Madness and Beauty

Scenes from a (Great) Wall

2011-08-30T02:42:00.000-07:00

Violet Dear conquers China.

The Great Wall of China. When I was a little girl my grandfather would call me out of bed, no matter what the time, to show me noteworthy television programs about science, politics or travel. As a result I was probably the only 8 year old on my block to miss a day of school to watch the Berlin Wall come down.

National Geographic programs were my grandfather's favourite, and I was pulled out of many a night's slumber to watch sea creatures snake their way through technicolour coral reefs, intrepid mountaineers scale K2 and treasure hunters search through Egyptian tombs. Shows about outer space always fascinated me above all else, and I remember quivering with anticipation when I would hear Carl Sagan's voice inform me about the “billions and billions” of stars in the sky. Billions. Those are big numbers for a little girl.

It was around that time that I learned of the only man-made structure visible from space- something so colossal, so monumental that it marred the earth's surface like a jagged, winding scar – the Great Wall of China.

Slithering its way across the tops of breakneck mountains and rocky crags, the Wall was started around 200 BC and restored by the Ming Dynasty in the 15^th century as a defense mechanism against the barbarian Mongols (I have a little experience with them myself. My grandmother was Ukrainian and had more than a dash of Mongolian blood running through her veins, as evidenced by her epicanthal fold, and my mother and uncle get asked if they if half Asian or Inuit. Thanks Genghis!)

All the king's horses and all the king's men....

When I decided to come here to Beijing it was my one major thing on my “must-see” list, so I was shocked to find out that there are dozens of different Wall sites. Other than a few that have been repaired and maintained, most of the Wall is crumbling and wild, with many stretches far too dangerous to climb. My friend living here in China works for a motorbike sidecar tour company that specializes in trips to the Great Wall, and so he spends his days traversing its lesser known sections. He was excited to take me on a 3 day trip to visit a few that tourists rarely see.

Wild Wall at Jiankou.

We started our tour at Jiankou, a low point in a valley between two peaks. Once we stepped up from the forest trail and onto the Wall itself I was struck with the raw and ravaged beauty of the ancient stones, the sheer size of the structure snaking its way off into the hills on all sides of me. The Wall is less like one long continuous ribbon than a map of the London Underground - it branches off schizophrenically and winds across multiple mountain tops and connects with the ancient guard towers that dot the tops of the hills.

It's a hot mess.

Guard towers, the site of a lot of hot "Brokeback Great Wall" shenanigans, I'm sure.

Jiankou was a serious hike – we spent a lot of the day scrambling up the sides of destroyed towers, scuttling over rubble on hands and feet and climbing up staircases so steep they had to be ascended like a ladder. I'm not normally afraid of heights, but at some points the trail was so treacherous that my knees were shaking like little earthquakes and I thought I would lose my balance and tumble down the side of the mountain below.

Oh, that's ok. I think I'll take the elevator.

After four hours of trekking, and witnessing a fellow Canadian take a nasty spill down a destroyed staircase, we reached another low elevation point in the Wall where we could safely descend back down the mountain and head to the guesthouse. Jiankou was wild, eerie and wonderful.

Huanghuacheng at dusk. The prettiest ever.

The next day, after a motorbike trip though more mountains, we trekked up the side of another Wall site, this time to visit the slightly less ruinous ruins of Huanghuacheng. After a series of steeeeeeep climbs (too steep for stairs – that tells you something) we reached the plateau of the Wall and began the equally steep downhill walk. It was with knees bent and doing a strange little shuffle that I kind of bunnyhopped my way back down. The trademark Beijing haze in the sky couldn't ruin the view of this strange, haphazard Wall zigzagging its way into the distance.

"Stairway to Eternal Palace of Unending Happinesses" just never caught on.

By skipping the typical tourist Wall sites and heading into the wilder, less reconstructed sections we missed out on the throngs of domestic tourists fighting their way along the paths and managed to experience one of the world's most important landmarks in relative peace and quiet. Not quite like seeing it from a space shuttle, but I do think that my grandfather would have approved...

The author with her grandfather, eating ice cream and watching some Jacques Cousteau.

Back That Ass Up - A Sandwich in Beijing

2011-08-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

The Hutong version of grilled cheese and tomato soup.

When I think of "Chinese Food." my brain does not veer in the direction of soup and sandwiches. Sure, no Vietnamese food porn session is complete without a thought or two about Banh Mi, and I have had a few good naan and curry wraps in India, but this is a very, very different part of the continent. This is China. And though my love of the sandwich is well documented, while I am in Beijing on a spur of the moment 2 week trip to visit some friends I was not expecting to enjoy any. Noodles and dumplings and Peking Duck - yes, but not meat and bread.

I was wrong.

Houyuan the dog encounters a donkey earlier in the day while at the Ming Tombs.

After a long, four day motorbike sidecar trip (my friend works for these guys, and so we have had full access to a bike) to the wild sections of the Great Wall spent hiking and eating hearty country food, we arrived back in Beijing's Dong Zhi Men Hutong at 3:30 pm with rumbling stomachs.

"Want to grab a sandwich?" my pal asked me.
"I only want to eat local food!" I shouted back over the roar of the engine. He smirked.
"Oh, it's local. You'll like it."

The proud and noble steed awaits his fate as my sandwich.

We arrived in front of the restaurant a few moments later, and once we headed inside I noticed the walls were covered with photos of livestock. But wait... there seemed to be a lot of pictures of ...donkeys? My friend finished ordering in a flurry of Chinese, pausing only to ask me, "do you want one or two?"

After the waitress had left, I looked at him, wide-eyed. "Are these donkey sandwiches?"
"Yes. They are. They're wonderful."
"Did you get this idea when we encountered those donkeys at the Ming Tombs?"
"Uh huh."
"You're a sick s.o.b."
"Uh huh."

(Now, Ms. Violet Dear has a confession to make. In Peru in May things got a little... weird. I ate a little more chicken than I intended. And when I got back to Vancouver for my birthday I decided to order one of my favourite dishes on the planet, duck confit. And since then.... well, let's just say I am on a pescetarian sabbatical, shall we?)

I decided to eat the donkey, Eeyore be damned.

Philadelphia can go fuck themselves.

The sandwiches arrived, kind of like pressed little panini inside kind of a dense oily ciabatta. Sauteed with the cubed donkey meat were peppers and chilis and onion, making the whole experience feel a little familiar.

"It's like a Philly Cheesesteak!" I exclaimed, happily taking another bite. The meat itself was like tender, slightly fattier beef. It was delicious.

The sandwiches are traditionally served with a garlic vinegar for dipping, and optional chili paste for slathering inside (I went for it, of course.) We ordered a few bowls of egg drop soup to go with the donkey, but the results were less than enjoyable.

A delicate broth of water and egg essence.
Sometimes I feel like China is fucking with me.

I'm pretty sure that the broth was simply the water used to poach the eggs, and there was no yolk to speak of. I valiantly tried a few spoonfuls and then decided that egg water soup was not for me.

The best part of the meal was the bill. For four sandwiches, two bowls of soup and a big 750 mL Yanjing beer, the total was 4 dollars. I gladly picked up the cheque.

So the next time you find yourself wandering around the hutongs of Beijing, make sure you make an ass of yourself and eat a donkey sandwich (sorry, couldn't resist.)

<3 V. Dear

Um. Sorry. My bad.
I feel like an ass about it, I really do. I can't help it if I'm assinine.

K, I'm done. Promise.

Ass. Heh.

Accepting Where I Am, Right Now - Trekking the Canon del Colca

2011-04-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

Walking along rare flat terrain. Day 1.

Chici and I became good friends on my trek through the Canon de Colca, the world's second deepest canyon, but that's not to say that he had any real choice in our burgeoning buddydom. See Chici (pronounced Cheeky)was my trekking guide and therefore bound by a sacred guide oath to stay behind the last person in the group. Which, ahem, was me. The whole time.

"Hey Chici, how long is the trek?"
"Yesseeca, the trek is 6 hours today maybe and then 4 hours tomorrow."
*pale, nervous nodding*
"Ok, sounds good Chici."

The first day of our trek we were to walk, mostly downhill, from about 3300 metres down to 2000, back up to about 2600 and finally down to 2200. At this point we would spend the night at a quaint collection of pools and rustic guesthouses called "The Oasis." The entire journey would take about 7 hours, with a stop for a big lunch of omelettes, rice and potatoes.

The ruins of an old village along the way.

Day 1 didn't worry me. In fact, Day 1 sounded downright fun - a great way to test my Bikram-strengthened legs and gauge where I was at for our Inca Trail trek to Macchu Pichu a week later. I knew that the day would be difficult - I've walked downhill for long periods of time, and I know the havoc that it can wreak on my legs (I stumble around, kind of crabwalking for a few days afterward). However, the day's trekking was 90 percent downhill or across flat terrain. Despite the fact that I was suffering from traveler's stomach, for which I was taking antibiotics, and a mild case of altitude sickness I was confident. Day 1? I could do.

It was Day 2 - a day that was to start with a 3.5 hour climb straight up the other side of the canyon - that was causing me panic.

*******

At the moment that you book them, strenuous treks sound like a great idea. "Yeah! I have a strong, healthy young body! I am empowered in my youthful fitness! I will walk up and down MOUNTAINS! Outta my way, jackoffs!"

However, on the morning of these treks it's kind of different. "oh. ok. up the hill? with only my fragile legs? and the tiny bones of my feet and ankles? ok."

Pathetic as it sounds to admit it, I have always suffered from a strange phobia of hiking up hills. Some people thrive on harsh exercise, on the feeling of their heart pounding through their ribcage and the blisters on their feet filling with fluid. I don't know whether I had a very bad experience with endurance cardio-type hiking as a young child or if I am just inherently some kind of Ukrainian peasant meant to dwell on the prairie far from mountains, but walking uphill is mentally distressing for me.

At home it's not really an issue. Sure, I have to turn down invitations to do the Grouse Grind or hike the Chief, but for the most part the types of endurance exercise that I like to do - Bikram's yoga, Cardio Dance Party faffery, the elliptical machine (in front of Oprah, natch) - don't require that I climb any hills. Which is good, because hell, I get put off by flights of stairs.

What's frustrating is that it's not a physical reaction - I am more than fit enough to trek - it's all mental. It's an illogical terror of the particular kind of discomfort caused by uphill strides. A reaction with no logic. I wanted it GONE.

******
This is what we walked down. From the very freaking top.

So, wait. Let me put you back in Peru, with me and Chici and the heart stoppingly gorgeous high altitude desert of the Colca Canyon, ok? All around me were huge cacti, agave plants and the occasional donkey loaded with supplies ambling past. The ground was covered in stones and sand, and we were walking down a zig zag path etched into the side of an imposing rock face. It's Day 1 - I am feeling good, often even leading of group of four trekkers (Chici bringing up the rear, of course) until we stopped for lunch.

"Ok, now guys, I want for you now to walk uphill, just for about one hour." My stomach clenched into knots. It was time - shit was about to get real, son.

I plodded, slowly but surely, one foot in front of the other. "You guys better go ahead. This may take me a while."

See, while physically I can do this - I am more than capable of keeping up with anyone of average fitness - my brain didn't quite understand. The moment waves of fatigue coursed down my legs and I felt the hot sun on the back of my neck I froze, started to second guess my ability and beat myself up. The familiar "trekking uphill" feeling of despair started to creep into my head and I could feel myself getting sucked down into the kind of mood that ends up with me standing on the side of a mountain crying.

Beautiful church in a canyon town accessible only by foot or mule.

Just then we approached a particularly dodgy area near an aquaduct and Chici held out his hand. "Nice and slow, Yesseeca. You can do it." They were the words that I needed to hear at that exact moment.

"Yes, Chici - I can do it. I can do this. Just give me one minute, ok?" I stood, with my eyes closed, and repeated those 4 magic words. "I can do this. I can do this." I dug deep into my brain and tried to undo the mental shoelaces that always manage to tie up my synapses, causing them to misfire and create this useless panic reaction that does not serve me.

A saying from my Bikram's yoga classes popped into my head. "Never too old, never too sick, never too bad to start from scratch again."

"Ok, Chici. Let's go. Let's start from scratch."

