Posts in Category: Travel
Erie Halloween
To celebrate Halloween in the best ol’ spooky way one knows how, you should do what I did and rent a cabin in the woods. By a lake! Preferably a deserted spot, where it is super grey, windy, and cold, and ideally raining non-stop, and there are lots and lots of windows devoid of any covering so that murderers can watch every move you make. Throw in a lighthouse in the distance, just close enough so that you always know there’s something out there on the water, but far enough that you can’t quite make out if it’s an asylum or what. And don’t forget a really deep basement where the stairs have no handrail, the lights are broken, there’s the constant sound of dripping water, and critters. Thanks, Lake Erie, for being perfect. Check.
Oh, and during the day go for walks to explore the area and realize that every business is shuttered and the population is 45. But no matter! You can ponder how old fossils are and how coral and sea slugs have left their marks for all of time in rock beds but if you were to, say, meet your untimely demise at the hands of a murderer in the woods, just as an example, you’re merely a speck in the fabric of time. Thanks Rock Point Provincial Park, for bringing perspective home. Check.
Oh, and when you get home be sure to watch movies that are slow and creepy and psychologically menacing so that everyone gets ridiculously scared and can’t sleep the whole night and insists that lights be left on the entire time it’s dark, thus allowing previously acknowledged murderers to see you EVEN MORE CLEARLY THAN BEFORE. BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO WINDOW COVERINGS. Thanks, Netflix’ Insidious and Night House. Check.
Then, buzzing from Reese’s Pieces and paranoia, try to sleep. Good luck. Happy Halloween.
California
With another awesome contract under my belt, working feverishly with the Apply Digital folks to build not one, not two, but three sites for their superstar client Moderna, I knew I had to step away from the computer and experience some beauty in real life to unwind and recharge. The goals – to get sunshine and heat (I had missed summer pretty much entirely), to give friends hugs (so much needed), and to see what travelling with a 70lb dog looks life (boarding a dog is way too expensive, the flight cost is infinitely cheaper).
I’ve been to California a handful of times now, and the geography of this state never fails to astound me. There’s just so much here, so much natural beauty. The oceans, the colours, the heat, the flora and the fauna is so different from home. The dryness, that desert earthy dustiness of it, and the smell of eucalyptus and cacti everywhere is wonderful. The state parks are out of this world. Each one is more beautiful than the last, and the people are just… well, they’re happy. And happiness makes you pleasant, and kind, and generous, and good to be around, and chatty and fun. So there’s that.
It’s also so insanely big, so filled with options and people and constant motion that it can be very overwhelming. You have to leave the ridiculous belief that you’ll see it all at the door – it’s just not possible. I saw a banner that read “California is for everyone” and it really is – whoever you are, wherever you come from, whatever you do, you’ll find it here. You’ll find your tribe.
Flying with a dog was shockingly easy. All we needed to do was find a crate (in our case it needed to be hardshelled, big enough so that he could stand comfortably in it, yet small enough that the collective weight of crate and pup did not exceed 100lbs. Once that was sorted, the rest was just the tasks of purchasing a spot for him (~CAD$100), getting documentation from the vet that he was vaccinated and in good health (~CAD$40) and shlepping over to the airport, keeping fingers crossed that he wouldn’t start barking the second we left him at the oversize luggage area. He held it together like a champ, and when we collected him in LA – his cute little face searching the crowds for us and that frenzied tail wagging, still silent – we knew taking him with us was completely the right way to go. We were also super lucky that we found an AirBnb host who loved dogs and shared with us all kinds of tips about where to go and what to do, that his next door neighbour was the friendliest person ever (and a talented artist to boot!) and that LA in general seems to love dogs and didn’t really restrict his access anywhere. Because dining here is 95% outdoor, Remy was able to go with us everywhere, and friends offered to stay with him if we wanted a night on the town on our own. Plus, we stayed in an old part of Hollywood called Whitley Heights that was a hop and a skip from Runyon Canyon, where Remy could run off-leash to his hearts content.
The trip also presented some challenges, mainly for gimpy ol’ me. My first several minutes in the Pacific came to a screeching halt as a stingray angrily speared the base of my right foot. Convinced that I had stepped on a piece of glass and the whole throbbing painful ordeal would only last a minute, I sat on the beach and waited for the pain to subside. When it instead exponentially increased and spread up towards my pelvis, I hobbled over to the nearest lifeguard station and begged for a vial of secret potion that would make all this go away (amputation at that point was also something that I wasn’t completely against). The secret potion came in the form of a foil bag of near-boiling tap water in which I was to essentially cook my foot. The relief was instant, and despite the pieces of stinger exoskeleton that were still lodged in my foot (and presumably would remain ad infinitum) that ordeal could be put behind me. Fuck you Pacific. I get it. You win.
