Postcard from Athens (Postmarked 09 May 2010)

What is it that the Chinese are supposed to have said? "May you live in interesting times!"
By now you must have read about, or seen on TV, the demonstrations and riots in Athens. The nationwide, general strike on Wednesday shut down the entire country and resulted in my inbound flight, along with hundreds of others, being canceled. Apparently, it also resulted in three poor, innocent souls dying in a burning building while the crowd outside protested. I did ultimately arrive early Thursday and soon after witnessed the burned-out shell of the five-storey bank in question and the charred remains of a car parked in front. Later, when visiting the Acropolis before sunset we could hear the start of Thursday's demonstrations echoing between the buildings and then up through the smoggy air from Syntagma Square below, a kilometer away. Were there 10,000 or 100,000 people marching, shouting, demanding to have their 2 months of annual vacation pay re-instated, I could not see, I could not say?

Not normally one to shy away from exaggeration and hyperbole, I must admit that the average traveler in Athens is not affected, much less aware of these ongoing, historic events. The cafes and restaurants in The Plaka are still bustling with tourists, drinking ouzo and retsina, which accompany their pikilias and Saganaki shrimp entrees. (What other nation would consider cooking giant shrimps with feta cheese in a tomato sauce?) The bouzouki players and singers continue to entertain and it would seem that the demonstrators know better than to upset the one sure source of foreign currency and so The Plaka is never on the marchers' route.

Hugging the base of the Acropolis's east face, the Plaka is quintessential Athens. A maze of restaurants with tasty traditional food at reasonable prices, all flavours of Greek wine and spirits, and smoking allowed everywhere as here the no smoking laws are flouted with indifference. Every 'taverna' has a stunning box seat view of the Acropolis, which at night is all the more spectacular as the Parthenon is lit up against the black sky. Most establishments offer a rooftop garden but I recommend dining al fresco at street level as all the alleys are closed to cars and the tables from one spot spill over onto those of the next. Here's a tip for your next visit: The best restaurants are the ones on the cross-streets -- these are the alleys paved in stone that climb up steeply towards the Acropolis -- where a party atmosphere prevails.

If you are a graffiti artist, I recommend that you stay away from Athens. Try as I did, I could not find any side of any building, nor fence, nor overpass unblemished by graffiti. The artists must be very frustrated with no fresh canvass available. Across the street from my hotel, the owner was painting over his façade -- I cannot guess why as it unlikely to stay immaculate more than a few days! It is my only disparaging comment about this once-great city, unfortunately the graffiti is ubiquitous.

If you arrive in Athens, but somehow have forgotten your sunglasses, no worries! On every corner, or so it seems, there are African immigrants selling sunglasses, as well as counterfeit Louis Vuiton bags, watches and any number of useless tchotchkas. With tourist high season fast approaching, I can guess that even the cheap, the fake and the pointless will all find willing buyers. Here's hoping that there's nothing pointless taking place in your life...

Yasou!
Barry

Postcard from Sestriere (Postmarked 18 March 2010)

Today was absolutely my best day of skiing this winter! We started out by taking a gondola and then two chairlifts to get near the top of one of the summits, at 2,700 metres, well above the tree line. We then hiked a hundred metres with our skis on our shoulders before binding them onto our ski boots. Then it started getting scary. Let me back up for a moment.

I joined a group of five other like-minded skiers on Monday morning, all from France as it turns out. The six of us, with our guide, Franco, have been skiing together all week. Franco was apparently once an Italian ski champion or a coach on the Italian national ski team, depending on who's telling the tale. It is clear that at 67 he has skied more than his share of off-piste runs. It shows in his deeply tanned and lined face, his wind-blown, thick grey hair and the sparkle in his eyes when looking out at the mountains surrounding Sestriere. It has not snowed for a week, so the search for fresh, untracked powder requires an experienced guide and Franco is our man.

