Happy Eostre and Easter from Belgium!

Easter last year was dinner with (full-grown) family then a midnight flight to Nicaragua. This year is a little different, in one very large (and very small) way.

A small smile keeps coming back as I remember my own childhood Easters. Putting hard-boiled eggs in copper wire holders, and lowering them into dye that will forever come to mind when I smell vinegar. Then hunting for those eggs in my grandparents' backyard (there was always one hidden by the frog fountain) before a big British brunch where we consumed far more cholesterol than would be permitted nowadays.

In Belgium the eggs are chocolate, and finding them was a no-nonsense pursuit for the day's red-cheeked focal point, who went about the task with meticulous care and stalwart enthusiasm. (Suddenly I suspect she is an old soul who still holds pagan fertility symbols to be serious business.)

We also, appropriately enough, are taking care of the neighbors' pet for a week while they go skiing. The pet? A rabbit. Delivered the day before Easter. “Kijk! Een konijntje!”

A very happy Easter and/or Eostre Day to all of you.

The country is freezing, and in unrelated news: if I stay too long I'll have to eat the ones I love.

Spring is waiting for something this year. It's the first time Belgium has had this much snow in mid-March since 1952, it's the coldest March (23^rd at least) since 1873, and the big storm a couple weeks ago led to a record length of 1,038 miles of traffic jams during rush hour (which, by my rough google maps calculations, is enough to span the length of Belgium upwards of five times).

Personally I think Spring is being polite, and waiting until we install the blinds on the full-length bathroom windows so that when the neighbors return to their backyards they won't be able to chat with us while we're in the shower.

Is that fresh lemonade? Can I have some? Let me just finish shampooing real quick, as you can see, I'm almost done.

The house may be under construction (which doesn't bother me in the slightest), but I consider it a lottery win to have found. Not only is it nice inside, good location, and great roommate/owner, but it has chickens.

And not just any chickens, they are two Chinese silkies who are nearly never more than a meter apart, have curious personalities, and have promised me eternal love in exchange for the wax rind off the gouda cheese that I eat massive quantities of.

I give them different names every time I see them. Right now they're Agnes and Maurice. Yesterday they were Mortimer and Gertrude, Rupert and Maximilian before that.

But for now I am enjoying my walks around our new hometown of Lier. There is a rather impressive public swimming pool complex with a normal lap-swim pool, sauna, steambath, and four other pools of various temperatures and currents for kids the kids; the open Grote Markt central plaza is all repaired after a plumbing project last year found remains of a Roman chariot; and the library has a reading cafe where I sat for a few hours with the English-language guide book for Sri Lanka I found.

In other news, I am now going to Sri Lanka.

But first, it's chilly strolls in my boots (which do not travel with me, despite being made for walking), periodic indulgences in Belgian food (fries of course, plus beer-based beef stew, chocolate, and a tasty homemade rabbit stew, and waffles asap), and the upcoming spectacle of K's ridiculously adorable niece hunting for Easter eggs.

We'll just have to see how much ice there is on Sunday before deciding whether the hunt is indoors or out.

I can't help it. When it comes to homophobia, a sentence or two just isn't enough.

I try very very hard to respect the beliefs of others, and in most cases I succeed pretty well, I think.

I personally think there should be more limits on guns, but I can recognize the validity of others' fears regarding a world where the government has all the weapons. (And I'll avoid any more examples to not get off track.)

But I cannot respect the beliefs of hate groups, and to me it is clear that homophobia falls into that category.

I respect the Bible and that people hold it dear. That's great. But to pick one verse out of the swamp of outdated sentiments in there, many of which are downright criminal in modern times, and use it to justify discriminating against people for being gay? That makes no sense to me.

(Have you ever eaten pork or seafood, done any work on a Sunday, or gotten a haircut? Do you think they should all be illegal too?)

You can think homosexuality is icky. Sure. If someone ever tries to force you to watch gay porn, I'll be right there to help you escape. But taking your unease and using it to inhibit, disrespect, and damage the lives of people who have done nothing whatsoever wrong to you or anyone else? Just because it gives you the heebie-jeebies? That I cannot abide.

