DECEMBER 2008, BC=BEFORE CHILD!

~So let’s see…since the proposition of “Do you party much?” by the old-enough-to-be-MY-grandfather-English-speaking-Frenchman at the local market, I’ve been invited to the Nimes Corrida next June by a too-old-to-be-smokin’-weed hippie artist and just recently in a bar Sabine and I, although I suspect it was Sabine he was targeting, were invited to “touch” a really unattractive guy…for 20 Euros! Another common characteristic between France and Canada…the good ones seem to be already taken…or gay!

~On one of our bar nights, Sabine introduced me to a guy named Gas…oh, I soooooo wanted to tell him…!

~Gas, my cat, in human form, would be the guy of my dreams! A little weird (he’s still doing the shadow thing), but I like weird, laid back, castrated, an avid traveller, eats anything put in front of him, huggable, has a good sense of humour, can appreciate an afternoon siesta…not too sure about his love of hunting or Clic-Clac potato tendencies…but overall, a decent guy…maybe next life I’ll return as a female cat!

~5 hours of wine tasting is a dangerous Saturday morning sport on an empty stomach! My favourite was the unmarried French guy (I asked) in the 5th booth!

~Now I understand why the French were defeated in attempting to conquer Canada…after yet another inquisition to my potential Internet provider…I was informed it could take up to 2 months!

~Carb could market his new after battle perfume called Eau de Polysporin!

~In response to your responses on the “Pink Santa issue…Imagine if Santa “came out of the closet”? What a twist on our “reality” that would be…Headlines…”Santa is GAY! So then who is Mrs. Claus?” Imagine the reaction of Governments worldwide?

4TH CHRISTMAS ABROAD!

~It had been 9 months to the day or 2 since I last saw Lauren…9 months…the same length of time as a pregnancy…the night before she arrived, both times; delivery and Montpellier, I was pacing and saying the same words…“Enough already! I want to see my kid!”

~As suspected…I had a wonderful Christmas and much needed visit with the kid! Santa decided neither of us needed a lot of “stuff” and thank God, ‘cause Lauren checked in with Easy Jet at 19.5 kg and stressed out backpack zippers! She had arrived with 14.8 kilos, “gave” and “got”…that 0.5 kg shy of Easy Jet’s weight restriction is exactly the weight of the skimpy black dress I found hanging in my closet when I got home! Darn! Wish she had forgotten something more practical that goes better with my hiking boots!!

~Best Christmas gift? 1 package of No Name White Cheddar Macaroni and Cheese! And I ate the whole box in 1 sitting, avec du vin rouge, bien sûr, cooked in a wok ‘cause I gave Lauren my good cooking pots as she’ll have her own kitchen in the fall! Why did I SO enjoy and SO devour the entire package of this North American processed shit, in record time I might add? I think it’s like the peanut butter syndrome effect! When I can’t have something…then I want it more than under normal circumstances would I ever have dreamed of wanting it! Normally, I just don’t really eat much peanut butter, but crema de cacahuete-less Spain drove me to desire the stuff!

~You know your kid is no longer a kid…when Santa Claus brings her condoms…French condoms!

~And thanks my Canadian friends for the Christmas cards!!! Spotting a Canadian stamp on an envelope amongst bills and publicité to an expat like myself is like…ecstasy…although I’ve never tried the stuff!

~Karen and Cassandra…Lauren couriered all your amazing goodies and gifts which she received the day she was departing! Whew! And I now have happy cats…they especially love the treats which I thought were “BEER Flavoured Dental Treats” till I put my glasses on and realized BEEF Flavoured did make more sense, but they can hardly be considered “Dental” treats when these guys swallow them whole! And I devoured “A Year in the Merde” in one evening! Thank you for everything, truly…I have photos of your gifts beneath our stolen hemlock hedge branches…and I have photos of that event too, arranged professionally in our French Bidet (bi·det n a low bathroom plumbing fixture resembling a toilet and equipped with a spray or jet of water, used for washing the genital and anal areas), and photos of this aussi!

~Lauren is a Moroccan magnet! Had to stop taking her out drinking in that neighbourhood! Mind you, even I was picking up guys there…no wonder it’s my favourite bar district!

~Christmas dinner was an unexpected success for various reasons!
1 Our turkey-impersonating bird fit in my Kenner Easy-Bake oven, at a 45° angle after I stood on it to press it down!
2 Our turkey-impersonating bird, un “chapon”, tasted like turkey! And it even had one cavity to stuff…I couldn’t find cavity # 2! And chapon farts are just like turkey farts!
3 Not only did I finally find, after great searching efforts, cranberries, les airelles, but, they were imported from Canada…I danced a big dance in the middle of the grocery store, much to Lauren’s embarrassment!
4 Dressing/stuffing was made with Canadian poultry seasoning imported by Lauren at my request…”Don’t bothering coming to France unless you bring poultry seasoning”!
5 Mashed potatoes and cream corn, Lauren’s favourites, are almost foolproof in any country, except for the lack of a potato masher…make do with any hard, clean kitchen object, yup, that’ll do!
6 Whipped Shortbread cookies tasted good-but-not-normal due to, I think, the mysterious French cornstarch ingredient, if that is indeed what I purchased…it was next to potato starch and definitely had the word corn in it! As my pizza pan slash cookie sheet was 2 inches too big for my oven…I improvised and stuffed the crack between oven door and oven with aluminium foil! Et voilà, les abnormal tasting cookies!

~The Christmas holiday is a blur…but New Year’s Eve is THE blurriest of all! The 12+ hour drinking frenzy began at 2:30 in the afternoon in mon apart, continued in the streets of Montpellier and ended in a rockin’ Irish Pub at 4:30 AM…here is my personal menu…give or take a few alcoholic items…(capital “S” indicates “a lot”!)
~RyeS (Canadian) and coke
~Red WineS (with dinner)
~pre-bar Tequila shotS…Lauren made me
~1 pint of Kronenburg at O’Carolan’s Pub, just to mix things up
~Thomas’ homemade Rum Ti’PunchS
~Jaggerbomb…my first
~RyeS (Canadian) and coke
~Tequila shot courtesy of Lauren’s newfound New Year’s Eve friend!

Partied and danced the night and year away with the best English speaking Aussies, French, Scotch, even a fellow Canadian or 2…but no Irish! Finally authentically got to use the French expression, “J’ai la gueule de bois” (I have a hangover!) on January 1st, but I maintain it was more fatigue induced than mixing-too-much-alcohol induced! I only really felt my heart beating in my head when bending over trying to brush Gasoline, but otherwise I felt quite okay lying in Clic Clac the entire-ish day after!

~LET IT SNOW…in Montpellier??? January 7, 2009 and I’m feeling rather Canadian, sliding through the streets on my bicycle, Jeep, wrapped in my Pyrenees ski attire. It’s so sweet observing the bewildered Mediterranean locals wiping out left, right and centre! Even Carb got excited and bounced around outside in a dusting of winter, a reminder of Canada! And then a big bad French dog wearing a stupid looking sweater came along and spoiled his fun…get him Carb! Gas decided not to shed for a day…Hallelujah!

~Well folks…it’s time to depart France! Work’s not happenin’ and I’m needing a fix of familiar…in other words…broke and homesick (and tired of Camembert)! We’re Canada bound any day/week/month now…depending on cat and visa complications…keep in mind, I am only allowed to be in Europe for 3 months…15 months beyond my welcome…oops! And really, the cats were accepted into Spain…we snuck across the French boarder unnoticed, but now how to get home! Hmmmm! I’ll let you know what prison you can visit me in…maybe I can teach in prison, free room and board…wonder if they accept cats…?

~A bit bizarre packing up my life abroad. Kind of a microcosm of life…you build your home from nothing (only what you brought in your backpack) then you give most of it away in the end. And it’s really interesting to analyse what you do chose to take home. The $200 fleece jacket is chucked and replaced by items of a different kind of value! So this is what’s coming home with me:
~gifts from Lithuanians, Latvians, Mexicans, Spaniards, French, Brits, Aussies, Canadians…a lot of good people
~stolen beer glasses from 4 countries…forgot to steal one from Finland…and Muslim Morocco…
~a new way of pronouncing WIFI
~spices from Morocco and Turkey
~The ability to name Huey, Dewey and Louie in 2 more languages:
Spanish ~Juanito (Johnny)
~Jorgito (Georgie)
~Jaimito (Jaimie)
French ~Riri
~Fifi
~Loulou
~a computer full of international music, email addresses and photos
~international invitations
~2 dictionaries with dog-eared pages
~really sad looking underwear
~a few new “experience” wrinkles
~a taste for Lyndt Pyrenees chocolates
~2 cats
and…
~enough incredible memories to see me through old age should I never venture off again like this! (although I’ve never been one to obey the word should!)

~It doesn’t seem to matter how gently you introduce the concept of moving to Carburetor…as soon as he sees that backpack come out, he sets off to find the nearest corner to pee in…his way off saying…that will teach you for not leaving me in Bella Bella, minus the swear words!

~The summation of a journey such as mine leads me to better appreciate or RE-appreciate some very basic valued and useful commodities:
~the privilege of being born in a first world country
~cotton sheets
~the luxury of space…re country and house/apartment size
~ovens
~water…especially the hot and soft kind
~education
~clumping cat litter
~people who aren’t afraid to “think outside the box” and follow through
~measuring cups incremented in cups
~a strategic clothes line
~countries with weather conducive to clothes lines
~common sense
~people who can pronounce my name the way my mother meant it
~beginnings and endings of any journey are the toughest

~So, I promise I’ll keep you posted on our continued challenges…and that’s what life is all about, is it not?…challenges…it’s how we cope with them that determines our happiness!!! And I’m coping just fine!

siempre, toujours and always,
dana, carb and gas xox

P.S. January 6, 2009, the very day I am packing up our apartment, our non-existent Internet provider company calls to come and hook us up! Fuck off…that’s just mean!

CLUB MED…IT’S BEEN REAL! december 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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November 1~30, 2008

~In France…Santa is PINK!!! At least he is at the Central Commercial in Montpellier and he looks retarded! Sorry, but unless a recession has hit and there was a sale on pink satin fabric…there’s no reason to be changing Santa’ s uniform! Ever! Of course I took photos!

~In a perfect world, the neighbourhood stray cats would not sneak into your apartment and steal Carb’s toy mice! As in any scene of the crime, I took photos of the culprit! Now I have photographs of an Ecuadorian pickpocket and a French feline toy mouse thief!

~Gas LOVES to be brushed! But he doesn’t like being brushed in reverse…I tried. You gotta go with the flow of the fur! Gas isn’t normally a violent cat!

~Carb is a sun worshiper! And he meows like a girl!

~One day Gas said, “You know what Dana, you’re right! Why get up to throw up a fur ball on the throw rug over there, when I can throw up right here on your bed!”

~You gotta love someone who calls you up on a Monday morning and suggests a walk on the beach would be a great way to start the week! You just gotta love Sabine!

~I’ve got the slowest “TO DO” list in the world! Never have I had such a slow list!

~I can now say “Yeast Infection” in three different languages!!!

~In France, a “cave” is a basement storage unit, and in my “cave” I found this year’s Christmas tree stand…a Bidet! It’s in my living room now awaiting the honoured recipient French tree, which will actually be coniferous branches strung with lights…I’ve got my eye on a Hemlock hedge which needs pruning! And I’m awaiting Lauren’s arrival to help me with my silvicultural duties…because I’m thinking after a bottle of wine or 2 it could become writing material!

~Things that were abnormal are becoming normal!
~Personal cheques!
~Television!
~Not working!
~Intentional Physical Exercise!

~I’ve discovered my neighbours love their garden more than they love my cat! They’ve inserted tall repulsive spikes in their garden…in all of Gas’ favourite siesta spots!

~I used to be a “hood” person…but with the advent of bifocals came the need of an umbrella…and geeze it’s hard to light a smoke one-handed while carrying an umbrella!

~Eggs here are Metric…they’re sold by the 10’s! How imperial of me to think 12 is normal!

~Wow! Spaghetti Sauce has never been so international…tomato paste brought from Spain (in fear I wouldn’t find it here), Canadian, Moroccan and Turkish spices accumulated last year from travels and parcels and the fresh stuff French! Ever bought celery by the “branche”? No, neither had I. And hamburger here is the cheapest meat available AND I can digest it…unlike Canadian beef!

~In my quest of minimizing possessions, I maintain that a feline-loving caffeine addict cannot survive without a vacuum cleaner and coffee maker!

~And now I know why all the good garbage in the streets! The city of Montpellier does here weekly what the megatropolis of Little Current did annually…large household garbage pickup. In any other life I’d be making weekly rounds…but I’m already rearranging furniture so Lauren will have a place to put her backpack at Christmas!

~As the French are such connoisseurs of wines and cheeses and actually, all food in general…I’m afraid to admit, out loud, that I’m hanging for a hunk of new Cheddar…something that doesn’t smell like the inside of my hiking boots, doesn’t deserve a pension and something that is a positive colour! Now, my fellow Canadians…don’t go sending me parcels of Canadian Cheddar…’cause given the way Canada Post operates...!

~As cigarettes in France are the same horrible price as in Canada, I bought myself a pouch of good old fashion “Drum” tobacco. Drum triggers flashbacks of my youthful years, travelling and camping! Happy cigarettes! Now I’m feeling a bit like THE hippie I’m often accused of being! (But hippies were already in full swing as I was being born…so I’m too young to rightfully achieve the title “Hippie”!) Back to Drum…and advanced technology. How much can a pouch of tobacco evolve in 30 years? Drum now comes in 4 different strengths…how cool can one look rolling a Drum Light…just doesn’t seem right…and the package now has a Velcro closure AND a little sticky spot to adhere your rolling papers to!!! I am so impressed!

~Haircut # 2…haircutting academy again…1 ½ hours later…I got a really green student… but this “kid” was so careful and precise, I can honestly say it’s probably the best cut of my life! When was the last time your hairdresser spent an hour and a half making you beautiful?

~Long distance parenting is cruel…and you don’t need to be in a different country to define distance, non-daily contact suffices. How many of you out there can attest to my findings…I know if my mom were alive, she could! First the phone call, YOUR bill, because you’re the parent, the crisis situation, generally a lengthy call because it’s a crisis. Post call, the worry period, you replay the conversation over and over, of course you’re routing for your kid’s side…she’s your kid. Then the gap period, you’re still worrying but what you don’t know is that the crisis is actually resolved. Next phone call, YOUR bill, because you’re the parent, you immediately inquire with continued concern and the kid responds…”Oh, THAT was resolved the day after we last spoke!”

~Here’s the abbreviated sequence of events (if I can remember back that far!),
in order to attain a French Bank Account in order to attain the Internet:

~Bank # 1 …rejection
…forgot to pack an old electricity bill!
~Bank # 2 …rejection
…general confusion on both bank guy and my part!
~Bank # 3 …bingo
…with my heroine, Sabine the translator!

Now I await Bank Card to deposit  so I can order Internet…

~False Alarm # 1 …received Internet Access Code in mail...
…which requires having the Internet to use…
…which I don’t have…
…which is the reason for need of this Bank Account!
~False Alarm # 2 …Registered Letter…must go to Post Office to sign…
…different Post Office than last delivery
…Bank only wanted signature to confirm my place of
residence!
~Receive Bank Card …after a phone call and a visit to bank…but…
…can’t deposit money until “maybe this afternoon or
probably tomorrow”!
~Deposit Money …finally
…which is all I ever wanted to do in the first place!

