink chocolate or vanilla?

I've tried two different soy beverages here -- both were kind of meh, not awful but not worth drinking on their own. Good enough to put on my oatmeal. In the end, this is all I need.

- posted by Christina @ 10:34 am

 
One more thing about France
Despite drinking quite a bit of red wine and not much water, and not getting enough sleep because of the Eurostar schedule, I had no hangover whatsoever. I didn't drink all that much by non-lightweights' standards (i.e. not mine), but I think the real reason the wine had no bad effects is that the French are really good at wine, along with sorbet and vegetables and picking out the right throat lozenges. I'm considering moving there next year.
- posted by Christina @ 10:52 am

 
And if we're lost, helas, we're lost in Paris
There's something about being in Paris that makes it impossible to be unhappy. Even when you're wandering around the Gare du Nord looking unsuccessfully for a functioning ATM (or cash point, or whatever it's called in Paris) because the McClean in the basement costs 1 Euro and you really have to pee and so you end up walking outside for 6 blocks to get money and you're really tired from staying up late waiting for your laundry, most crucially your towel, to be clean and dry, and you're feeling sniffly and have a sore throat and a bad cough, and your skirt is being uncooperative because you've shrunk a size or two since you bought it and it is now low-riding and twists about.

Because a) it's crazy to be unhappy at effortlessly losing inches*, and b) once the nice police officer has told you où se trouve une banque and you've found your way back to the station, and you've gathered some of your 10 Euros in change off the McClean floor in front of the machine that spit it out and you actually enter the washroom, it is spacious and sparkling and the stalls are large and private so you can hack up a lung in peace, if not quiet.

Or maybe that's just me.

But seriously, something about the air, or the light, or the prospect of drinking lots of cheap wine just smoothes my worries out so I can't get at all stressed the way I would anywhere else. After the McClean visit, I lined up for Métro tickets and headed for the hotel in Montmartre via the route the SNCF site gave me. The 'tro station at which I was supposed to transfer was closed. I was already running late what with the trek around the station to find money, but I couldn't get tense or annoyed that the website didn't warn me.

When I backtracked and got onto another line, there was a sousaphonist** playing When the Saints Come Marching In. At my second transfer point a small girl was swinging wildly about while tethered by the hand to her mother, until her mother had had enough and said, "doucement, chaton. Soit tranquille." At Pigalle, waiting for my fourth and final train, there was a group of accordionists and a violinist sitting on the other side of the tracks, tuning up or maybe even rehearsing. Moments like that are why I love Paris. Of course, there's a lot to be said for the wine, too.

I was supposed to be at the hotel first, but got out of the Métro at the same time as ConsultantINSEADFriend. After checking in, we walked up to Sacre-Coeur, headed down the steps and wandered with minimal map-consulting until we hit the Seine. A little boy outside a chocolate shop was licking the window, giving a more literal interpretation of leche-vitrine (window shopping) than you normally see. My cough was awful and my throat was very sore, so we headed to the Mosque in the Quartier Latin.

Despite it being Ramadan, the tea room was jumping. We picked out several crazy-looking sweets and found a table in the court yard, and the tea guy hooked us up with some hot, sweet mint tea. My throat felt marginally better. It took a long time to get a second round, as the tea guy had forsaken me for the other side of the courtyard. Communication was clearly an issue in our relationship; I waited, pining for him and his sweet, sweet nectar. After the sweets and the tea were gone, the sun was setting and we were wandering westward towards the Eiffel Tower.

On the way we stopped at a wine store. The wine guy was very helpful, telling us that one of the two we'd picked out was still a bit too young, and which of the two we ended up with should be drunk first if we were going to have them both in the same night. Next we entered a Pharmacie around Rue St. SomeGuy, where the pharmacist guy sorted me out with the good drugs: cinnamon-flavoured cough syrup, throat lozenges with lidocaine (so numbing, so great) and "un spray" for when the lidocaine wore off. He also made sure I knew the doses allowed for each. I don't understand why the French have such an awful reputation for customer service.

As we walked I was having fun playing with the night-time mode on my camera and the lights on the Seine. I wish my digicam had a ginormous aperture so I could catch the lattice of tree shadows the bright-as-fuck lights from the bateaux-mouches threw onto nice old stone buildings. It was 7:30 or so when we reached the feet of the tower. It was also cold and windy, and more so half an hour later when we were in line on the second level for the elevator to the top.

The long wait gave me time to develop the theory that the reason the Eiffel Tower is better than, for instance, the CN Tower, is that it has more utility for people on the ground. Going up the tower and looking about is fun, but so's the revolving floor at the CN Tower. But I would just as cheerfully lie on the ground at the base and look up at the Eiffel Tower, especially when they have the sparkly lights going. Even from blocks away it's beautiful. ConsultantINSEADFriend's from Toronto, but even he couldn't argue that the CN Tower is that pretty. What were they thinking in the 70s, all those architects who were enamoured of bland concrete?

After we were done at the top, marvelling at how the pictures of landmarks didn't line up with the actual view out each window, we found the Métro and dumped our stuff at the hotel. Just down the street there was a restaurant with a fairly veggie-friendly menu, Les Copains D'abord, and there we ate. The composed salad was great, but my favourite was the sign on the wall reading, "Pour nos copains d'abord, nous regrettons que l'eau est réservé pour bouilir nos patates. Ne gaspillez pas de l'eau. BUVEZ DU VIN!" That gets my vote for best Restaurant Manifesto. We followed their orders, and dinner for two with wine and tip came to 50 Euros.