And I did. I walked slowly. I walked deliberately. I placed my walking stick in front of me with each step and concentrated on right now. Everytime those insidious little thoughts "how long?" "Is it over?" "I can't do it!" popped into my head I simply slowed down, breathed deeply and let it pass.

******

Now is when we talk about the dirty little word I have been avoiding. EGO. See, part of my problem with trekking has always been my incessant need to avoid appearing weak or pathetic. In the past, I would ignore my panic reaction and push myself hard, fast and early to keep up with the group, not wanting to admit that I needed more time, needed a slower pace.

Another yoga saying repeated through my brain on Day 1 of the Colca trek. "Accept where you are, right now." My ego bucked, once, twice! It put up a grand fight - but I crushed it. I made it lay down and act reasonable for once. It....worked. I didn't freak out.

A small victory on Day 1. Arriving at the bottom of the massive hill.

We arrived at the top and J and J, our two new American friends, asked me "so, how you doing back there?" I smiled.
"Way less self loathing and despair than usual! I'm about 40% less despondent!" I joked. But it was true.

Toward the end of the first day. Blessed - and rare - flat terrain.

Having now climbed in altitude, for the rest of the day Chici and I walked together. Along a flat section of the trail, a long path that snaked around the mountain, we passed bucolic villages, churches celebrating a mixture of Inca and Catholic religions and stunning canyon scenery.

"Hey Chici, have you heard the children's story about the tortoise and the hare?" He shook his head. I proceeded, in simple English, to explain the fable that pits a fast but lazy rabbit against a slow but determined turtle. Though I wasn't sure if he understood me, I finished the story with a flourish - "I'm the turtle!" He shrugged. "It's ok. You go slow." Whether he understood or not, it didn't matter. I got it.

******

Here's the part where I tell you that, after a good night's sleep at the Oasis, I faltered. The antibiotics I was taking were kicking my ass and I was tired, sore and worried that my old panic-y demon would resurface halfway up the mountain. It was 4:45, and still very dark.

"Chici, how much for a donkey to take me up?" He looked at me very seriously.
"No. You can do it. You no need mule." And that was that. I took a deep breath.

"Ok, Dear. You can do this. You will walk slowly with no regard for how fast anyone else is going, you will stop to breathe often, you will meditate. This. Will. Be. Ok. Because it has to be."

We were the first group to set out to hoof it up the other side of the canyon - 1600 metres straight up, with the zig zagged path increasing that distance at least threefold. The group, including S, politely waited for me every few minutes until finally I insisted that they go at their own speed. I wanted the solitude, the quiet early morning darkness and the chance to compose myself while the climbing was still relatively easy. I didn't see S again for 3.5 hours.

It wasn't long before I saw the bobbing of headlamps and flashlights on the hill below me. One by one, the red faced members of the other trekking groups started to pass me. No one looked happy, they were just pushing ahead past the pain, competing with one another to appear unfazed by the insanely faze-ing task before us. If after 20 minutes people looked unhinged, I wondered, how will they feel after 3 hours?

I made up my mind right there and then. My only goal for the day would be to reach the summit with a calm smile. To not hate the trek. To not be angry at myself and enjoy the day.

Every time my heart rate started to climb and palpitate wildly I slowed down. Every time I began to feel like I should rush past the small tangle of people roughly keeping pace within 50 metres of me I slowed down. Every time I started to moan and whine in my own head - I slowed down. "Accept where you are, right now Dear." I found myself enjoying - really enjoying - an uphill trek for the first time in my life.

Chici, whose real name was Edison.

Chici fell behind, chatting with fellow guides who also had to lag so that they could remain at the rear of the group. Everytime he would catch up to me (more like saunter up) he would smile. "You doing good. You can do it!"

After 2 hours I truly realized that I could. The realization hit me unexpectedly. "I am actually going to do this." It seemed unreal. A big goofy smile spread across my face.

By the third hour I was hungry, dirty and tired - but still smiling. At this point nearly everyone had passed me, and by then the people with whom I was keeping time had set out 20 to 30 minutes after me. I resisted the urge to feel ashamed about this. Instead, I shushed my ego and made friends with the other slowpokes.

Donkeys at 6am going to pick people up. I saw them again at 8am going back up hauling people.

My proudest moment came when the donkeys started to pass me by. On top of the sweating beasts were the 40 folks who didn't want to climb back out of the canyon from the Oasis, those too hungover, lazy or maybe panicked like me to even attempt the trek. As I sidestepped out of the way of a donkey Chici and a fellow guide popped out of the brush beside me, having taken a steep and dangerous shortcut.

"Chici! You scared me!" He smiled sheepishly.
"I rabbit."
He had understood the whole story afterall.

When I reached the top 10 minutes later I understood the story, too.

A turtle, yes. But with a smile on my face.

Santa Catalina Convent - Corruption, Flagellation and Chocolate?

2011-04-21T10:22:00.000-07:00

Locked up tight, not unlike its residents...

Arequipa is a beautiful town in the Peruvian Andes, its colonial buildings carved from white volcanic rock and its food legendary for being spicy and cheesy. Needless to say, I was happy to arrive here on a relatively painless (compared to others in Asia) night bus from Nazca.

After some adventurous experiences I was ready to spend a few days unwinding in this little city, strolling its "squint your eyes and you can make believe you're in Spain" streets, drinking equal parts good coffee and good wine and getting ready for a few intense days of trekking in the Canon de Colca - world's second deepest canyon (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and beat only by 150 metres by its cousin a short distance away).

Secretly, though, I was most excited to visit the Monasterio Santa Catalina, a convent built in 1580 and still in use today. See, I have a fascination with nuns. Perhaps it was my atheist upbringing, but the first time I visited the Vatican City I used up half a roll of film (yes, it was that long ago) with photos of their different coloured habits. Even at home in Vancouver I nearly cause my mum to crash the car as I point and shriek "Nun! Nun!!" every time we drive near the convent on Victoria Drive. It's a weird quirk. I choose to find it endearing.

I also have a fascination with Catholic iconography - I have covered an entire wall in my apartment in juicy eye-rolling Jesuses (Jesi?), piously blue Marys and sacred hearts and crosses of all kinds. Catholic customs and iconography are deliciously eerie, creepy and archaic - like a live action 1970s Mexican exploitation horror movie. I even have plans for a tattoo of Mary's sacred heart. (Confusing for a pseudo Buddhist/Hindu yogi, I know. Just go with it. I do.)

Oh, Mary.

The Santa Catalina convent is enormous, a true city within a city, twenty thousand (!!!) square metres of passage ways, houses, courtyards, kitchens and chapels. It was built in 1580 by a rich widow, one of the first colonial settlers from Spain.

It was hard, but yes I was.

It was a custom of wealthy Spaniards of the day to commit their second eldest son or daughter to the cloth, bringing them as students (bait? fodder? playthings?) to a monastery and convent at the age of 10 or 12.

But this rich widow, Maria Guzman? She, um, kind of misunderstood what being a nun is all about, namely the whole "giving up earthly possessions" thing. Her convent was only for the rich, and she demanded that the family proffer a dowry of the equivalent to 50,000 dollars, as well as have the girls arrive with all kinds of fancy gifts. Sounds more like a madam to me....

Elaborate hinge.

The young nuns also arrived with another commodity - up to four slaves each. The elder nuns, with their earthly needs (and my mind goes totally dirty here) being met, basically spent all day embroidering, chatting, eating off of posh china and even throwing parties with hired musicians. Nice work, if you can get it.

Like an eerie little nun ghost.

I'm making things in the convent sound a little too easy, a little too sunshine & lollipoppy. The twelve year old novice nuns were not allowed to act like children, no running or playing at all. Instead they were forced to sit alone in their cells for 23 hours a day, praying, painting and most likely developing mental illnesses.

One way to make your teeenaged daughter behave...

The only way, technically (when they weren't throwing parties) that the nuns could communicate through the outside world was to their families, once a month through these double wooden grates. It was actually kind of sad to think of the wee little gals, who must have been so lonely, sitting 400 years ago in the exact spot where I was seated.

My slave simply must ask your slave where she got this wonderful blue paint.

The grounds of the complex were absolutely lovely, decorated like a Spanish village in bright splashes of colour. I mean, if fate frowns down on you and you're the second born, I can think of worse places to be cloistered.

Like a pretty little Spanish town, complete with fiestas.

The older nuns, and especially the older and very wealthy nuns, actually got little houses to live in within the convent. Their size and grandeur varied, but these were very posh digs. Large bedrooms, sitting areas, servant's quarters and huge kitchens - apartments that could reasonably house full families all for one (probably very bitter) old woman.

Talk about pins and needles.

Of course, some of these nuns were truly pious women, here because they genuinely felt called to their marriage to Christ.

These nuns practiced self flagellation daily, whipping themselves with flails, wearing thorny leg braces and sleeping on mats woven from needles. BDSM types, eat your heart out - this is how you truly mortify your flesh and get closer to God. (Or a man in a gimp mask who makes you call him God.)

El Misti - the volcano that rises above Arequipa

By the late 19th century, word of a convent in the middle of Peru that outrageously flouted Vatican rules, that housed pregnant nuns, hosted wild bacchanalias and had slaves working within its walls got back to Rome and Pope Pius IX. He wasn't too happy (probably jealous) and he sent a strict Dominican nun to come and clean things up. She freed the slaves and made the convent more convent-like, banning the pretty little apartments, wild late night parties and the visits from men (I'm totally out at this point).

This reformation was in 1871 and the convent continued on a more traditional bent for one hundred years, when the Peruvian government forced the nuns to open their doors to the public. One corner of the grounds houses a small cloistered section where 20 nuns, from the ages of 17 to 97, still live in silence to this day, separated from the rest of the world by those same wooden screens. I imagine it to be a bit Grey Gardens-y in there.

We could hear them playing volleyball over one of the tall walls. This blew my mind.

When not playing ball games (do they wear their habits during? If so, I need to see this) the nuns who once lived here at Santa Catalina in luxurious sin now spend their days as chocolatiers, making sweet treats to try and hook foreign dollars in what is now Arequipa's main tourist attraction.

Like a little nun Rapunzel. Nunpunzel?

And what an attraction! My hours wandering around the complex filled me with the same intense mysterious wonder that all of Catholicism inspires in me - a mix of awe, historical curiosity and, let's be frank, shock that this religion still has so many rapt believers.

Then again, it all makes sense. We as humans seem to like ritual, dark magic and tales of strange sex, something that nunneries - and Catholicism in general - have in spades. Viva La Santa Catalina!

If these walls could talk - they'd probably ask for a ball-gag.

The Nausea of the Nazca Lines

2011-04-20T20:06:00.000-07:00

So, here's how my morning yesterday went:

I'm totally deceiving you.

Yay! Oh man, I am so excited to go on this overflight of the Nazca Lines! Wow! Ever since I was about 8 years old and saw an re-run of "In Search Of" on A&E about Ancient Astronauts I have been, like, totally excited to come and see these 2000 year old monolithic drawings in person!

Boletas con vomitendo.

Oh, wicked! Even the tickets for the dinky little airfield are cool! Maria Reiche, a German mathematician who did a ton of research on the lines, was like, awesome!

Only 2 fatal crashes last year!

Cool! Look at the little plane! I can't wait to ride in there!

Super twisty arrow funtimes!

Amazing! Here is a little map showing the route we're gonna take. I can't wait to see the astronaut and the hummingbird and the spider! Wow!

Nope. Nothin' wrong here.

Ready, S? Excited!?

Gravol makes the things all slow motion.

I sure am! Woo! Let's go! I'm sure glad I'm stoned out of my head on preventative Gravol for the motion sickness some people report! Woo! Take off!

Wait.

Something is wrong. I don't... I don't feel so good.

The last photo I managed to take before passing the camera to S.

But that's ok, because look at how beautiful the mountains are! Desert! And mountains.... and.

OK. Seriously. What the #@*%?

Do you have to - urp - do you have to swerve and dip so much, Pilot? *moan* I'm serious... I'm serious, "Pilot"!

ooooooolooooo (makes sounds in own head like dog about to vomit)

Deep breath, Dear. Deep fucking breath now. You will not - I repeat - NOT - vomit into that undignified plastic bag. Suck. it. up.

I promise it's there.

Ok, look where? For the *swoon* what? The hummingbird? Ok. Under the wing, where you keep dipping the plane toward. *angry sick face*

Is...is it hot in here? Ok - seriously - where is the bird? All I see is sand. Oh - I see it.