I wonder how many anti-gay-rights individuals have set aside the particulars of this issue, and really honestly tried to imagine what it would really feel like for others to tell you that you are wrong for being the way you are. That you are not free to be with the person you love, and that society will not recognize your commitment to each other. To imagine all the hatred and bigotry directed at you, when you haven't done any harm to anyone. Really tried to feel that compassion.

I didn't want to get off track, but look, here we are. This is perhaps the single issue that gets me the most riled up.

I meant this to be a silly little post (giggling at a label for crying out loud) about how I don't currently own any US Supreme Court justices, but K and I are trying to send out some subtle psychic signals to help them make the right choice, and having a heartfelt toast to equality, gay rights, and human progress.

And then I was going to tell you about how we somewhat set the house on fire while cooking a lasagna tonight, but I'm perilously close to 400 words, and I can feel your attention wandering.

Good night, good loving, and human rights to all.

Even being mauled by a wild animal was...familiar.

Back in Western Europe, the Low Countries, my second home. It felt good to be back, Dutch felt like a familiar game, more familiar to me than baseball now, with more players and matches everywhere.

I was back in the land with the world's best public transportation, stunning cultural density, and a dismal grasp of breakfast. My first morning I found a place with bagels, which were nearly unheard of over here a few years ago but are gaining traction quickly. I sat and watched the two-wheeled commuter traffic, feeling the flow of the universe.

(There are more pictures on the other version of the blog.)

After switching to the proper hotel I was considering the trek back across Amsterdam, but found a nice little cafe that served warm but delicious coffee, good brown bread, and K's essential: fruit salad with yogurt and granola.

There was one other selling point. His name was Sam, he was always precocious, sometimes welcoming, and absolutely insane. K and I ended up coming back here every morning, and Sam was happy to see us...

Anticipation, back hair, and falafel in Amsterdam

It was a few degrees below zero in Toronto but I felt fine, and as long as I didn't spend too much time in the shade I enjoyed my walks. It was a few degrees below zero in Reykjavik but I felt warm enough, and as long as I stayed out of the wind, and I enjoyed my walks.

It was a few degrees above zero in Amsterdam and I was frickin' freezing, lingered longer indoors and curtailed my walks, though in that city of canals, living history, and global exchange, I enjoyed every step. Was it the humidity? Had I burned off some burrito-bestowed belly insulation already? Was the enthusiasm of being overseas calming into a rhythm?

I don't know, but I'm glad I had enough traveler enthusiasm to protect me when I walked into my hostel in Amsterdam. Claustrophobic spaces of slowly splintering wood, stale smoke, and a bare florescent bar bulb a high pitch of scream abrading both ear drum and retina.

Welcome back to hostel living.

A scrawny traveler in dingy boxer shorts and back hair was asleep in twisted sheets, 1:30 PM, in a musty room with six metal bunk-beds, four battered lockers, and one window. It was hard to tell if one of the lockers was available, with two bottles of nearly empty hard liquor, an empty plastic bag, and a little plastic box (just the size for drug transport) rattling ominously.

The thought crossed my mind “Am I too old for this?”

I put the bottles, bag, and box next to the overflowing garbage can, slid my backpack in the locker, and went looking for someplace warm to drink a cup of tea.

I had one last night alone before meeting K at the airport and starting/returning to a whole new/familiar world of living, questions and answers, and relationship. And I was hungry for all of it.

But first the more immediate hunger that defines a substantial percentage of backpacker life. A chain I remember from Spain apparently lives in The Netherlands too, where the falafels are cheap, and you can fill the pita with as much veggie topping as you like. I spoke Dutch with an Indian woman, snow like salt crystals on chairs stacked beside useless outdoor cafes, and the bicycle traffic never stops.

It felt good to be there.

The sleepy adventure of a stoned zombie (nearly) in the Arctic

If a plane leaves Toronto at 8:10 PM for a 5 hour flight to Reykjavik, what time does it arrive?

If you said 6:25 AM, you're either extremely aware of time zones and flight itineraries, or seriously bad at arithmetic, but either way, you're right.

