Postcard from Istanbul (Postmarked 29 Sep 2009)

Someone should have told me! How else could I have known? It's not right; it's just unfair. Do you remember my telling you about my ritual for avoiding jet-lag when I travel overseas? It ensures that I get at least ten hours sleep my first night and wake up refreshed for the balance of the journey. The 5:30am call to prayer turned my plan on its head. Let me explain: The call to prayer, or adhan , dates back over 2,000 years. There are more mosques in Istanbul than in any other city in the world. Guess how many... the are 2,972 mosques and each one has at least one minaret. Mounted on each minaret are four powerful loudspeakers which all squelch out the call to prayer, somehow in unison, summoning the faithful. During the day, against the background din of the city, it does not seem so deafening; but when you are dead to the world in dreamland, the first call to prayer is not only loud, but frightening!

I stayed in the old town, Sultanahmet. Istanbul is made up of 39 districts, but there is no doubt that only one can be considered its heart. It is in Sultanahmet where you can bargain for almost anything you never needed in the Grand Bazaar; where the famous, historical Topkapi Palace, Blue Mosque and Hagıa Sophia await their daily parade of visiting tourists, each one carrying a camera and guide book; where narrow cobble-stone streets lined with crowded restaurants and bustling cafes, snake their way up and and down and around into still-narrower laneways, always clean and inviting. Imagine yourself at a kebab stand. On your left, a couple, where the woman is smartly dressed and also wearing a headscarf; on your right, another couple, where the woman is wearing a black abaya , only her eyes and nose are visible. The rest of her is completely shrouded in black, her figure, her age, her features, a mystery to all but one. You might think that you've gone back in time, but you've observed this image repeatedly since your arrival. No matter where you may find yourself in Sultanahmet, if you look skyward you will spot a minaret or two. Each one somehow seems unique, different from the next. Sometimes made of brick, sometimes of stone, often each square clearly visible as the mortar is a different colour entirely, or, perhaps the whole minaret is plastered over with a cement veneer. The shaft may have one, but often two, intricately chiseled or carved turrets along its length, before tapering to a point, and always topped off with a metal crescent moon. If you stop long enough in one spot in Sultanahmet, any number of smiling merchants will boldly approach you and ask what it is that you are searching, eager to help with directions, sure that you are lost. Of course once he is reassured that you are indeed familiar with your whereabouts how can you refuse an invitation to visit his store?

In three weeks' time, the annual Istanbul Eurasian Marathon will take place: It starts on the Asıan side of Istanbul and finishes on the European side. In case you have forgotten your high school geography, Istanbul is split in two by the Bosphorus River, the river that ultimately connects the Black Sea to the North with the Aegean Sea to the Southwest, and separates Europe from Asia. I would have liked to participate in that transcontinental marathon (by running the half), but I settled for a transcontinental boat tour which sails along the European riverside upstream and the Asian riverside downstream, passing by dozens of stately mansions, both ancient and modern. The more recently built tend to be painted in beautiful if not unusual pastel tones, pinks, greens, blues and yellows with white window and door frames and terra cotta roofs. Old or new, each manor has its windows delicately appointed with wrought iron protection forged into various designs leaving me doubt that I am not in Canada anymore. And many homes have long, plush lawns in front, some with a swimming pool. I've been told that 1-1/2 million people cross the Bosphorus each day to go to work, some by ferry but most by one of two impressive suspension bridges. At rush hour the wait can be over one hour. Can you imagine the traffic during a snow storm? Now running four years behind schedule, a 1.4km long subway tunnel is almost completely built which will add a third means of crossing the river. The reason for the delay? During construction, the workers have unearthed the lost 4th century AD Byzantine port of Theodosius as well as thirty-four 1000-year-old sunken ships. It makes me wonder what would be found under the St-Lawrence?

From the city that never sleeps--past dawn, here's hoping the current is flowing smoothly in your life.

Barry  

Postcard from Lyon (Postmarked 25 June 2009)

Have you ever walked through a ghost town? You know, like in the movies, where the doors to the empty tavern are still swinging in the wind, where you can almost hear the music coming out of the playhouse while the showgirls dance on stage, and you see a general store with prices of flour and sugar in the broken window, but there's not a soul to be seen?

This morning I went for a run which took me through a deserted, once-popular hippodrome (horse race course) on the outskirts of Lyon. It was apparently one of the first built in France around the turn of the century -- the last century. The stands were made entirely from concrete, the kind of concrete that LOOKS ancient, large enough to hold five or six hundred people, as were the many stables spaced around the perimeter, even a small, concrete building still proudly claiming to be the weigh station for the race horses. Very eerie! I could almost hear the cheering from the empty stands as I ran one lap on the racetrack, imagining myself to be a jockey on the back of one of the speeding thoroughbreds.