Now I await Cheques so I can pay my bills…

~# 1 Trip to Bank …come back tomorrow
~# 2 Trip to Bank …didn’t take in all my documentation, Bank Card and
Passport won’t suffice!
~# 3 Trip to Bank …THEY WANTED TO TAKE MY BANK ACCOUNT AWAY
FROM ME!!! FUCK!!!
…THEY MIGHT AS WELL HAVE DEPORTED ME!!!
…they realized bank account lady gave me the
account without me having a Visa!
…3 hours later, using my best, worst and only French,
they allowed me the account AND I got my
cheques!
Now…I…can…get…the…Internet…and…pay…my…bills…!
With Bree and Thomas’ help…

~Phone call # 1 …phone ran out of  mid call!
~Phone call # 2 …apparently my apartment doesn’t exist!
~Phone call # 3 …they need the street address of my Bank!
~Phone call # 4 …December 2nd …still waiting!

I imagine the month of December will be a crazy-busy one for most of you…for me I’ll be busy ticking the days off till “Lauren Day”, December 19th, reunited after 9 months apart…I CAN’T WAIT!!!

Joyeux Noël et jusque janvier…
Wishing you tranquillity and calm, and all the love you can handle,
Love dana carb and gas xox

CLUB MED…HAPPY DECEMBER! november 1-30 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Feliz Navidad 2007 y … Joyeux Noël 2008 et … Merry Christmas!!!

Volume 26 & 27
(Did you notice…I missed last year!)

The Alphabet Through A Broad’s Broad Eyes…Living Abroad!

A is for alcohol, an affordable word.
Not to drink “When in Rome”? Absolutely Absurd!
B is for beer…detecting a theme?
It’s my interim retirement, a life made from dreams!
C is for Canada, our image is clean.
In Europe we’re known for the cold and Celine!
D is for Dana, I’m so glad I’m me.
By any other name, me, I might not be!
E is for European Economic Community.
If Canada would join up, I’d be granted impunity!
F is for Fr-An-Glish, a linguistic mix.
It’s just English words working out in Spandex!
G’s for gâteau (French) and gato (Spanish).
Both comfort me when I’m faulty or famished!
H is for happy, if I could, I would purr.
And lick my bum, and vomit after cleaning my fur!
I is for Internet, which I desperately now want.
After years of refusing, it ironically haunts!
J is for Jaca, a special dot on my map.
Magic mountains, amigos, shrooms, memories and naps!
K’s for kiss every familiar cheek you meet.
Lota PDA goin’ on in these European streets!
L’s always for Lauren, still forefront of thoughts.
I’ve sorted my priorities…kid, smokes, coffeepot!
M’s for Montpellier, my personal Club Med.
Warm soleil and amis, and a lot of long bread!
N’s for Non-Smokers, a rare breed in these parts.
Customizing new smoking laws, a French/Spanish art!
O’s for “Oh-la-la” and also “Olé”.
As an ambassador of Canada, I’m obliged to spread “Eh"!
P is for people, from all walks and talks.
Thank God for body language, deodorant and locks!
Q is for quest without an objective.
Builds character, sore muscles, wit, debt and perspective!
R is for recognizing my life in the “now”.
Not dwelling on future or past, takes know-how!
S is for style-of-life that feels good.
What is YOUR “if…” clause in the conditional “I would…”?
T is for treats, Canadian “Temptations”.
Cats can crave Canada when on vacation!
U is for Updates, my story of mistakes.
But my learnings become my souvenirs and keepsakes!
V is for Visa (OK, and Master Card), vin and vino.
Without my “V” words, I’d most definitely be Emo!
W’s for world, an ever-shrinking space.
With Internet and planes, home can be any place!
X is for Xmas, short form for Christmas.
“I’m coming home,” says Lauren! The best gift is “us”!
Y is for Yo, this trip’s all about Moi.
Free to discover and staying free from the law!
I can’t successfully end this poem with “Z”.
So, I’ll wish you the superlative of Merry, instead!

besos, bisous, kisses
carburetor
gasoline
lauren
dana
xox

Feliz Navidad 2007 y…Joyeux Noël 2008 et…Merry Christmas! remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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October 11~31

~Carb has flatulence! What I mean is Carb has gas…but that’s confusing, given my cat’s names! Farting is just not normal for a cat. My diagnosis is, he either has worms or age! I’m pretty sure my flatulence is exclusively due to age!

~Gas has taken up gardening…I hope the neighbours are appreciating his newfound hobby!

~So, today was have-a-cold-shower day! I don’t know why…but now I have to call Le Gaz Company, and you know how I feel about using the telephone in a foreign language!

~France is a killer country when it comes to bureaucracy…even a lifetime of French experience doesn’t seem to clarify the systems to even the French! Although, if my memory serves me correctly…any institutional dealings in Canada take at least 2 attempts too! It’s just a little harder to interpret what’s NOT normal in another language and culture!

~Miracles DO happen! Sabine is my bilingual miracle! Sabine is my interpreter of this new-to-me world called France! She is the provider of assistance in acquiring a French bank account, RE-sorting out electricity and gas contracts, stimulating companionship, forcing my lazy brain to work more in French, new music-French music and REALLY good, expensive Espresso coffee! And she names stray roof-walking cats! Everyone living abroad needs a Sabine…but you can’t have mine!

~Sabine also lent me “un petit four”…a baby oven…basically an overgrown toaster oven which I am grateful for and anxious to experiment with! Might be eating turkey yet for Christmas!!!

~So now with a French bank account I can get the Internet!…only, not just quite yet. Sabine interpreted bank-account lady’s words as, you can’t deposit money into your account yet because this bank doesn’t have money! That was difficult to comprehend even in my own language! So now I have to wait till my new bankcard is delivered by mail, 15 days, which I’ll have to sign for…I smell potential writing material in that process!

~Week 2, 3, 4…of Volleyball were not quite as scary, confusing or brutal on the knees and feet! New sneakers, kneepads and an exact “X” on the map contributed to the facility! But here’s the catch to joining a club just to have a little fun and get a bit of exercise…I need a doctor’s note stating I’m fit to play! More rules! Thanks Ken in Canada, who’s not really MY doctor, but he’s SOMEBODY’S doctor, and a fellow Volleyball companion who knows me well enough to call me “Dirty Dana” and to know I’m not expected to drop dead mid-volley! Ken has agreed to write a note on behalf of my competent physical condition… although he says he cannot vouch for my mental status!

~With 2 additional pair of de-flared, de-holed altered pants, I now feel overwhelmed by my wardrobe selection! What used to take me seconds, now takes minutes to decide what to wear! But I think the Lauren-leftover cords will be forwarded back to Lauren…they’re soooooo low cut I suffer plumber’s crack even before bending over! Not a pretty sight!

~Speaking of aging…with age, my eyebrows have taken on a life of their own!

~I heard or read that Montpellier receives 300 days of sunshine per year! I haven’t been counting, but yup, I think that’s about right! Sunshine may be unhealthy for the skin…but it does miracles for the mind!

~I love running out of milk in a European country…you run to the cupboard instead of the store! Let’s hear it for sterilized UHT!

~I try to avoid shopping during those “grey hours” of the day…that transition time from Bonjour to Bonsoir…where the guy in line in front of you says Bonjour to the storekeeper who responds Bonjour…so you in turn also greet with a Bonjour and again the storekeeper responds Bonjour…then the lady behind you pulls out a Bonsoir which is responded to with a Bonsoir! So, like, did it switch over while I was waiting in line? And what if the switch was supposed to be me and I blew it? I like the one-word-all-day approach…hi! Just way less confusing, neither masculine or feminine, just 2 little neutral roman alphabet letters…acceptable 24/7!

~The only disadvantage of living in a ground-floor apartment, especially if your terrace is situated directly next to the building entrance door, is every resident has the privilege of viewing your morning bed-head and inspecting the colour and condition of your 8 pair of underwear you’ve been wearing for the past 15 months as they dry on the rack! I feel like my neighbours really know me!

~I have been informed by a reliable source…he’s French…that the French don’t actually really eat “escargots”! Someone ought to tell that to the world.

~Thanks Dave and Lynda for the stove-top dessert recipes…if I can find the ingredients or near facsimiles then I’m anxious to add a few calories to my waistline so I don’t have to use my toilet paper dispenser every time I wear my newly de-flared jeans!

~I hate when things evolve without my knowing it! Someone changed the rules of the French language between the time I studied it in High School and now! For all you young or new French learners take note: “Tu as…”, for example doesn’t exist …it’s “T’as…”! And the ne’s have completely disappeared! No one, except me, ever says “Je ne suis pas…”, it’s “Je suis pas…”! And it’s also true what they say…”You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”! What little conditioning I had of this language is embedded and difficult to erase!

~Did you know…
une canadienne, according to my 2nd best French friend, mon dictionnarie, is a tent, a fur-lined jacket or a canoe! Put a capital on it, and you got me!

~Another funny French finding:
~Font (on a computer menu) is Police…caught my attention!

~I finally met The Med! An exquisite, sunny autumn picnic on the “Champs-Élysées de la Mer” as Sabine named our white sand beach. I’m feeling comfortable in this new life now. Of course, it’s always the people who create the atmosphere of a place; they are what solidify your connection and determine your degree of comfort. Playing Mediterranean beach volleyball, comparing swear words and sharing food amongst French, Chilean, Armenian and Canadian folk on the 26th of October is my definition of comfort!

~In every corner of the world there are Sabine’s, Marc’s, Liliana’s, Bree’s, Thomas’, Anna’s and Phil’s…and I keep finding them!

~Sabine and Marc of Montpellier are like my Liliana of Jaca…including me into their lives and sharing the opportunities and people of their lives…and Bree and Thomas are like an Anna and Phil…my taste of similar heritage and language winding our ways in a foreign culture in a nice kind of way!

À plus tard l’alligator…wait, maybe, à plus tard le carard works better in French! Later duck…

Des embrassades (hugs and kisses)

dana, carb et essence xox

CLUB MED…BEEN THERE…DONE THAT!october 11-31 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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October 1~11, 2008

~”Operation French Job Search”! If only the French applied their “rules of the road” i.e. no rules…to all aspects of their life…my life here would be, like, way easier!

~So, here’s an example of my efforts in finding a temporary source of income. Go to Youth Hostel to inquire about potential employment. YH Manager guy says he “has all his staff”…perhaps I’m not YOUTHful looking enough. While there, pick up a brochure advertising Au Pair work. Worth a try. Email then pay a visit to agency. First thing Au Pair guy asks me is, “How old are you?”…I’m beginning to have a youth complex by this point! But while in the depths of my despair, the next day I get a phone call from a friend of Au Pair guy, would I like to join a Language Exchange Group “first chat night is tonight”! C’est très cool! Moral: use Oil of Olay before looking for work abroad!

~Yay! I finally found some French friends…and British and Australian and Canadian! 2nd gathering of Language Exchange Group was a Pub night and came home with the time and location of a weekly volleyball club! Double yay! Think I can spike in my hiking boots or Birkenstocks? Neglected to pack sneakers, knee pads, and health insurance along with that electricity bill!

~Also came home committed to a hiking/walking club! Turned out to be more of a Triathlon with me the youngest participant! Usually when I join “stuff”, I’m the oldest in the group, but this collection of really French ladies are aged 60 to 70! And they’re in better shape than me! So, first I had to bike across the city to find my ladies, then we hiked 12 kilometres, half of it upwards, then the bike journey home followed by the swim portion of the Triathlon…in my bathtub!

~Want to know how to say “I have a hangover” in French…just in case…J’ai la geuele de bois…I have the mouth of wood! Yup, that’s about right if I remember my wood tasting course correctly from back in my Forestry days! Seriously, our “Microbiology of Wood” Prof had us licking wood samples…only remember one species of pine, or was it spruce, that tasted like raw potatoes…the rest just tasted like wood to my tongue, the same taste as a hangover!

~I have a resume full of experience administering pills to cats…it’s filed in the bad memories pile. Therefore, I have developed a technique to ensure that at least some of the medication reaches the target destination i.e. INSIDE the cat: 1) crush pill gently between 2 spoons, 2) carefully place dab of canned cat food on crushed pill spoon, 3) gently massage pill powder into soft food, and, 4) offer to cat hoping he’s stupid enough to fall for the trick!

~I’ve given Carb a new name…in French, Ôte-Agrafes…in English, Staple Remover! Seems he likes all this attention and the canned cat food camouflaged pills and the taxi yeowling sessions and Monsieur Le Vet and the never-healing hole in him!

~So Carb had his corsette pulled down from his stitched and stapled incision in about, oh, 2 seconds! But the glued part on his back sure held well, causing Carb, and therefore moi, 2 weeks of incredible agony and grief, turning him and moi snake-like! I finally had to give him a hair cut to remove the retched thing entirely. Now Carb looks kinda like a French poodle, only worse!

~OK, this is too funny! You know that canned cat food camouflaged pill routine I just wrote about? Well, today I had the pill crushed on a spoon on the (next to zero) counter and as I’m going for the canned cat food tin from the fridge, I turn around and there’s Carb licking the ground up pill from the spoon!!! Who’da thunk? Now, had I tried to ram that thing down his throat, do you think he’d have liked it?

~So, I postponed our scheduled rendez-vous, by telephone…am I getting good or what, with Monsieur Le Vet, as I can see Carb is not healed i.e. still bleeding, and I begin doctoring him moi-même! I scout my scant first-aid kit for anything with “Healing Powers” and decide that if he had motion sickness or a headache…I could cure him! So Polysporin it is! Cure-all for anything that ails ya, even if you’re part cat! Et voilà! He starts to heal, like, right before my very eyes! Enfin! Shoulda been a Vet! NOT! My stomach dances at even the mention of red liquid, ‘cept le vin rouge!

~I finally broke down and bought a bike rack and a bunch of bungees so I can mount Carb’s cage on Jeep’s back and save some taxi fare costs! ‘Cept that we need to make at least 2 more trips to Monsieur Le Vet’s to pay off the cost of the rack…so here’s hoping one of the cats gets hurt or sick…JUUUUUST KIDDING!!!

~Murphy’s Law strikes again…day before Carb’s very first bike ride of his life (which I honestly was looking forward to)…upon inspection, because I do that daily with him now…I discover Carb has zero staples and zero stitches left to be removed! I think he finished the job and self-doctored after we tested out the viability of “cat cage on bike”! I think he didn’t like that idea of mine!

~So this daily inspection of Carb has also lead me to discover that he has all sorts of other wounds, minor, but not normal happenings on his body! I think he’s making up for lost time in the free world! Gotta be sparing with the Polysporin though…’cause as he likes the taste…he’s immune now…it kind of works a little like fur ball remedy…and everything passes through him rather smoothly!

~Here’s a sign I was thinking of posting in my apartment:

“Got a Fur Ball?…run to my nearest throw rug to throw up!”
(Please don’t vomit on the tiled flooring which is easy to clean!)

~I love Jeep! And my 2 “heavy” duty level-6 anti-vole/anti-theft locks that weigh more than my vélo, and my let-me-know-when-a-bus-is-sneaking-up-behind-me mirror and my incase-I-get-hit helmet! I’m becoming a really good defensive driver, avoiding dog poop land mines, Tram track ruts and formula one wanna be’s.