Five days later, just as I was finally able to walk without thinking too much about the healing wound on my foot, a grown Dalmation (presumably in his absolute delight at running after a gorgeous intact Vizsla from a land to the North) forgot his surroundings and failed to maneuver around me as he ran full speed across Huntington Dog Beach. His body made full contact with my right knee, and I fell to the ground in miserable excruciating pain. It was like being hit in the leg with a golf club. As I do, I gave myself a minute for the pain of the impact to subside, convinced that deep breathing and comical wincing would make it all go away. Mostly, it did, but I couldn’t put weight on the leg. Given the direct impact it made sense to me that it should be painful for a while, but when the next morning my knee had swelled to triple its original size and I could put no weight on it without agony, I decided it was best to make sure that nothing was horribly wrong and went for some XRays at an Urgent Care Clinic. Spoiler alert – I survived, but it messed me up for a good two weeks, and those beautiful hikes in Runyon Canyon with Remy went out the window.
When I could walk again without crutches (and just after the US Open Surfing Championships), that’s when there was an oil spill across the California Coast that closed down the OC beaches. I won’t even pretend that this is a poor me moment – the whole thing was shocking for all Californians and pissed off everyone who loves their ocean, their wildlife, and their neighbourhoods. Cleanup efforts are continuing, and I was happy that we didn’t spend double the amount of money on accommodations to be close to the beach. On the flip side, if we had, we wouldn’t have been anywhere near an LAPD standoff a block from our place or a DTLA hostage situation near Central Market.
So I sit here, writing down what’s in my head, left to wonder what I really think of LA and if it’s somewhere I could be long term. I gravitated to San Francisco more but I straight up wouldn’t be able to afford it. John is much more in favour of LA.
Pros: California is incredibly beautiful and the heat and geography are absolutely intoxicating. Gawking at all the unique real estate would keep me busy for 10 years, the houses here are amazing. People you encounter in LA are warm and kind, creativity abounds, and for a kid like me who grew up obsessed with television and movies, everything under the sun is here – the Mattel headquarters. Jim Henson studios. Paramount, Fox, Warner Brothers, Snow White’s house, everywhere you look there is some landmark, some reference to some piece of your childhood that made a serious impact. The food scene is incredible, and on any given night you can find eats from any corner of the universe.
Cons: The sidewalks in the whole city are full of tents, with the homeless, addicts, young kids who ran away from home, and people who either can’t afford housing or simply cannot secure it living there. For someone who walks and does it more for pleasure than practicality, it sucks. You need a car for everything. Walking three blocks takes 10 years, and you’re dodging addicts, beggars and yellers. And don’t dream of just hailing a cab either, that doesn’t exist in LA. You need to explicitly book a rideshare, and there’s so much demand that most of them decline your request, so you either stand on the sidewalk of the restaurant you just got out of for an hour and wait (and pay USD$70 for a ten minute ride) or you take a scooter, if you can find one. For real (on the plus side, when your rideshare does arrive, it could be a Tesla, as was the case with us. We got to zip around town like millionaires and the driver showed off just how much those cars can do).
I think my pros list is longer.
All The World’s A Stage
I believe very strongly that everyone has to find their magic. You have to love something. Anything. If you hate Christmas and believe it to be a religious and capitalist brainwashing nightmare, maybe focus on the fact that seeing your family is fun. If your family makes you nuts, maybe relish in the fact that eggnog is available on the shelves. If eggnog gives you stomach aches, maybe the green and red decorations are grin-worthy. And if those make you want to vomit… well, there’s always theatre (if you hate the theatre I give up, you’re just not trying).
Theatre is magic. Even if you don’t love a show, you must admit that you still kinda like it, the ritual of it. I will never hate it because I applaud what it takes and stands for – the work, the energy, the collaboration, the discussion, the emotion, and often very little payoff other than the job itself. You can’t hate on that, it’s really like hating on snowflakes, and why would anyone hate on snowflakes?
It blows my mind when I understand that someone has rehearsed a play countless times and the energy and emotion with which they deliver the lines is as powerful and raw as if it were utterly spontaneous. How can you maintain that intensity night after night? Where does that come from? I met Ben Turner while I was in Brooklyn, I thought he was beautiful and awesome and completely adored him from second one, so I went to see his show, The Jungle. I think my utter ignorance to the fact that this show is a complete phenomenon taking over the theatre world was a plus, otherwise I might have been intimidated by the whole ordeal and not bothered. People were audibly sobbing during the show (my boyfriend nearly being one of them – he left the theatre looking like he was hit by a truck). Ben Turner was absolutely astounding. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Yes, it’s an ensemble cast and very poor form for me to not focus on the fact that everyone was great (which they absolutely were) but he’s undeniably the lead and he carried it like a champ. That’s a powerhouse performer right there, Toronto needs to experience this. I am now obsessed with what it would take for something like this to come to my city (and where? Crowsnest? I need to talk to someone about logistics).