I arrived in Lyon after midnight two nights ago. I drove in from Geneva with Christophe to stay a while in his childhood home, where his parents still live. His mother dotes over me and makes me wonder if maybe I should stay a little longer than planned. If you don't see me at the gym for a few weeks,... I never left Lyon!
Of course you remember Christophe, my ski instructor friend that I meet each year in Switzerland for a week of skiing. He helps me with my skiing and I help him with his English. I wrote you a postcard last year from Lyon, too, if I remember well, but what I did not tell you about then was the uniquely impressing panoramic views Lyon has to offer. If you look in the right direction, you can see the snow-covered summit of Mont Blanc, 120km away, with much of the rest of the French alps in front. Pick any other direction and you will see another mountain range, usually 40km in the distance, each with its own small, family ski hill where Lyonais can ski afternoons after working the morning in town. Sounds like a progressive work environment to me!
Except for the area called Part-Dieu, where much construction is taking place, Lyon has not changed at all in the last year. Still a LOT of students filling the cafes, fast-food joints and shopping streets downtown, feverishly texting messages to their friends or adjusting the volume on their iPods. Still many tourists snapping pictures of the beautiful, stately and very old city hall, with its gold-fringed, black fence on all sides, keeping us all at a distance. It seems to me that cities that are 500 years old don't feel the need to change as fast as newer cities. With all the monuments, churches and very ornately decorated older buildings, I think they believe they already have it all and so have nothing to prove.

Did I forget to mention that Lyon has not one, but two rivers running through its heart, the Rhone and the Soane? They meet up a little beyond the city limits, and then continue to flow south to Marseille. I was wondering if I could kayak its length, downstream of course, arriving on the Cote d'Azure fit and hungry for some well-deserved, local seafood. I like cities with smaller rivers, like Paris or Metz and Lyon, too. Lots of bridges to cross over or under, and to frame in the foreground of otherwise dull pictures. Wouldn't Montreal be so much more attractive with an additional canal running along Sherbrooke Street or Saint-Denis? I must mention this to the mayor next time we meet up!

Here's hoping there is nothing dull in your life!

Barry de Lyon

Postcard from Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg) (Postmarked 16 June 2009)

I awoke suddenly. It was light outside but it felt as though I had slept only a couple of hours. After flying eleven hours crossing through eight time zones, I had decided to go to bed early last night, around 10pm. I checked the time: it was 1am. This was my personal welcome to the famous white nights. For three weeks in June each year it does not get dark in Saint-Petersburg. The sun dips below the horizon by midnight and rises again by 3am, but dusk simply mutates into dawn during the interim. Hence the white nights and my need to get back to sleep. Mercifully I did so quickly and only woke up next at 10am. Would you like a cure for jet lag? Sleep 12 hours straight! 

There is a myth at home that everybody in Russia is trying to get out. Let me assure you that in this city of five million, people are content. City life is vibrant and like at home there are more corner coffee shops than there are corners. In fact, others are trying to get into Russia. Truckloads of immigrants from Azerbhaijan, Uzbekhistan, Moldavia and the other former Soviet republics arrive weekly. Russia is their haven as they already speak the language, the ruble has some value internationally and they are happy just for the chance to stay here and do the dirty work that many Russians won't do. Another myth busted and I've only just arrived!
Do you remember the joke about the woman who gets into a queue at a Soviet-era store, asks the lady in front what they are in line for, and receives the response, "I don't know, but the line was so long that I thought it must be for something good!" Old traditions don't die easily... all over town people line up for two things: MacDonald's and public toilets. I wonder half-jokingly if the line-ups at MacDonald's are for their restrooms. If you were thinking of coming over here to start up a business, I can recommend two sure-fire options. 

I was surprised how many people, both men and women, are drinking beer in public while walking in the streets, standing on a corner, or sitting on a bench. You can even buy beer in the same 1.5-liter plastic bottles that is normally reserved for water, except that the water is more expensive. It occurred to me that with all this beer being consumed openly, the need for public toilets becomes obvious. 

Do you remember reading about Peter the Great in high school? Most people here are fiercely proud of him. In case you've forgotten he built this city from scratch! I'll give you some background. He had a couple of hot girlfriends in Holland and spent a lot of time chilling there. The canals of Amsterdam really impressed him, so he launched a decades-long construction project using the mighty Neva river as a source of water to fill the planned canals of his new city. He decided to name his city Peter the Greatburg, but somehow it never stuck. His new city however became Russia's first port and remains its most beautiful, with wide, clean streets, an underground metro and European-style architecture clearly evident throughout the burg. 

The current global economic crisis has not left Russia unscathed. While reading the popular, free daily newspaper, Metro, I learned that there are 400 one-factory towns in this country. Many of these factories have closed down, effectively rendering entire communities unemployed. What's worse is that in some cases the workers had been unpaid for several months beforehand. Now some towns are demonstrating or striking. A local boy who made it good, Vladimir Putin, has jumped into the fray, arriving in one such town by helicopter and forcing the factory owner to sign cheques for all back wages and re-open the plant. Apparently Putin has more clout than the Russian courts. The factory owner was seen on television holding his head in shame for the hardship he had caused. 

Maybe Putin had it right... How to end the economic crisis? Force business owners to re-open shuttered plants, pay its employees fairly and sell its products any way it can! 

Here's hoping there's no crisis in your life and I wish you well from the land of white nights. 