~Finally found a French café with WiFi whose coffee isn’t the price of a month’s rent! And they serve Spanish Tapas! I love France!

~I found myself a French man worth finding…my kinda guy…low maintenance and I found him in a dumpster! He’s actually a fine specimen of a man in billboard format. I just can’t figure out from the language if he’s advertising how to increase your abs or how to make them shiny!

~It’s October 3rd today, 25C in the shade…I know ‘cause I bought a thermometer so I know how to dress for the day…outfit # 1, 2, 3 or 4! I’m sojourning on la terrace in my neighbour-repellent attire, bra and shorts, sipping un café au lait avec une tige/a smoke, and writing! Je me sens bien! I feel good!

~If I can make a judgement of all French people based on those who live in my apartment residence, then I think the French have little imagination when it comes to naming their pets! The well-exercised French Poodle is named “Cookie”, the nice neighbour’s nice dog is named “Tina”, the new cat upstairs is named “Scooby” and the dog who used drip drool on me but has since moved residence…I think his name might have been either “La Ferme” or “Ta Geuele”, which both translate to “Shut Up”, because that’s what everyone called him! One guy even named him “Shut-The-Fuck-Up”! Now this guy’s either been watching way too many American movies or he’s an English speaker in disguise. The dog did bark a lot! It’s no wonder my French neighbours are confused when I tell them Carburetor and Gasoline’s names. Then I proceed to ask them if they want to know what I named my daughter!

~Friday’s my favourite day of the week…it’s “Clean Sheet Day”!

~I’m experimenting with my washing machine today (it didn’t come with a manual)…I know I probably shouldn’t because experiments usually turn out messy or wet, but there are 2 mystery settings…maybe you can help me out here…each setting has a picture, one’s a little snowflake (that’s the one I’ve been using because I like snowflakes) and the second one is a rectangle with an “X” through it (and that’s the one I haven’t been using because “X’s” usually mean DON’T DO IT!). So I’m trying out the “X”ed out rectangle today…wish me luck! Ummmm…It’s kind of making some peculiar sounds…so maybe I should just stick to snowflakes!

~I guess what makes living abroad so challenging is that there is no instruction manual to follow! It’s a matter of figuring out the rules as you go, generally after you needed to know them! For example, I received a notice in my mailbox that I had received a parcel. I carefully read the notice and map my route to the other side of Montpellier where I can retrieve my package by providing a piece of identification. No problem, same system in every language. NOT! Cycle to Post Office on the other side of Montpellier, I’m exaggerating a little, to be informed that “Le Gardien” has intervened and should have my precious-as-I-don’t-receive-that-many parcel! So then I cycle home empty handed and incredibly disappointed and worried only to realize I don’t even know where to find the consierge, the notorious “Noto” (like moto only with an “N”) in this conglomerate of buildings of Residence La Guirland. So I ask a random resident, I like random guys, who sweetly escorts me to Noto’s office to discover he’s on holidays! Man…how come “some days” are just so difficult in a foreign language!

~So, besides the missing oven, sauna and washing machine manual, my apartment is/was also missing a toilet paper dispenser! I finally got fed up having to reach behind me to the top of the toilet tank every wipe! So I am utilizing the doorknob which is conveniently located directly in front of my toilet in my little toilet room and my one and only belt I brought from Canada. It’s rubber, made from a recycled tire, and works perfectly…except…you guessed it, now what do I do to hold my pants up?!

~The only mirror I possess is an average sized, above the bathroom sink mirror…but there’s a full-length mirror in the elevator. So if I want a full view perspective, I have to go for a ride!

~The hummingbirds, which are the size of my baby toe, are still siphoning the flowers which are still blooming! I’m thinking maybe a Palm instead of a Pine for a Christmas tree this year…Palms are not indigenous to this area, but one would never know that!

~I was taught a French expression that could prove most useful: “Tu peut me dire tu”. It gives your listener permission to be less formal than addressing you as “vous”. But I’d like to use it as a pick-up line, say in a bar, or, on the street, and you see a good looking guy, I’d just walk up to him and introduce myself…”Hi, my name’s Dana and you can call me Tu!!!”

~I think it would suck to be Supermarcher guy who accidentally addressed me as Monsieure today! So I stuck out my chest and pointed to my boobs…problem is when I lose weight, I lose what little I had to begin with…not that I mind, because I can run without a bra! But he smiled and blushed in a way only a French man can blush!

~I had to dump the Hiking Group for the Volleyball Club! First night of Vball left me staggering 2 days later…haven’t touched THOSE muscles in over a year! It’s a fun league with a serious calibre of players and a 100 commitment but I get a T-shirt! A huge Gym, 6 teams, I’m not quite the oldest and one other member is non-French speaking. Scary starting something new in a foreign tongue. Really, I only had a map with a big circle showing me the general vicinity of where the Gym of unknown name should be located…and the day and the time. I found it, then just mimicked the other 40 players through the drill and training portions of the evening. Echo-y gymnasiums and 20 to 40 bouncing balls make French even harder to understand than in a bar! I smiled a lot!

~It is my findings that my updates are most regularly read by:
1) retired people
2) government employees
3) High School teachers
4) university students who should be studying for exams!

~If anyone out there has any stove-top dessert recipes to share with me I would love you for life! I love my sweets and without an oven or microwave I’m limited to rice pudding, custard and uncooked cookies…the only recipes I brought assuming every home has an oven! I can’t find (yet) real brown sugar or I’d be living on fudge!

~Today is the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. The sky is crystal clear, the sun is sooooo present and I’ve just returned from my first visit to Montpellier’s best street market, 2 blocks from my home! A French market on a perfect autumn 25C in the shade day…and I think some guy made a pass at me! He approached from behind and asked, “Party much?” The English threw me as much as the question! At my age, this is a pass! I ditched him at an olive stand!

~So, no oven means no turkey this Thanksgiving, but I’m making a tribute to Canada…listening to Sarah McLachlan and planning homemade burgers, fries and Smirnoff for supper! It’s not like I can smell basting turkey smells coming from my neighbours ovens!

~Thanksgiving and my mom’s birthday…for me, this is a time of reflection…to take a deep breath and be conscious of all I am grateful for…so I just re-read the 72 typed pages of my lasts year’s adventures, and I know what I’m thankful for…I am so fortunate to have the ability and stability to be where I am…happy…a result of the internal and external encouragements of my past and present! The greatest powers of my life…my mom and my kid…and all the experiences and people in between…so…thank you!

Love and appreciation,
dana, carb and gas xox

CLUB MED…A MEDITERRANEAN CANADIAN THANKSGIVING!october 1-11 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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September 15 ~30, 2008

~Carb’s got a French souvenir…no, not the petite amie who’s still lookin’ for lovin’ (and food)…haven’t yet broken the news to her that the guys are impotent! No, Carb’s souvenir’s even more permanent than “till death do us part”! Carb’s acquired French stitches! Just when I thought I had life kind of under control, apparently an impossibility, and I was finally able to relax and reap the joys of a month and a half’s hard labours, Carb comes home with a hole in his chest! Fuck, more writing material! It actually may have been there a day or two and I just didn’t know it yet, till I was holding him on my lap, tummy up, not a position of normal posture for Carb, and there it was…a very clean hole in his skin about the size of a toonie or a 2 euro coin! Jeeeeeeeesuuuuuuus, don’t panic Dana! First a phone call for a taxi…and all of a sudden telephoning in French felt natural, and a good thing I kept the business card from my unhappy taxi/moving company…then a direct visit to Le Vet, looking up “my-cat’s-hurt” kind of words in my French/English dictionary en route! Carb got an all-inclusive (anaesthetic, drugs, shave, needle and thread etc.) overnight stay at THE most expensive hotel in Montpellier! Told the vet Carb only speaks English and un peu d’espagnol…so I don’t think there was a lot of conversation going on that night…but he made up for it during the taxi ride home! He was overjoyed to be home in a still-WAY-too-over-drugged kinda way, even purring knocked him off his feet! Poor guy…poor ME…but, we’re both survivors! And Gas? Well, he seemed OK with the whole experience…he had me, the nightly treats and Clic-Clac all to himself!

~So after Carb is home stitched and sound, life is seemingly under control once again, MORE writing material arises! Carb rips his stitches and I can see inside him once again! Of course the discovery is made “after-hours” so we wait till morning ‘cause I can only IMAGINE the cost of “emergency” stitches after paying for “regular working hours” stitches…but I don’t panic, as that very day I had by-passed Le Vet’s and asked for extra bandages…so I patch Carb up for the long night’s sort of sleep. Next morning, another unhappy taxi ride for everybody: naturally for Carb who’s falling apart at the seams and hates our mode of transport, for me because each taxi ride is one less case of red wine I’ll be drinking, for the taxi driver because he’s afraid Carb’s cage is “dirty” when I put it on his precious back seat…oh yeah, plus probably the yowling screeches coming from said dirty cage! So at Le Vet’s Carb gets a series of rapid staples without anaesthetics with me holding him and a corset to wear home, all for only 15 Euros! Jeeze, cheaper than the cab ride! I think Gas was pissed off because Carb didn’t overnight it again and because he didn’t get new clothes to wear like Carb! So I hope this story has an ending eventually…don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted!
~Le Montpellier Vet has become what I figure is Carb’s “home away from home away from home”!

~P.S. Why don’t veterinarian offices have separate waiting rooms for dogs and cats?

~So now the cat’s list of “Top 10 Worst Enemies” has been modified…

1 Sharp things that rip holes in skin (applies to Carb only)
2 Vets, all nationalities
3 Any mode of transportation other than paws, especially airplanes, taxi rides to Vet’s and Spanish train station x-ray machines
4 Cat-eating Clic-Clacs (applies to Gas only)
5 French fleas
6 Dogs, some, most
7 Collars (Gas again)
8 Diarrhea and long fur combos (Gas)
9 Stuck fur balls
10 Hiccoughs (applies to Carb only…comes from drinking from the tap
is my guess)

~So, I think I found the culprit of this update’s featured highlights…a French fence…do they not understand that Carb is the stray of all strays and doesn’t take kindly to confinement!

~Carb is a dawn and dusk I-wanna-be-outside kinda guy…unfortunately, dawn is a dirty word in my lifestyle!

~Remember Jeep my new vélo vehicle and remember the “creative” car drivers I mentioned in my last update…well, never in my life have I so wanted to look geeky and wear a bicycle helmet while cycling! Helmet head is soooo worth it in Montpellier!

~So for a month I thought something in the cupboard under my kitchen sink had died and NOT made it to heaven! I have a mystery space behind this cupboard but was too afraid to investigate! Then I suspected an open vertical pipe, which I think is an exhaust for something or other, as the culprit of stink and constant cultivation of fruit flies, so I dumped half a bottle of bleach down the pipe, crossed my fingers and voilà, no more fruit flies! Bad smell gone!

~Everyday I assign myself one mission…some days I accomplish two missions and that’s just a huge day! Hence, Jeep. Feet just aren’t cut out for the size of this city. I prefer thunder thighs over funky feet! My morning is consumed with looking up all possible vocab that might be needed to accomplish the daily mission and mapping out a tangible bike route, then my afternoon…accomplishing my mission. This may sound retardedly time consuming, but when you live in a world that’s not yours, life is a lot trickier than you’re used to. It is getting easier though…not so much because my language is improving, slightly, but just because one can actually get good at blundering one’s way through the unknown. And every time I get a little overconfident…I fuck up!

~The French dress “like there is no tomorrow”! So, I analyzed my international wardrobe of 4 outfits, which took 30 seconds, and decided my flared Parisian jeans I bought back in 2004 are looking a little dated! And I have a pair of holey Lauren-leftover cords that could be repaired if only I had packed my sewing machine. So then I priced jeans! So then I found an alteration store and agreed that a hole and flare-removal would give me two new pair of pants at 1/3 of the cost of one pair of Montpellier jeans. So now I have French stitches too!

~About the language…I am learning lots, it’s just that stuff just doesn’t stick the same as when you’re young. Sometimes I’ll hear a word within a conversation and spend 5 minutes trying to unbury it’s meaning from the depths of my brain…I have a really deep brain!

~I’ve concluded the only things the French and Spanish have in common is their plugs (and sockets) and they both pronounce WiFi the same (wrong) way!

~Another funny French word:
~French word for walkie-talkie…is talkie walkie…that’s just backwards!

~So I haven’t actually started looking for a job yet…hard to psych oneself up for guaranteed rejection! I’m still in the thinking process of determining the path of least resistance! One has to be careful whom one tells of their illegality! Carb and Gas are the only ones here with “papers” but they’re not the employable type!

Jusque le mois d’octobre,
C’est moi, dana et mes chats carb et essence
xox

CLUB MED...MED, AS IN SHORT FOR MEDICAL EMERGENCIES!09/15~30 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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September 1~15, 2008

~Apartment details…there have to be negatives…the bed a.k.a. Clic-Clac and the water are hard and the kitchen sink is inconveniently located directly below the hot water heater…so, I kind of have no place to put my face when I’m washing the dishes! And I have next to zero counter space and zero oven. I have a stupid shower door, the kind that folds out, although it doesn’t like to do that. There’s also one of those wall-mounted clothes drying racks which I inevitably walk into, face first…every time…so I don’t use it much.

~The greener side of apartment 302 (or 1935)…the bathtub, proximity to Centre Ville, the terrace and freedom for the cats definitely outweigh the few less-tolerable hiccoughs (see above list). And my bathroom sink is the size of a bathtub! And I have a washing machine (now without pressurized leaks) which I discovered is a rare commodity in a French rental “location”! And the hot water tank-thingy isn’t actually a tank. It’s one of those thingies that heats the water as it passes through, so guess what, the length of my shower is no longer directly proportional to the size of my hot water tank! This is a good thing!

~I’ve had a bath EVERY SINGLE night since our arrival. My bathtub is the next best thing to a sauna. I know, it doesn’t start with the letter “S”, but the letter “B’s” pretty good too…beer, Biernacki, uh…bonbons!

~I’ve met our concierge, Monsieur Noto (comme moto he tells me, only with an “N”). Says he hasn’t been to the Centre Ville (5 blocks from here) in over 30 years! What a weirdo!

~My gardener…Darling…appears to come every Thursday to trim the grass and hedges and do his other gardener duties…so I must remember (to tell the maid) not to sweep the terrace until after he has finished!

~There’s this French guy, aren’t they all, that lives in MY building, who faithfully walks his French Poodle twice a day and walks his wife twice a week.

~Carb and Gas have had their first taste EVER of rabbit! Well, not really real rabbit, but the chopped-up, dried-up, French Purina version of lapin! It’s their 3rd dietary change since Canada, but they need to work with me here and eat whatever’s available at the closest grocery store…I love ‘em but I’m not hauling kilos of specialized cat food across a city on foot! Uh uh, no way! Besides, I’ve had to change my brand of cigarettes a fair few times these past couple of years, and you don’t hear me complaining!

~With our sliding patio doors in perma-open position, the cats come and go as they please…just…because…they can! Of course, each time they come, they have half a kilo of natural debris stuck to their coats, whiskers, paws, bums…but better to clean up a bit of nature than “nature calls” I say! No more pee-puddles to contend with now that Carb is content with life! (We all have different definitions of happiness!...although Carb and I agree, freedom rocks!)

