Three Countries, Three Days — GO!!

As the Internet has been fixed – I am catching up on my adventure stories and travels.

As historical interpreters, we are encouraged to participate in ongoing learning activities, both on our own as well as opportunities provided by Veterans Affairs. Because the sites are operated everyday, the guide group split into two and we embarked on a Belgian road trip which cumulated in the Meningate Ceremony.

Beautiful weather, road snax and soda with breakfast greeted a group of very excited guides. How often do you (a) get to go on field trips as a grown up and (b) get paid for the fun? Answer – rarely !! Best job EVER!

We spent the day touring critical monuments and battle field sites, while taking turns interpreting the sites visited. It was a great chance to hear my fellow superstar guides in action.

The first site was a cemetery for soldiers from India, a dominion at the time of the ‘Great’ War.

My favorite site visited was the monument commemorating the darkest day in Australian military history, when more soldiers were killed in 24 hours than WW2, and all military involvement since all together. The monument shows a man carrying a fallen or wounded comrade. It is named for ‘buddy’, known in Australian parlance as ‘cobbers’.

We ended up in Ypres — for lunch then returned later for the Meningate ceremony.

The Cloth Hall in the square houses, among other things, the In Flanders Fields Museum – which is amazing !!

The displays were really amazing and terrifying – including a display of gas masks in floor to ceiling tubes that slowly filled with gas and a room with vintage footage paired with lights and a transparent floor that when lit up, revealed mannequins and barbed wire.

We continued the tour around the afternoon and returned to Ypres for the evening ceremony, the last post and to meet up with the other guides (who’d done the trip earlier that week)

Although I feel conflicted at times about the story of war that I share as a guide, the last post could move even the staunchest of peaceniks. Every single day since the end of World War One ended, there has been a musician to play the last post at 8pm in Ypres, at the gate. Surrounded by over 54,000 names of men of Commonwealth who have no known graves, and by the men of the London Regiment, I felt the squishy mixed up sense of pride – that men would sacrifice themselves for my freedom – and terror – that we still need soldiers after all these years. The Great War was the one to end them all.

After the ceremony was finished, myself, Colin, Becky and Lisette drove onwards to Brussels and beyond. Getting used to the GPS was a bit of a challenge, especially considering the hilarious roundabouts in Europe and surprise tunnels in Brussels. When we arrived, the hostel was already closed. Things were a bit tense when I spotted a hotel across the street. I figured it was worth a try but based on the chic European lobby, it was probably going to be too costly. I negotiated (in French and English) for two double rooms for 60€ each — SCORE! this was only 10€ more than the hostel and it included breakfast.

We quickly changed and headed out on the town. The bar we headed to was called Delirium and came highly recommended by our boss. With over 2000 beers and a really bumping song selection (think Reta circa 1998-2004 – The Offspring, Soundgarden, the Breeders, Smashing Pumpkins — heaven!)

My peeps enjoying a good looking and well earned drink!

The evening rolled into the early morning and photos exist of me arm-wrestling an American who bought the table some rounds of drinks.
We stumbled out of Delirium, across the drink and did shots of absinthe that involved somehow burning sugar cubes.

Some randos that we met – one of them later got pick pocketed out of 300€ – so I bought him a drink. Well, it is just being a good Canadian.

The next morning and check out came all too soon. I missed the sightseeing because of the fright of a temporarily misplaced iPhone. But I had taken this pic on the way to the bar.

Quick sandwich note for future
European travelers: if the sandwich is ‘simple’ cheese, meat, butter; ‘composee’ all that plus salad, tomatoes and maybe mustard or mayo; ‘american’ either of those topped with FRIES – can you imagine?

I had a ham and cheese composee that had hard boiled egg on it. Weird, right?

So – quick sandwich and on the road for Luxembourg. Not much to report – I immediately fell asleep and missed most of the countryside.

Luxembourg is tiny, rich and multilingual. They have a golden girl (remember our golden boy? A match made in bling bling heaven)

The city is very reinforced and quite beautiful.

We hilariously ate at this restaurant, where there was an ashtray in the bathroom.

My favorite fountain in Luxembourg.

Raclette or the Art of Scraping Cheese

On a beautiful day recently, myself and my roommate Laura Riggs took our show on the road. After a perhaps foggy morning (read also: much libation consumed the night before) we decided to enjoy the regional speciality of raclette. Now I have bought a cheese at the grocery store called Raclette and it is this cheese that forms the basis of this dish.

Raclette is a very firm and smooth cheese, that melts well. The first time I bought it, the woman asked (in French) if I knew how to eat it. (with my mouth, I thought) Turns out you want to melt it on potatoes or meat. I made the best grilled cheese baguette, let me tell you.

So our responsable (supervisor) Andre was the one who told us about the restaurant and given that he has not steered me wrong yet – off we went.

The first thing that hits you when you walk through the door is literally a wall of odoriferous cheese smell. I had a bit of trouble breathing for a few minutes. We realized that the strength of the cheese wave was due to the presence of Maroille on the menu. (A side story on the presence of this cheese is that one of the guides bought and it was consumed during an evening of drinking. Another guide strongly believed someone had stepped in the ever-present dog poo and went around checking everyone’s shoes. The cheese is strong and smelly.)

We order the raclette nature and the waiter immediately jumps into action. He’s plugging in cords, bringing us a new table, and it’s lunchtime so everyone else is eating much lighter than us and not getting the raclette setup. Oh feeling like tourists.