It's. Hm. It's a lot less vivid than I expected. But then again, I am having a hard time focusing. And breathing.

I'm gonna... I'm gonna have to close my eyes now. Just poke me when we see more lines.

.....what's that smell? Oh. Oh S. Poor S. Shoulda kept your eyes closed.

********

After a few hours in bed to recover from the worst motion sickness ever, we decided to try to get more out of our Nazca Lines experience by visiting the Antonini Museum. The wee museum has a 2000 year old (still working) aqueduct running through its back garden, a little oasis in the desert.

So what's the opposite of phallic? O'Keefic?

Inside the museum were displays on the Nazca people, the 2000 year old culture that constructed the lines, probably because of aliens, or drugs. Or drug dealing aliens. Or y'know, Jesus. They also practiced trepanation, human sacrifice and mummification - sometimes all on the same person.

This is actually me after the flight.

But best of all, a scale model of the Lines themselves, viewed from atop a small platform. See, if I hadn't told you that both the photo at the top of this post and the one directly below weren't real I could have posted all of these as being from our 30 minute "plane ride of puke" and you wouldn't have known better.

Told you I was deceiving you.

And frankly, as it's been about 36 hours and my stomach still hasn't settled fully, I kind of wish that that had been my plan all along.

A flight over the Nazca Lines. Amazing. Mystical. Enchanting.

Revolting.

Islas Ballestas - You're Fulla Guano

2011-04-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

Worst address ever. The flaming bag of poop prank totally does not work here.

Las Islas Ballestas, or "The Poor Man's Galapagos," are located a few miles off of the coast of Paracas, near Pisco. Because I have ethical issues with visiting the famed Galapagos, I jumped at the chance to go and have a look at these guano covered rocks.

Ancient peoples, tripping balls.

After waking up at the ungodly hour of 5:30am we set out from Ica and arrived at the boat about an hour later, pushing just after sunrise. The first sight along the way was the "Candelabra," a 200 metre long geoglyph etched into the side of a hill and visible miles out to sea. Some say it looks like a decorative candlestick, a South American Sea-God's trident or a masonic symbol. Others claim it depicts jimson weed, a hallucinogenic cactus found in California. Guesses on its age date to 200 BC, and it is not related to the Nazca Lines 200 km away. It was, to say the least, a surreal sight that early in the morning.

I've gotta say that the whole hallucinogenic weed thing sounds the most plausible to me. Two thousand years ago it would have been pretty hard to understand that those bright colours, lucid visions and strange noises when one injests a hallucinogen (not that I have, ahem, experience... ahem) are just that - a hallucination and not, say, messages from a trident wielding sea monster god guy. Taking jimson weed probably would have been a disturbingly vivid and excitingly addicting experience in a world otherwise dominated by, well, sand. But I digress.

Where's Tippi Hedren when you need her?

After leaving the candelabra I instantly dozed off due to my remarkable (even awe-inspiring) ability to sleep on any moving vehicle (an automatic defense mechanism to protect me from my ever-worsening motion sickness - I miss out on scenery but also on vomit. It's a decent trade-off). I woke about 20 minutes later, just as we were approaching a cluster of small islands. Two things hit me right away: the cacophony of squalling birds and the smell - a huge, loud smell; a smell of ammonia, urinals and wet dog. "We must be here." I said queasily.

The sky was dark with birds, swirling and dancing in the sky above our boat. These islands are home to dozens of species of birds (some migratory and some permanent residents) including blue footed boobies (hee!), Peruvian pelicans and Humboldt penguins.

Only Ms. Violet Dear could connect pelicans to Brando in one creepy degree.

For me, the pelicans were the most surreal (seen here with bitsy little penguins), especially when flying directly overhead in a V formation. These guys are so strange, so bizarre - their huge pouches jiggling under their beaks, their off kilter dimensions - I felt like I was watching some kind of sci-fi "Island of Doctor Moreau" type movie. Which led me to my ever-unwholesome thoughts about Marlon Brando, so I had to snap out of that pretty quickly....

Every inch of island covered in birds.

This was my first experience seeing penguins in the wild (I had previously seen them in Syndney's Taronga Zoo), and it exceeded my hopes. The little fellows tottered around, hopping from rock to rock like little puppety muppet things. The Humboldt penguin is tiny, only a few feet tall and adorable as all get out. I wanted to hug them.

Oh, what the hell.

The rocky bases of the islands are covered with brightly coloured orange and purple crabs, which our guide informed us have a "very bad, bad taste." It makes sense - in nature, most things that are really eye-catchingly bright are coloured as such to warn predators. "Listen, I'm either poisonous or just plain yucky. Fuhgeddaboutit." Hm. That's really too bad. I like crab. Kind of. Well, ok. A lot.

Home, sweet ho... oh, who are you kidding?

No one is actually allowed to set foot on these islands. See, the tens-of-thousands-of-probably-millions of birds? They, erm, excrete. A lot. So much so that the guano, the Spanish word for bird poop, can reach 50 metres deep and all of the islands appear white. This cache of smelly treasure was actually Peru's largest export in the 19th Century. Huh. No wonder the place smelled.

Once every 6 years the government sends in a team to collect it, using this dock to alight. Worst of all? The two permanent security guards that live here, in isolation, for 4 month stretches. Alone. Nothing but birds, guano and potential guano thieves - a confusing (and confused) bunch if there ever was one. "Stop! Put that shit down! Literally!" Is there any point in punishing these thieves? Hasn't life punished them enough?

Tough job, but someone's gotta do it.

The Ballestas islands are home to a few other notable species - two types of endangered turtles, dolphins and sea lions! These guys mugged nicely for my camera, and moments later a mummy and baby splashed past me in the water, the wee babe's head mere inches from my fingertips.

Walk. Away. Slowly.

But nothing prepared me for this eerie sight as we turned into a small bay. The beach was covered with hundreds of sea lions, collectively emitting a wailing, moaning sound that reminded me of a pack of wolves baying at the moon. They waddled from the beach to the water, swimming past us in alarming numbers and adding their individual calls to the group baying. Despite the morning sun beating down on my head I felt strangely chilled by the sound (you can hear it here in this 6 minute video surveying the island). *shudder*

Mr. Chubbs welcomes you.

The one hour trip around the islands was fascinating - a completely different (and more pungent) coastal landscape than the ones I am used to visiting, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Guano - not just for poop freaks anymore!

Sanguiches for Lunch - Lima Style

2011-04-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

World of sauces. I'm home.

The food in Peru has me gushing like a little girl with a big crush. In the last 5 days we've had a few misses (pizza - should have known better) but for the most part the food has been like a sloppy kiss on the tummy from a happy grandma - or should I say abuelita?

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but from the ceviche to the churros, every Peruvian dish we've sampled has been amazing. I've also noticed that in keeping with a worldwide trend, the cheaper and more local the establishment the better (the best food I have ever eaten has been from carts).

You'd think we'd have taken this to heart, but on our last night in Lima we splashed out and decided to eat supper in a swish Peruvian fusion restaurant - and we must have made a bad choice. (There are some amazing high end restos in Peru - just clearly not this one.) The food, which was similarly priced to a mid-range Vancouver eatery, was overwrought and overly creamy, bathed in mayo and kind of... creepy.

Like a creepy technicolour, Texas Chainsaw massacre-y approximation of "food"

The intent was there - the basic ingredients good - but something was wrong. It's like it was trying to be too posh. Like the chef thought that the simple, fresh flavours of Peruvian fare weren't enough. It was disappointing - like a dumbed down, family-friendly Denny's version of good food - but I vowed not to let it get me down.

Instead we vowed to stick to local. Stick to the cheap. Eat whatever the residents are eating, head to places with a line-up or a crowd. From India to LA, Fiji to Cambodia - this has always served me and my stomach well (sometimes too well).

mmmmm. Sandwich.

The next afternoon, before catching our bus to Huacachina, we grabbed our lunch from a local sanguicheria that had both a line-up and cheap prices. Miraflores is blanketed with these sandwich shops, but most serve only the standard meaty choices: chiccarones, lomo saltado or pollo.

This shop, on the other hand, had a vegetariano saltado (sauteed vegetables) sandwich - crispy fried onions, mushrooms and peppers layered with thick slabs of cheese and a healthy portion of avocado, all served on a big crusty bun. The staff were concerned that we wouldn't understand the 8 - count em' - 8 sauces available, so they made sure that we tried a taste of each one.

Seeing a sign on the counter advertising some of my favourite ingredients - papas y queso (potatoes and cheese), I insisted that we try a portion of the Papas Criollos - potatoes cooked in the Creole style that is popular in Peru, a mix of Asian, African and Spanish flavours. These potatoes were smothered in a delicious cheese (like an edam) and layered with salsa rocoto - a fiery hot chili sauce that the Limenos were afraid to give us. We showed them that not all gringos are afraid of spicy food by slathering more - much more - of the sauce on top.

The lunch, served in greasy paper covered baskets and costing a few dollars each, was pretty much the most that a traveler can ask for. Cheap, fresh, filling and best of all - authentic. High priced disappointment aside, screw the ruins - the food alone in this country is worth the trip.

Best of all? I still have 20 days of sanguiches, papas, ceviche and churros to go - I'll keep you posted. I may need to book an extra seat on the way home.

Huacachina - When You Board You're Not Boring...

2011-04-18T16:55:00.000-07:00

Buggin' out.

Despite my enviable location in Huacachina, a palm fringed oasis in the centre of Peru's sand dune desert, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. The wrong side of the hard, tiny, polyester sheet-ed bed.

Grumping my way through the morning, I discovered that I had left my adorable one-piece bathing suit in LA. As I stared at the inviting pool filled with bikini-clad Israelis, their perfect breasts bobbing atop the water, my wee fists balled up and I felt absolutely gutted - angry at myself, angry at the pool, angry at the multiple pairs of tanned C cups and angry at this day.

“I'll be in the room, reading.” I announced. S looked worried.

“We can look for a bathing suit at the shops nearby? You can wear my dumb board shorts?” I shook my head.

“You can... go in your panties?” He added hopefully. I shook my head with more vigor.

“No, S. Some days are just ruined. Some days just suck.” I was in the mood to nurse my pessimism, to carefully cradle my lingering jet lag and be, in a word, crabby.

I spent the morning and early afternoon sipping a Coke (referred to here as a 'Coca', bringing me back to my time in Spain as a naïve teenager) and reading David Byrne's “Bicycle Diaries.” I was in no mood for S' joking, for the loud techno remixes of Pearl Jam playing in the pool bar (am I ever?) or for the Spanish dubbed Simpsons episode blaring from the episode. “If I hear Homer say “Que” one more time...” I thought, “I will throw this bottle of Coca through the TV.”

Senor Tortuga

Gradually, after petting some friendly stray dogs and finding the resident turtle, I relaxed. A little. My shoulders, formerly at ear level, began to drop. I began to get ready for the the activity we had planned for the rest of the day – a dunebuggying trip up into the heights of the sand dunes.

Until this afternoon, I had never been on a dunebuggy before. ATV, yes – on the North shore of Oahu. Open air Hummer? Sure, up the back side of the desert canyon up to Joshua Tree National Park near Palm Springs. But never a dunebuggy, and frankly I had no idea what to expect.

Our deathtrap.... er, dunebuggy.

At 4pm a funnel shaped cart with 15 seats pulled up to our guesthouse and we piled inside. As S and I struggled to get comfortable and buckled in, I was awaiting a safety run-down, or at the very least a cursory glance back from the driver to ensure that we were correctly locked into place. “Erm, S? I don't think the driver speaks any....” we lurched into action, “Englishhhhh!”

Up the side of the mountainous dune we went, everyone shrieking with joy – everyone except for me. I was reacting with my usual thrill ride response of maniacal laughter (less “haha I love this,” more often an “I am unsure about this but now I am trapped so hahaha...”)

Once we had climbed (and twisted and turned) to a suitable altitude we slowed down to take photos and marvel at the majestic dunes, staring far down to where they tumbled gracefully into eachother and slid into the oasis town below. The atmosphere was tranquil and beautiful, a perfect way to end what had begun for me as a bitter and irritated day.

Sand!

We piled back into the buggy and the driver immediately revved the engine and drove over the side of the sandy cliff. Straight down. Over the side.