~C and G have picked up French hitchhikers…Montpellier fleas, les puces! More language to learn before the task of finding a Vet…but I never did make it to the Vet’s…’cause after Tourist Information Office girl gave me 2 non-existent addresses of Vet’s, some random guy whose door I knocked on, I love random guys, directed me correctly, but en route I passed a Géant Casino, couldn’t resist, and went grocery shopping instead…and what did I find within? Flea collars and flea treatment stuff. So I now know the location of a Veterinarian and a great grocery store that even sells vanilla extract! (shame that I have no oven!)

~So, the flea treatment stuff makes the cats smell like 2 walking bowls of Lavender Potpourri! And now our apartment smells like Lavender and Moroccan spices! Quite nice actually!

~So Lavender does not actually repel fleas…just other cats, and I’m sure Carb and Gas have become the laughing stock of Residence de La Guirlande of the feline populace! So, back to the Vet’s to spend yet another 30 ! But now the cats smell like cats and most of the fleas are in flea heaven!

~Dogs are definitely number 2 on a cat’s “Top 10 Worst Enemy” list…fleas ALWAYS bite!

~Had our first thunderstorm…a nice reprieve from the perpetual hot sunshine. Sat on the terrace and watched the grass grow…and Carb cower under Clic-Clac! Le froussard=scaredy-cat!

~Never underestimate the speed of a snail…one minute they’re not there and the next, they’re there! I was thinking of opening a “U-PICK ESCARGOT” on my terrace every morning! And after that thunderstorm, I had an amazing crop!

~So, you can buy empty snail shells at the grocery store, stuff your own…I could sell my escargot full or empty!!

~The novelty of freedom sure wore off quickly…Carb and Gas spend more time siesta-ing on Clic-Clac than they do venturing!!! But as soon as I shut that sliding patio door…who wants out? Once outside, Carb checks in every half hour or so…he doesn’t trust me…might move when he’s not looking!

~Carb and/or Gas have a petite amie, a French souvenir!!! But I don’t think she’s French. She’s Siamese, obviously an illegal immigrant somewhat like themselves, with striking blue eyes and a nice figure. She wanders into our apartment when our door is open, which is all the time, eats from our crunchy bowl and like typical boyfriends they continue their couch potato habit. They don’t even get up to like offer her, I don’t know, like a drink or a seat or something. Men!

~You know, that first month of living in a new country, and this is my third experience, so just MAYBE I know what I’m talking about…it becomes a big blurr! As I recall, I can’t recall many details about my first month here. Just an over stimulation of the senses, an overwhelming emotional impact and fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy! The combination of lack of sleep, lack of appetite thus lack of nutrition, lack of confidence, excitement, nervousness and confusion made it hard sometimes to put one foot in front of the other foot. Each uncertain moment in the beginning is meaningful though in creating eventual familiarity and comfort in this new environment, eventually, but at the time, the purpose of your being here is really questionable. Especially on some days.

~Official people, like police, make me nervous! Sometimes I pull out my map in public (a traveller’s taboo) just so they think I’m a tourist!

~Man, the French are really resistant to illegal immigrants. I’ve never been rejected by so many people in such a short span of time. Bank account guy rejected me.

~Next time I venture abroad to live illegally, remind me to pack an old electricity bill…’cause had I brought one with me, I’d have a French bank account now! Bank account lady has also rejected me…because the rules in her bank state I need an official document showing my home address…Driver’s Licence and Teaching Certificates don’t cut it! So, I didn’t get a bank account…but I made a friend! Séverine and I have a rendez-vous (appointment) for coffee and she’s invited me with her boyfriend to visit a familial village outside of Montpellier. In every negative, there’s a positive!

~Without a bank account I can’t get the Internet! It’s the last thing I need, outside of a job, to make my life complete here! Stay tuned for the illegal job search next month…THAT should be interesting!

~The Tourist Information Office employees are baffled by me! I don’t ask typical questions…they’re more of the practical living-here-illegally sort, like, could you please tell me where I could find a washing machine hose replacement store, or, do you have the addresses of the Electricity Co., Gas Co. and all the Veterinarians in Montpellier?

~Every time I try to take a short cut, I get either distracted, lost or find myself in a dodgy area of town I’d wished I’d not roamed into, and it takes me more time and sometimes stress to reach my destination in the end. But it’s much more exciting going the non-direct route!

~There are a a lot of creative drivers in Montpellier!

~OK, so I bought these OB wanna-be tampons, Casino brand, cheap, half the price, and I can’t get the cellophane wrappers off unless I use a scissors…till I put my glasses on and, well, you’ve heard of twist-off beer caps?...well, these are twist-off tampons…how cool is that?! I might still be struggling with them if the miniscule word “twist” hadn’t been printed in English, ‘cause I don’t always carry my French-English dictionary to the bathroom, and I don’t know how to say “twist” in French yet!

~So, what do YOU do with those cereals that you buy to try and discover you don’t like? I wanted Granola and I got bird fodder! Do you leave them in the cupboard till they hatch little crawly flour bugs or mothy creatures like the last tenant here must have done???!!! Or do you suck it up and just eat the disagreeable tasting stuff and say, “Damn it, I’m not wasting that 2,50 !” I ate mine. Here’s hoping the next brand is something just a little less natural!

~It’s kinda like the prune yogurts they put in the middle of the crate of 12 so you can’t see them! I ate them…did nothing for me…till the next day!

~’Twas a sad sad day when I finished my gift tin of 100% pure Canadian maple syrup…I’ve never held a can upside down for 20 minutes before!

~Impostor Saran Wrap just never seems to make it to it’s target without doing somersaults on itself…I know, I need to get a life…I’m writing about plastic wrap.

~Another life’s firsts…my kid has made her way through time and space to Kingston and Queen’s University! She, too, has a new address and phone number for the year, although I doubt she’s hankering for Temptations cat treats!

Lauren McCormick
Room 210, Wing A
Victoria Hall
Queen’s University
Kingston, Ontario
K7L 3N8
(Canada)

(613) 533-5444

~Even chosen changes are challenging…but the changes that come about in our lives that we DON’T choose, are undoubtedly the toughest! I’m so proud of my kid! It’s a good thing you’re practiced at new beginnings kid!!

~Harry Potter is teaching me the basics of yet another language!

~Don’t know what it is about running water (e.g. showers, brushing teeth), but it stimulates my thought process for writing material…I could never be an environmentally friendly writer!

~Some favourite French words/expressions, so far:

~oh la la…they actually say it, I heard it on the street!
~la jacasse…good word for a magpie (bird)
~C’est du jus de chausettes, ce café!...from the dictionary…do you think
the French really say this? In English, we say bad coffee tastes like
dishwater…but, ew, sock juice…that’s just nasty!
~and I love when you look up a French word, because you don’t know
what it means, OBVIOUSLY, and you find the English word is identical!
Yikes! (No, I’m not telling you what the word was, I might look stupid!)

~If you’ve tried to call me and couldn’t get through…try again!
(011) (33) 645638385. If I park my Virgin in certain dead spots of the apartment it tells me “no service”…and yes, I’ve paid my bill!

~Incidentally, when I recite my cell phone number to someone, which I so proudly remember, I do it in a more memorable way than clumping the numbers in 2’s like they do here: 06 456 38 38 5…I’ve been called on it, questioned, why I don’t just put the numbers in groups of 2’s like normal people…well, they didn’t actually say normal people…but I know that’s what they were implying, in French!

~Lauren and Meagan…when/if you come to visit Montpellier…you must bring your Moroccan Jalavas…you can wear them here without being laughed at…really…this time I promise!!!

~Happy 60th mon oncle…hope you had a beer on me…unless, of course, you’ve switched to sipping hot water?

So, until the month of Halloween,
Salut mes amis,
dana, carb and ess…short for essence…doesn’t work as well in French, does it?! xox

P.S. I just bought myself a vehicle…a JEEP CHEROKEE-OVERLAND…she’s mauve and black and pretty and very comfortable to drive…I say “she” because it’s a girl’s bike! I figure your average bike thief won’t want a mauve girly-girl’s bike! I’m mobile once again and it feels sooooooooooo good! She’ll never replace Mike-the-bike, but as he’s resting dormant in my storage unit 6,000 plus Klics away, I had to buy Jeep ‘cause I can’t walk the walk anymore…this town’s too big…Jeep’s the name I gave her…I’ve always wanted a Jeep because that’s always been our family word for fart!

CLUB MED...MONTH 2! september 1~15 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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August 11~31, 2008

~Our new Temptation Cat Treat receiving address:

Dana Biernacki (& Carburetor & Gasoline)
75 Rue de Font Carrade
Residence La Guirlande
Batiment B3, Appartement 302
34000 Montpellier
France

~”La Guirlande” means garland in English, so, I’m celebrating Christmas all year! I’m actually labelled apartment number 1935, should you visit in person and need to pass the security entrance or should you want to retrieve my mail! I now need 7 keys and/or key-like things called Bips, to live here. The French are a much more complicated species than the Spanish! In France…they actually have guys that board the public transit systems to check the validity of your ticket!!!

PRE-APARTMENT!

~Apartment hunting, an annual sport for me, is a mervielleux way to become acquainted with parts of a city one would never venture into otherwise! Walking is a safer bet of getting less lost than buses which spit you out in unknown places, which you then have to locate on your Montpellier tourist street map, which only indicates the name of about every 10th street and incidentally has a lot more folds than my Jaca map!

~By the 2 week mark, my feet were fried, my brain was burnt and my tan was darker than ever! Then a magical thing happened…2 apartments appeared on the same day! (Never trust a Secondary School Counsellor…thanks Leslie!)

~Definition of a “critical/crucial moment”…

…You’re standing at a Bank Machine about to withdraw $$$$ to secure
an apartment…that accepts cats, finally, and a phone call comes in on
your Virgin…that new French cell phone Xavier sold you, offering you the
apartment you REALLY want!
…You’re making arrangements, by phone, to meet and sign the lease of
the apartment you REALLY want, and your Virgin…that new French cell phone Xavier sold you, runs out of $$$$ mid-call!
…while all of the above is happening…you start your period! Where is
the justice in this world…and where is menopause when you really need
it?!

POST-APARTMENT HUNT!

~Once in possession of said apartment you REALLY want…having NOT told the landlady about your possession of deux chats…I studied every balcony in the Residence complex of about 15 apartment buildings, for signs of domestic animal life, fearing the “what if pets are forbidden within La Guirlande”. I even searched the grass for dog poop!

~But, as time passed, we quickly discovered oodles of cats strutting around the grounds and even more oodles of dogs leaving the building with their look-a-like masters to be walked and relieved in the park next door! Whew! (But I still haven’t told the landlady about Carb and Gas.)

~It’s definitely going to be cheaper living here than in Jaca…Carb and Gas now have freedom…to roam the wild yonder of the vast residence grounds and shit where ever they like! So, Carb no longer uses the civilized kitty litter box…so, half the cost of kitty litter, and half as many trips to the store, not to mention half as much poop to scoop! God I love nature! Gas, on the other hand, is such a city mouse…he doesn’t even know how to squat in the bush!

~Carb and Gas have a social life…they have made beaucoup de French cat friends in the 2 short weeks it’s taken me to clean and get us settled in! They need to get their priorities straight…there’ll be time for socializing later!

~The price of freedom and happiness…Carb and Gas have itches!

~When Carb is happy…everybody’s happy! (i.e. Gas and I)

~Unlike Jaca, my skyward neighbours don’t drop laundry fluff/lint/hair or any other debris on my personal space. I only get the occasional dog drool drip, which doesn’t occur frequently, only when our neighbouring canine directly above us is sojourning on his balcony, gawking and wishing he could eat Carb and/or Gas!

~I think moving residence is an excellent “weight loss program”! It accidentally happens every time I move. But I’m eating lots and eating well, cooking on my little 2 burner stove with a matching little fridge in my little kitchen in my little apartment…the only big-ish thing here is a monster Clic-Clac that has the potential to eat cats!

~So if you like cosy, I like cosy, then come and visit! I’m here till August 14th, 2009. Book your vacation package now! And note that Ryan air flies from London, Stansted, or Frankfurt to Montpellier, cheap.

~No beeping fridge! My fridge is undersized, ancient, tacky…and quiet! I love it!

~I have scoured every possible surface in the apartment…even my belly button got it’s whenever-I-think-about-it cleaning! Now the dirt is ours, and I can live with that.

~A lot of Europeans iron their sheets…I vacuum mine! Lesson learned…never buy solid coloured sheets when 2 cats, donning orange, black and white coats, share your Clic-Clac! I swear they can selectively shed whatever colour they know will be viewed most easily!

~My apartment possesses those peculiar southern European blinds, that live on the outside of your windows…great for blocking out the light…if that’s what you want to do with all that glorious Mediterranean sunlight…but what a bitch to clean!

~Anna…I need you to visit…I’ve got some more ugly dishes needing breaking! They’re of the same clone as my Jacian repertoire…must have been a sale on ugly dishes in France and Spain!

~It’s a 5 block walk to the periphery of Montpellier’s Centre Ville! I pass through Little Morocco to get there…and actually, Centre Ville is like a Moroccan Medina, ever-confusing to find a place twice. Honestly, Montpellier is a phenomenal city. I picked a REALLY good dot on the map.

~Montpellier has a lot of good garbage! Like really a lot! Man, every time I turn a corner, there it is, more really good garbage. But I have to be very selective in what I drag home…remember, cosy. Plus, I’ve already made several trips to IKEA (say it right) and Pier 1, ‘cause setting up house is just so much fun! So, considering I entered Europe with one backpack and two cat crates…you’d be totally impressed with my home!

~The sound of the French accordion makes me melt! Or is it the French man playing the French accordion…doesn’t matter…I know the perfect street to stroll if you ever feel like melting!

~The only French I’ve learned is on a need to know basis! Like apartment hunting associated vocab…I’m good! Creating accounts for electricity and gas, I’m awesome! Buying smokes…I got it! But when bank account guy asks me if I have a visa…I know he’s not talking credit card! And I’m not sure I had enough French lying words to convincingly talk my way around that one!

~ I just got my first French haircut, in a Hair Salon Academy…and, well, it’s different, but different is good, right? I think maybe next time I shouldn’t say, “comme vous voulez.”, as you like. One side of my head is whispy and one side isn’t…and she meant to do that! I definitely look Frencher!

FRENCH WILDLIFE: FRENCH SQUIRRELS, FRENCH ESCARGOT AND FRENCH POODLES!

~I won’t be doing any baking this year…I’m oven-less! But I’ve got a BATHTUB! A soak in a tub surpasses even Butter Tart squares! And we have a magnifique ground-floor terrace that opens into a groomed jungle of Palm trees living in harmony with Pine trees, flowering shrubs, and grass! It’s Eden, especially for freedom-deprived cats! A squirrel accidentally wandered into our terrace one day…tsk, tsk! How was he to know 2 of the 3 new residents of apartment 302 or 1935 were carnivorous felines suffering from predatorial withdrawal. Carb and Gas thought they had died and gone to heaven…and so did the squirrel!

~I meet escargot in person every day! They attract to and walk around my terrace like teens to a shopping mall, no apparent purpose and nothing better to do!

