Die Hard Three

New Orleans is a interesting and hot place to visit and / or live. I know this because I am in the city right now. Day 2 belonged to Sarah – we decided on Day 1 to divide up the full days (Day 3 is all mine!)

This morning our self-guided walking tour revealed a most fascinating piece of trivia information. This house, the red one here in this photo – this is the house of the rising sun.

Strangely this was not part of the tour – while chatting with a local who was out walking his dog, he pointed across the street to the famous house from the famous song. Then I took the photo.

I was also surprised to discover that (due to budget cuts), the New Orleans PD has gotten rid of all their cars and converted to an equine-based policing system.

I think it was the correct decision and other city police services should follow suit.

Later in the afternoon it poured rain and I got two soakers.

And finally, I got to see under the streets, which is something I look forward to when visiting a new city.

From what I can tell it’s mostly dirt and some infrastructure.

Hello readers! I’m traveling again! This time it’s because Sarah and I are trying to escape the Olympic fever that has taken over great parts of our great country (Canada). Naturally, we decided to fly to another nation that takes sports less seriously than we do up north. On the agenda for this trip: New Orleans and the wonderful food that can be found there.

While Louisiana-style dishes include a wide range of tastes and flavours, I’m most looking forward to eating lots of spicy food.

As many people know, hot peppers are an essential component of many cajun recipes. But did many people also know that a hot, tropical environments is *not* required to grow them? I only learned this fun fact in the spring when I went to the Home Depot to purchase some plants for my new, non-tropical garden.

I’m not sure why I thought these plants needed a rainforest in which to grow. Did my mind make an association with the heat found inside the peppers with the heat experienced in their native climate? In retrospect it does not make a lot of sense. While both phenomena do make me uncomfortable and sweaty, the connection is tangential at best.

Anyway, because a blog post without an uploaded image is just another promotional tool for the WordPress company, here is a picture of the first pepper grown in my garden.

Don’t worry. I gave him a good home.

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So this year for my annual excursion to Killarney Provincial Park I’ve found myself on two teams that are planning to do most or all of the La Cloche Silhouette Trail – (65 km – Team A) and (72.3 km – Team B). Team A’s attempt will be for four nights and five days from Sept 3 – 7 while Team B will be hiking from Sept 24 -30 (five nights and six days).

In preparation for these grueling hikes, a number of training hikes have been scheduled, the first of which happened yesterday and in the rush to get out the door I forgot my water bottle at Sarah’s (from where I was getting picked up).

Now for those of you who have never done anything ever, water is the most important part of life – without it we all die. So you can imagine the horror as I hiked around the Wolf Trail in the summer heat with no means of hydration and this photo series showed up in my iMessage!

I was shocked! And thirsty. Very thirsty. I’d spent the whole morning washing and filling that water bottle. Next time I will have to remember to bring extra liquids. Until then I will drink beer. See you at the next training session.

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I wonder how the Quebec Ice Hotel stacks up against the Swedish, Iceland, and Finnish ones. If I had to rank them I bet the Finnish one would be the best because Finns are masters of the ice – be it with their powerful boats that smash it in the harbour or in the vodka drinks that contain their famous Vodka (Finlandia: it’s a quality vodka *and* tone poem). Also, what is one supposed to do in the Finnish winter besides build a house out of ice and then watch it melt in the summertime.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that we survived last night’s minus fifteen degrees celsius with almost no major problems as the training course adequately prepared us for the experience of trying to sleep in the cold. The instructor Claudine showed us how to use the sleeping bag (a minus thirty degrees rated North Face) and she also suggested we wear a hat. So everything was good on the physical comfort front.

Where we ran into problems was with the acoustics in the room. I figured that the snow walls would muffle my snoring to a quite, almost musical-like whisper – a sound so pleasant it would lull everyone within earshot into a peaceful slumber. This turned out to be true for the people in the other rooms but for one half of the guests staying in our room, it was problematic. This is because the snow structure seemed to amplify the sounds not quieten them.

So my apologies to Sarah. I promise the next time we stay overnight in hotel made from snow, I will bring ear plugs, a white noise generator, some Ambien, and a separate igloo for me to sleep in.

The sleeping

The room

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So we finally made it to the “ice” hotel and guess what: it’s made almost entirely out of snow.

I’m not making this up. Sure there are a few ice sculptures around and the drinking glasses are carved out of frozen water but ninety-eight percent of the main structure is made from compressed snow. I brought this up several times with the “hotel” management in an (unsuccessful) attempt to score a free upgrade but they seemed uninterested in my logical reasoning.

The good news is it’s a full moon tonight and the sleeping bags are warm. We had a couple of drinks at the Ice Bar and then we hung out in the sauna (pronounced s-ow-nah) for half an hour and now we’re going to attempt not to freeze to death in our sleeps.

Check back tomorrow to find out if we survived.

