Die Hard Three

I imagine after reading my blog for all these years, that many of you *think* you have a pretty good idea of what I did for my birthday (2014 edition).

You probably expected me to spend the final hours of my thirties getting drunk with one of my many international friends, wandering around Paris’ 10th Arrondissement, hopping from bar to bar, searching for strange toilets, and reporting to the city engineers any infrastructure in need of repair that we happen to stumble upon during our quest.

You’re probably also expecting to hear about how I spent the first few hours of my forties hungover with two hours’ sleep, in a police station in a completely different country from where I was the previous evening, giving DNA samples (to rule out my involvement) in an ongoing criminal investigation into a recent high-profile train robbery.

And of course you will want to hear about my visiting a museum dedicated entirely to the guy who wrote the theme to Die Hard, my eating of a delicious döner-kebap so huge that it would be impossible for one man to consume unassisted, and my finishing the night with some beers and a whole bunch of very good friends.

Well I know you hate to be disappointed, but that birthday – the one you imagined – that never happened. (And for the record, I am also disappointed. With you. Once more. For being so far off the mark. Yet again.) Nope, my birthday this year just happened to fall at the one-third point of my three-week vacation – the exact same day as my regularly-scheduled travel-maintenance.

Traveling light (like I always do) involves packing only the essentials for a given trip. But despite the numerous advantages, it can leave one unprepared for unforeseen or unlikely events. That is why it is important to periodically take inventory of your travel situation so you can (if necessary) adjust your plans accordingly. It’s been my experience that this maintenance period is also a good time to do some housekeeping, take a night off, and get some rest to recharge your batteries.

So by some crazy random happenstance, on this trip, my birthday and maintenance day fell on the same day. I had planned for a weekly maintenance schedule because I calculated I would need to do laundry after seven days based on the amount of clothing I was bringing with me.

This meant that I ended up spending the day (and eve) of the anniversary of my birth reviewing my various travel checklists, finding a laundromat, washing, drying, folding, and carefully packing all my clothes, taking an inventory of my supplies, reviewing all my travel documents, photographing any interesting receipts, destroying any evidence that could trace back to me, checking the status of my consumable hygiene products (soap, toothpaste, shampoo) and going to bed early so I could be well rested for the remainder of my trip.

And I am happy to report that everything is good, I am now back at 100% energy – vacation: full speed ahead!

And for your enjoyment, here is a photo collage I made for you of a birthday that only ever existed in your imagination.

Your crazy imagination.

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Well, this morning I got robbed on the train from Paris to Cologne. I know – Happy Birthday to me. Guy went into my backpack while I was sleeping and took my small, secondary travel pack where I was storing some nonessential travel items. The train was completely full and I had placed my backpack on the overhead shelf with the zippers facing out. Yeah, yeah, bad opsec. But not to worry, I had all my important gear in my purse which was jammed between me and the window.

A less seasoned traveler would be freaked out by such an experience, but not me. In fact I found it kind of exciting. I got to fill out a police report (I’d never done that before). When I was at the station they took me on a tour of the jail cells (that was pretty neat – took a few hours though). Also, now the Cologne police have my fingerprints on file – this will make any future interactions with the German authorities go a lot faster.

But all this goodness aside, I find myself wondering what’s going to happen to all my things. I’d hate to think that the guy who took them is just going to throw them away – I mean at first glance it seems like a rather odd collection of stuff but if you just take a few minutes and go through everything you’ll find that there are some perfectly serviceable items in there.

You know what? To make things easier for the dude I’m just going to make a list of the contents of that pack with some notes about each item. There’s a small chance that the person who robbed me is one of the thirty people who reads this blog and I’m not really one to hold a grudge.

• The headlamp – works fine, it just needs three AAA batteries (they’re in there too) and the clip for the battery housing is on the side.
• The chewing gum is Trident Freshmint flavour – you can’t get it in Europe. It’s both delicious and addictive (so be careful).
• The nail clippers and tweezers – heads-up: you might want to wash those.
• The used Gillette Mach III razor – you’re not supposed to share these so it’s probably best if you just throw it away. Same with the Chapstick.
• The electric trimmer – I brought this with me to trim my… um… beard – this item is perfectly fine for you to trim all your facial hair. In fact I cleaned it just last night – you can go ahead and start using it right away.