My bum lifted from my seat, my head nearly hitting the canopied ceiling of the vehicle. The 13 other passengers were dead silent for a split second – and then the screaming began. A mixture of English, Spanish, Hebrew and German, we were all invoking our respective gods as we continued to descend the steep dune face. Once at the bottom, to the breathily repeated chorus of “Whoo!” we raced over the tops of three wavy bumps, each propelling us further up into the air than the last. My rear end smashed down onto the seat, my own laughter ringing nervously through my ears. That, and a familiar voice quietly repeating “Oh. Oh my god.”

That's when I glanced at S. His face was white and he was holding onto the seat in front of him, fingertips turning yellow. As we slowed down for a second stop I turned to him. “I forgot – you hate rollercoasters.” He nodded. Rollercoasters are at least welded to some kind of stationary structure, held in place on a track with bolts and screws, monitored by safety technicians and federal rules for their maintenance. My mind recalled the information in the Lonely Planet about the dunebuggying - “some drivers take unnecessary risks, and accidents are not uncommon.” Now it made sense. I patted him on his tensed arm.

“Not much you can do now, S. Just try to enjoy the ride.”

He valiantly attempted to have a really nice time as we careened recklessly over a half dozen peaks, eventually coming to a stop at the top of an enormous dune, the turret of an immense sandcastle. Walking along the perfectly straight crest I felt mild vertigo - a few missed steps and I would tumble like a rag doll over the steep edge.

That's when the driver, in broken English, announced "Ok, now you board." Looking at the rustic fibreglass boards haphazardly piled into the back of the buggy I shuddered. S gulped. Sandboarding, an intangible idea that seemed innocuous when we were booking it in town, seemed terrifying when confronting it head on and at the top of a sand cliff.

As if heading to war we both plodded to choose a board and begin rubbing it furiously with a candle. "Waxing board go fast!" Exclaimed our driver. I nervously nodded and tried to add the smallest amount of wax possible.

Wax on...

A few Aussie Whistler types went first, smoothly tipping over the edge and slicing down the sand face as if it were a hill at Blackcomb. They were followed by other boardings, some deftly carving their way down the hill and others faceplanting in more and more impressively painful looking ways. And then it was my turn.

Like a few other novices (believe it or not, I have never snowboarded) and nervous nellies I slid down the 150 metre hill on my stomach - and it was awesome. One of the most thrilling rides of my life - I picked up speed as I went, flying past the bottom of the hill and up the side of the other.

S bravely went down the hill standing, and actually managed to stay upright for most of it. I picked up my board and headed to the top of the next hill - a tiny one that I attempted standing - and immediately bailed. And attempted standing again - and immediately bailed again. And so on until the bottom....

Made m'day.

We slid down one more hill, this one twice as long as the first. I ran over to S when it was all over. "Well, that was fun! But now I'm done. We'll watch the sunset and head back, I'm sure!"

I shouldn't have been so sure. After a few more minutes in the buggy we pulled to a stop at the top of a slope that made the previous three look like bunny hills - about 400 metres. "So much for a relaxing view of the sunset..." My knees knocked and my stomach flipped but after watching a few people brave the immense hill I kicked off - the sound of my nervous laughter trailing behind me.

The longest of the first batch of hills.

Three more slopes awaited - each longer and more treacherous than the last. Climbing in the sand to the top of each was exhausting, but the pay-off - the absolutely silliness of playing like children in natural playground - was worth it. It was exhilarating. A warm smile spread across my face as I watched S tumble down the final monumentally long slope and come to a stop at the bottom.

Does it look long? It was long. Very loooong.

"Still grumpy?" S teased. I socked him in the shoulder. "Still afraid of rollercoasters?" The answer to both - a resounding "No!"

A good reminder that on those days when I get up on the wrong side of the bed it's always possible to change my attitude by getting outside, having fun and pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

Now if only I could get this sand out my ears, nose, hair and erm... well, you get the picture. Hasta Luego!

My fly being down probably didn't help...

Churros con Chocolate in Lima

2011-04-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

This website's new name is violetdeareatingsweets.com

Sometimes, after a long day walking around a vast city on sore feet all you want is something simple to make you feel warm and cozy and happy.

Lima is a complicated city, a city that defies easy explanation. It's a city that is neither Northern enough nor far enough South, far removed from the Andean highlands and the deep Amazonian jungle that cover most of Peru's landmass, colder and greyer than the rest of the continent and frequently racked with massive earthquakes. It is, as Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick, "the strangest, saddest city thou can'st see." Strange and sad and you can't see it when most mornings and late afternoons it's covered in a thick blanket of fog.

This afternoon, after S and I toured the sights of the Plaza de Armas and marvelled the fascinating (mostly erotic - !) pottery at the Museo Larco, cold fog rolled through the city. For the first time since landing in Peru I felt genuinely chilly, even slightly homesick. I felt strange and kind of sad and couldn't see anything.

Perfect snack.

That's when I decided to head to Manolo's, the famous Lima chocolate con churro institution on Avenida Jose Larco. Seated at an outdoor table on the busy street we asked the waiter, in embarrassingly broken Spanish, for the house special, para dos.

Minutes later the snack arrived - five crispy churros each, the size of fat pencils dusted with grainy sugar, meant for dipping into the accompanying cups of thick, glossy chocolate.

"There is no way I can eat all five of these." I said, eying the plate incredulously. Minutes later my fingers were greasy and my mouth coated in sugar. "I am eating all five of these."

I had been expecting Mexican style-hot chocolate and big cinnamon-y donut sticks but this was something different. The chocolate was more like a sauce, unsweetend but extremely rich and fruity. The churros were similarly not too sweet, perfectly oily and crispy on their ridged edges and a little bit doughy in their centres.

Like dipping a tasty paintbrush into gooey shellac.

I opted for a dipping strategy, using my churro to soak up as much of the sauce as I could, almost as a ladling tool into my waiting mouth. S, on the other hand, chose to mash his up and drop pieces into his cup, letting them stew before spooning them out.

It was comfort food, Lima style. The kind of food you eat when you want to be reminded of your childhood and surrounded by warm, cozy gustatory memory. No one grows out of this desire - Manolo's was packed with men in business suits, tattooed teenagers, beautiful people on their way to nightclubs and backpackers from every corner of the earth.

Food unites everyone in Lima - the strangest, saddest city with the biggest, emptiest plates of churros con chocolate on earth.

Two thousand calories schmoo schmousand schmalories.

A Spoonful of Ceviche...

2011-04-14T18:19:00.002-07:00

Different day, different continent.

As we slowly woke up this morning to strong cups of black tea (me) and black coffee (S), S and I tried to shake the strange South American jet lag and past 24 hours of Los Angeles decadence from our bones.

Racked with indecision regarding our plans to spend three and a half weeks solely in Southern Peru (some people do five countries in this time) and chewing on a European style breakfast of dry bun, jam and butter (my eyes had darted hopefully around the area for eggs or cheese or? Nutella? anything? Bueller?) I was feeling wary of this city.

And not just because I'm tired. Sure, I've only just completed the most intense semester of my life a few days ago. And sure, it was only last week that I was part of a team organizing not one but two massive events. And hell - I submitted my first post for a bi-weekly column I'm writing just yesterday as I dashed off to LAX. But none of those ample reasons for being weary were the real reason that I was wary.

I was scared.

See, for the first time since setting my Haviana'ed foot onto the cyclone soaked land of Manila, I was in a city - Lima - that is known for crime, corruption, murder and rape. The Lonely Planet, normally filled with level headed travel advice, has an entire chapter on how to not get killed in Peru.

This wasn't like my independent trip to Jamaica where I naively thought everything was going to be reggae and Red Stripe and Rastafarian wisdom, only to leave my hotel and end up terrified an hour later - this was different. This morning I was scared to even leave the hotel.

Until, of course, I met Francis.

Francis.

Francis likes maps. Francis likes food. And what Francis likes more than anything is to gather a group of travelers around the breakfast table, armed with highlighters, to map out - in the most meticulous detail imaginable - the food of Lima, the culinary capital of Latin America.

Ruins? Churches? Museums? Afterthoughts! The real Lima, according to Francis, is to be found in mouthfuls of hot chiccarones sandwiches (pork cracklings layered with fried sweet potato and onions) in slippery bites of citrus-y ceviche (shellfish marinated in lime juice) and in chewy pulpo al olivo (grilled octopus bathed in rich olive oil.)

As he described each dish, his mouth visibly watered. He quivered. He repeatedly stopped mid-sentence, pausing in perfect religious ecstasy as he recounted the baked scallop and cheese dish "conchas parmesanas - oh yes. You will have this and you will be loving it. You will be having a really nice time."

Ominous orange highlighter warns of scary death.

Francis used his highlighters to mark up the double-sided map to the point that it was packed with notes; partial menu entries scrawled in the margins and particularly important hellados shops underlined in green. My fears of random assault and violence subsided, replaced with food-porn fantasies and happy dreams of spicy food con mucho aji! That's when Francis pulled out the orange highlighter.

"Ok, now we're gonna see where you not going, ok? You be having a really nice time if you not going - NOT EVER GOING past these orange lines, ok?" I nodded. S nodded. The other 4 Lima virgins at the table nodded.

"Now you gonna need to know how to get a taxi, ok? Now, you never gonna taking a taxi with the driver has big scar across his face, ok? Also never if the driver missing arm or leg or finger, ok? And you never gonna take a taxi that isn't have no proper license plate ok? And then you be having a really nice time." I nodded emphatically, mentally compiling this list. I was going to have a really nice time. I was not going to go with any..... wait. He was still talking.

"Ok, now, when you getting in taxi you both better be sitting in the back, ok? You sitting in the back so that if driver pulls out a gun, you are punching him in the head, ok?" We nervously laughed. Francis didn't.

"Ok - now you go and have a really nice time!" It was noon. I was still scared, but the food - the otherworldly buffets of fresh fish and farm cheese and mashed potato avocado salads that Francis' had described - they danced in my head and motivated me. I wanted to eat my way through Lima, and that bun wasn't gonna cut it.

Popcorn can kiss my white ass.

After wandering through Miraflores, the wealthy beach community where most travelers stay, and visiting some pre-Incan ruins we built up a huge appetite. Strolling toward the ethereally beautiful cliffs of the Lima beach, we found one of the restaurants that Francis had recommended with gusto, Punta Sal Seafood.

After snacking on some cancha (huge roasted kernels of corn), to which I am now addicted, we decided to try everything - literally. We created two sampler platters of three items each - all for around 60 soles (20 dollars CAD).

Hmmm. I'll have the trio of seat-wettingly good fish dishes. Kthx.

Mine? Causas cangrejo, a mashed potato and avocado salad stuffed with fresh crabmeat, a ceviche loaded with red onions and carpaccio of thinly sliced white fish in a citrus and cilantro broth.

I probably shouldn't eat octopus. They're smart. But with all the pork I don't eat, don't I get a gimme?

S has the causas camerones (the same potato salad, but with shrimp), a portion of ceviche and the pulpa al olivo, absolutely bursting with olive-y flavour.

I took one bite of each dish and smiled, a huge grin ear to ear. "Oh, S" I practically purred, "Peru and I are going to get along just fine. I am having a very. nice. time."

It's like an entire country asked me what my favourite foods are and then decided to make their national dishes out of these ingredients. (Well, except one. The most famous Peruvian dish is cuy - roasted Guinea Pig. But when in Rome, am I right? This little piggie is going to have to try one.)

Causas - If you love them so much why don't you marry them?
I actually already have the paperwork in process.
The honeymoon could get messy.

Causas, those primary coloured potato-y works of art, are now seriously in the running (along with serious contenders poutine, paneer butter masala, perogies and salmon sashimi) for my favourite food. Of all time. Ever. There is a causa restaurant a few blocks from here, and tomorrow I will be seated hungrily at its counter.

Which brings me to my point. I left the hotel this morning like a shivering little sissy, afraid of the big bad men of Lima - a feeling of helplessness that is foreign to me. No other city has ever intimidated me quite so much, has ever disempowered me to the point that I wanted to crawl back into bed, pull the covers up over my head and sleep through it.

But it wasn't Lima that was assaulting me - I was assaulting myself. I believed the hype, believed in the fear of this place and I let it get to me. Don't get me wrong - as Francis and his "taxi-cab parade of death lecture" has made perfectly clear - this is a dangerous city. This is not a place to flash money around or absentmindedly wander past the orange Xs - you must be smart and savvy and aware.