Special Raclette tools

The arrival of the inedibly large piece of cheese, followed by learning just how close to put the hot iron that is in the side of the little ‘cheese house’ – success — melted cheese!

This is not just a cheese dinner. We were brought a bucket of steamed potatoes and a plate of charcuterie (it is fancy for cold cuts)

This was an impossibly delicious way to spend a lunch hour with Laura. We were both quite pleased with everything.

The one challenge was – are we breaking culinary/cultural taboos to not finish the cheese?

Othering with Pop

Things in France are alternately foreign and familiar. My belief is that Canada, as a European colony, likely bears the cultural mark of both the French and English. (I think John Ralston Saul said something like this.)

Which is why I was so surprised to see the following Orangina labels. I decided to taste and photograph them all, to share with you at home.

This flavor is peach – if you have read ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ this fits. There are certain comparisons made within the text between a woman’s sexuality and the ripening of fruit.

It seems that the flavours are in pairs – Samurai is lemon flavored and probably my second least favorite.

This may be actually my favorite flavor. Imagine Orangina with black currant grenadine. The image is clearly classist.

These last two defy academic or even playful description. There is supposed to be a cowboy flavor (in pairs, remember?) but it is mint flavored orange juice and I forgot to take the picture when I bought it. It is awful!

I will leave off with this. Orangina is very popular here in France and Belgium ( I did not see it as much in Britain) But what we are seeing are culturally appropriate images. No one thinks they are being offensive.

What would Canadian Orangina look and taste like?

Play it again, Sam!

One of the benefits of living in France is being much closer to a whole host of travel possibilities. While my weekend took me to Belgium and Luxembourg, this week saw me in exotic Casablanca. Having grown up on the Canadian Prairies, traveling to North Africa seems truly foreign, and like an opportunity for insight into another culture and people. This past semester, we read ‘Culture and Imperialism’ by Edward Said and I was keen for a field experience of the thresholds between myself and the Other.

My fellow adventurers, guides like myself, and I left Arras for Paris on Wednesday – 9 March. This was my first time back to Paris since I flew over it and trained away from it my first day here. We headed to the Great Canadian, an expat bar that boasts Moosehead and chicken wings (although disappointingly they were out of clamato – so no Ceasars) I drank the house beer (the waitress didn’t know about Sleemans?) and ordered a cheeseburger, which was excellent. It was refreshing to be able to speak English without getting stared at and while the decor is a bit kitsch (think Kelseys crossed with the Parliament) it was fun to see provincial flags, old hockey team pictures and growl about a Rough Riders pennant behind the bar (I don’t even know why – but got to hate the Rough Riders)

This is the four of us after discovering that we’d missed the last subway train to the airport, where our hotel awaited us. What follows was a hilarious challenge to find a way to get out there. In the end, the solution turned out to be a night bus. Sadly there are no pictures – it may have been a bit dodgy. Eventually we ended up at the hotel for a well deserved nap of roughly 1.5 hours before our early morning flight.

All cabs in Casablanca are all Mercedes Benz – white, old and without seatbelts. We sat Colin in the front to be on the safe side. Found the hotel – word to the wise – three star in North Africa is not the same as Europe or North America. Having said that – the hotel was lovely, the owner/desk man was awesome and it was very conveniently located.

We headed out to explore the markets and streets of Casablanca. The hotel was located inside the old medina – which is a walled or fortified portion of a city. There were many beautiful shops specializing in leather shoes, lamps, and exotic and unfamiliar trinkets.

There were few objectives – Rick’s Cafe, the world’s second largest mosque and a Turkish spa.

We walked and walked in the hot sun a short distance from the ocean. However, there is plenty of construction and a new marina is underway.

You are able to see the mosque from quite a distance and it is quite beautiful. The style was both familiar and unique.

Rick’s Cafe for lunch was one of my most memorable dining experience of this trip certainly. The wait staff was respectful and attentive, the food was delicious and the bread was never ending. (http://www.rickscafe.ma/index.htm)

A house cocktail – JD Sour. Quite possibly one of the strongest drinks I have ever consumed.

We headed to the Turkish spa which boasted so much nudity that there are no pictures. The experience was profound. Between the woman and myself, there was no lingua franca yet it was a sort of kinesthetic communication. When we arrived, we were separated by gender so we bid farewell to Colin who would be independent for his spa experience. The attendant took our money and handed us baskets to put our clothes in. In the basket was a tiny slip of fabric, ostensibly to cover ourselves. Being the Canadian giant that I am, the slip was either going to cover the top or the bottom. I opted to leave my underwear on and cover the top. Once we walked in, it was clear that this was going to be a different sort of spa experience.

In North America, there seems to be so much anxiety about our bodies as manifested by pressure from the media and the underlying Puritanical body ethos. With our obsession with our bathing suit areas, spa treatments can be fraught with stressful moments of body awareness. Between being splashed in the face with warm water and having every inch of my body scrubbed pink, I felt my North American body anxieties being washed away. A sauna and a massage were also included in the package. Once we emerged from the massage, our underwear were pointed at and the hand gesture that followed clearly was to indicate that this was the part of the experience when we would lose our panties. Having had nights like this, I paused for a moment and went with it. I was then wrapped in plastic with hot seaweed paste everywhere.

Between the three of us, a new comradeship was born. The kind that can only come from being completely outside of the norm, in a new cultural encounter, without the language to articulate exactly what happened.

Our intrepid explorers – at the Casablanca airport. Which incidentally allows smoking.