~The terrace is my summer home, my clothes drier, my smoking room, my sanctuary! It’s big enough that I have both sun and shade all day! If it ever rains here, there’s coverage for that too. And at night I can sit in my new purple canvas chaise longue, my gift to me, listening to music by candle-light sipping whatever I care to sip and count stars, escargot or my blessings!

~French poodles aren’t an urban myth! They’re as real as croissants, crepes and baguettes, and as shaped and manicured as the jardin of an OCD victim.

TOILET TALK

~I washed my entire bathroom. I actually meant to wash my clothes but the washer hose sprang a big pressurized leak so I changed my focus of my list of things to do. A video camera could have captured the eternity of moments of chaos until I could see clearly enough through the spray of really cold water to find the water turn-off valve! A huge task replacing a washer hose in a foreign language…a lot harder than cleaning my bathroom!

~My toilet has it’s very own room. That’s all that’s in that room, my toilet.

~What colour toilet paper would you prefer? Pink, purple or peach…none of which match my simply white toilet room.

I AM CANADIAN!

~CBC’s ”Sounds Like Dana” (copyrighted by the Toopes, I like it!) isn’t happening…seems I didn’t “fit” the criteria of “Far Flung Canadians”! I think I’m too far flung!

~You know you are Canadian when…you cook supper at 5:00 PM!

~Carb, Gas and I have finally resumed our siesta habits…you just can’t take the Spaniard out of a true Canadian!

FOR THOSE NEEDING…

~I have a religion which I’ve cultivated over time, it’s all my mom’s teachings condensed into 7 sweet words…”be the best person you can be”!

Bon anniversaire Dean and je t’adore Lauren…

Dana, Carburateur et Essence xox

P.S. My SINCEREST apologies to my Spanish seemingly-non-sucking vacuum, whom I have cursed relentlessly and kicked on many occasions over the past year! I just discovered the suction adjustment knob!
…Sometimes I am such a 3-dimensional loser!

CLUB MED…THE MONTH OF AUGUST IN PROGRESS!
August 4~10, 2008

~I’m going to be on CBC radio this week!!!

The CBC radio program, Sounds Like Canada, does a feature called “Far Flung Canadians”, and we’re taping via telephone this week! Day and time, to be announced. If we can swing it, Lauren will also join us on the show as she is a Canuck who has flung herself abroad! As soon as I have the details, I’ll post the info on Facebook and can email a brief note out to everyone!

~My Skype name is: hiitsdana if anyone wants to call me (for free)! It’s also free to downloadin case you didn’t know, and with the help of my buddy Mac, you can see me and Carb and Gas via Mac’s built-in web cam! I promise I’ll put clothes on when I answer!

~If you scramble the letters in the word “EVIAN” (a French brand of bottled water)…you can spell the word “NAÏVE”! I learned this in Finland from Darin! So, I bought some, because, I am! … but Darin, naïve is spelled naïf in French…it only works in English eh?

~OK, so the first studio I looked at was a dive…but it allowed me to practice my bad French language skills, master Montpelliere’s fantastic Tram system and get some perspective of what 450 /month will not buy us!

~2nd potential studio…apparently doesn’t like Canadian cats…so we won’t be living there!

~3rd and 4th possibles insisting on letter stating I have an income…hmmmmm, they won’t take my year’s rent upfront! French systems…I know, the Spanish warned me!

~So people in Montpellier wear shorts…and everyone has a tan!

~ATTACK OF THE CLIC-CLAC!!! OR, GASOLINE FAIT COMME UN SANDWICH!!!

Do you know what a Clic-Clac is??? Gas knows it IN-timately…it’s a sofa bed also known as a fold-out couch, and Gas got folded-in this morning!!! He appears to be OK...but then that’s what I thought after he went through the x-ray machine back in Madrid!

~Gas is completely confused…inside the dehumidified and air conditioned hotel apartment he grows his fur, then out on the 35° in the shade balcony and he sheds his fur…he doesn’t know if his fur is growing or going!

~Gas also seems to prefer Spaish shadows over French ones!!!

~Think I found a potential job for me…do you think my experience in Madrid’s nude bicycle rally will serve as adequate qualifications?

“strip teaseuse lap danceuse”

~I’m in the land of Dijon Mustard, it grows on trees here and it’s cheap and I love it and I feel more French when I eat it!

Well, mes amis, wish me more than luck in finding an apartment that likes Canadian cats and doesn’t mind if I’m not working…and if any of you have any connections here in Montpellier that could help me out (Nick) please feel free to give them my number 06 456 38 38 5! Thanks, et jusqu’à la prochaine…

Dana, essence et carburateur xox

CLUB MED…DAY 2!

August 2, 2008

~The Med is my neighbour, but I haven’t met him yet! Apparently there’s a massive nudist beach in the neighbourhood…stay tuned!

~Day 2 shopping at Inno, le supermarché près de moi, and I discovered what was missed on day 1’s investigation…Smirnoff Ice…so I’ve decided I’ll stay in Montpellier!

~Had to buy a Virgin today…a new phone…NB a French user manual is somewhat easier to figure out, even without pictures, than the Spanish one I still can’t completely read!

~Here’s my new #:

From Canada:
(011) (33) 645638385

Local:
0645638385

~Today I walked the periphery of the old, central and “c’est COOL” section of Montpellier. It took over an hour…a tad bigger than Jaca, and I only got temporarily displaced once and that was in the shopping centre looking for the grocery store!

~Carb and Gas update…not much to report. I think they’ve got the hang of this moving thing I do to them. They only spoke for the 1st hour of the 8ish hour car journey. They approve of our air-conditioned hotel room with the glass walled balcony, although gas’ fur is confused by the cool air and growing thicker as we speak, and he has only dived into the glass wall once…that I noticed!

~I, too, seem to have the hang of moving cities, cultures and languages! It just isn’t as scary here…have more confidence in my French education than I did in my Spanish pocket dictionary! Plus, now I have experience and just know what I need to do.

~So if you’ve got the notion to do what I’m doing…definitely read the following…

8 simple steps to sorting out your new life when moving to France:

1 Get there, somehow…trickier with cats…I can give you Anna and Phil’s
phone #.
2 Find a temporary place to stay…that likes cats.
3 Find a phone store that employs a Canadian guy named Xavier to help you pick out a new cell phone that suits your purposes, no frills. Then Xavier becomes your first and only friend and throws in a phone case for free!
4 Ask your new and only friend if all stores in France are closed on Sundays.
5 Learn how to say “carton” in French so you can buy cigarettes.
6 Spend hours in the local grocery store until you find Smirnoff Ice, Canada
Dry Ginger Ale and Werther’s candies. (Don’t even look for peanut butter
if you’ve brought residual gifts.)
7 Find a real place to live for a year…that likes cats.
8 Find a job.

Easy as pie and your sorted!

~Day 3 is reserved for reading French newspapers! Emma, can you google who invented the French-English dictionary…I really want to thank them!

~That’s all I know for now…and now the real work begins…finding my sanctuary and a job to pay for the sanctuary…it is exciting!

Je t’embrasse,
Dana, carb et essence xox

FINISH UP FINLAND & CLUB MED
July~August 2008

~Cigarettes in Finland are sold in “Family Packs” (as Darin calls them), 28/pkg.

~Retraction from last update (July) “Men are slobbish”…amendment…”but not Darin!”

~I hope, Ali and Darin, you enjoyed your beer as much as I appreciated the lift to Tampere airport Ali and for lookin’ after me Darin…I miss you and the refugee camp…in a strange kind of Punkalaidun-ishy way! Still awaiting your updates!!!!

~My stint in Finland, July 13~28, was welcomed by a Finnish text message, which I received July 28th on my way out of Finland!

~I resisted Stansted airport’s floor, as inviting as it appeared, as a most hospitable Finn/Brit couple whom I met in the Tampere “International Airport” offered me a bed in their London home. My inflatable pillow, Thermarest and sleeping bag traversed Europe twice, for not! The bed was accompanied by morning coffee, a shower and a walking tour of Stoke Newington. Plus, they’re kindred cat folk. They took a risk inviting a complete stranger into their home…I never forget kind and sharing people like this…perhaps they noticed my cat hairy apparel. They definitely get to be added to my collection of good people in this world!

~Piko and Mike’s 1846 home is older than my country!!

~The 2 day journey to Finland, in perspective, was short, in comparison to the 3 day journey back to Jaca!

~I’m thankful I’m not young and attractive…waiting in bus and train stations would be even more annoying!

~Travelling teaches you there are good people worldwide…but it also confirms there are losers in every language!

~I had under 12 hours back in the Jac to drink and pack up! My boxes and bags are as disorganized as my emotions!

MON MONTPELLIER…IT’S MINE!

August 1, 2008

~You know the expression ”Get a Life”…well, I’m on it!

~If first impressions are true impressions…then, I LOVE Montpellier!

~Day one in Montpellier…international cuisine, copious grocery food selection (including Canadian maple syrup!), Gitanes cigarettes, French men, really yummy fermented grape juice, Mediterranean sunshine and heat, and clumping cat litter…yes!

~By the way, if you happen to be waiting for a personal invitation to visit me…you could be waiting a long time. Here’s the thing about me, I have an open door policy…you just need to confirm I have a door at the time you invite yourself to visit me! Once you have crossed my path in a positive kind of way…you make my email list…I only delete those who ought to be deleted from the human race!

~Brendah…you have no idea how often and regularly the word “Bella Bella” comes up in my day-to-day conversations!

~Lauren’s response to my last update…”it made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me miss you!” Awwwwww. The next person to cross Lauren’s path, could you please give her a really big hug for me?

Well, all’s well east of the Pyrenees…French day one was wonderful…can’t wait for the next 364 to come!

À toute a l’heure,
Dana, Essence, et Carburateur xox

CLUB MED…SO WHERE’S THE BEACH?! august 4~31 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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August 4~10, 2008

~I’m going to be on CBC radio this week!!!

The CBC radio program, Sounds Like Canada, does a feature called “Far Flung Canadians”, and we’re taping via telephone this week! Day and time, to be announced. If we can swing it, Lauren will also join us on the show as she is a Canuck who has flung herself abroad! As soon as I have the details, I’ll post the info on Facebook and can email a brief note out to everyone!

~My Skype name is: hiitsdana if anyone wants to call me (for free)! It’s also free to downloadin case you didn’t know, and with the help of my buddy Mac, you can see me and Carb and Gas via Mac’s built-in web cam! I promise I’ll put clothes on when I answer!

~If you scramble the letters in the word “EVIAN” (a French brand of bottled water)…you can spell the word “NAÏVE”! I learned this in Finland from Darin! So, I bought some, because, I am! … but Darin, naïve is spelled naïf in French…it only works in English eh?

~OK, so the first studio I looked at was a dive…but it allowed me to practice my bad French language skills, master Montpelliere’s fantastic Tram system and get some perspective of what 450€/month will not buy us!

~2nd potential studio…apparently doesn’t like Canadian cats…so we won’t be living there!

~3rd and 4th possibles insisting on letter stating I have an income…hmmmmm, they won’t take my year’s rent upfront! French systems…I know, the Spanish warned me!

~So people in Montpellier wear shorts…and everyone has a tan!

~ATTACK OF THE CLIC-CLAC!!! OR, GASOLINE FAIT COMME UN SANDWICH!!!

Do you know what a Clic-Clac is??? Gas knows it IN-timately…it’s a sofa bed also known as a fold-out couch, and Gas got folded-in this morning!!! He appears to be OK...but then that’s what I thought after he went through the x-ray machine back in Madrid!

~Gas is completely confused…inside the dehumidified and air conditioned hotel apartment he grows his fur, then out on the 35° in the shade balcony and he sheds his fur…he doesn’t know if his fur is growing or going!

~Gas also seems to prefer Spaish shadows over French ones!!!

~Think I found a potential job for me…do you think my experience in Madrid’s nude bicycle rally will serve as adequate qualifications?

“strip teaseuse lap danceuse”

~I’m in the land of Dijon Mustard, it grows on trees here and it’s cheap and I love it and I feel more French when I eat it!

Well, mes amis, wish me more than luck in finding an apartment that likes Canadian cats and doesn’t mind if I’m not working…and if any of you have any connections here in Montpellier that could help me out (Nick) please feel free to give them my number 06 456 38 38 5! Thanks, et jusqu’à la prochaine…

Dana, essence et carbutateur xox

CLUB MED…THE MONTH OF AUGUST IN PROGRESS! august 4~10, 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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August 2, 2008

~The Med is my neighbour, but I haven’t met him yet! Apparently there’s a massive nudist beach in the neighbourhood…stay tuned!

~Day 2 shopping at Inno, le supermarché près de moi, and I discovered what was missed on day 1’s investigation…Smirnoff Ice…so I’ve decided I’ll stay in Montpellier!

~Had to buy a Virgin today…a new phone…NB a French user manual is somewhat easier to figure out, even without pictures, than the Spanish one I still can’t completely read!

~Here’s my new #:

From Canada:
(011) (33) 645638385

Local:
0645638385

~Today I walked the periphery of the old, central and “c’est COOL” section of Montpellier. It took over an hour…a tad bigger than Jaca, and I only got temporarily displaced once and that was in the shopping centre looking for the grocery store!

~Carb and Gas update…not much to report. I think they’ve got the hang of this moving thing I do to them. They only spoke for the 1st hour of the 8ish hour car journey. They approve of our air-conditioned hotel room with the glass walled balcony, although gas’ fur is confused by the cool air and growing thicker as we speak, and he has only dived into the glass wall once…that I noticed!

~I, too, seem to have the hang of moving cities, cultures and languages! It just isn’t as scary here…have more confidence in my French education than I did in my Spanish pocket dictionary! Plus, now I have experience and just know what I need to do.

~So if you’ve got the notion to do what I’m doing…definitely read the following…

8 simple steps to sorting out your new life when moving to France:

1 Get there, somehow…trickier with cats…I can give you Anna and Phil’s
phone #.
2 Find a temporary place to stay…that likes cats.
3 Find a phone store that employs a Canadian guy named Xavier to help you pick out a new cell phone that suits your purposes, no frills. Then Xavier becomes your first and only friend and throws in a phone case for free!
4 Ask your new and only friend if all stores in France are closed on Sundays.
5 Learn how to say “carton” in French so you can buy cigarettes.
6 Spend hours in the local grocery store until you find Smirnoff Ice, Canada
Dry Ginger Ale and Werther’s candies. (Don’t even look for peanut butter
if you’ve brought residual gifts.)
7 Find a real place to live for a year…that likes cats.
8 Find a job.

Easy as pie and your sorted!

~Day 3 is reserved for reading French newspapers! Emma, can you google who invented the French-English dictionary…I really want to thank them!

~That’s all I know for now…and now the real work begins…finding my sanctuary and a job to pay for the sanctuary…it is exciting!

Je t’embrasse,
Dana, carb et essence xox

CLUB MED…DAY 2! august 2, 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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July~August 2008

~Cigarettes in Finland are sold in “Family Packs” (as Darin calls them), 28/pkg.

~Retraction from last update (July) “Men are slobbish”…amendment…”but not Darin!”

~I hope, Ali and Darin, you enjoyed your beer as much as I appreciated the lift to Tampere airport Ali and for lookin’ after me Darin…I miss you and the refugee camp…in a strange kind of Punkalaidun-ishy way! Still awaiting your updates!!!!