The only item I’m really going to miss is the plastic holder for my razor – I’ve had that thing since I started shaving. It had this mirror that you could use to see where to put the little squares of tissue to stop the bleeding.

Nation states should have their own email addresses where visitors can conveniently send messages and feedback regarding their visit to the country. I’m thinking something like feedback@Country_Name.com or some easy-to-remember variant where “Country_Name” is replaced with the name of the country visited.

My immediate problem is I have a message for France and I don’t know how to send it to her. I tried info@france.com, france@gmail.com, gmail@france.com and a bunch of others but I didn’t get any responses. Right now I think I’m going to just post it here on my blog and hope that one of my readers who lives in France passes it along.

Dear France,

thank you for very much for hosting me during the past four and a half days. I had a wonderful time in your beautiful country and I would like to take this opportunity to tell you personally about some of the highlights of my journey.

First up, I do have to admit that (at the beginning) I found it difficult to get used to the French custom of kissing (twice!) all the people I was getting introduced to. We have lots of French culture in Canada and we use this greeting often – but only with women. But then, after a couple days I remembered my experiences with the traditional Finnish getting-to-know-you custom (sitting naked in a super-heated room with the male members of your girlfriend’s immediate family that you just met a few hours earlier) – and I realized how compared to Finland, the French greeting is actually pretty cool – like a high-five or fist-bump (but with kissing).

This kissing of strange men aside, the thing I like most about your country is the hilarious and sexy names you have for many of the things one encounters on a given day touring around France. I even made a collage of my favourites from this trip.

I hope you like it.

Yesterday when I was walking around your capital, I noticed that your 300th birthday is coming up in a few years. Now I know it’s not for a while but if you want, I can help you set up for the party – I’m pretty good at that sort of thing.

And let me know if you need me to bring my turkey deep fryer.

So that’s it for now – I have to run. I’m meeting some friends in Siegburg in a few hours and I have to check out something in Bonn beforehand. Oh, and before I forget, you have a leaking pipe at the corner of Rue de Sophia and Rue de Clignancourt in Paris (arrondissement #10) and the cliffs at Cap Canaille are in serious need of some guardrails.

Again I would like to thank you for the wonderful visit, I hope to return sometime soon.

Kindest regards, your friend always,

Jason

PS: I saw that you are going to be hosting that Star Wars Identities Exhibit thing next month – just a heads-up: it has nothing to do with the real Star Wars – it’s about the movies.

PPS: I studied French in school for fifteen years so I took it upon myself to translate this letter (to the best of my abilities) so that your citizens who do not understand English can also enjoy it.

<Traduction Libre>

France,

merci pour les vacances. Votre pays est belle.

Merci encore,

Jason

I’m sufficiently well traveled to know that when a local takes me to see the largest / biggest / tallest whatever in the wherever, I’m for sure to be underwhelmed. The enthusiasm for the landmark is appreciated and I don’t mean any offence, but I’m from Canada and I’m pretty sure that if your country has it so do we – but only bigger, better, and in both official languages.

And this phenomenon isn’t just limited to the natural beauty of our natural nature (the Canadian Shield, coastline, icebergs, lakes, and mountains) it also extends to the engineered world (the Welland Canal – best waterway, CN Tower – best tower, Canadian Tire Centre – worst sports arena location).

We also maintain the top position in lots of other areas, but most important is our standings in the many categories found in the domain of population pacification / control (aka sports / entertainment). We have the largest professional sports trophy – the Stanley Cup (will keep growing in size for the foreseeable future). Rob Ford (also increasing in size) is number one in several categories including best, worst, biggest, blondest, and most hilarious city mayor.

And then there’s Justin Bieber – number one distraction. This kid is really bringing it. Keep up your antics my friend – timing your meltdown to coincide with the Olympics was pure genius. It has enabled our government to pass several draconian surveillance laws right in the middle of the NSA scandal and no one even noticed!