Barrychka  

Postcard from Villars-sur-Ollon (Postmarked 25 March 2009)

Fifty centimetres. A half-metre. What's that, twenty inches?

I arrived in Villars-sur-Ollon Saturday at around six. Seven hours' drive from Paris. It was a beautiful Spring day throughout the trip, with immense tracts of land losing their snow to the warming sun and, at the same time, many farmers' fields starting to be plowed for Spring planting. A lot of the countryside looks like Vermont it seems to me, that is until you cross into Switzerland (without even slowing down to smile at the border guards) where the Swiss Alps come into view, first looming ahead on the horizon, and then slowly they are towering overhead right in front of you. If you've never been to Switzerland, one thing that's cool about the country, besides its secretive banks, are the many, many tunnels that the Swiss have bored through mountains to allow for me conveniently getting from A to B. Sometimes, the tunnels are a kilometer or two long! Remember, there are 5,000 feet of mountain overhead.

We skied Sunday and Monday under sunny, blue skies. Although it hadn't snowed in ten days, it has been one of the snowiest winters on record I am told, so the skiing was wonderful with many steep gullies for heart-stopping descents. The panoramic vistas are breath-taking, with distant mountain ranges appearing behind the nearer mountain ranges, Mont Blanc 40 kilometres to the west, other unpronounceable peaks in every other direction, all covered in snow beneath a cloudless blue sky.

But I have digressed... It snowed 50 centimetres last night. I am barely capable of putting into words what this means to a skier. Twenty inches of fresh, fluffy snow, more in the couloirs where the wind blows snow in but not out. Have you ever seen a Warren Miller ski film (I think that's his name)? Imagine steep unmarked drops off the side of a run where the bottom is out of view, and that first turn off the marked trail finds you in light, untracked, snow nearly up to your hips. First fear, then relief overcomes your senses, as you effortlessly keep your skis and body pointed downhill and compress the snow rhythmically under your skis with each turn. Snow-covered pine trees come and go by, as you thread your way down the steep slope, sometimes airborne as you have apparently skied off a small cliff, maybe six or seven feet in height, but in any case invisible under its velvety, white cloak.

Looking back at the slope once completed, you can see the tracks you have left behind in the snow, sometimes perfectly shaped like an "S" (but never often enough!). The sheer beauty is overwhelming for the first few days after arriving.  Looking around at the majestic evergreen trees and other robust bushes that manage to grow at high elevations makes me wonder how fortunate I am to be right here, right now.
It seems a miracle that my body has held out for the whole day. But it has and I can't wait for tomorrow's challenges as it is snowing again as I write this postcard.

From Villars-sur-Ollon... Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Barry xxx

Postcard from Paris (Postmarked 20 March 2009)

Paris in the Spring. It seems improbable that these four words will not quickly evoke visions of apple blossoms in the Jardins des Tuileries, the Bateaux Mouches cruising the Seine, lovers stealing kisses on the Pont Neuf and of course, gaggles of  tourists returning to the City of Lights after Winter's respite.

I ran along the Seine this morning. Most people walk along this timeless river--a river that has witnessed Joan of Arc, the Great Plague and Louis XIV--at street level, looking down at it or across to sights on the other side. Did you know that there is a cobblestone walking path at the river's level, which passes under each of the many bridges that cross the Seine? This was my route after first circling the Jardins du Luxembourg, across from my hotel. The walking path is at times narrow and elsewhere wide, but always unobstructed by traffic making it ideal for running and for admiring the river's current and the many houseboats, unseen from above. Running in the morning jumpstarts your body, erases jet lag, and, allows you to see a lot of the city's secrets in a short time. Sorry, but I can't reveal any of those secrets now... maybe later.

You may have read that there was a country-wide strike yesterday in France. Somebody representing the French working class made a speech and said, "we didn't cause the gloal recession, why should we be the ones that suffer?" Good point. If AIG were a French company, the French people would probably burn down the head office. Although my walking tour of Paris covered half the city yesterday, I never saw any of the 2,000,000 strikers who called in sick to march here or there in the city, demanding that President Sarkozy pay more money to those who lost their jobs. I think he was out of town.

I believe the French are the only people on Earth who smoke more than Quebecers. Since smoking is forbidden almost everywhere but outside, I find the city smells like an ashtray at times. Smokers profit from being outside by smoking even more and it seems that the non-smokers are always downwind of them. I am thinking of starting a petition to force smokers to wear a bubble like a helmet with built-in air filters. I doubt it will fly right away, but most great ideas take time to germinate. We could even let them smoke indoors again, but only in their bubbles of course.

Paris is not the best place to improve your French language skills; I overheard more Russian, German and English than French spoken as most everyone you run into is from somewhere else. I found myself silently correcting their grammar errors. I am not boasting, but coming from Montreal confers a great linguistic advantage on me over the girl next to me in the park who comes from Montenegro. Nevertheless, I think my French must have improved as at least I am catching the errors.

Tomorrow I leave for a week of skiing in Villars-sur-Ollons, south of Lausanne. So I wish you farewell from Paris and hope that Spring arrives soon to everywhere else!

Barry xxx