And sister, let me tell you - I am those things. I am smart and savvy and aware, but for a few hours I let myself forget and I doubted my ability to travel.

Today, all it took was the simplest of human art, the most basic gesture of kindness and humanity - food - to bring me back down to earth. Bring me back down to this place that yes, may have crime and danger and guns but also has kind people, amazing sights and some of the most delicious seafood on the planet.

Anita and the vat of Arroz con Leche that she served to me for 4 soles.

Which brings me to dessert, the sweetest part of my day. As we walked through the main square of Miraflores, past a church inhabited by cats (I went on a petting spree!) I gasped and pulled S' arm. "Look! Dessert cart!"

It was emblazoned with the words "Dulces Limenos" which I immediately deciphered with my Mexican resort Spanish to mean "Sweet Lemon."

"Come on, S! Let's have a sweetie!" I presented the woman, whose embroidered smock identified her name as Anita, with a 5 Soles coin (approximately 1.60 CAD). She looked at me, puzzled, and spoke in slow deliberate Spanish. I smiled, shrugged my shoulders and gestured as if to say "whatever you think!"

She filled a bowl with Arroz con Leche (rice pudding), topped it with coconut and splashed it with sweet condensed milk, presenting me with dessert with a big smile. We sat a few metres away and slowly spooned up the sticky confection, the taste of cinnamon and peppermint and nutmeg on our lips, Christmas-y somehow, here in this dangerous city below the equator.

I read the name of the cart again. "Dulces Limenos. Dulces Limenos. Hmm." It dawned on me.

"S, Limenos isn't lemons! It means Lima residents - Lima-enos." The literal translation? We were sitting in the 25 degree sunshine eating 'the sweets of the Lima people.'

People smiled at us, helped us to cross the hectic streets with them and they put up with our poor Spanglish and our lack of comprehension at even the simplest sentences. How silly, how xenophobic to be afraid of place where people sit and eat rice pudding in the park! Where they have an entire cart of sweeties named after the residents of a city!

My fear burst at that exact moment, like a bubble. The shortest route to my heart in Lima was through my stomach.

So while I'll exercise caution, use my head and "keep my money in safe place" (thanks Grandpa) I'm no longer afraid of Lima. But I do want to eat a whole lot more of it.

S and me overlooking the Miraflores cliffs - and a Tony Roma's. Not on my list. Although....onion blossoms...

Battersea Power Station

2010-09-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Oh, you pretty thing.

Last week I went on an extremely last minute trip to London, and I spent my time soaking in the culture of this grand old city, trying to see the little touristy bits here and there that I have missed on past trips. I was having a splendid time, that is, until I got a bit tipsy in Brighton on my final day and lost my camera. Inside was a memory card with 3 days worth of photos on it. :(

The photos I am saddest about losing are the 50+ I took of the Battersea Power Station.

I first saw a photo of this 1930's era abandoned coal burning plant in a Lonely Planet and chills went up my spine - I knew I had to see it in person. I took the tube to Pimlico station to stand across the Thames from this wonderfully monstrous building - it was well worth the trip. The building filled me with one part horror and one part awe - it is an unimaginably huge monolith and even from a distance it took up the whole sky and made me shudder in a delightful way. Certain twentieth century buildings do that to me....

Sadly, this big old Art Deco queen is a victim of "demolition by neglect" (which we are all too familiar with here in Vancouver) and is only a shell (you can see right through the windows above). Hopefully the government with step in to protect this eerily odd, strangely beautiful, magical building.

So, unfortunately this is NOT my photo, but nonetheless here is the Battersea Power Station. Only just now did I realize that it is also famous for some Pink Floyd (my most hated band ever) stuff, but I don't care about that. I just want to go around the world and stare at more buildings. Please?

A Lovely Place to Get Wrecked...

2010-07-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

Wreck Beach in the Spring, before thousands of nude sun seekers descend. (Photo taken from here)

I have referenced Wreck Beach a few times here on madnessandbeauty, but only in cheeky hyperlink ways that could easily be missed. But now, it is time to fess up and let you know: I frequent a nude beach.

But it's not what you think! When most people picture a nude beach, they envision a weirdo hippie swinger commune where love rules and drum circles unite in the sunset. And while I admit, there is that certain element down at my beloved Wreck, its about much more than that. People from all walks of life flock to the edges of UBC to descend the 473 steps to the bottom of a cliff. Wrapping around this steep hillside is a utopic slice of sand, the prettiest you can get in the Lower Mainland and one of the most renowned nude beaches in the world. Hell, it was even nominated to be one of Canada's Seven Wonders!

Part of Wreck's allure is that its location prevents a few things: mass crowds of people and development (there is no road access.) However, that doesn't prevent a ragtag group of vendors from setting up shop, hoisting their ware up and down all those stairs just to make it happen. There are people meandering around selling beer, jello shots, marijuana, homemade empanadas, pizza, hot pork buns (the affable Thai fellow's slogan is "would you like to eat my nice, hot buns?,) sarongs, jewelry, palm readings, portraits, and "icy cold organic soft drinks." The vendors, like most of the beachgoers, are in various stages of undress - the most hardcore among them nude but for their fanny packs....

Lining the back of the beach are more vendors, these ones more professionally set up as seasonal "permanent" stalls. Stormin' Norman's Spirit Burgers is a long time favourite, staffed by surly naked French Canadians and featuring exotic meat burgers. There are also Peruvian, Vegan and Greek take-out joints, not to mention a larger naked lady who braves the spluttering of hot oil as she makes french fries and even poutine. Yes, on the beach.

Getting buck naked is not mandatory, but it is considered polite to get at least kind of nude. I myself go topless, only going for the full monty about 10% of the time. "Tourists," often from more restrictive cultures/countries can sometimes be seen lining the back of the beach and leering, but the Wreck beach police (a groups of scraggy old hippies who have been down at the beach since the 60's, when Vancouver was referred to as "San Francisco of the North") chase them away. You do not want to piss these old timers off - brandish a camera and they turn into pitbulls.

I have been going to Wreck for about 8 years, and in that time have developed a little core crew of friends who also spend 10 months of the year dreaming of the beach. We spend all week holding our breaths and hoping the weather will be at least 25 degrees (Celcius, my yank friends. We're not that crazy) and then Jay makes a vat of sangria, and we wile away the hours gossiping, eating, swimming and even occasionally skim boarding at the water's edge.

But it's not the food or illicit drinking that makes it such a draw for me. Rather, it's the calm, laid back attitude of everyone on the beach, the giggling toddlers wandering around, the puppies playing in the water and the tattooed hipsters catching sidelong glances of their naked crushes. It's this weird feeling of community that keeps all of us trudging down (and back up) those brutal stairs. Gazing out at the water, with no visible buildings or landmass in sight, just forest and sand and waves, I remarked to my best friend Xstina "it's like the apocalyse has happened and we're all stranded here on this beach and we don't care because it is awesome..."

Ok, maybe that was the vendor beer talking, but I stand by it.

Even when I was here, I missed mah beach!

The Angry Itch

2010-06-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

Handmade Tara statue at the Norbulingka Institute in Dharamsala, India.

So, lately as I embark upon a slightly more spiritual path in my life and explore Buddhism and Hinduism earnestly (that is, without calling myself a douchebag in my head) I have, along side a growing sense of calm and contentedness, an almost animalistic urge to go traveling again. I can barely prevent my quivering fingers from tapping out the web addresses to travel sites and spending the last unspent chunk of credit card limit on a ticket to India or Bali.

I have been dreaming of the smoke filled chaotic streets of Delhi, the train station that I would have to navigate and conquer to find my way back to Dharamsala, high in the Himalayas and home to the Dalai Lama. Dreaming of landing in Hong Kong for a few days and then rushing through the traffic choked lanes to find the bus to the airport, barely making it in time for my flight to Denpasar, Bali where I would settle in the hills of Ubud and drink tea and drink wine and pet stray cats and commune all barefoot with my Buddha nature. Sigh.

About to set flowers in the Ganges in Varanasi.

Do I have a right to complain, and I sit here at my Summer job that countless other students applied for, in the middle of the luxury of being an adult scholar? I have pretty things, happy cats, fresh make-up and clean fingernails - but I just want to cash all of that in for a seedy room in some nondescript guesthouse, dirty feet and grubby fingers; for shots of blinding rice alcohol and heart thumping motorcycle rides and those moments when you breathe in and you're just - free and young and the whole world is just everything it is in that one moment. Y'know?

Alas, my schooling is more important and has to, for once and for all, get finished. And then I need to knock off my Masters, all in pursuit of my dream job. But, I have a feeling that this itch, this squirming, howling angry itch will not go away. I need to get back to crazy India. I need to go and meditate in the hills of that magical volcanic island in Indonesia. I need to live my true Buddha nature - as a traveler.

Bells at a Kali temple in the Chamba Valley, Northern India.

(And maybe you could help me and click this link so I can win a trip? It takes two seconds and I would be oh so happy!)

Cold, Damp and Productive?

2010-06-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

Ahh, Beautiful late June skies behind some of my favourite neon...

When the weather is disappointing, as it so often is in dreary Vancouver, it can be a good time to do a mental inventory and get some of the intangible messy tasks in your life accomplished. Or at least started (after you draw pictures of dinosaurs, of course)...

I often think of myself as lazy, a notion that must have gotten stuck in my head as a child with a messy bedroom (it was epic. Until I was 20, cleaning my room took 2 days.) Like many ideas I have about myself (I am tall. I hate exercise.) it is actually really distorted and mostly false. As one of my best friends chortled as she nearly choked on her tea, "V, you are the least lazy person I know!"

And so maybe that is kind of true. I am a type A personality (although many only see my DD type personality, if y'know what I mean...) and I have a hard time relaxing if everything is not just so. That means, when I get home from work/yoga/school (and sometimes a combination of all three) I don't sit down - I cook, clean and do laundry first. Then, finally, when it is all done - I study. It's usually midnight at this point, and I last 20 minutes in front of an episode of "The Ugly Americans" before I fall asleep on the couch. (Even my facial cleansing/teeth brushing regime is long and complicated...)

BUT - there is always that annoying list of huge tasks lingering at the back of my brain somewhere - things that never get done because they are inconvenient and time-consuming and costly. And this fucking Summer? I am tackling them.

Perhaps it is the muggy, hazy, chilly weather we have been having that is filling me with ennui and making me push to get these un-doable tasks done. Vancouver is experiencing the worst Summer I can ever remember, with rain, clouds and cold breezes the daily norm so far in June. It's preventing me from the fun Summer things that I love: the beach, bike rides and BBQs - and giving me all of this free time to make appointments.

a) Mah Harr: Little known fact: my hair is actually not black. It is Clairol 121A "Natural Deep Brown" but on my shitty dishwater coloured hair it turns shiny jet black. For years I have been lamenting this fact, moaning that my hair was indeed "really dark brown! Look at me in the sun! Loooookkkk!" No one bought it. So now, tomorrow actually, I am having my hair stripped to a dark dark brown (think Zooey Deschanel), like I have always wanted it. Of course, now I am filled with nervous apprehension. Will it change my look too much? Will it be me? Will I lose my edge? ("Honey, you is like razors hidden in a candy apple, I wouldn't worry about that" - Inner Drag Queen.) It remains to be seen. I will let you know.

b) Sick Tribe: Yes, like most tattooed folks nearing thirty, I have a piece of tribal artwork on my back. And it is purple. Yep. Purple. I have an appointment to have it removed (well, at least lightened so that it can be covered prettily with this) on Saturday. Thank God for lasers.

c) Wonky Jaw: I have a wonky jaw (yes, that is the correct medical term.) It is simply a bit too small for my face, resulting in headaches, ringing in my ears and even causing me to bite my poor tongue on a semi-regular basis. Hard. Enough to draw blood. And as I get older, I am even developing a wee slight lisp as my muscles are having a hard time correcting the problem (especially when wine is involved....) I choose to find it endearing, but c'mon... thirty year old lisping woman is not so cute. The solution? My jaw needs to be broken, with an actual hammer, and somehow soldered back together in a hopefully kickass bionic way. It also means braces first, and even if they are clear I can't shake the terrible vain feeling that I will be a hideous freak. Le Sigh. Pain vs Beauty? I'm torn.... (or more like broken with a hammer.)

d) Framing - Last but not least - I know this one seems mundane at best, but since I began traveling at the age of 18 I have collected prints and posters and photos from around the world. And like, 2 of them are framed (and my mum did those ones for me.) I am the world's WORST procrastinator when it comes to framing - I think it intimidates me a little bit, all of those choices and colours, and it has less instant gratification than say, a pair of pretty heels, or a tattoo. I have a beautiful Egon Schiele print, a lovely Francis Bacon and a Marc Chagall gallery poster from Cesky Krumlov and goddamnit - by September 1st they will all be framed. And hung. Just do me a favour. Remind me?