~My stint in Finland, July 13~28, was welcomed by a Finnish text message, which I received July 28th on my way out of Finland!

~I resisted Stansted airport’s floor, as inviting as it appeared, as a most hospitable Finn/Brit couple whom I met in the Tampere “International Airport” offered me a bed in their London home. My inflatable pillow, Thermarest and sleeping bag traversed Europe twice, for not! The bed was accompanied by morning coffee, a shower and a walking tour of Stoke Newington. Plus, they’re kindred cat folk. They took a risk inviting a complete stranger into their home…I never forget kind and sharing people like this…perhaps they noticed my cat hairy apparel. They definitely get to be added to my collection of good people in this world!

~Piko and Mike’s 1846 home is older than my country!!

~The 2 day journey to Finland, in perspective, was short, in comparison to the 3 day journey back to Jaca!

~I’m thankful I’m not young and attractive…waiting in bus and train stations would be even more annoying!

~Travelling teaches you there are good people worldwide…but it also confirms there are losers in every language!

~I had under 12 hours back in the Jac to drink and pack up! My boxes and bags are as disorganized as my emotions!

MON MONTPELLIER…IT’S MINE!

August 1, 2008

~You know the expression ”Get a Life”…well, I’m on it!

~If first impressions are true impressions…then, I LOVE Montpellier!

~Day one in Montpellier…international cuisine, copious grocery food selection (including Canadian maple syrup!), Gitanes cigarettes, French men, really yummy fermented grape juice, Mediterranean sunshine and heat, and clumping cat litter…yes!

~By the way, if you happen to be waiting for a personal invitation to visit me…you could be waiting a long time. Here’s the thing about me, I have an open door policy…you just need to confirm I have a door at the time you invite yourself to visit me! Once you have crossed my path in a positive kind of way…you make my email list…I only delete those who ought to be deleted from the human race!

~Brendah…you have no idea how often and regularly the word “Bella Bella” comes up in my day-to-day conversations!

~Lauren’s response to my last update…”it made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me miss you!” Awwwwww. The next person to cross Lauren’s path, could you please give her a really big hug for me?

Well, all’s well east of the Pyrenees…French day one was wonderful…can’t wait for the next 364 to come!

À toute a l’heure,
Dana, Essence, et Carburateur xox

MON MONTPELLIER…IT’S MINE! july~august, 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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~A year flies by quickly when distracted by a foreign culture, language and Spanish vino tinto! July 16th was the anniversary of my departure from Canada! But, don’t worry, I still say “Eh”, “for sure” and pronounce “about” correctly!

~Another first for me, straying for more than a year! A test of willpower, strength, endurance…how long can I withstand withdrawal from Mike’s Hard Lemonade, a bathtub, a clothes drier, my massage therapist…Canadian culture. I did cheat this year…accepted Canadians into my piso. Of 16 guests at Calle Del Barco, 9 (bajo), 7 of them were fellow Canadians, and 2 of them visited more than once! Helped me maintain my Canadian language skills!

~Aw, the joys of moving residence (culture…language!)! A new dot on the European map. It’s a bigger dot this time…about 250, 000 French men…I mean people. But as always, moving means packing up and saying goodbyes. Remember how I ventured away from Canada toting 2 cats and a backpack…well, I’ve added 6 boxes, a full wooden barrel (my coffee table), a laundry hamper, and a large duffle bag to my collection of worldly-need-‘em items. Goodbye psychotic, beeping, fucking-fridge! I won’t miss you! I always forget, strategically, else I mightn’t ever move again, discovering upon moving inspection, how dirty an oven can become (in only one year), or after I’ve packed the kitchen clock…how many times a day I continue to look for the time in that empty spot. Of course the cats have clued in to my intensions…Gas more slowly than Carb, and Carb is hating me in a vengeful kind of cat-pissy way!

~Post-packing and pre-moving, I took a 2 week reprieve from Spain’s perfectly beautiful sunny and hot climate and ventured to Finland!

~Saw…not much of Finland…actually felt more like visiting Latvia or Mexico, as I was teaching Latvian and Mexican students! Still haven’t figured out the “why part” of them travelling all that way to a non-English speaking country to learn English! They learned more about Canada than Finland I suspect.

~Lauren paid me back for my pay-back! I think she didn’t like collecting and cutting Canadian cans for me…I should have been suspicious when she offered to book my multiple cheap flights to Finland! Saving money cost me a couple of sleepless airport floor nights and way too many hours/D-A-Y-S of travel!
“OK, WE’RE EVEN NOW KID! TRUCE”

~The school is like a summer residential camp for international teens (and teachers)…teens being the same world wide…they just swear in different languages! We’re situated…well, actually I don’t really know where I am. Somewhere Finland, between Tampere and Turku, at 61 30’ north latitude. Santa lives somewhere close by! Really should have done the research, but I love surprises! Shoulda packed my parka! Shorts and sleeveless tops serve little purpose here except perhaps as thick underwear!

~Things I’ve figured out about Finland…
…it’s in the colder part of the northern hemisphere, there aren’t a lot of people around (5 millionish) but I’ve only met 6, Finnish is spelt with 2 “n’s”, their water tastes good, the light blue coloured carton of milk is NOT buttermilk, stuff is really expensive, they sell cooler-ishy type drinks, everyone has a sauna, saunas can double as a clothes drier, the vegetation looks like Canada, the air smells like Canada, (if you’re Belgian or Swiss, don’t read the next sentence…) Finnish chocolate surpasses Belgian and Swiss chocolate, the weather is ever-changing and only warm when the sun is shining…but the COOLEST thing about Finland is…it just never gets dark here (in July)! “Land of the Midnight Sun” in reality! I keep staying up really late, by mistake, ‘cause I just can’t judge the time of day by the amount of daylight in the sky!

~And they’re making me live with 3 men, 2 Scots and a Brit…two whom I would label as “special” and the 3rd who has become my sanity! Men are really slobbish, confirmation of remaining single! The best part of the whole adventure…there’s a sauna 20 steps down the hall from my bedroom! Yes, the best things in life start with the letter “S”! Siestas, sunshine, saunas and sex! 47 and I got ‘er all figured out! Thank God for the Roman alphabet and the letter “S”! Oh yeah, and the other good thing is I’m allowed to speak English here!

~’Twas a tough go adapting to the word “work” again…we were required to begin teaching at 10 AM and drinking at 3:15 PM, with 2 hours of lunch and breaks! As Punkalaidun’s Lansi-Suomen Opisto is far away from anything real, there was no choice but to drink a fair bit and enjoy a nightly sauna and our Finnish version of a Spanish terraza! Oh woe was me…NOT!

~Another experience to add to my collection! They’ve asked me to come back next summer…will see where the French wind has blown me a year from now!

~It’s probably a good thing I packed up the apartment before I left for Finland, as Lauren only informed me a day prior leaving Jaca that I would not be returning until the 30th of July! I have to be out of my apartment on the 31st!

So…thanks for sharing my learnings about Jaca, Spain, and elsewhere Europe/Africa/Asia for the year! Stay tuned for my France-Fuck-Ups in another month’s time! And thank you Jaca for providing me with a sense of home and friendships and comfort! A year’s paradise full of the freedom for which I was searching…and found!

Adios Jaca…you will always be a part of me, building more character into a soul that didn’t really require any additional building!

Muchos besos por siempre,
dana, carburador y gasolina
xox

10 FEET EVACUATING LOS PIRINEOS! ADIOS MI JACA! july 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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June 1~30, 2008

~Now I understand why northern Spain can be so green while the rest of Spain is a dessert…it has rained here all spring! But, alas, Jaca is Spain again, too hot and too sunny!

~Honestly, how could the English speaking world adopt a word from the Spanish language that they know nothing about? Canadians are the forerunners in the department of mosquitoes! I’ve seen 3 mosquitoes here this year, and not at the same time.

~When I see a person burdened with the weight of a “wealth” of keys on their keychain, I feel sad for them! Keys are an indicator of the complication of a person’s life, perhaps one considers this wealth! I have one key, to my front door, that’s it! It only takes one key to open the door to happiness!

~So, I took the “scenic route” from Jaca, Spain, to Brive, France, to retrieve Cassandra. “Scenic route” seems to be one of my numerous middle names lately…so, understand Lauren, this explains “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” syndrome! 3 buses, 4 trains, a one hour taxi ride and I found the Canadian kid awaiting my arrival.

~I’m not sure who tainted who more, Cassandra or I? But that’s all I can say ‘cause her mom is probably reading this update, and if not, Karen’s in earshot of too many of my avid readers…but let it be known…Cassandra and I had fun!

~Spanish grocery stores don’t like tourists taking photos of their Spanish products! Aisles of “legs”, olive oils, cheap wine and Bimbo bread are tourist attractions!

~Karen arrived in Jaca, July 1st, Canada Day, with Cassandra’s Canadian friend, Cassie Bedard, and a tin of Canadian Maple Syrup! Of course I waited till the 3 ladies left before feasting on good ol’ Canadian pancakes and my annual ration of “Made in Canada” Maple Syrup…some things just aren’t sharable! Damn right I licked the plate!

~Muchas gracias Lauren for contributing to the “Canadian” content on this continent! I truly do appreciate your efforts of collecting and cutting up those 20 Canada Dry Ginger Ale cans, all for the greater cause of gift earrings in Europe. Mothers have discreet ways of paying back!

~If you’re watching TV in Europe…then pay attention to the Euromillion Lottery commercial…and look for the ”mature” face third row back, second from (your) right…that’s me, don’t blink! Paid 60  to hang out for a day on a mountain top in Panticosa with 149 other local Jacian Spaniards. A full day of drinking, beginning on the provided bus, which broke down en route, before 12 noon! More illegal work in Spain, but a step closer to fame!

Hasta Julio amigos,
dana, carb and gas xox

LAST LEGS IN THE PYRENEES MOUNTAINS! june 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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May 4~11, 2008

~Latvia is only 18 years old! Although now finally independent from Russia… Russian language, Vodka and cigarettes still prevail. By “our” standards, Latvian stuff is “cheap like Borsht” and the Borsht is delicious!

~Immersed for a week in Latvia with representatives from Lithuania, Italy, Turkey, Finland, Sweden, Romania, Latvia and of course us Spaniards…I was the token Canadian rep…I truly think Canada should consider joining the EU! As English was the common language, and I, the only native English speaker in the crowd or country, I was relied upon as an idiomatic resource. A funny thing, translating the English language…imagine watching a fashion show amongst an international audience and they are relying on ME for the English vocabulary of modern fashion design…ME, wearing hiking boots, wool work socks, jeans, fleece jacket…you got a visual?

~As the group’s English language improved…mine got more worser!

~Fact: oral communication in a 2nd language improves proportionately with alcohol consumption! A week of a lot of body language and laughter!

~Although this European project’s focus is to develop “New Strategies for Promoting Foreign Language Learning in Disadvantaged Areas”…the week’s work felt more like play!

~We were fed to death, but man, was the food good! Imagine a country bursting with sour cream, cottage cheese, butter, rye bread…don’t know how those Latvians stay so skinny, I grew in one week!

~Latvia is green! Full of trees! Visited a Forestry Museum created by a fellow female forester…I was ecstatic, truly! Here I knew the vocab! Evidently women took over the industry, as the men were busy fighting in wars. That’s a hell of a way to achieve equality!

~We Spaniards stayed a couple extra days in Riga, the capital, to explore, Spanish style…slowly. The streets were rich with vendors of Amber, solidified tree sap…I wanted to buy it all! I love solidified tree sap!

~Opportunities always arise out of opportunities! Invited to teach in Finland for 2 weeks this summer and also to attend the project conference next May in Lithuania! If there’s a way…I’ll find it…if not, then I’m honoured for the invitations alone!

BACK IN THE JAC

May 11~31, 2008

~Lauren and I are missing each other! An exotic life abroad doesn’t happen without it’s hardships! Just as a life at home doesn’t mean you can’t feel homesick!

~I’ve given Lauren a true Canadian task! I’ve asked her to purchase a case of 24 cans of Canada Dry Ginger Ale pop, then drink them all really fast, then roughly cut the word Canada out of each can, 2 Canada’s per can, then send them along with Karen who’s Jaca-bound in July, so I can manufacture some more gift earrings…for French women! I gave her other tasks too, but relatively speaking, they’re boring.

~Yes, I’ve made the decision to jump over the Mountains, where the “Los Pirineos” become “Les Pyrenees” (with a couple of accent aigus in there), to Mont Pellier, France. A year on the French Mediterranean, eating French crepes, listening to French men’s accents, continuing to drink cheap Spanish red wine, and confusing my brain with yet another fucking foreign language! It’s a simple move…HA…and what move would be simple I ask myself, in a language I haven’t looked at in 28 years with 2 originally-stray cats that are probably NOW wishing they had never entered my Canadian doorway…death might have been the easier choice…! Simpler than requiring veterinarian certifications to cross serious boarders and visas making life legal…I answer myself! Good answer self!

~Carburetor and Gasoline update…eyebrow-less Gas has taken to sniffing live candles, on a regular basis, while Carb now spends the majority of his mornings running retardedly around the apartment like he’s got places to go! No wonder I don’t watch television!

~Next, off to Brive, France, at the beginning of June, to collect a friend’s (see Karen above) kid, who’s completing a high school study abroad program. She’s going to hang out with me till July. Familiar faces are so refreshing when living abroad. People who already know your story and history…and people who can pronounce your name the way your mother meant it!

~3 months of hair growth, and I’m starting to get that Spanish Mullety look! 10 Euros will solve that!

~Before I close, I would like to thank all of those who reminded me, back in March, that I was once again a year older! Turning 47 has suddenly helped me to appreciate all of the advantages of aging! Here are just of few of those advantages being older…
~I can read faster.
~My hair is growing in thicker, grey, but definitely thicker.
~I finally know what I’m talking about.
~Being set in my ways makes me a lot less prone to peer pressure.
~Wearing glasses makes me look more professional.
~It’s now acceptable to like classical music.

Well, adios May and hasta Junio amigos…will let you know my decision about teaching in Finland July 13~26. I’m kinda leaning to the “Why-the-Fuck-Not”!