I have not been to Quebec City proper since I was four years old. In 1978 my family drove to Nova Scotia to visit the old country and we stopped off in Q.C. on the way down. I’m pretty sure this city has changed in the past 38 years but I wouldn’t know because I don’t remember any part of that long ago voyage. And, well, to be completely honest, I don’t remember anything about anything before grade five and that was almost seven years later. I’ve spoken about this with many doctors, therapists and cab drivers and they all tell me the same thing – early memory recall for most humans starts around the age of three.

What was happening to me in those missing eight years? Last week, in an attempt to find out, I started rewatching The X-Files (1993-2002). While I’ve just finished the first season, the only thing I’ve been able to figure out is that all these present-day anti-vaxers and 9/11 truthers and chemtrail conspiracy theorists, they’re all the godchildren of Patient Zero – Fox Mulder. I don’t think the show has aged very well because in every episode the protagonist comes across like a raving lunatic. Every time Mulder loses his pencil he claims the aliens did it. And the government’s ability to keep a secret (a secret that happens to be most important discovery in human history) from the general public, well, I don’t think they’re that competent.

Anyway, back to Quebec City. My earliest childhood memory I can recall is the time ninety-five percent of the grade five students at my elementary school got to go on a field trip to Quebec City and I was forced to stay behind while my friends and classmates had, what sounded like, the best time ever. There was this store that sold novelty items and everyone came back with switchblade combs and whoopee cushions and itching powder and I was defenceless against their pranks – left to survive on my wits alone. I lasted about four minutes.

Sticks and stones may OWWWWW!!!! IT BURNS!!!!!

So yesterday after we checked in to the regular hotel (the ice hotel is tonight) we went and had dinner at this amazing little restaurant (I should say the Old Towne Quebec City is very pretty – see above photo). Then after supper we went to this little pub that came highly recommended by our server. When we got there it was empty save for two patrons and we decided to be cool and sit at the bar at the far end away from the other two customers (let’s call them Goofus and Gallant).

We ordered our beers and then two minutes after they arrived Goofus comes over and drunkenly starts to hit on us. It was a rather awkward situation and afterward Sarah informed me that this is just another day in the life of a woman – having to deal with drunk idiots. So this guy tells us he’s an off duty police officer and from what I could tell he’s also a member of that Raelian sex cult (described in Wikipedia as a “UFO religion”). I thought this because he kept asking us about sex (that’s the Raelian part) and he wouldn’t leave us alone (the cult part).

The other guy (Gallant) was from Burkina Faso and he was also drunk and also looking to score. After telling us he’s a millionaire who drives a Porsche, he brought over two shots (whiskey I think) one for him and one for Sarah (which I took and didn’t drink). I didn’t see the bartender pour them and I wasn’t about to down a roofie colada so we gave them to Goofus after Gallant went home. He drank both of them without hesitation and we left soon thereafter (with the bartender quietly offering an apology).

This was such an eyeopener: experiencing first hand (and being on the receiving end of) what I can only assume is an incredibly commonplace situation for most women – harassment by random strangers and having to fear for their physical safety. I had visions of Goofus getting upset and there being a non-verbal altercation where at the end of the evening I would have to explain to a bunch of cops how my face managed to injure one of their co-worker’s fists.

But none of that came to pass. We found another bar, had a couple more drinks, and then went back to the hotel. At this time there’s still no word if Goofus made it home to his wife and children.

This weekend Sarah is taking me to the Ice Hotel in Quebec City as a gift for my (and, I guess Jesus’) birthday. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so thoughtful. And when I say this, I don’t just mean thoughtful in the usual sense of “oh, that’s going to be a nice weekend” – it’s more like when someone remembers something from a long time past conversation and then uses that information to plan an unexpected, extra-special getaway.

So how did we end up heading to the L’Hotel de Glace on a Sunday morning in February? Well, the whole thing started over one year ago on our first date. We were about 30 minutes into our first drink and I was sharing with her my passion for all things toilet. Regular readers of my blog are well aware of this fact, but if you are new here I should probably mention that I love discussing washrooms and all their various components – especially their most important feature: the toilet.

From the energy crisis-averting, terrorist-defeating summer cottage toilets of northern Finland, to the mysterious Turkish water blasters of central Istanbul. From the everyday squat toilets of the Chinese mainland to Algonquin Park’s famous, rodent infested shitboxes. From the German wall-mounted, ultra-efficient energy savers, to the heated seats of the Japanese washlet standalones with built-in cold water hand sinks. From the old-school German inspection stations to the low-flow toilets they installed at my work that rendered the washrooms unusable within twenty-four hours of their first use. I also regaled her with stories of my searching around Paris on my birthday for strange and unusual commodes and, at the end of the conversation, I (boldly?) claimed that “I’d seen them all”.

So this brings us to my Christmas / birthday gift. During that first date conversation, a light must have gone off (or is it on?) in Sarah’s head as she realized that there was one type of toilet I had not tried.

An ice toilet.

I figured that’s why she’s taking me to stay for one night in a hotel that is made entirely of ice. And I have to say I’m pretty excited. I thought I had seen them all but I guess I was wrong. It’s taken every ounce of self-restraint to not do a Google Images search – I want to be surprised by what’s in store!