So is this dull, drab weather a blessing in disguise? I'll let you know by August - if I'm not down on the beach, procrastinating....

xoxo
Violet Dear

Stuff I Like - June 2010

2010-06-09T00:24:00.000-07:00

You'll see a woman/hanging upside down/her features covered by her fallen gown

Leonard Cohen - The Future
I really remember this being the first album that I bought, back in grade eight, that transcended the genres I was listening to: punk, grunge, riot grrrl and psychobilly. I also remember my mother being suitably impressed that my music tastes were expanding, which was true - to a point. Though I had secretly enjoyed the country-esque swing of "Closing Time" when it had been a hit on Muchmusic the year earlier, it was in grade eight that Trent Reznor included three of Mr Cohen's tracks (along with my girlhood fave L7) on the Natural Born Killers Soundtrack. This was enough of an endorsement for me at the time, and I'm glad it was, because I still treasure this album (and am in fact listening tonight on this lovely tranquil evening.) The dirty, racy lyrics and Cohen's wistful, raw growling voice turned me on to his poetry and for that I am forever grateful. It has changed me as a writer - and a thinker.

Plus, look at 'im dance!

Look at the good Canuck go!

Yoga tattoo - a gentle reminder to myself to enjoy and contemplate every moment as it happens.

2) Yoga
My friends, my family, my colleagues, my neighbours - I think that everyone in my life is pretty used to (or sick of) me talking incessantly about yoga. Since January 4th I have gone to 4 or 5 classes a week and it has changed my life. Like, for realsies. See, I've always rolled my eyes at hippies, and so when I used to hear people wax rhapsodic about their third eye I would dismiss them as navel-gazing assholes. So how do you think I feel now that I am one of those assholes!?

All kidding aside, yoga has made me a stronger (seriously, these muscles are getting impressive, for l'il ole me) happier (by an immeasurable amount) and healthier person. I feel softer, lighter and more easily filled with joy. Fewer things get me stressed, other people's actions don't affect me as much and I no longer feel compelled to participate in bad vibes or gossip (except about celebs. I mean, c'mon. ) In my yoga practice, I can consistently set goals and achieve them (I recently learned to do headstands with no support - here is my next goal.) Plus - my ass looks great. Seriously.

I have always believed that socially unacceptable men make much better lovers because they are more sensitive. - Candy Darling

3) Candy Darling on Her Deathbed
Candy Darling, one of Andy Warhol's "superstars" was a drag queen, actor and muse. She was perfection - a true sexual renegade in the late sixties when queer culture didn't yet look fondly on transgendered folk. Days before her life was cut tragically short (she was 29) by leukemia in 1974, this haunting portrait, titled "Candy Darling on her deathbed," was shot by Peter Hujar. I have wanted a framed print of this for years and can not find one anywhere! Coincidentally, one of my favourite bands, Antony and the Johnsons, used the image on the cover of their second LP "I Am A Bird Now", so the reasons to love it are layered. I just can't get her frailty, her sensuous acceptance of death and her languid pose out of my mind. RIP Candy, dear.

Bon Temps? Sunnydale? It should all make sense now, thanks to this.

4) Thinking about how Buffy and Sookie are the same character, pretty much
I love both Buffy and True Blood (and I know I'm not the only one to notice this) so this isn't meant to disparage either, but Sook is really starting to remind me of Ms. Summers. "Scooby Gang" of helpful pals, some of whom are kind of magic-y? Check. Love triangle between human girl, altruistic vampire and evil vampire? Check. Pretty blonde who is not quite human and is drawn to said vampires? "Big Bad" main source of evil in each season, fought in the final episode? Check. Hmmm. A little derivative?

And who cares!? Too much of a good thing? Wonderful. Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez!

From a small cafe in Melbourne. Those eggs are a thing of beauty.

5) Eggs
Probably my favourite single food ingredient, I eat about 2 eggs a day. I love them, and after the strange and gag-inducing ways they often came served in Asia, I really appreciate how wonderful they can be. They come in their own little package, you can prepare them a hundred ways, they are fastfastfast for supper and they are delicious. My favourite? Poached runny, so that even the white are jiggly and the yolk goes everywhere, preferably covered in hollandaise sauce. It's midnight now, and frankly, I am excited for 8am so I can fry me up some of nature's perfect food. Hey Chickens? You're allllllright.

Til' next time
xoxox
V

Say Fromage!

2010-06-04T14:44:00.000-07:00

Like a fat French kid in a candyshop. Le Yay!

How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese? - Charles de Gaulle

Oh, Paris. There is something there that captivates the mind, sweeps into the heart and tickles the soul - and stinks up your fingers. Cheese, almost everyone's favourite food (I say almost because some people are assholes who claim not to like it) is at its best, most decadent, pungent and exhilarating in France, and I left my heart in its Fromageries.

On our second day in Paris, S and I decided to forgo a restaurant lunch and live the typical cliche- we strolled to the market, bought bread and cheese and wine and sat in a park (we couldn't find a church nearby and we had cheese burning a hole in our pocket!) rather than dine on steaming hot moules et frites and soupe aux poissons. I am glad we did.

It was a learning experience, to say the least.

I'll take this bad boy over a doughnut any day...

We headed to a small farmer's market in the Latin Quarter and entered what can only be described as a cheese mecca. Displayed on the shelves were hundreds of varieties of cheese, most of them unwrapped and displayed in the open air. It was an agonizing process.

We perused the selection, breathing in the fierce goat-y smell and letting it waft over our faces. I stared at the huge wheels of rinded cheeses, their gooey centres bulging out slightly and debated over which goat cheese to choose. I peered into big vats of soft Mascarpone, drooled over veiny blue Roquefort and compared the firm butter coloured Raclette and Emmenthal. It was an intensive procedure.

Finally, after about twenty minutes we decided on a small round cylinder of hard goat cheese, a big creamy slab of Morbier and a round orange rinded cheese wrapped in plastic. We popped next door for some bread, thin crusty wands filled with salty olives, grabbed some wine and headed to the Square Michel Foucault for some serious lactose.

Tonight....I celebrate my love for you....

The Morbier was dreamy - a slice of Brie-like soft cow's cheese with a vein of mold running up the middle. It was smooth with just a hint of blue flavour, spreading easily over the bread and reminding me of a glass of fresh farm milk. The hard goat's cheese was almost like a parmesan, nutty and tiny bit acrid at the back of the soft palate, nice to chip off and eat in small bites. And then... then there was the wrapped cheese.

I have done some research and found out that this particular kind of cheese is called Epoisses and is considered by the French to be one of the stinkiest cheeses in the world - so much so that it is actually banned from public transport. This information would have come in handy (perhaps the shopkeep could have shouted "Interdit! Interdit!" when we tried to buy it) as we greedily tore into the cheese. With our hands. Instantly I knew something was awry. Being a lover of rank cheese, I bravely scooped the sample into my mouth.

Demon cheese. This is actually the plot of next season's True Blood.

Everything went blurry for a few moments as I faded in and out of consciousness. The taste, somewhere between rotting flesh and clabbered milk and something even more inexplicable and ghastly, seemed to hit me at the base of my skull and I nearly wretched. S, being the brave foodie, soldiered on to have a second bite in the "Anthony Bourdain/adventurous traveler/intrepid eater" tradition while I frantically crammed Morbier, bread and wine into my mouth to try to erase the flavour.

It was less a cheese than an angry god that needed appeasing - and I was fresh out of slaughtered fowl to burn and present. Not since durian have I tasted - or smelled - something filled with so much otherworldly hate. S decided that he too could not bear it and we guiltily threw it away.

After eating, walking through the Latin Quartier past the Sorbonne on our way to the Catacombs I could not get the taste out of my mouth- or the smell from my fingers. The oils in the Epoisses seemed to have penetrated my skin, and no matter how many times I washed my hands and scrubbed my nails with strong soap over the next few days, it was futile. The smell pervaded. I never got used to it.

Paris Picnic. Just watch out for Yogi Ours.

So my idea of a dream lunch is still intact - cheese, fine wine and delicious bread amidst a soft Parisian Spring breeze. But next time I will leave out the Epoisses - unless, of course, I am prepared to bow down to its evil god.

Rainy City, Shady Past.

2010-05-31T13:02:00.000-07:00

Gassy Jack - our boozy, child bride marryin', cheatin' founding father.

Since becoming a tour guide for the Sins of the City Walking Tour, I have developed a passion for Vancouver’s heritage that borders on madness. I want to know it all – the details of every seedy story, the tawdry tales behind the burnt out neon signs, the whisper of tassels grazing flesh at the countless closed burlesque houses. This is the Vancouver that I am hungry for – its sordid tales replaying themselves through my voice under the mottled grey skies, skies dark and purple like a bruise on a junkie’s arm, like the shadow on the eye of a bawdy house girl.

The history that lies just under the cobblestone streets of this much-maligned neighbourhood is strangely present all around you, and if you start to listen and learn you can plunge your hands inside of it, all the way to the elbow and dig around, find the stories that interest you and connect them to the buildings in front of you.

The heritage buildings along Alexander Street - Vancouver's red light district circa 1910.

Take, for instance, the 400 block of Alexander Street, now a no-man’s land of halfway houses and factories. In 1910, it was the bustling centre of Vancouver’s colourful sex trade, women of all shapes and sizes hanging their heads from balconies and windows to entice passersby. The deeds to these house, and all of their original water and power records are in the names of the enterprising women, mostly Californian and escaping the ruins of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, who built them. Their names are even inscribed in the tile work of the doorways. Standing with mouth slightly agape at the corner of Dunlevy and Alexander, the history springs to life.

One of the only remnants of the Japanese community on Alexander Street, destroyed by the internment camps.

A lot of the areas on the first half of walking tour are eerily empty, the streets abandoned during the day with only the occasional factory along the way. But it is in these areas, down on the wrong side of Hastings St along Powell and Railway and Alexander – it is down here that the down and dirty early stories of this rough and tumble little town took place. The Hastings Mill that started it all, bustling Japantown and its tragic end, Gassy Jack and his barrel of whiskey – it all started right here.

Studying for and running this tour has opened up my eyes and piqued my interest in such a fascinating way. Every walk I lead, every step I take around this city feels like an exciting discovery and there is so much more beneath the surface that I want to scratch away and reveal.

So come and take a walk with me. There is nothing I would rather do.

This blows my mind - the wooden bricks originally used to pave Alexander Street 100 years ago are still intact!

Vancouver Girl Thinks Aloud

2010-05-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

A larger than life representation of a weaving spindle, at the Squamish Lil'wat Centre in Whistler.

It's easy to forget, here in Vancouver, that we have cultural riches at our fingertips that the world flocks to see. We grow up surrounded by totem poles and learn about potlatches at school but it never really seems to sink in. Perhaps because here in Canada our First Nations population suffers from so many social problems it becomes easy to overlook their current culture - we think of it as antiquated and archaeological, as arrowheads in museums rather than a changing and dynamic population of artists, athletes and regular folk.

Where I work, in the Downtown Eastside (DTES), it becomes all to easy to reflect only on the social woes of the First Nations population who are trapped there - caught in cycles of addiction learned by years in residential schools and foster care with no modeling of functional families to base their adulthood on. Day in and day out I am confronted with the desperation that hangs in the air above my beloved DTES.

That's not to say that it is all sadness - no, I am just as likely to have a smile smacked on my face as I witness the loving and caring atmosphere that the DTES community creates and nurtures. The fierce pride of the First Nations people living on the fringes of wealthy Vancouver is awe inspiring. The days though, the days when I see junkies overdosing or people in the crack dance, teenaged prostitutes with meth sores and old women begging for money - those days I am broken.