Assuming an early bedtime of roughly 10:00 PM, it was a three hour night, but since the plane was full of 6,000 Canadian schoolchildren starting their holidays, plus they had Office Space in their movie selection, I didn't sleep a single airmile.

So I had the distorted reality of the tired traveler when I got off the plane in the bright rays of a dawn just below the Arctic Circle. Luckily those Icelanders run a tight ship, and a zombie could navigate the process of picking up your luggage, getting through customs, and boarding the bus into town. In fact, it would take a fairly sharp mind to do it any other way. (The reward would be saving some money, since nothing on the island costs less than 1,000 krona, about $10.)

Those bright dawn rays stayed with me for the hour-ish bus ride and transfer, and stayed steady while I checked into my hostel then went looking for breakfast. The light and empty streets suggested it was about 5:00 AM, but it gradually seeped into my distorted reality that it had been just after dawn for an awful long time. It was 9:30.

“Woah” I said to myself, exhaustion making me a stoner, “I'm, like, really far north.”

Outside my hostel was a long bicycle and walking path along the icy waters of the North Atlantic, and the waves sent the wind to remind me they could kill me in under a minute if they felt like it.

I walked along the path, found some wine, a Viking-inspired sculpture, and an alien's Rubik's cube. It was Harpa, the new concert hall in Reykjavik, and the bus driver had informed me “it's among the Top 10 buildings on Earth for acoustics, here in Reykjavik, thank you very much.”

It was quite a structure, though I was not lucky enough to hear any acoustics beyond the footfalls of camera-toting tourists. One thing the driver hadn't mentioned was the stupendously inviting couches...long enough to stretch out on...in out-of-the-way places where no one would notice a sleeping backpacker...and the glass walls bring the temperature to a deliciously perfect level in there...

I came close, very close, to napping in the Harpa, but stumbled my steps back into the wind to explore more of Reykjavik.

It wasn't the Northern Lights that made me catty

Where am I? Am I on a bus? Why is someone on a PA system telling me stuff about the Northern Lights?

Maybe a midnight Northern Lights tour was not the best choice after a sleepless red-eye flight to Iceland from Toronto, but I only had one chance. Apparently aurora borealis goes in 12 year cycles, and this year was the peak, albeit the weakest one since record-keeping began.

I woke up more completely when we reached Thingvellir, which the guide informed us was were Iceland's Parliament was formed in 930. Called the “Althing” (which yes, means “all-thing”) it is the oldest parliamentary body in the world. It looked like a parking lot in the middle of nowhere to me, but then again, I was asleep and it was pitch black, so what do I know?

A 1,083 year-old governing body? Impressive. A house that makes it to 100 in my hometown becomes an official historical landmark. (Though 1,083 is middle age for a redwood tree. Nothing tops my redwoods. No arboreal pun intended.)

10 busloads of us shuffled straight into a cafeteria where we stood elbow to kidney, DSLRs clacking against one another, wondering if we'd see anything. The trip had been canceled every night for the last week on account of weather, but the Travel Gods were smiling and the night was clear, though there's still no guarantee. The guides said to wait inside and they'd tell us if something started happening.

What would aurora borealis look like. How fast does it actually move? I had the idea that all the clips I'd ever seen were time-lapse, but wasn't sure. Would we be able to run outside and see anything? Would it be a mad stampede of screaming and swearing in a dozen languages? That might be as fun to watch as the Lights...

How do you say “Get out of my way you camera-toting jackass” in Icelandic?

Then the cork was pulled and well-wrapped bodies were surging for the door. We stumbled out onto the unlit plain and looked up into the starry sky, eyes pinched shut against the cold, but ready for brilliance.

There was some confusion. I heard “um...is that it over there?” in Japanese and German.

There was a pale milky streak like a wimpy cloud hanging over the hillside to the north. But if you watched it long enough you'd notice that it was in fact slowly shifting and changing. I huddled next to my new Taiwanese buddy Jin, taking pictures between moderately successful efforts to keep blood flowing in my fingers.

They looked like this.

It was a rare case where the camera's perspective is better than the eye's, the milky blur showing up as emerald variation. But even a milky smear is gorgeous when you're sitting in an Icelandic field with a few gajillion stars overhead. I love this planet.