So I’m here in the south of France, relaxing in front of the TV after an exciting morning, when one of my co-conspirators informs me that we need to lay low for few hours to wait for things blow over. Elise suggests that we drive up to Cap Canaille the “largest cliffs in all Europe”.

“Sure, I’m game.” I say but what I’m thinking is “Large cliffs? I guess you guys haven’t been to Baffin Island or seen the opening sequence of The Spy Who Loved Me?” which is really strange because it was one of Roger Moore’s stronger Bond outings.

Anyway, so the four of us pile into the car and drive to this place called Cap Canaille. I was expecting a something like the Niagara Escarpment – nice but not that exciting. And man was I wrong – Cap Canaille is awesome!

And by awesome I mean terrifying.

The road to get there is narrow, winding, centre line-missing, and guardrail-deficient. Towering rock faces above us on one side with sheer cliffs on the other. The French government even had to install wire nets to prevent falling boulders from crashing into our car! And once we got up to the top – it was crazy windy (blowing out to sea) and there were no handrails or any barriers whatsoever!

But the danger was worth it – check out these photos. I’m not sure how the panorama is going to look on your computer but in real life it was spectacular. Click on it for full screen.

Props to Elise, Marc, and Arnaud – thanks for setting this up. I give Cap Canaille my highest rating ever “Four Crapped-pants”

Note: Rating system is a sliding scale based on my level of scaredness during a given excursion.

I was invited to the opening semester party at the University of Mannheim Castle building and I can safely say I was NOT in a laid-back frame of mind. Allow me to explain.

First of all it was just above freezing, the event was *outside* and I had left my thermal sweater back at the apartment (I thought we would in indoors). Second there were hundreds of drunk kids drinking glass-bottled-beer (imported from Hamburg?) and dancing outside on this super-slick, rain-soaked stone courtyard – where I come from this is a proven formula for head trauma and lacerations of the foot. Third the DJ was beat blasting (or whatever it is they do) and no one was wearing any ear protection. And finally it started raining and then it started snowing. Oh yeah, and I had not slept in 32 hours, it was dark, everyone was dressed the same (black jackets must be in this winter) and I was honestly worried that I was going to get separated from my crew and never see them again.

Concerning this last point – if you think I wear my awesome orange hoodie to support the Dutch men’s soccer team in international competition you are wrong. Reminder: Dutch soccer and I are still on a timeout after their embarassing-even-by-professional-soccer-standards behaviour at the World Cup final in 2010. I wear that hoodie so I can be easily identified in a crowd – never get lost again!

And despite the thousands of beers consumed at this party, I didn’t see a single broken bottle – event promoters from Canada outside Germany pay attention – they made the partygoers pay a two-Euro per bottle deposit. This system increases profits because a) some of the drunk people will invariably forget to collect their money b) your customers bus their own empties requiring less staff / infrastructure for the event c) there are fewer broken bottles and d) you can use the savings to reduce the cost of drinks to make your events more attractive than those of your competition.

I should have gone into business.

Was nice to catch up with Team Mannheim.

Washroom in Frankfurt Germany has stall with four toilets – double that of Sochi

The number one item trending on Twitter today (#FrankfurtToiletFail) is a story out of Frankfurt Germany about the discovery of a public washroom that has a stall containing four individual toilets. Authorities have stressed that at this time it is not known exactly who was responsible for the stall’s construction and the company that owns the building has refused to comment on the situation. The Internet, on the other hand, is abound with theories with some people blaming the building’s architect while others have said that it looks like a modification to the original design. But either way, local sources are clear about one thing: this particular washroom has been like this for “many years”.

The Frankfurt toilets.

This story comes on the heels of a similar two-toilet scandal in southern Russia. Last month after they first started arriving in Sochi, reporters from all corners of the globe participated in a collective freakout over what appeared to be a minor construction error in the twenty-second Winter Olympiad’s recently-built Visitor Centre. Organizers of the games were quick to point out that this particular oversight was limited to this one washroom and all the other facilities in the building were up to code. The contractor responsible for the error spoke to the media and explained that during construction they discovered the wall that normally separates the two fixtures was the wrong size and it had to be taken offsite to be modified. The barrier was to be the last thing installed in the otherwise functional washroom, but while they were waiting for it to be returned, the crew had already been assigned to another job amidst the chaotic push to have all the venues ready in time for the opening of the Games.