So as happens always when I see something I love, I now am trying to convince everyone I know to see it. And I do have to thank Netflix for bringing theatre to my parents, who can no longer be dragged around by me to wait in rush lines and for whom simply running around downtown is becoming less and less feasible every day. They were able to enjoy, from the comfort of their coziness, Steve Martin and Martin Short, Bruce Springsteen, and several other Broadway goodies.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Is there anything as exhilarating as live theatre? My mind is blown each time I experience 2+ hours of flawlessness, devoid of broken ankles, flubbed lines, or coughing fits. John and I took a chance and waited outside the Apollo Theatre to see if any of the sold out run tickets would somehow make their way back to the Box Office and into our hot little [tin roof] hands, and they did indeed. A young student whose friends could not go passed to us absolutely fantastic seats – and John can now die a happy man, having seen the most naturally beautiful woman of our generation – that would be Sienna Miller, of course – in the most seductive performance he’s seen from her to date. There’s this tomboyishness about her mannerisms and her gait that makes it impossible to take your eyes off of her, and her acting was superb. Colm Meaney’s Big Daddy I hated with all my soul (which just confirms what an amazing job he did) and the set – ah again, those glorious set designers – was great.
Try to see it, somehow.
Talking to Travellers and Theatre Therapy
What do you do when you love theatre and you have four nights alone in New York City?
You binge. Oh baby, you binge, on theatre and on food (and it’s also partly a trick question, because you’re never really alone in New York City).
Night 1: Grabbed a great last-minute ticket to 1984, and since we’re in a dystopia and times are tight, 99¢ pizza. My interest in seeing this show was mainly to see Tom Sturridge (whom I loved in American Buffalo), Olivia Wilde (whom I’ve met in person at Artists for Peace and Justice events and really like, so I wanted to applaud her in her Broadway debut), and the fact that I loved the book. I quite enjoyed the play, but it was really violent and had tons of strobe effects, which distracted me from the story.
Night 2: Despite everyone telling me I didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting any kind of rush seats to it, I actually got a fantastic last-minute ticket to see Hamilton, and in the process met the two sweetest Puerto Rican ladies in line that couldn’t have been prouder of Lin-Manuel Miranda. This show truly is everything that everyone says it is – I’ve never seen the public this happy and energetic at the theatre (ok, maybe Book of Mormon was a bit like that). Choreography was mild-blowing. Performances were astounding. There was no weak link. For me, Brian d’Arcy James as King George and Gregory Treco as Burr totally floored me, James for his comedic delivery and Treco for his vocals. Afterwards, starving and singing, I had trainwreck fries at Virgil’s because it’s a medley of everything from everywhere and well… it seemed fitting!
Night 3: Sweeney Todd at Barrow Theatre was fantastic, again, chatted to the box office before showtime and they had “secret seats that they rarely use” that were the only ones not sold, and gave them to me pretty cheap. The play came as a recommendation from the staff at Joseph Leonard, where I popped in for dinner, and darling Drew (who let me sit there way past my welcome and offered tips on great NYC spots) found out for me what the hot ticket in the area was.
Night 4: I thought that perhaps with the luck that I’ve been having grabbing tickets to difficult-to-snag shows that maybe I could see Oscar Isaac in Hamlet at the Public Theatre in Noho. Alas, it was an invite-only opening night event, and not even with my charm could I schmooze my way in. “Don’t you know who my father is?” I joked to the staff. They smiled that smile where you like someone but you’re not 100% sure that they’re not insane. I did see John Turturro in the lobby, and smiled broadly, hoping that it would translate into “you’re fantastic, I love you” without disturbing him during his private time.
I have much respect for Apple, by the way, for adding a theatre mode to the Apple Watch that minimizes disturbance during performances. I need to talk myself out of a snarky remark whenever I see a theatregoer activating their phone screen when the house lights are dimmed, so this is at least a nice gesture (although fifty bucks says no one ever remembers to actually enable it).
A small lobster meal at Lobster Place at Chelsea Market. Have been eyeing these babies every time I’ve been there, and resisted the urge. This time I treated myself, and as I sucked every last morsel out of every foot, crevice, and antenna, passersby looked at me with genuine amusement.