After an hour and a half we ran into our Australian roommates, who told us there were two posts with buckets on top where you could rest your camera. That sounded promising.

We headed back out but found the buckets occupied by some dedicated non-sharers. The first was an Englishman taking black pictures, unable to set the shutter speed on his expensive Nikon that was well beyond his ability. He was a skilled at muttering swear words though.

The second was a tiny Japanese lass who was taking dozens of identical pictures with her point-and-click. In my family we call this “Shamu-ing” after my brother used an entire roll of film at SeaWorld taking identical pictures of the famous killer whale as a black speck way in the distance.

I got lucky here, that's a meteorite entering on the left

I'd already burned off the day's body heat, and we were running out of long frozen minutes. I stood politely, waiting, freezing in the glacier's breath, and my patience leaked out and formed icicles from my cold-clawed fingertips. Then I started to lose my cool in the cold of the Icelandic countryside.

I would never push someone out of my way, but...good god, enough! The icicles cracked and I got catty.

“Would you mind sharing the post?” I asked. Politely enough.

“Ah, hmm, ah, just a minute.” One more. Then one more. Another.

“No problem, take another fifty or sixty if you like.” Crack. Meow.

The Englishman picked his expensive paperweight up and wandered off into the darkness, presumably intent on Nikonicide. Several of us pounced, and eventually I took a few, but most were ruined by the Japanese lass futzing with her flashlight, which doesn't go well with 30 second exposures and a fencepost in the foreground.

I had a chance to try again though, and got this nice fuzzy one by zooming out over the course of the 30 second exposure. I really should get a tripod so I can experiment and figure this stuff out.

That chick never did let anyone else go (and she had the better bucket, without the post) but it wasn't too hard to focus on the aurora in front of me, boreal breath of the gods, and I returned to Reykjavik with a happy heart in a frozen body.

Three hours of sleep, then a flight to Amsterdam.

Niagara Falls: Eminem v. your grandma in the zombie apocalypse

Something went wrong in Niagara Falls. It's a place utterly defined by a piece of stunning natural beauty, artwork of the gods, yet is framed by the flabby vultures of casinos, savory as piles of crusted pus.

Good morning!

That was my feeling in Niagara, at least the first half, as it struck me as a prime example of the overlapping and concurrence of the sacred and the profane. What should be a temple to tangible spirituality, awe, and gratitude is instead devoted to the counterfeit capitalist god of the dollar.

The town seemed to be dominated by aggressive-looking Eminems with bad posture under oversized clothing who only left the house to walk their pit bull to the corner store to buy more booze. I looked at the towering casinos and wondered how they'll come down. Environmental catastrophe, war, and zombie apocalypse are my best guesses. I love the idea of their deliberate disassembly by a humanity that has rediscovered its divine capacity and benevolently retires the mistaken decadence of the past century...but I think zombies are more likely.

On the ride out I'd again marveled at people's ability to peer in and tap on their cell phones for hours on end, and I suspected the zombies are already here. They're not the risen dead, just the mentally and spiritually e-mutiliated.

But then I had lunch. As my blood sugar rose, my spirits went with it.

I enjoyed my fast food, white bread sandwich provided by Tim Horton's (aka the Canadian Starbucks) while sitting on the floor in front of large windows tinted white by endless mineral deposit of evaporated spray.

The first person I people-watched while I ate my “hearty” vegetable soup was a girl of indeterminate age who flung three pieces of paper over the edge. My jaw dropped, chicken salad splattering everywhere, as I marveled at someone so immune to beauty that they would want to throw their garbage into it.

But I kept chewing, and noticed the father and daughter who threw snowballs instead and watched them fall into the torrent, then clapped. And there were the couples, kissing in front of the vista while a friend took their picture, smiles all around. Or the honeymooners, holding hands crammed in a pocket against the chill.

I went outside, felt the spray on the back of my neck, and laughed out loud.

The last piece of my perception was the town itself. I come from a tourist destination too, and am well accustomed to hearing people bitch about visitors. They don't know where they're going, jack up prices, and take all the parking! Mah! MAH!

What are we, a whole town of Dick Cheneys?