How can my country claim to be so advanced, and my city be heralded as having the highest standard of living in the world when this is what we have done to a race of people? Decimated their land, outlawed their language and customs, forcibly sterilized them until 30 years ago - this country is a monster, not a saint. And despite current good intentions, the statistics speak for themselves. How do I reconcile this with my patriotism?

**************

Xstina is a cage, with a cannibalistic wilderness wildwoman looking on, part of a Squamish myth

I find it ironic that the first thing that North American travelers rush to see when visiting Asia are the "tribal" villages where you can purchase handicrafts, view carvings and artifacts and take pictures with the locals when we have such amazing examples of such in our own backyard. Again, for some reason we ignore the First Nations culture that permeates this land.

For a tourism challenge offered to museum workers in Vancouver I was given the opportunity to visit dozens of amazing museums and cultural centres, earning stamps toward an annual pass as I went. The final centre on my list? The Squamish Lil'wat Centre in Whistler. Xstina and I headed up the mountain last weekend, excited to earn a stamp and wander Whistler village, its vacation atmosphere always making a day feel special.

Singing a welcome song that moved me to tears.

We were not expecting to be moved to tears by the dance, the film and the exhibits that we witnessed there. The centre has been designed in a way that allows the visitor to see the Squamish and Lil'wat Nations as growing and changing cultures, highlighting their current successes rather than their past archaeological value. The Squamish Nation is of particular relevance to me, as they are the people that once inhabited downtown Vancouver and the DTES and have over the years been forced into smaller and smaller Reserves.

We tried on the ceremonial garb, ate bannock and salmon stew and entered the longhouses, a sense of hushed, guilty awe between us. Should we, the third and fourth generation daughters of European immigrants, feel guilty? We tried not to, instead choosing to relish the amazing display in front of us.

*************

Today, while I was guiding a historical walking tour through the DTES, a First Nations woman overheard me say the word "alcohol" while telling the story of rum running during Prohibition and mistakenly thought that I was referring to current affairs. She accused me, in front of my 30 tour participants, of calling "all Indians drunks" and that I was telling "White person's lies" to the tourists. I wanted to defend myself, to explain to her that I was not and that I, of all people, understood better.

But do I?

It's something I struggle with everyday. There is no easy answer.

Cultural misappropriation or respect? You decide. It's like those HSBC ads....

Taking the Pen from Paris - A Writer Wakes Up

2010-05-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

At Cafe de Flores in Montparnasse, trying to soak in the inspiration.

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
-Ernest Hemingway

Eventually, I always thought, eventually I will be a published and praised novelist/poet. From the age of 14 this just seemed like an inevitability in my head, something that I wouldn't have to work at and would just one day, y'know, happen. "Live an exciting and interesting life, Dear, and you won't be able to STOP yourself from jotting down the next great novel!" As if it would happen absentmindedly in between rounds of vodka sodas, or on top of a cathedral in Europe, or perhaps even in the line for the washroom not used for sex at the Gay bar.

But the opposite is true.

There is a famous quote by Tallulah Bankhead: "Good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have time." And it is true. It's a catch 22 that the busier, the more exotic, the utterly fabulous stories that you acquire and rich layers of experience you gain - the less time you have to write it down.

Not that that is my only excuse for the last 15 years, the 15 years since I promised myself, a raccoon-eyed, Manic Panicked 14 year old, that I would be an brilliant novelist at some point. No, my main excuse comes back to complacency, to school essays and 9-5 jobs where you get home and just want to watch 6 hours of Arrested Development and pet the cats, not pick up a pen or a keyboard and weave magical worlds of complexity. I have been lazy. I haven't wanted it enough. I trusted, stupidly, that it would just happen.

And so of course it has not. This isn't some hilarious sitcom moment where I am going to find out I've been sleepwalking and fulfilling my life's passions while unconscious. I need to put time in, the put down the facebook and the news, to schedule my schoolwork more effectively so that I have the time to write.

BUT, and its a big but, it's not just about time, is it? It's not just about amazing, life-changing experiences and galavanting travels. It's MOSTLY about confidence, inspiration and gumption.

And I got me somma that in Paris.

Great writers have lived in Paris for hundreds of years , and while I am fascinated by the age of the Bohemians, by the characters depicted in Toulouse Lautrec paintings, by the earlier poets Balzac and Baudelaire - the era that fascinates me are the years between the wars.

The writers of the Lost Generation -American and British writers flooded Paris in the 1920s to soak up its rich artistic atmosphere and its relaxed social mores- spent hours in cafes and bars producing some of the most compelling writing of the twentieth century. James Joyce, F Scott Fitzgerald (and his crazy wife Zelda) Gertrude Stein, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Samuel Beckett - that's just a sampling of the writers that I adore. And they all.lived.here.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary - Ernest Hemingway

Despite (and maybe because of) Hemingway's personal problems, he is one of my favourite writers. His sparse, clean style is what I try to remind myself of when I get overly verbose, and though this photo is all kinds of cliche I was truly happy at this moment. I am seated in the Cafe de Flores, where a coffee is the exorbitant 6 Euros and wannabe writers from around the globe flock to spend it.

Why? It is in this cafe that Simone de Beauvoir huddled during World War II and wrote The Mandarins. It, along with Les Deux Magots next door, is where every single writer listed above has sat and written in the worn wicker seats.

Best address ever.

Montmartre, Montparnasse, the Latin Quarter - neighbourhoods so steeped in lore and fairytale that walking through them feels surreal, like I need a good pinch (not on my rear, either - although S is happy to oblige) to really be able to absorb that I'm there.

No, actually? This is the best address ever.

As if fate stepped in, in our wanders we unintentionally stumbled upon a place that I had planned on seeking out a few days later - Shakespeare and Company. This place is truly legendary amongst young writers - a bookstore on the Left Bank of the Seine that opened in 1919 as part shop/part library and part hostel for aspiring writers. In fact, I found out that to this day there is free rooming upstairs for impoverished scribes - and I may head back next Summer to take them up on that offer.

Catching up on my literary smut in the Latin Quarter.

In the 1950's a competitor, George Whitman, took over the name and applied it to his shop, formerly called Le Mistral and also on the Left Bank. In this era the famous erotic novelist (and longtime paramour of Henry Miller) Anais Nin was a frequent visitor, and her quote is posted in the back room:

And there by the Seine was a bookshop, not the same, but similar to others I had known. An Utrillo house, not too steady on its foundations, small windows, wrinkled shutters. And there was George Whitman, undernourished, bearded, a saint amongst his books, lending them, housing penniless friends upstairs, not eager to sell, in the back of the store, in a small overcrowded room, with a desk, a small stove.
— Anaïs Nin, Diary, Vol. 5.

I got goosebumps being there.

Yes, I rinsed my mouth. A lot. With wine. And more wine.

After an Edith Piaf walking tour, we ended at the Pere LaChaise cemetery to visit her grave. I then made a beeline for Oscar Wilde's tomb, and in keeping with tradition gave it a big lipstick smack while S looked on, horrified. "It's all for art!" I exclaimed, giddy with life and promise and, well Paris.

So maybe I have it now. Maybe I have that missing piece - the bone-soaking, encompassing inspiration that walking Paris' cobblestone streets gives a writer. I mean, if they could do it, why can't I?

And it's a good lesson, no matter what. Your dreams - especially if they are scary and bewildering and overwhelming - won't just happen. You make it happen. I make it happen.

And so it's time to grab life by the balls. Or, in this case, the pen.

My Life as a Writer

2010-05-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

I was about to start writing about my experiences visting the writer's haunts of Paris, then I realized that this short piece I wrote for an assignment in a writing class sums up my history as a writer quite nicely (and I hate reinventing wheels) so here it is - the Paris part will follow tout suite!

When asked to describe myself, I often use the word "writer." I like the way it sounds, the images that it conjures of a mad poet awake until all hours scribbling frantically into a notebook because what he has to say will vanish into thin air if he doesn't get it all out as fast as he can. This image stems from my romantic teenaged ideas about Bukowski and Baudelaire, authors posessed by inner demons that could only be expelled by putting pen to paper and living tortured and decadent livee. I am a poet at heart - I have examples of four line cuplets that I wrote when I was six years old.

But the word "writer" is nice because it can also refer to a journalist – an intrepid traveler scouting the globe and documenting her experiences one hairy situation at a time. I just recently was hired as a freelance journalist for a nightlife magazine - not quite the same amount of responsibility, but the situations could get just as hairy....

I write fiction as well – stories both long and short and I one day hope to finish a novel. It used to be very easy for me – as a child and teenager I was quite prolific, filling binders decorated with band names and logos with hundreds of pages of fiction. I have just recently started again, writing short character studies and even working on a script for a graphic novel for a friend who is a comic book artist.

When I write regularly it does something wonderful to my brain – I stop and stare at the most mundane sights, I listen to people differently, hearing new things in familiar voices. Words become play things, like children's blocks that I can move around and manipulate. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I feel somehow more myself, more alive when I write.

I have gone through long periods of writer's block. Throughout much of my twenties I have written little other than academic essays, with the exception of the last year. When I stop writing or slow down dramatically, it becomes incredibly easy to not write, a skill and a hobby that falls by the wayside as I choose to watch films or read instead. Ideas still pop into my head, but with less vibrancy and frequency. When I wasn't writing I certainly didn't text myself ideas when no paper was handy like I do now. Writing can be urgent for me.

Reading is like fuel for my writing. I was a voracious reader as a child, taking out the public library's maximum allowance of books per week and racing through them. Children made fun of me for using big words, but it didn't – couldn't – stop me.I still read fiction constantly. Studying does cut into the time that I have for pleasure reading but I still try to squeeze it in as every book I read changes the way that I write. I do have to be careful – at various times I have found myself imitating the styles of Hunter S Thompson, William Burroughs and others a little bit too much after reading their books.

Despite giving myself the moniker of "Writer" I have never been published. Part of this is laziness. The literary world seems so vast and overwhelming that I don't know where to begin. Even my website, with its twelve hundred readers, could be a lot more popular with agressive promotion. Part of me likes that my poetry and fiction is just for my friends and I to read, but the other part craves an audience, especially for the pieces that I like the most. I plan to get more serious about getting published once I have graduated.

Academic writing is a challenge for me – certainly more challenging than the random collections of pretty words that I churn out on a daily basis. The main reason that I am taking this course is to shave off the more casual, personal feel of my papers. After five years away from school, I also want to refresh my brain in the art of academic discourse, re-build my confidence and ensure that I am prepared to correctly write papers across the disciplines that I am taking. Who knows – maybe I'll even write a poem about it.

Tarte Aux Framboises.

2010-05-10T04:40:00.000-07:00

This doesn't even need a caption.

I promise that I will write about Notre Dame, about the Tour Eiffel and strolling the Seine, about Restaurant Chartiers and the Musee D'Orsay - but right now I only have 5 minutes and I can't get this tart out of my head. I ate it two days ago, near the afore-mentioned museum, and it was transcendent.

How did I even manage to choose?

The raspberries, in season here, were light and sweet and a bit tart - perfectly squishy and laid on a bed of delicate creamy custard. The crust was buttery and a bit crunchy, without being greasy, and tasted like it had crushed almonds in the flour. The whole thing made me moan "mmmmm" out loud as I ate it, and I spent all day yesterday looking for another of similar quality, to no avail. Just fail tarts in comparison. Sigh.

Today is my last day in Paris. Wish me luck on the tart front.

It made me re-tart-ed. Look at the madness in my eyes.

Please sir, I want some more...

2010-05-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

I elbowed a few young French girls outta the way to get at the cupcakes.

Admittedly, London has not been historically known for its culinary offerings. Meat and fish fried beyond all recognition, soggy vegetables and bland, flavourless meals are what comes to mind, but in reality the British food scene, with its stars Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson, is changing in leaps and bounds. No longer are you limited to fish n'chips and a fry up (although I had both and they were marvelous) and Indian curry - the world's food has come to London, and the old favourites are getting a dose of refinement. Here's a sample of what I ate:

They tried to make me go to Rehab, and I was like "hang on, lemme finish these eggs."