Sunday dawned with breakfast at the hotel and me being overly ambitious about what museums I wanted to see. The Picasso museum was free. The archives were on display. The wall of extracts from letters written by Gertrude Stein and many others, on the theme of "you don't write, you never call, what are you up to, please write even though I know you won't", was genius. My favourites, though, were his sculpture of a girl skipping rope, and a painting of his daughter playing with a doll. Even though her eyes weren't quite on either side of her nose, it's obvious he adored Maya and found her beautiful.

By the time we'd stopped to sample olive oils and vinegars at an olive oil shop in the Marais, walked around Notre Dame, and had a late lunch of panini, the line up to enter the Musée d'Orsay was half an hour long. The wind was strong and the clouds foreboding, so I agreed to abandon culture and instead sit by a pond in the Jardins des Tuileries drinking wine and watching the sparrows hop about. Eventually the rain chased us up the Champs Elysées and onto the métro.

The rain and the wine-induced drowsiness made me very resistant to going out to eat, but this was a blessing in disguise. By the time we ventured out, the only place that was open was Chez Ginette. This restaurant/bistro raised my personal bar*** of great dining experiences. They were playing good jazz, at exactly the right volume, so you could still talk but the buzz in the room was enveloping. The ambiance was warm and good.

I ordered the assiette végétarienne, which came on a square plate. In the top right quadrant was fresh fettucine with a tomato sauce. In the bottom right, green salad with vinaigrette. In the bottom left, ratatouille. These were all simple and solidly done, though the ratatouille was slightly too salty.

In the top left were carrots and green beans and peas, fork tender, sauteed with a bit of garlic (and probably butter, but I decided Paris and veganism aren't fully compatible). This sounds totally bland. I like vegetables a lot, but normally I don't savour them, reserving them for last the way I did these. I wish I could describe this better, but I can't. It was a moment of revelation. The French really know what they're doing with vegetables.

But the best was yet to come. For dessert, ConsultantINSEADFriend ordered a cheese plate, and I ordered a trio of sorbets, mango, lime and raspberry. The mango and lime were perfect. The raspberry was sublime. I have never had anything more raspberry-full in my life. I swear, its wonderfulness had nothing to do with my level of intoxication. Imagine the freshest, juiciest, most flavourful raspberry you've ever had. Then magnify it by whatever factor you feel like, and make it slightly sweeter, plus frozen. That's sort of what I'm talking about.

ConsultantINSEADFriend was approaching full, so I had some of the cheese between spoonfuls of sorbet. I feel totally fine about this ethically, as there is no way unhappy cows could have made such wonderful cheese. I'm also quite sure I would have made them unhappy by letting this cheese go to waste. One of them was very nutty. The others were not, but were also good. I know the names of none of them (see above re. intoxication level). The bill for two main courses, two desserts and some Gamay came to just under 60 Euros. Such a steal.

At some point soon I need to go back to Paris, if only because in two visits I have still not made it to the Musée d'Orsay or the Rodin Museum. But my not-so-secret motive for returning will be to eat at Chez Ginettte on the rue Caulaincourt again. I'd also stay at the Hotel Caulaincourt again. For 50 Euros a night, we had a room with a shower and sink (toilet across the hall), a double bed and a single bed. Because I was referred by Woodstock hostel (their doubles were all booked), breakfast was free. Saturday night when we got back and I was coughing, the night clerk kindly put the non smoking sign back up as he and some other guests in the lobby kept smoking, and we all laughed. If that's not customer service, what is?

I could whine about how I had to wake up at 5 in the morning to catch my train Monday (that's 4 a.m. London time), but really, the raspberry sorbet alone makes up for that. My digital photos are here. At some point I'll get the Lomo photos developed and scanned. I am now wondering if Barcelona, two weeks from now, is worth the weight of my SLR and automatic as well. For now my limit is two cameras for a weekend.

*effortless, that is, if one ignores aching feet every Wednesday night from 4 or more hours of dancing

** I was going to say guy-playing-an-instrument-that's-tuba-like-but-smaller, but John's got the weblog and the music vocabulary

***previously set by Pushap in Montreal and Da Mario's Ristorante Italiano in Burnaby, back when Mike was the maitre d'. Hey, if anyone randomly comes across this page and knows where Mike's working these days, if he's somewhere in Vancouver, please hook a girl up. Several people will thank you.
- posted by Christina @ 9:12 pm

 
Let us now praise modern technology
Hooray, I have broadband access working at home now, I've installed the Google Toolbar, and I've got my hallowe'en photos uploaded. Now Future Thinktanker and I just need to get a wireless router and I can be surfing the weeeb from bed, baby.

Though eLondon (the electricity people) are sending mean letters because the bill from the previous tenants wasn't paid. It could be that our power gets cut off this weekend even though it's not our bill and we've called to make sure they know we're not the delinquents. The property manager should be sorting this out tomorrow.

My flat is really not third-worldy, really. We haven't even seen very many more cockroaches, and we didn't resort to pentagrams.
- posted by Christina @ 8:18 pm