Dana, Carb and Gas xox

2 FEET IN LOVELY LATVIA & BACK IN THE JAC may 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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April 1, 2008 to April 30, 2008

~I logged Lauren and/or Meagan’s 15 text messages to me during their travels:

1 i love you (September 23/07, Edinburgh, Lauren)
2 its laur. I bought a phone (Edinburgh, Lauren)
3 sounds cool! im in Scotland trying to find work..its amazing here. You should come visit! I want to work for a hostel as wel to pay for accommodation i love you (Edinburgh, Lauren)
4 hey i’m okay! i got ur msgs..in edin now, gave out resume today but tricky w.out visa. thx 4 calling! love you, laur xoxo (Edinburgh, Lauren)
5 can you call me? i need advice..i think I have 3 jobs but no visa! going on pub crawl thurs! how are you? luv laur xox (Edinburgh, Lauren)
6 hey! did you change my pin # for my bank? i can’t access my $..it says someone changed it?! Ahh help! xox laur (Edinburgh, Lauren)
7 hey thx 4 the offer but i’m fine. bank works now so all is good! hows spain? luv laur xox (Edinburgh, Lauren)
8 sorry i just got back in can u try again? (Edinburgh, Lauren)
9 hi guys im in zaragoza and catching a bus 2 jaca @ 730 cant wait 2 get there! (December 13/07, Zaragoza, Meagan)
10 Hola guapa! guess which loco backpackers r en route 2 jaca! see u late 2nite or early 2morrow can u leave a key? – ur kids :-) (January 21/08, Sevilla, Meagan and Lauren)
11 Hola! next bus out of zara is @ 0530 so we will see you in the morning :-) (January 21/08, Zaragoza, Meagan and Lauren)
12 Hola dana! we’re alive but just barely. rough night! made friends avec a banos. good thing i had lo! sry we didn’t call! love (January 1/08, Barcelona, Meagan and Lauren)
13 Hola otha’ motha’! we’re in seville @ samay hostel. let us know where 2 pick u up on friday!! cant wait morocco here we come! (February 28/08, Sevilla, Meagan and Lauren)
14 Coming! (February 29/08, Sevilla, Meagan and Lauren)
15 Bad traffic be there soon! about 10 minutes…can u wait near temp parking? (March 18/08, Paris, Meagan and Nick)

~It takes time to get to know the “right-for-you” people in a new place! I really do like Spaniards! And I love Jaca…and no, I haven’t fallen in love or anything so foolish. It’s just that small communities, even 10,000 people small, (a record big in my recent history of small towns) especially being a foreigner, and especially one like me…it takes people time to adjust and accept and invite you into their true lives, beneath the superficial. Especially when they know, inevitably, you are going to leave. It’s not my first encounter as a small town fly-through.

~Spent an afternoon and evening in a Spanish pueblo of maybe 70 people, all older than me I suspect, in the only bar of Laures playing cards. Now although this may not sound so extraordinary to the common Jose, imagine you and your friend are the only women in said bar, and you alone are the sole non-really-Spanish speaker, and the locals start to pack in as, I imagine, word of mouth is a popular sport in such a rural community. And the foreign game they are trying to teach you, in Spanish, is also played with foreign Spanish cards, which don’t even look anything like I’ve ever met, and there’s an awful lot of drinks being bought, thus consumed…well, I’m glad I had a camera, and I probably could have had a lot of boyfriends of the retirement age had I been wanting. And I haven’t laughed so much in one place since I arrived in Spain! And I think they had their entertainment quota for the decade!

~I know what it is most about a parcel from Canada which I truly like…reading ingredients, tags, labels in English! English is just so foreign here!

~Thanks Jen! For $7.90 pair of airmailed underwear plus the cost of the underwear! They’re featured front and centre hanging on my living room wall! But never fear, I will wear them periodically, possibly on the outside of my clothing, ‘cause they really are special! (On the front Jen has written, “The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live!” And on the rear-end side she has added, “And in the END, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the LIFE in your YEARS!”)

~And also thanks for the “Wacky” “Rocks”. I placed them in my bathroom where eventually everyone ends up at some point. In all my years of rock collecting, never have I looked down and spied a rock with words on it…you are amazing! I must mention, Carb and Gas were awfully disappointed, after they noticed the Parcel notification slip lying at our front door, they did notice the absence of Temptation cat treats within the package! Their birthdays were in January-ish,…as both were strays, it’s a random guess! (Hint)

~You know when a new town is beginning to feel like home when you start taking shortcuts…and you can leave the map at home with confidence.

~While Gas is my Zen master, Carb is of the higher-maintenance variety of spirituality!

~God, I miss the days in the land of yards…and grass and trees etc…where the cats could go outside and shit in other people’s gardens! Small apartment, big smells!

~I’ve reached that place in life where I’ve decided I look better with clothes on!

~Turkish laundry lady shrank jeans in dastardly dryer, 8 months of stretching capris into full length-ers down the drain!

~Probably the highlight of my month was my FACELIFT, of the unintentional type and certainly free! Went snowshoeing at a 2,300 m altitude for a day…a very sunny day, with only one too-late application of sunscreen. I am reminded of the Turkish Bath peeling process, only this ain’t dirt, this be flesh! As I have never really burned before, it has been a really curious experience watching my face fall off!

Well, I’ll be off to Latvia now! Hope they speak English, Spanish or French there!
Hasta mayo, muchos besos, dana xoxo

“BIDET” IN FRENCH IS “JACA” IN SPANISH! april 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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March 1, 2008 to March 31, 2008

~For those of you lacking the want or time to read my lengthy words, I’ll sum up my month of March’s travel succinctly.

A) I could be camel-rich had I accepted all the offers I received for Lauren!
B) My Moroccan agenda deviated with a slight detour to Paris and Turkey!
Even Duct tape can’t cure broken plans!

~Life is all about BALANCE! Some people may not consider me “balanced”, given my choice of lifestyle, but I deem myself as the epitome of either “harmoniously stable” or “schizophrenic”! I love the freedom, challenges and “getting dirty feeling” of travel…AND…I love the comforts, routines and cleanliness of home! I love both existences, I want both existences, I need both existences…
I HAVE BOTH EXISTENCES!

TOP TEN REASONS I LOVE TRAVELLING!

1 Body language is a great form of exercise.
2 I feel most alive (less stagnant) when I’m travelling.
3 Liberates me from my OCD organizational habits, and dates and time.
4 Helps me re-appreciate a bed-bug-less bed, or even just a bed.
5 Can meet like-minded folk.
6 A break from cleaning the cat litter box.
7 Feels okay to be a bit dirty.
8 I get to learn new stuff.
9 The less I have to live with, the happier I feel.
10 I can do crazy(er) things knowing I’ll never see these people again.

HASTA ABRIL JACA…IF I’M NOT DEPORTED!!!

~On February 29, 2008, I bid adios to Carb and Gas, after loads of trips to the farthest Jacian grocery store stocking a month’s supply of scoop-able cat litter and Ultima cat food. I recruited a tag team of 3 reliable cat sitters, one deathly allergic to cats and one deathly afraid of cats, perfect, left them a 10 page document of “Carb, Gas and Apartment Quirks”, and never looked back as I boarded a bus…destination…the other side of Spain, Lauren (and Meagan) in Sevilla.

TRANSFER TO TRAIN IN ZARAGOZA

~While awaiting a train in the warmth of the southern Zaragoza sunshine, sitting on my backpack, looking like a traveller, I unpacked my brownbag lunch. I had resourcefully utilized the last of my still-psychotic fridge’s contents and hardboiled 8 eggs, storing my homemade egg salad in a Flora margarine container. I ziplocked separately two buttered slices of bread…by the way, I see a potential career doing Ziplock commercials, “The travellers best friend…keeps shampoo and underwear separate”! As I dined on my delicious egg salad, shovelling the yellow contents into my mouth by the spoonful, I imagined that innocent passers-by might actually think I was eating spoonfuls of margarine with my accompanied slices of bread! Things like this make me laugh! So I did! And there I sat, looking completely mental, laughing out loud with my mouth apparently full of margarine!

MY MADRID

~A brief layover at the Madrid train station, yes, THE very station location where Gas cruised through the x-ray machine 8 months prior, the probable cause of his current intense passion for shadow chasing and other psychotic behaviours! Madrid makes me smile. I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for my sweet home of 8 months, 3 years ago. People watching while waiting, I was reminded of Madrid’s mental mentality. For example, instead of city planners reworking traffic signals to accommodate rush hour traffic, they send out cops with whistles, sounding like hysterical Phys. Ed. teachers, in the middle of major intersections. After an hour of frenzied arm flapping and frantic whistle blowing, the cop retires, looking exhausted. And really, I couldn’t actually see the point of his cardiovascular workout! Everyone would have eventually got home with or without his help! Hombre, I miss mental Madrid!

MARAVILLA SEVILLA

~A wonderful reconnection with Lauren and Meagan. How cool to find yourself sitting across an outdoor café table from your kid(s) in a foreign country exchanging travel and living abroad stories over una cerveza or 2! Chilled out a day in Sevilla. The first day of any holiday needs to be restful after the hustle of prepping for that holiday. March 1st and we were sun tanning on the rooftop terraza of our Youth Hostel. With Muslim and Macho Morocco our destination, I figured this may well be the last time our skin saw daylight for a while!

OK, CONFESSION…I’M LIVING ILLEGALLY IN SPAIN!

~I received a spankin’ new passport back in Canada before departure, ‘cause my old one had become extinct. It’s a beautiful navy blue little booklet, although I think it should be red, and now my new smile-free photo is imprinted directly into the paper to avoid fraud issues and such. How nice, new passport. So I have a total of 1 whole stamp in my brand new passport. Espana, Julio 16, 2007. It’s REALLY, REALLY, REALLY obvious when I arrived in Europe and where! For 7 ½ months I’ve been sweating it, trying to compose the perfect lie…any lie…that could be believable to the Spanish Passport people as to why I forgot to leave the EU after 3 months…my only pragmatic plan is to plead ignorance…it is possible an educated Canadian professional can be stupid.

So here’s kinda how the conversation goes between Passport Police guy and me!

Remember, I’m also travelling with Lauren and Meagan who have wall to wall stamps in their little navy blue passports. Also, the girls are young and attractive. I plan to either use them as my alibi or sell them if I’m forced to!

Uniformed Unilingualed Serious Spanish Passport Police Security Guy: [Analyzing every fucking empty page of my navy blue passport.] “Habla espanol?” (Do you speak Spanish?)

Me: [Secretly sweating profusely in my armpits] “Not really…un pocito.” (A little.)

Uniformed Unilingualed Serious Spanish Passport Police Security Guy: [Still flipping through my passport, front to back, back to front. Long dramatic pause. Makes eye contact.] “Cuanto tiempo estas en espana?” (How long have you been in Spain?)

Me: ”Un mes. Pero, viaje toda europa.” [Flailing both arms in huge circles.] “TODA europa, TODA!” (One month. But I’ve travelled all of Europe, ALL of Europe, ALL!) [Girls overly nodding heads in unison.]

Uniformed Unilingualed Serious Spanish Passport Police Security Guy: [Still longer dramatic pause, still trying to find another stamp in my empty navy blue passport. Again, eye contact.]

Me: “TODA.” [Flail arms again without exposing sweaty armpits.]

Uniformed Unilingualed Serious Spanish Passport Police Security Guy: [Reanalyzes empty passport pages once again. More dramatic pause.] STAMP!

Me: [Breathe. Walk fast outa there. Don’t look back.]

TERRIBLE TANGIER

~Terrible Tangier, still takes the breath away, and I find myself holding my breath a lot, not so much from the initial overwhelming shock of this foreign world but from the bad smells! Unavoidable Tangier, a half hour boat crossing from Algeciras, Espana, is the almost only Moroccan thing that absolutely has not evolved in 28 years since my last visit! Even the “vulture” “guides’ awaiting the naïve tourists at the port (“like flies on shit”…my words 28 years ago) may well be one and the same kids-now-adults from my first 3rd world exposure. Yes, we stupidly accepted the assistance of said vulture guide as I had yet to discover how much more doable Morocco is at age 46 than 19, and after 28 years of their exposure to tourists. These guy guides have terrible nerve, asking for money while in possession of a mouthful of braces! While I, with crooked teeth, hand over the money!

~We are immediately lost and at our guide’s mercy as we obediently follow him through the crowded, zigzagging labyrinth of skinny streets. Dragged to many sketchy upstairs Moroccan merchants who speak perfect English, as they have had ample opportunity to practice at the expense of, literally and figuratively, the tourist.

~Charif, our probably-richer-than-me veteran guide, who probably gets a commission on every purchase I make, immediately insisted the girls would “blend” better into this foreign Muslim mass of 1.5 million people if they wore Jalavas. Coincidentally, he so happened to have an uncle or cousin or friend etc. who had a souk (shop) that sold Jalavas! What a learning curve we rounded! Lauren and Meagan were outright pointed at, laughed at, in their face, by sheer Muslim strangers! Lauren’s sense of humour is slow to develop when it comes to fashion statements, even in the 3rd world! A priceless-almost-peed-my-pants moment!

~The second priceless-almost-peed-my-pants moment was witnessing Meagan, or hearing Meagan’s reaction, as she first opened the communal grungy Hostel bathroom door! When she ceased screaming…I yelled down the communal grungy Hostel hallway, “It’s a hole, isn’t it!” Indeed, the notorious HOLE, otherwise known as an Arabic toilet. Lesson learned, you get what you pay for! Cheap Hostels have holes! It gets better though, because later that day, Meagan discovers a WESTERN toilet on another floor, still grungy, but at least familiar to the western bum!

~Entering Morocco through the Tangier door, is like inviting a Hoover vacuum cleaner salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness into your living room! Persistent, especially the Moroccan carpet salesmen. I tried every imaginable excuse like, I don’t have a house to put a carpet in, it won’t fit in my backpack, I’m allergic…finally, NO! Worked the best, but took lots of practice, and we had lots of opportunity for lots of practice.

PAINTED CHEFCHAOUEN

~Imagine an entire town or Medina (the oldest part of a North African city), even the streets, painted bright Mediterranean blue. An extraordinary and remarkable site! Peaceful and clean! I figured a sale on blue paint.

~Here, in clam, quiet Chefchaouen, we can clearly hear the repetitive, haunting, and amplified prayer call 5 times each day, and night. It’s novel to my unaccustomed ear so it awakens me at 4 AM and stops me in my tracks throughout the day. Although the words are all Arabic, I can only make out “Allah” and “wet bum”! Okay, I know they obviously aren’t actually saying “wet bum” but this is what my ears hear, and it makes me giggle uncontrollably, 5 times a day, even at 4 in the morning, and once you have these words embedded in your head it’s impossible to tune them out or refocus. As soon as I pointed this out to Lauren and Meagan, they were doomed, and they, too, could hear nothing but “wet bum”!!! So, the 3 of us spent 4 days in Chefchaouen giggling uncontrollably 5 times a day!

~In a world with no electric appliances, one improvises! Meagan was 1st time ever hand washing clothes on the Hostel’s rooftop while I was taking photos to give her mother as proof. I stopped at one point to agitate my wet hair with my hands in the breeze, as Meagan was moving her wet laundry around the plastic washtub in a circular motion. Meagan says, “Look, it’s the spin cycle of a washing machine!”, while I said, “Look, it’s my blow dryer!” Okay, maybe you had to be there to see the humour…we thought this was hilarious!

~A new meaning to the concept of Junior Kindergarten! From an outdoor café, observed a handful of young, hip-high, happy-go-lucky children walk by and a traditionally dressed, sullen woman waddling behind. Was just about to relate to the teacher, when she suddenly whipped out a long wooden ruler and started hitting these little kids on their heads and backs! A Canadian lawsuit…a Moroccan way of life!

~Innocently enjoying a pleasant Moroccan meal on a rooftop-terraced restaurant, watching the sun set over distant mountains…naively witnessing a Palestinian demonstration/rally in the town’s central square below which terminated in the burning of the Israeli flag! An unappetizing site! Powerful and really disturbing!

FRANKLY MY DEAR, I DON’T GIVE A DAMN!

~Humphrey, I hear ya! CASABLANCA! Nothing, but a name!