Via Rail, you better send someone to righten up those telegraph poles.

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So I arrived in Naples Italy at 10:00 on Saturday morning on an EasyJet flight from Berlin and when I exited the airport I was hit with a few amps of culture shock. There’s quite a difference going from a landlocked northern European city to a large Mediterranean coastal seaport. Or so I thought there was.

Don’t forget – It’s the culture Amps that kill you, not the culture Volts.

If one were to summarize each city with stereotype word-pair it would probably be “organized / chaotic”. But after spending a day here, I’m thinking now that both places are organized, but only in different ways.

Most of Germany is set up so that a person with no smartphone and no familiarity with the country or the language can step out of the airport and basically get anywhere using the public transportation. It’s a self-learning system (like SkyNet). In Italy you can get just as many places but you need to first figure out the logic of their system.

For example, in Germany the posted city bus routes are personalized for each individual bus stop. There will be a list (usually in a column) of all the stops on the route where the preceding stops are greyed out, the current stop is clearly marked, and the proceeding stops are bolded. It’s very easy to see where you are relative to your destination.

Here in Naples, the route stops are also posted but an identical list is used at each stop. It’s up to the user to take the current stop name (also posted) and find it on the list and then figure out the rest of the route. This system does have its advantages, the main one is the reduced cost of making the signs.

I prefer the German system (no surprise there) but the Naples one worked in a pinch.

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Sarah and I are in Naples for a couple of days and this morning we visited the ancient Roman ruins called Pompeii. It was incredible. It’s a city from almost two thousand years ago. Yes, you read that right – that’s thousand with a “t”.

The amount of work that the government expended on this is just staggering. The site is just massive – it would take several days to explore the whole thing. But whatever it cost the Italian taxpayers, it’s all there for the tourists and locals to experience – everything from the dementia-causing lead pipes that were used for transporting drinking water, to the brothels where, for the cost of two glasses of wine (about 3 euros in modern currency) ancient traveling business men could contract some horrible STI.

Google Translate used to be pictures the customer would point at.

But I do have to call into question the decision to put this tourist attraction at the base of an active volcano (Mont Vesuvius). It’s an obvious point, but I’ll state it anyway: if the pressure builds up too much and it’s been too long without release, the ensuing eruption could be huge. And that wouldn’t be good news for the City of Pompeii – it would be lost forever.

I’m staying at Eva’s place – anyone remember her bathroom? I do.

So last night we went to help the Syrian refugees by sorting clothing donations and I have to say, I’ve never felt so qualified for a job as I did yesterday. If there exists one task my years of jigsaw puzzle training has prepared me for, this was it.

The basic problem is this: how do you sort thousands of articles of children’s clothing? It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Not unlike the pre-assembly task of sorting puzzle pieces, one has to bin like items together. But where a high-quality Ravensburger puzzle has rigid, well-defined parameters (like shape and colour) clothing is much more dynamic. Here are the different categories we came up with:

• Kids’ / non-kids’ items (we had one bin where we would put adult clothes that survived the pre-sort)
• Winter jackets / snow pants
• Hats / gloves
• Socks / things that go on your legs that cover ones feet (stockings, onesies)
• Baby clothing
• Sweaters
• Summer clothing
• Long sleeve shirts
• Pants
• Dresses

Then we had to sort each bin by size. European clothing labels have a number (in centimetres) that is supposed to indicate some dimension of the wearer but some labels were missing and clothing can change size (with drying and stretching).

Notice the vastly different arm lengths for these same size sweaters.

The fastest way we came up with was to eyeball the size by laying them out on the table and just piling the different sized articles on top of each other. We also used the information on tags (when possible).

Once this sorting phase was done we had to fold each piece and put them on the shelf organized by item type and size / age.

Existing inventory.

The whole thing went pretty well. By quitting time we had gotten through about 80% of the boxes we were assigned. I also came up with some ideas for future generations to help speed up the process.

1. With some masking tape and a Sharpie, we could have labeled each pile by size. With several people doing the sorting (and no labels) there was some confusion as to which articles belonged in which pile.

2. If a given task is performed by a single individual, it’s possible to run multiple tasks in parallel.

3. The sorting does not have to be perfect and a Small / Medium / Large approach would probably be sufficient. Like any retail clothing operation, once the customers have at the merchandise everything is going to get mixed up anyway.

After three hours of sorting through donated baby clothing I notice that some of the articles were completely impractical. Have you seen how fast babies grow? I find it ridiculous that we dress up our infants in the same types of clothing we would put on a full-sized adult human – I’m talking about pants and shirts and socks. If a baby can’t walk, why do they need to wear shoes?

And what the hell is this? Are all babies this disproportioned or is this thing just poorly made?

Walking home last night I was thinking that someone seriously needs to invent a sort of generic sack that we can can carry our children around in for the first few years of their life. And then today when I arrived at my babysitting job, I discovered that the Germans had already invented one.

It’s called a Schlafsack and it is awesome.

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