Where was I? Oh yes, we got on our skis and started to traverse a ridge on very hard, wind-packed snow. The whole week has been exceptionally sunny, warm and nearly cloudless; today was no exception. In any direction, I am looking across one valley or another to the mountains several kilometers away, and the still taller, further mountains behind them, as far as I could see, the Italian Alps to the east and south, the French Alps to the west, and the Swiss Alps to the north. Below, to the right and to the left is certain death if one of us slips. The terrain is unskiable, that is to say, very steep with little snow, ending in a cliff after a couple of hundred metres. You don't think about that until much later. The task at hand is to ski forward, follow the leader, and stay focused. Ultimately, we arrive at a point where Franco without warning takes a sharp left and descends into a steep, snowy mountain face, the kind that you see in the extreme skiing movies. I don't believe any one of us would have considered this to be an option, but one by one we follow. Like lemmings or sheep. It is exhilarating, carving those S-turns in fresh, heavy, powder snow, about a foot deep. As the face of the mountain turns into a gully and becomes more and more narrow, Franco quickly turns left, popping over the ridge defining our gully and drops into yet another mountain face, and we all follow with glee. I am skiing my best all year right here right now, but even so, the legs grow weak, the lungs strain to suck in the rarefied air, and I have to stop and catch my breath, as do the others. And then we continue, another twenty turns before stopping again. At times like this, I don't hear the wind rushing by me, I don't see the unparalleled beauty surrounding me, I don't feel the sun warming my face. I see my next turn. I feel my next turn. I breathe my next turn. Before long, or so it seems, there are a few bare trees, and we continue down navigating the spaces between them, the snow gets fluffier thanks to their shadows (where the sun has not had any success in melting very much). Soon, little by little, the tress are getting more dense, the snow in fact is getting heavy as it has become warmer down here, and the skiing is becoming more and more challenging... and tiring, too, as I am now skiing in a forest of bare trees, whose branches reach out and try to spoil my day.

When we finally end up at a road at the end, exhausted and sweaty, Franco tells us that we just skied 1,700 metres of vertical, and are now 18 kms from Sestriere by taxi. Thanks to cell phone technology, the taxi/van was indeed waiting for us.

Don't you think we did it all over again before lunch?
Madonna!

Barry di Sestriere

Postcard from Helsinki (Postmarked 14 March 2010)

I woke up in a prison cell this morning!

OK, maybe I exaggerated a little -- of that I am guilty... it's just a county jail, not really a prison. Comfortable cell, hard bed, private toilet, a lock on every door. I'm guessing that now you want some details. Truth be told, my accommodations used to be a county jail, and just a ten-minute walk from the middle of Helsinki, too. Somebody with a bright idea converted the closed jail into a hotel, so, technically, I woke up in what used to be a jail house cell!

I arrived in Helsinki via Paris-Charles de Gaulle. It's a strange sensation to feel as comfortable in a foreign airport as you do at home. The French immigration officers seem to recognize me and so they save their silly and their nosy questions for others and wave me straight through. Good thing, too, as my connection for the three-hour flight north was tight and I had to first change terminals. 

Right in the middle of Helsinki, opposite the main bus terminal is an outdoor skating rink, refrigerated from below so that on a warm day like today (+1C), the ice is indeed perfect for skating. Picture this: a full-sized rink but with no boards, just a low, black, platform that surrounds the rink a few inches above ice level, the sun is burning brilliantly set low in a cold, cloudless, blue sky, music wafting overhead sometimes Bob Marley or the Rolling Stones other times a local Finnish tune, the whole witnessed by an endless procession of travelers walking by, often pausing to watch, on their way to catch a bus. I skated for 90 minutes, at times mesmerized by a couple who were gracefully pairs skating, he, an older man evidently taking a lesson from her, a much younger woman. Otherwise the rink was nearly free of skaters, luckily for me. I can't imagine how I could have better spent my time after breaking out of prison!

If you think the sidewalks are not well cleared of snow at home, don't even think of visiting Helsinki in winter! The streets are plowed here like anywhere else, but on the sidewalks they simply spread crushed stones, which benignly impregnate the packed snow and ice that have accumulated. I always imagined the Finns to be more pedestrian-friendly (like the Swiss) but it seemed as though I was still skating most of the day even after leaving the ice rink. I have to conclude that the Finns have tiny spikes on the soles of their shoes and boots, as they all scamper along as though nothing were amiss. 