But it seems to me that, as I mentioned in my last post, humans have the capacity to choose their reality. You can bitch about the foreigners, or you can take pride in the place you live, that people would want to come visit it.

On my walk to the falls I passed houses with giant “NO TRESPASSING” signs in their windows, on their trees, and even guarding a vacant lot. There was little sign of local life, and I wondered if they had all either fled or been eaten in the casino buffet. “Mmm, roast local, delicious!”

But as I stopped to take one more picture of the beautiful chasm of the Niagara River with its mineral green water and ice chandeliers, an elderly lady coming up the path called out “Would you like me to take your picture?”

Sure, why not, I think I have about 4 pictures from the past 4 years of traveling (when K is not with me). I thanked her.

“I'm a local, and people have done it for me when I travel, and I'd be glad to do it for you. Where are you from?” We chatted for awhile about destinations, California, and the Falls. Canadians do seem to be as nice as I always suspected (except when they're driving, even they can't stay friendly in those mobile anger chambers) but this lady takes the cake. In fact, I bet she bakes the cake, and every day's your birthday.

Did you know you have a Canadian grandmother? I've met her, she's rad. She lives in an interesting town next to a beautiful natural wonder.

Toronto's been fun, but off to Iceland tonight...

Did you know Toronto is bigger than Chicago?

Y'ain't in San Francisco no more

Hello from Toronto! And also, hello from a hostel common room, where we are watching Gone in 60 Seconds, which I am hereby citing as the reason why any of the following sentences make no sense, or are interrupted by phrases like “Why is this happening?” and “Let's drive!”

The sign above the customs line in Toronto Pearson International Airport advised an estimated waiting time of 46 minutes, so nearly an hour-long demonstration of the secret that humans are tremendously capable of determining our own reality.

We all had the same line, and the bell curve's hump just zombied through it, but as usual, instruction was in the extremes. The businessman in a fine suit in front of me called three different people to complain about it. Must be swell to be on his contact list. The lady in the fur coat looked positively appalled that she was being asked to do something so mundane, so quotidian, so....proletarian as wait in line. The gall!

The family in jeans joked with each other and took turns carrying a duffel bag. The gal-pals in hooded sweatshirts were cracking up. There were giant grins on some of the Jamaicans who had just returned from Montego Bay, and they had not yet broken into the identical cardboard boxes presumably housing two bottles of rum that nearly everyone seemed to be carrying.

Did you notice an apparent correlation between economic status and attitude? Me too. How remarkable.

Yes the line was long, and no, there was nothing anyone could do about it. So why be pissed?

I used credit card reward points for my flight here, and had enough left for a night's stay in a fancy-shmancy hotel. I even upgraded from a queen bed to a king, or maybe an emperor, I don't remember, but it was stupidly large. Excess doesn't suit me, and I just felt slight remorse at increasing the laundryload for someone. And I really don't have room for more tiny bars of hotel soap in my bag, I'm bursting with cleaning potential.

That's a good thing, because after a night in a dorm room full of backpacker dudes, I can use a good scrubbing. I think I violated a blogging length rule with that post about otters and whatnot, so I'll save the other sights and smells of this rather fantastic hostel and city for next time.

But I am quite happily back on the road, not yet cured of those vagabond urges.

This should not have happened

While the traveler in me was dormant, circa 2007, I worked as a property manager in Santa Cruz, California. I was in charge of a few properties, but had a primary apartment complex where I lived and spent most of my time.

One Friday evening I was at a friend’s house, spending precious hours with a sense of self that did not include my job title, and I got a phone call.

“Hi, this is Maria, from apartment C101…there are a lot of cops here, and I think they just broke down one of the doors…”

I don’t miss getting calls like that.

The parking lot was overflowing with patrol cars when I got there and officers loitered in the courtyard. I remember them as being professional and polite, with a slightly macabre sense of humor. They told me to wait until the officer in charge of the case got there for details.

“Butch will be here soon” they assured me. The name brought nods of respect from the other cops.

With a name like “Butch” I was expecting a metal-bending drill sergeant, but I remember the guy who showed up as looking more like someone’s dad. A little soft around the middle, hairline receding in front, and a ready smile.