You've got to start the day with a proper British breakfast Fry Up. Now, if I ate meat, this already monstrous plate of food would be further laden with hunks of ham, blood pudding and bacon, but I think that this is still pretty divine. A forkful should consist of a little bit of every item, enrobed in the runny eggyolk and then schmeared with HP Sauce. Bliss. I got this one in Camden, at a pub called the Elephant's Head in Amy Winehouse's stomping grounds.

3 course meal.

Snack time! Pints of beer in London are not the delicious, creamy, delicious pints that I think of when I pop into a pub for a Sunday afternoon tipple with my pals - there are no delicious cream ales or dark honey lagers. The beer is half flat, and is served just above room temperature and has that sort of flavour that pissy American beers like Budweiser have. That said, there is something oddly pleasant about it, even though I had to keep telling myself that it was not last night's warm forgotten party beer. *Shudder* Before London, I liked my beer ice cold, fizzy and yummy - like Granville Island Winter Ale, or Belgian Heffweisen. I still do.

Hello Oyster. You horrify me a little bit. But in a delicious way.

Maldon Rock, French Prestige and Gigas Rock oysters.

For my birthday, S took me to a lovely gastropub called The Commander, an old pub that has been renovated to be a bit more light and airy and specializes in fresh seafood and raw oysters. I love oysters. I love their briny, fishy little bodies swimming in vinegar and garlic and slurped up with their salty ichor, half chewed and half rolled around in your mouth like a swallow of fresh sea. We had 3 different types, and they were all different; one was big and vulgar and abrupt, announcing his ocean-y flavour a little too loudly, and the other two were more delicate, like pretty little jewels. We followed the oysters with a great salad that included roasted shitake mushrooms (we had just watched this documentary, so I really enjoyed them) and then I had a pan fried Scottish salmon fillet served on a bed of dill and squash risotto. The whole meal was genius.

All four foodgroups: potatoes, sauce, pastry and cheese. Mwah!

Ahh, is there anything (other than fish n'chips, which I forgot to take a photo of!) that is so quintessentially British as pie and mash? We found a lovely chain called Eat that specializes in seasonal, fresh and organic food and rather than the stardard "steak and kidney" pie, they had these wonderful, homey sweet potato and goat's cheese pies with mash and veggie gravy. I ate this twice, it was so good. Although, if you served me a man's show with mashed potatoes and gravy, I would eat that too.....

You shouldn't leave me unnattended with all of this food. Like, for serious.

Tuna and onion salad in the foreground, cod and crab croquette in the rear.

Pintxos (peen-choes) are an phenomena that you find in the Northern Spanish Basque region, and famously in San Sebastian, a town I visited on my 18 year old "backpacking fail" trip. Little bites of savoury food, like canapes, are placed directly on the counter at all of the local bars (and there are hundreds, teeny standing room only affairs) the idea being that you pop in, grab a glass of wine of beer, eat a few pintxos and move on to the next bar, each of which specializes in a specific type. Walking down Neal St in Covent Garden, I noticed a tiny pintxos restaurant and we sampled six - all of which were good, and a few really great. I wish Vancouver had a Basque restaurant, but alas we don't. Business opportunity, anyone?

Squee!

And finally, I will leave you with cupcakes. They are called "Fairycakes" here and these ones at Camden Market were so cute that I couldn't resist (not that I even remotely tried to...) I won't lie - they were a bit stale, but so pretty that I willed myself into loving them. It worked!

Everybody Must Get Stone (Henged)

2010-05-07T06:15:00.000-07:00

Tours in the 19th century provided a little hammer so you could chip off some Stonehenge to take home.

Yet when I tried it they got angry.

Stonehenge is one of those things that I read about as a little girl in the musty smelling Childcraft encyclopedias that lined the shelf in our living room. Paging through the books I was always most fascinated by the chapter about ancient structures - The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Collossus of Rome, the Pyramids, to name a few - and Stonehenge.

Stonehenge is 5000 years old, an impossibly long time ago, and while I always imagined robe-clad Druids lighting candles and acting overwrought about Solstice around the stones, it actually would have been Fred Flintstone caveman types (Druids came about 1000 years later) building and using them.

And what was Stonehenge even used for? Despite claims that it was a burial ground, a calendar and/or a sacrificial altar, no one is sure. It always gives me a weird feeling to be standing at an ancient site and realize that in all probability, no one ever will know...

My friend Joanna told me last week that despite her recommendation to visit, "its just some rocks in a field" and I spent the morning psyching myself up to prove her wrong - afterall, I had my childhood sense of wonder safely stored in my brain. I would find it magical and amazing and cathartic.

Who's got 2 thumbs and likes Stonehenge? This guy!

And then my first glimpse from the motorway was a bit anti-climactic - we were in a large coach and we were kind of taller than Stonehenge and yeah, I had that Spinal Tap moment. But once I gathered my audioguide and walked through the underpass from the entry way to the actual field I regained most off my awe. It was windy and cold and my hair whipped around my face, but I just kind of stood there for a moment with a dumb look on my face. "Look S." I said as I poked him. "There's Stonehenge."

Ultimately though, as Joanna predicted, there were only so many angles I could stare at before my brain was like "OK. Let's go. It's just rocks. I believe there is a sandwich back on the bus." However, I did turn around one more time to stop for five minutes and just reflect. As the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, I tried to imagine the hoards of literally pre-historic people lumbering around and erecting this mystery.

Cavemen, apparently? Not so dumb. Druids are still assholes, though.

Stonehenge ahem...rocks.

My Love Tate Relationship

2010-05-05T02:32:00.000-07:00

Even the building is amazing! A converted power station.

Admittedly, I know little about art. Sure I know about the main movements, the big artists, some symbolism, but I can't tell you that "mmm, Oh, yes, well it is apparent in Krasner's work the pain over losing her husband, Jackson Pollock. oh, mmm. Yes. This squiggle here is, rawther indicative." Like, I'm not an asshole about it.

That said, I can immerse myself in (late) nineteenth and twentieth century art for hours. Even days.... S and I visited one of the world's greatest modern art temples, the hallowed (yet accessible - in Britain museums are free, and man - there were a lot of strollers and wee ones!) halls of the Tate Modern on the Southbank of London. After a morning at St Paul's Cathedral, a short walk across the Millenium footbridge, we arrived at 2 pm thinking that 4 hours would be enough. It was - barely.

With my new boyfriend, the Tate Modern Audioguide (it's like an ipod Touch! With extra pictures! And videos of interviews with the artists! And you can listen to commentary on almost all of the works in the museum! AMAZING!) I could have spent 4 more hours inside. Easily.

Now, I don't have the space to show you all of my favourite highlights (I took 100 photos. That'd be a loooooong blog) in my own words - no fancy schmancy art-critic talk! I will show you a few of my faves:

Venus of the Rags
Michaelangelo Pistoletto

Something so mundane as these rags coupled with the divinity of ancient Roman sculpture? From my photo it is hard to tell, but this statue is not made of marble or stone - it is a plastic garden version. Now, I have an affinity for Venus as I am a Taurus (my birthday was yesterday, matter o fact) and because she represents love and passion - does this common material cheapen her, and love itself? With her back turned to us, is she ashamed to be surrounded with something so mundane as what is essentially dirty laundry? This artist is from a school called Arte Povera (literally "Poverty Art") in which the artists use mundane materials to make their statements. I just love the colours and the questions it raises.

Untitled
Glenn Ligon

As a self-professed Neon Sign historian (like really. I am obsessed lately. Ask my pals - they'll roll their eyes.) I have always liked neon artists (Keith Sonnier is another fave) and I love that this piece breaks convention by depicting the word "America" - a word that invokes so much imagery, good and bad - in black rather than the fruit-punchy colours that we expect. I want to see this lit up. Badly.

Skulls
Andy Warhol

Oh Warhol, you will forever be linked to my teenaged coming-of-age, mixed in with memories of Candy Darling, Kenneth Anger, Jon Moritsugu, Robert Mapplethorpe and John Waters. How I love thee, and yet how cliched it can easily become to admit it.... Oh, screw it - despite your fame, you introuced the world to "pop-art" and for that I am thankful.

I love this photo, because there are actually two pieces of art in it. One is simply the wallpaper - Warhole designed this when a pal lamented that "no one paints farm landscapes anymore" and the other is the painting of 6 skulls. On its own, without context, this would be a bit of a boring piece, I mean, even then skulls had been done. But when I think of the other subjects that Warhol painted in this repetitive tile pattern (Marliyn Monroe, Elvis, the glitterati of Studio 54 and Max's Kansas City) it takes on a darker, more genuinely sinister meaning. Once celebrity has been done - what is left?

The Music From the Balconies
Edward Ruscha

Sometimes you don't have to get it. You just love it. This is a quote from a JG Ballard novel, he of sexual violence and depravity (don't worry, we'll get to Francis Bacon soon) and it is like a line of poetry, which is art itself, and so why not?

Nude Woman Reclining in a Red Armchair
Pablo Picasso
She's so chubby and sweet and a lot less "cube-y" than his earlier work! I'm actually a bigger fan of Georges Braque than of Picasso, but I really am drawn to this painting. I think all of her femininity and naked sexuality has been rendered non-threatening by this somewhat over-cutesy depiction - especially when I remember that Picasso used a lot of prostitutes as models and that this may have been his way of disarming their power over him.

The Carnival
Max Beckman

This was painted in 1920 and I think that it shows current artists such as Mark Ryden to be the self-indulgent, overly-derivative posers that they are *smiles sweetly*

Bacchus, Psilax, Mainomenos
Cy Twombly

Walking into this room (there is a third monolithic piece on another wall) was like wading into a warm bowl of pent up lust and rage and something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Despite these very serious emotions, there was also something homey and comforting about the way that the red and pink and orange blended together and it was kind of reflected on people's skin tones as they walked through and it was magic.

Study For a Portrait on A Folding Bed
Francis Bacon

Last but not least - my favourite: Francis Bacon. No other twentieth century artist depicted such chaotic, deeply layered and passionate emotions, all with an undercurrent of death, rot and metamorphosis. His artworks remind me of the body-horror of Bunuel, Dali and even Cronenberg - of things slightly not as they should be, askew in a way that recalls war and change and even sex. While this is simply a study, it evokes such strong emotions that I can't even imagine it completed. Bacon's personal life was just as facinating as his art. Oh you crazy thing!

London and Paris and Lions and Tigers and Plans - oh my!

2010-05-03T21:16:00.001-07:00

So little time to plan. In some ways that's good. (Right? Riiigggghttt?)

This week I have jetted off on what has to be the most last-minute trip I have ever taken. Thursday morning? Toast and tea and planning a weekend (and birthday) in Vancouver, making use of my amazing tourism passport and hanging out. Friday morning? Chaos and giddiness as S found out he was being sent to London for business tout suite, and oh yeah? Would I like to come, expenses paid? (F%$! yes) We left Saturday afternoon, volcanic ashcloud be damned.

It's lovely to be heading back to these cities for the first time since I was an eighteen year old idiot with my head firmly up my own arse (below are things I am planning on visiting, yes, but they are also things that I missed the first time when I was poor, ignorant and flighty.) So now, I have 6 days in London, 4 in Paris and then back to Vancouver to start my Summer job and head back to school for two classes. But in the glorious meantime?

My plans:
London

National Gallery - da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli and Van Eyck all just off of Trafalgar Square.
Tate Modern - As much as I love Renaissance art, twentieth century art makes my heart sing, my pulse race and my head spin. That's passion, dears.
Stonehenge and Bath - on my birthday, no less! I just hope that this doesn't trivialize the experience too much...
British Museum - Oh, did this belong to you? Our bad.
Portobello Road - because I love Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
Fish n Chips and Bitter. Hit me. Again.

Paris

Musee d'Orsay - again with the modern art. A bit earlier, but still swoon-worthy. Toulouse Lautrec FTW!
Notre Dame Cathedral - S said he wanted to pet the hunchback. I told him that that was just a homeless man and he should stop going on Parisian peyote benders.
Montmartre - the historic artists enclave.
Edith Piaf walking tour - The Little Sparrow's small village, ending at her grave in the Pere Lachaise cemetery, also home to Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison and Balzac.
"Paris during the Occupation" walking tour - because we're both history nerds. Like, a lot.
FOOD AND WINE. Like, all of it. Moules et frites, sole meuniere, FROMAGE, pain au chocolate et beaucoup de vin Bordeaux. Beaucoup.

See you along the way, dears.
xo Violet Dear

S, peeking out from behind London.