The Finns are very friendly people. This I know because there are two large cruise ships docked in the harbour. Why would tourists want to take a cruise to a place that has its harbour filled with floes of ice, the water itself hidden below? It must be due to the very friendly natives! Everybody here speaks English, which is convenient, and all the street signs and other public signage are in two languages: Finnish and Swedish. There's even a Swedish People's Party in the national legislature. I guess some Finns want to be part of Sweden again. None want to be part of Russia again, although the Russians must be important to the economy as all the restaurant menus are written in four languages, Russian being one. Not TOO friendly, though, as the Helsinki Times reported today that an Egyptian grandmother had lost her last appeal (to the Supreme Court) and is being deported after spending three years in Finland with her immigrant family. Of course the Canadians would have allowed her to stay if she had first sought refuge in a church for a few months.

Here's hoping you are not taking refuge from the waning days of winter and that you may even go out for a skate before it's too late!

Barry of Helsinki xx

Postcard from Dominican Republic (Postmarked 11 Jan 2010)

!Hola!

Yes it's true, there are things to do and places to explore here that do not require sand and a volleyball net! The Dominican Republic is rich in history -- as you may remember the intrepid explorer Christopher Columbus arrived here over 500 years ago and decided to stay a while, living in Santo Domingo, a beautiful stately city on the South Coast of this island, which was at first christened Hispaniola.

In fact Santo Domingo was the first "European" city ever built in the New World. When walking through the its Old City you may as well be in Spain, as the original colourful houses and buildings lining the narrow streets are still being lived in today. They were built in the 1500's according to the architectural norms of the day used in Spain: large windows and small second-floor balconies appointed with lots of black, wrought iron decoration. 

Because the Moors had at the time controlled the South of Spain, there is also some Arab influence still visible in the shape of the arches, for instance, that lead into interior courtyards. I visited the first church ever built in the New World. I walked through the house (now a museum) that Diego Columbus, Christopher's son, built and lived in with his family until the end of his life. Much of the original furniture, mirrors, paintings and kitchen cooking paraphernalia, are still on display, testimony to the fine workmanship used in those days. I guess Diego had good connections, as he went to Santo Domingo to be governor, reporting back directly to the Queen of Spain, Queen Isabella. As you recall, she was the lady who had the cochones to fund Chris' voyage, when all he had was a dream and good storytelling skills. Besides the first church, there are hundreds of other New World 'firsts' here and the local guides are all too eager to point them out. Tourism is the biggest employer in the Dominican Republic, so most all contact with the 'natives' consists of haggling over the price of some tchatchka or painting. It has been very challenging to pierce the smiling veneers pasted on all the Dominican faces and understand the local mentality!

I always love markets that are free of tourists and fate fortuitously steered me right into a local market, about three city blocks square! At any moment you may smell an array of spices from one collection of vendors, then turn a corner and you see a live chicken getting his head chopped off as it was just then sold to a customer, freshly killed. One street has stall after stall of used electronic parts, stuff that we can't even give away at home. And of course, a couple dozen, if not more, vendors selling fresh tropical fruit, brightly coloured mangos, guavas, passion fruit, coconuts and others that we do not often see in our own fruit stores, saturating the air with a pungent cocktail of flavours! Scooters spouting a plume of malodorous, blue smoke continually zip by in these, and all, streets and lanes; now and then a horse-drawn cart laden with ripe pineapples or watermelons will compete with the cars and scooters for a piece of the road, its operator stopping to make a sale anywhere, at any moment. 

Seems this island country isn't free of crime either. A fellow Quebecer was shot dead just a few nights ago during a botched robbery attempt in his hotel-villa not very far from where I am staying. It smells fishy to me and so I am waiting for the facts. For one thing, officials are not yet certain if the tragedy took place New Year's Eve or the next night, or the one after that. If I were a robber I'd sooner choose a villa while the owner was out at the casino or even the local bar. But then, what do I know about these nefarious matters? There's enough on my plate just trying to be a good tourist: do I sign up for a 90-minute Segway 'tour' of the beach, or pet a stingray while getting kissed by a sea lion?

Here's hoping there are plenty of kisses in your life! Got to go, the tropical evening is beckoning...

Barry 

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