He told me how my tenant’s car had been the vehicle in a drive-by shooting, and when they came by to talk to him had seen a bullet hole in the door. I don’t remember the details of the warrant, but they broke down the door and found the apartment empty. We spent an hour or so going over surveillance video together. I liked the guy.

I remember a friend asking if the cops had been dickheads. “No,” I told him, “they were pretty cool actually. My tenant is a suspect in a drive by shooting, and there was a bullet hole in the door; I’m glad the cops were there.”

Last Tuesday Butch and his partner, Elizabeth Butler, went to follow up on the suspect in a sexual assault from a few days earlier. The property was just a couple blocks from where I had worked.

The suspect had a violent criminal record, barely avoided a life sentence in military prison, and his father described him as “a ticking time bomb.” He had served two years in prison, and federal law prohibits anyone who has served more than a year from owning a firearm, but his two years were consecutive one-year sentences, so he didn’t show up in the database. He had three registered guns.

Butch and Elizabeth knocked, he opened the door, and shot both officers, killing them both.

He took both their guns, stole their car, and fled. They found him half an hour later and he was killed after shooting at the police again.

Santa Cruz is not a large town, and it didn’t take long to start hearing things like “I was walking down the sidewalk around the corner and heard gunshots.” Or “that’s two blocks from where my parents live.” And “my niece goes to school with Elizabeth’s kids.”

Everything is clear in hindsight, and a friend of mine who knew the shooter said she never suspected he was capable of something like that, but I don’t want to talk to anyone who opposes increased gun legislation right now.

Detective Elizabeth Butler was a 10-year veteran of the Santa Cruz Police Department. She came to Santa Cruz for the university, just like I did, and liked the fresh bread at the bakery down the street from where I was house sitting. She is survived by her partner and two children.

Sergeant Loren “Butch” Baker served 28 years with the Santa Cruz Police Department. He is survived by his wife, son, and two daughters.

The coffee's always ready at The Alley Cafe

I’m in San Francisco’s Easy Bay, spending my last two days in America at my sister’s house, where her hairless cat is addicted to love like nothing I’ve ever seen. I’m afraid I’ve only fed his addiction, so I escaped his reaching paws and relentless meows to walk down to the diner my sis recommended.

The booths are thin dark wood frames around ruby red vinyl benches where butts have been leaving imprints for…years. I tried to find out exactly how many (years, not butts) but found only a facebook page filled with comments like “my grandpa used to take me there when I was young and now I take my son.”

The floor is brick-patterned tiles in shades of coffee with varying amounts of milk, or maybe the range of grease stains found on a cook’s apron. But not this cook. Her shirt is spotless, and the orange of the local baseball team, whose name is on the face of the clock, the framed newspaper clipping by the door, many of the caps scattered among the booths, and is welcome to my eyes in the city of my childhood.

I am the only one who needs to look at the menu, and I bet it’s a large portion of eaters who order “g’morning Marjorie” without needing to add “I’ll have the usual.” I’m only assuming the affable waitress’s name is Marjorie, it could just as easily be Annie, Maggie, or Patty.

Within a minute of my sitting down, a man with some black left in his bushy mustache but none in his paper-white hair brings me the already well-read local newspaper, and everyone at the counter talks to everyone else. Conversation in the Alley Café is the melody above the rhythm of crackling grease.

Laughter is loud while the potbellied man with gaps between his teeth orders his breakfast straight from the cook, French toast, three eggs, and maple bacon, then he goes back to his story about being in the Air Force. That's pretty close to what I order; my egg is sunny-side up without needing to be specified, the bacon is nice and crisp, and the bread in the French toast is so white it feels like glue before I'm even done chewing, but that's fine for today.

Syrup comes warm in the little pitcher with the sliding top, filled to the brim and no drips on the front. The bottles of Tabasco sauce are large, and the little packets of jam come in a wicker basket, strawberry, orange marmalade, and Concord grape. I spread their familiar flavors on the toast of my childhood while my grandpa stirred his coffee.

There’s only one cook, and I was warned to be prepared for a long wait for my food, but that seems to be by design in this neighborhood diner, where neighbors catch up and faces are familiar.

48 hours before I leave it, I’ve found America.