While it is too early speculate on why the Frankfurt stall was built with an unconventional four-fixture configuration, there is one thing that can be asserted with a high degree of confidence. Because of the sheer number of toilets and its many years of existence the Frankfurt stall is much more hilarious than the Russian one. This flies in the face of the mainstream media who had all but declared the Russian toilet story to be the funniest of all time – demonstrating once again that they cannot be relied upon in any capacity to inform us on important matters vital for our democracy to survive. It also shows that people who are serious about the health of our society should stick to citizen reporting – specifically blogs that specialize in toilet-related news.

In addition to the four barrier-free toilets, the Frankfurt stall also contains several other odd features including a pair of fully-functional sinks complete with soap and paper towel dispensers, another smaller stall with a non-traditional “sitting” toilet, and a door that opens out into a hallway connected to the rest of the building.

The mainstream media (MSM) has been making a lot of noise lately about the hilarious toilets in Sochi Russia. From the cardboard doors that amplify the bathroom noises that people normally want to keep muted, to the stall designs that support two individuals instead of one – it seems that one cannot go anywhere or do anything without being bombarded with hundreds of news articles covering the local toilet situation.

And I for one, am not happy with the media’s new focus on toilets. While some people are complaining that it detracts from actual, important problems (like the CBC podcasts I never listen to not working) – my beef is primarily related to the media saturation of a topic that drives the majority of traffic to my blog.

This concern is a legitimate one. Is anyone really going to want to read my toilet posts after a day of reading dozens of articles on the same subject at work? “Probably not” according to my marketing manager.

Oh well, it was a good run.

But I do have to say, as sad as this makes me, I do enjoy the fact that I was almost three years ahead of the curve on this topic. So, if you are curious to know what everyone will be talking about thirty-six months from now, just keep reading my blog.

Hint – think: super-easy-to-use, highly-sexualized, gravity-fed condiment dispensers.

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So the plane landed safely in Frankfurt in what was by far the easiest flight I have ever experienced. Had my own seat. The plane was more than half empty. We had a tailwind; landed 30 minutes early. And I ended up chatting with this Austrian guy who was visiting the GWN on business. When I’m flying I have this thing about asking people what they do (as in I try not to). But after about thirty minutes of talking about how dumb the Olympics are, dude casually mentions what he was doing in Canada. He was selling – get this – German windows!

As regular readers of my blog are undoubtedly aware, German windows are my third favourite thing about Germany (after their trains and toilets). And while technically his company is selling “Austrian” windows we still had a fascinating discussion about the benefits of dual argon, triple argon, and the rarely-seen quad-argon super-screens!

One of the things I was planning to do on this trip was ship back a few dozen German windows and install them in the various rooms of my house but now I don’t have to – my new best friend tells me one of his clients in Rockland will build them for me!

The trip is off to a very good start.

I know the start is good because the first thing I saw after I stepped through the gate into the arrivals section of Frankfurt airport was this store.

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Getting to see Gandalf and Magneto during a taping of the Daily Show in New York City.

Don’t you agree Nick?

One of the best things about New York City is their police vehicles. In Ottawa we have but a single type – the police cruiser. New York has those too but they also have lots of others. My favourite has to be these parking buggies.

Just look at them. Expensive to use and maintain, totally unnecessary for the job at hand (issuing parking tickets – these cops should be on bicycles) and incredibly dangerous (three-wheeled ATVs have been banned in Canada for over a decade now). Incredible.

And yes, the parking cops should be on bikes. I find it ironic that New York (a city founded by the Dutch) is having a difficult time integrating cycling into their existing infrastructure.

The traffic enforcement cars are black. This is because the drivers are on the lookout for the standard white and blue.

I managed to capture an image of a black SUV-type car with flashing police lights. Not sure what’s going on here.

Maybe the President is in town to see Book of Mormon.

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