My flight home was interesting. Trump had shut down the airspace around NYC to fly to a golf game in the afternoon, so flights were completed messed up. Mostly cancelled, though some delayed, but basically no airline could recover afterwards, since once a chunk of day goes, delays just cascade down and it all falls apart. Newark International was complete chaos, filled to the brim with seething, self-important travellers, and in my calmness I did manage to somehow get hooked-up as a standby passenger on the last flight out (at 23:30, landing in Hamilton, which had me home at 3am). In all the screaming and threatening and customer service calls and apologetic service personnel that madly swirled about what I noticed was this: the way people come together and connect in times of disruption can be awesome. Completely overlooking the jerks, the remainder of folks kind of laughed it off, knew there was little that was in their control, sat together at the airport restaurant, had some drinks, met strangers, compared notes on where they were going, where they had been, where they were from. Typically, it’s such a cold, solitary environment – everyone in their world, on their phones, having somewhere to be, in their bubble. In this situation, there was nothing to do but wait and see, so people put their phones down (which contained wholly inaccurate information anyway) and chatted, met each other, commiserated. What stood out to me was people helping each other, comparing notes on what information they had, which flight was cancelled and which wasn’t, where to get some food, where they could charge their phones, where free coffee and water was, what remaining flights still had seats. Years and years ago, I met a man with his wife in a pizzeria in Tuscany, and without my asking for advice on life or anything, he looked at me and said “remember this one thing: always talk to people”.
That’s always stayed with me.
Canada’s Birthday Present
Well if this isn’t the most exciting news since I learned that you can buy Oreo cookies without the filling, I don’t know what is – admission to Canada’s National Parks will be free in 2017 to commemorate Canada’s 150th anniversary. That’s pretty amazing, and a great reason to pack up your car, make some PB&J sammies, and hit the road to discover all the beauty that this country has to offer.
I will be celebrating the occasion with a bunch of amazing people and amazing Canadian geography. Because what is Canada if not a spectacularly beautiful place?
Cyclepath
I have a serious attachment to my bicycle. I’ve never been particularly aware of it, but I’ve been in London for a month now and I’ve finally understood what that pang in my heart is about. Have you ever seen a kid staring at you wide eyed and licking their lips absently as you eat an ice cream cone near them? That’s how I stare at cyclists. Like a desert hiker without water.
I have the same attachment to my bicycle that I think people have to their pets. I love it without reservation for it has never led me astray. It’s not like that boy that you love madly but he’s always let you down so you’ll never really trust him. It’s like the one who’s never let you down so you love him even more.
It’s a recurring symbol of my life. My mom’s husband taught me how to ride a bike when I was 6, it was pink and had one of those wooden sticks in the back so that he could control it and keep me from knocking my teeth in. He might as well have taught me how to fly. Once I mastered stickless tricks, I bolted over to my friend’s house and got the crap kicked out of me by grandma when I came home long after dark because I lost track of time.
When I met a boy at a young urban dinner party eight years ago, he asked me out for a bike ride. I was in my mid-twenties, and surrounded by peers who drove BMWs and drank martinis and wore really high Jimmy Choo’s and talked about investment and mortgages and were super serious and super mature. I was none of these things. When he checked my tires for air and filled them up without hesitation, I knew I had met a kindred spirit.
And then, well, Amsterdam. Then there’s that.
I’m a kid. I think I know now that I always will be. But that little shit who got her wings at 6 in a crummy concrete Gdansk playground learned how to breeze through the toughest of times on two wheels that day. And that stays.
Notes on London
1. Buildings have names. You might work for Starbucks, but your office will be in Commander House or Senator House or something similar. How lovely.
2. People vape here. A lot. I never understood where the market was for these things since I never really encountered them in Amsterdam or Toronto. Now I know.
3. When I’m coming home from work at 6 pm or whatever, newsboys are handing out the London Evening Standard Post on every busy corner. It’s adorable.
4. Everybody seems to eat porridge for breakfast, and it’s offered as ubiquitously in eateries as donuts in Canada.
5. Hawksmoor has a full fat old fashioned that will make you think you’ve died and gone to heaven
6. You’ll get the best Pakistani meal at Tayyabs and pay so little that you’ll quicken your step on the way out, assuming that they’ve made an error and will getcha
7. Hackney Broadway Market is lovely.
8. The London buses are far superior in every way to the under- and over-ground
9. The Brick Lane Beigel House will feed you for a quid. No joke. You’ll be a little scared of the owner, who’s super no-fuss and will bark for your order and practically whip it at you from across the counter, but you’ll instantly forgive her ‘cuz she’ll call you “Lovey”
10. I reckon only 10% of people in London are British. Everyone is from everywhere.
11. If you want to go to Rennie Scott’s you’d dang better reserve ahead. It’s sold out every single time I try.
Ninja Tune
Ninja Tune is probably my favourite label, responsible for keeping me in my bubble of happiness during my every day from the 90s onwards. Herbalizer, Mr Scruff, Cinematic Orchestra, Bonobo, Andreya Triana and most recently Yppah, and countless other fantastic, moody, meticulous artists have been signed by them. The office is not too far from where I am, so I went for a wander. Unassuming and without signage, passersby looked at me quizzically as I stood there smiling at it, thanking it for the years of aural medication.
And on the way back, passed the Ministry of Sound. Double whammy!