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE CAPITAL CITY OF MOROCCO IS? (RABAT)

~Big city, big minds, big McDonalds. Great used English bookstore! Problem…gotta carry what you buy! Ok, one book…”The Lone Traveller”, it’s about a 60+ year old woman who bicycles around the world, TWICE! Makes my life’s adventures seem meek in comparison.

~Wonder if Muslims would cut off my left hand for stealing toilet paper, which has become 2nd nature to me! Steal it when you can, and use it where it’s not!

HAPPY 47TH IN FES!

~Best gifts ever…a bathtub in our immaculate Hotel room (it’s been 8 months since I’ve had a soak!), Schmirnoff Ice discovered in a obscure rear room of a little local grocer’s (it’s been 8 months since I’ve sipped a Schmirnoff!) and a day and dinner in the company of my kids, Lauren and Meagan! The cake and gifts (more literature mmmmmmm) were bonus!

~Sucks to be sick when travelling, ‘specially in a 3rd world country, ‘specially without health insurance! Lauren suffered a “weird head” whilst (I love that word) an even weirder red, woven, waffle pattern materialized on her upper thigh! But she lived!

~Traditional Muslim Moroccan man dressed in Jalava, pointy-toed slip-ons and skullcap reaches for cell phone ringing to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”! What’s wrong with this picture?!

~Our unofficial “official” guide informs us that up until 5 years ago men could still have 4 wives. Then the women’s rights movement exploded and now a woman can demand a divorce and is entitled to 50 %. Only a century slow in coming!

~We also learned that every Moroccan Medina is divided into “neighbourhoods”, each one containing 5 communal things: Hammam, Koran School, Mosque, Bakery and Fountain. Okay, so sometimes having a guide is worth it!

~The best Turkish baths or Hammams, are in Morocco! This weekly local gathering place for gossip is where men and woman, separated according to gender, have their skin scoured with SOS/Scotchbrite textured washcloths and black taffy-like soap made from olives, by a large and powerful masseuse. We nervously laughed at the excess jiggles of our nude bodies, held our breath as every crease, crack and orifice was scrubbed, were grossed out by the copious rolls of dead skin peeled off our epidermis, and flinched when muscles we were unaware of were pounded! As Lauren and I discovered, superficially, Canadians are quite filthy, modest and wimpy!

~Morocco…how does one verbalize what the senses can barely describe or even identify! Starting to see patterns in Moroccan lifestyles:

~Prayer Calls (haunting, five times a day)
~overpopulating=overcopulating starving stray cats (e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e) ~Couscous and Tajine (top two tasty traditional dishes)
~limited alcohol (big wrong)
~Moroccan whiskey (=mint tea, saturated with enough sugar to make
Lauren happy)
~Kif (legal Hash! Makes you Couscous in the head!)
~no dogs (“the dog’s breakfast” takes on a whole new meaning here,
I think someone’s eating them, hope it’s not me!)
~rooftop vistas (laundry and satellites) as far as the eye can see
~satellite dishes (even the poorest of dirt-floored piecemealed shanties
have dishes!)
~donkeys (the transport trucks of the 3rd world, Eeyor wannabes)
~Medina (a”maze”ing, winding labyrinth of narrow streets chock block full
of miniature souks/shops and workshops)
~shoeshine guys (flip-flops, Crocks and running shoes saved us from this
hassle)
~pedestrian traffic signals (non-functioning or non-existent, J-walking
must be legal here)
~clock illiterate roosters (they can’t tell time)
~tuque (a Canadian invention, but all the poorest older geezers wear
them in this heat! They look ridiculous!)
~men are Muslim (no souvenir shopping this trip!)
~water (don’t drink it)
~uncooked veggies (the untouchable water, saturates plants during
growth and washes vegetables once mature…salad’s on the menu in
Jaca!)
~diarrhoea (an unintentional but effective weight loss program)
~haggling is exhausting (but it’s just as exhausting avoiding purchasing)
~the HOLE or Arabic toilet (not yet extinct)
~palm tree climate
~badly translated but entertaining menus (cuckoo pie…should be coconut
pie)
~water looks a lot cleaner in a clean sink (Moroccan definition of “clean”
is really different from mine)
~fuck Lonely Planet’s recommendations of “friendly service” (I just want a
hot shower!)
~window cleaning (still use newspapers)
~Moroccan Berber (Native/Aboriginal) not to be confused with Turkish
Berber (barber)

~Meagan leaves us for an Amsterdamal experience! Lauren and I head east…

MAMMA AFRICA

~The Sahara Desert! Wow! Who would ever have thought…to me, the Sahara was only ever a photograph in an elementary school geography textbook, THE example of a desert ecosystem! And here I am, meeting camels. I’ve always wanted to meet a real camel, and now I’ve met Abe, short for Abraham, as intimate as a pet lizard! A sensible and efficient creature, but you would be too if water didn’t grow on trees. He’s quite passive and obedient, but you would be too if you were lead your whole life by your nose ring!

~Our international caravan was comprised of 2 Canuks (Lauren and I), 2 Argentineans (Julia and Manuel), 2 Brits (Lauren #2 and Sophie) and Bert from Belgium. Our fate rested in the hands of 3 Arabic bongo-playing, hash-smoking guides and the hooves of our trusty vehicular camels. At our base camp we feasted on Tajine, smuggled booze and hash while pre-celebrating Lauren’s 19th birthday beneath Saharan stars, singing, drumming and dancing summed up with a sand dune summit. The latter would have been a difficult enough excursion without the influence of the aforementioned contraband!

~Toilet facilities…pick a dune, any dune, and dig!

MAGNIFICANT MARRAKESH

~Shared a 12 hour luxurious, worry-free Grand Taxi ride through dessert fog (sand and dust) and tenuous car paths of the Atlas Mountain range with our Argentinean friends to avoid the discomforts of the Moroccan bus. Not that I don’t enjoy Berber burps, cramped and dirty seating and the fear of missing luggage!

~City culture shock after the Sahara!

~Marrakesh rocks! My fav Moroccan Medina. Let me paint a picture. In the large open central square are vendors, merchants, musicians…cobras sway to snake charmers flute music or upon request you can have a snake wrapped around your neck…a photo op! Buy a cigarette individually or choose your dentures from a table of other people’s extracted teeth and molars! Pyramids of rainbow coloured spices or dried fruit to keep you shitting through the eye of a needle, live monkeys chained to their masters, silver jewellery sold by weight, freshly squeezed OJ, shoe shiners, prayer calls and millions of people! Even photos don’t do it justice!

~Upon entering the doorway of the Marrakesh airport, I spied a younger-than-me English-speaking-looking guy sitting on the cement ground leaning on his backpack. Jokingly, I leaned over and offered him some money…3 weeks of daily confrontations with beggars warps one’s sense of humour…the guy laughed. Lauren, walking 2 paces behind, says, “Dana, you can’t just do that.” Poor Lauren, so easily embarrassed. OK, the story gets better. Pre-boarding, I go out for one last quick smoke and re-approach the guy I had joked with only to learn he had actually considered taking me up my offer of money as 2 days prior had had his wallet stolen and was awaiting a money transfer!!! Lauren and I heard his story out and pooled together our chocolate bars and disposable cash. In the end, ‘twas an intuitive random joke that helped a fellow human and traveller!

GIRONA AIRPORT FLOOR

~Who am I kidding…I feel old, trying to crash for a night on a cold, hard floor…and I feel even older the next day!

~Happy Saint Paddy’s Day on an hour’s sleep and 2 green Breezers!

MON PARIS!

~Lauren dragged me across 2 continents to meet the human souvenir of her travels! “Dana meet Nick, “he’s just like you!” Uh oh.

~Indeed, the famous-at-the-moment Nick who is just like me, is a GREAT person! No, seriously, he’s a good guy, I approve! Re-met Meagan and 2 friends of Nick’s and “did Paris” and crepes in 2 days, including the 668 steps up La Tour d’Eiffel, again, on minimal sleep! Toronto’s still 6014 km from Paris…some things never change!

~A final 3 weeks spent in Lauren’s company, although shared with fellow travellers, has been a gift, the gift of experiencing and observing her maturing process! She’s grasping at adulthood and my job now, as a parent, is to remind her to appreciate the moment. Ironic isn’t it…first we teach them to be independent, to grow up…then we tell them to slow down, smell the roses and enjoy life! I’ve always loved Lauren’s excitement about life and her ability to verbalize it, and now she’s at the peak of that excitement! She brings me life (…and wrinkles and grey hair…), and I miss her more when I’m with her! I am SO proud of this kid of mine, surviving 6 months of the most memorable education she may ever receive! SO proud!

~I have no idea how Lauren turned out to be so girly!

~As Lauren walked away through the Charles de Gaul security gate, I turned to Nick with tears and said, “There goes 19 years of hard work!” My heart hurt simply not knowing when we will meet again!

DETOUR TO TURKEY

~Quintessence of globetrotting…touching 3 continents in 3 days, Africa, Europe, and Asia! No wonder I returned home exhausted. My first steps in Asia, ever! The concept was actually bigger than the actual experience.

~Kebab is pronounced Keh~bob (soft “o” sound) in Turkish! I did a survey! Ha!

~Canada must have done something to REALLY PISS OFF the Turkish government, because the cost of a Canadian visiting Visa is more than double any other country in the world! See what happens when you do things the legal way!

~A smokers first and most commanding desire when arriving anywhere after a flight, is to have a smoke! So upon arrival to Istanbul (not Constantinople), I immediately exited the terminal building to smoke! Now clear headed, at midnight, I could cope with the duties of exchanging money, purchasing water and sussing out a shuttle bus to central-ish Istanbul, so I proceeded to walk back inside the airport. As a current connoisseur of dealing with constant harassment, Morocco taught me well, I consciously ignored and literally, physically brushed off some guy yelling to me in his foreign language, until he stuck his machine gun in my face, then I paid attention! Had I taken even one second to look, I’d have noticed he was a military security guard, and I would have paid attention, I swear. Body language with a rifle is totally comprehendible. He was pointing with his weapon to another door I needed to enter through, the one with x-ray security where they would quickly discover the bomb I was concealing, disguised as a bicycle pump…doesn’t everybody travel with a bicycle pump?! Every single content of both bags had to be analyzed individually because of that bicycle pump. They documented my name and passport number on a list, probably their Turkish Top Ten Wanted. That stupid cigarette cost me an hour of hair-raising persecution and interrogation. Moral of this story is wear a “Patch” when flying into Turkey!

~30 room Youth Hostel dorm living adds insight to understanding human nature!

~Turkish coffee could convince me to change my religion…and put hair on my chest!

~Fact: Istanbul has 17,000 people living in it, and I’m guessing the same number of homeless cats, the equivalent of ½ of Canada’s population!

~Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar and Spice Market are much more civilized than Morocco’s Medinas. For one thing, the indoor streets or aisles are set up in a grid system so you only get temporarily displaced as opposed to totally lost. Also, the merchants here aren’t quite as aggressive, for example, only 100 carpet sellers approached me, versus the 1000 predators in any given Moroccan Medina. Overall, a somewhat gentler vending culture.

~3 weeks of travel equates to way beyond the expiry date of wearable underwear, I only own 10 pair! Laundry lady across the street from my Hostel will dispose of the 3 kg of Sahara Dessert I’ve been lugging around in pockets and cuffs for 12 YTLiras! But always the dilemma of what to wear on laundry day?!

~Toured town with 2 Brazilians (Paula and Tomas) and a German (Andre) and an Istanbul-ly (Fatima) who was a friend of a friend of a friend etc. Saw and tasted Turkish stuff only a local could locate in a city this size, like Kumpir, big frigging potatoes filled with anything you can imagine and even things you can’t imagine.

~I fled the city for a few days to recuperate in a manageably sized Southern town near Ephesus. The 11 hour night bus trip was, as usual, sleepless. I sat next to a very pregnant tiny Turk who arrived armed with a huge stash of plastic shopping bags. I suspected she had no intentions of going shopping even before she began vomiting. I willingly sacrificed my soul water bottle and packages of portable Kleenex, and rubbed her back for 11 consecutive hours, stopping only when the bus paused long enough for me to jump off and deposit the full bags of vomit into the Petrol station’s garbage cans. Now suffering Lauren’s sickness of 2 weeks past with the added bonus of a literal “wet bum” (Allah was paying attention), I was quite content to sleep a lot in Selcuc, and in a private room thank you very much!

~History in Turkey has substance! Stuff here commonly dates back to B.C.! And I don’t mean Before Children!

~Despite being sick, I managed to eat a lot of melt in your mouth Baklava sprinkled with ground green pistachios, stuffed grape leaves drizzled with fresh lemon juice that looked like cigars but tasted more like heaven than Havanas. Although booze in this country is pricey, tried the Turkish version of Ouzo called Raki. Even tried a taste of TESTICLES! And I’m still alive!

~You simply don’t see Muslim women smoking!

~And you never meet Turks or Moroccans travelling outside their countries!

~I had NO idea Istanbul had 2 airports! Oops and fuck! I had bused back to the same airport I had been interrogated at, back through the scary security, only to discover, two hours prior departure, wrong airport! Right airport is an hour’s drive from wrong airport. Ran, which is difficult when one is fully loaded with luggage, to find non-English speaking Formula-One looking taxi driver. Arrived at right airport with my heart in my throat 36 minutes later ! Taxi cost me more than the flight! Life is so exciting!

THE SCENIC ROUTE TO JACA…VIA LONDON AND BARCELONA

~Stansted airport, somewhere in outskirts England, was truly one of the highlights of my month’s worth of journeying! Completely uneventful but it had a W. H. Smith bookstore! English books…lots of them! And Stansted sold coffee with milk and Stansted had BLT sandwiches and there was English language everywhere at Stansted! I invented questions to ask perfect strangers JUST to hear them speak my language. Stansted was blissful!

~Barcelona, too, was like being home ‘cause they spoke my 2nd ish language. It’s just a really nice feeling to be able to communicate with people! I mean, I know people can’t help it if they can’t speak my language, but I like talking.

~4 airports in one day is at least 1 too many!

MARCH 31, JACA

~To all those readers who actually made it this far…you either have way too much time on your hands, or perhaps, you’re sincerely interested in my take on the world! You have no idea how much more I could have written…but didn’t! You’re welcome!

~My kitchen now smells like a Moroccan Medina stuffed with fresh aromatic Moroccan spices. Spain eat your heart out!

~Ahhhhhhhhhh…home! Things I missed most:

~salad
~clean glasses (both kinds)
~guaranteed toilet paper
~happy and healthy cats
~privacy
~pork
~freedom of rights and religion
~browsing

Well, 12 pages is an ample idea of what I’ve been up to lately, for those of you who have been asking or even just wondering, I bet you’re sorry now! April’s update is going to seem a tad dull after my month of March. But I’ll see what I can muster up to keep things interesting! Till then,

Dana xoxoxo
Carb and Gas, who incidentally, are alive and kind of happy to have me home!

A FULL COMPLETMENT OF FEET BACK IN THE PIRINEOS! march 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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January 30, 2008 to February 29, 2008

~Just finished reading “The Power of Now”…and conclude that Gasoline, my cat, not the fuel, is my Zen master! Simply put, he exists in the moment, and loves every minute of the moment! For a while there, I was thinking that the x-ray machine he slid through in the Madrid train station had turned him retarded. When in actual fact, he is my role model…accepting all that is…next I’ll be chasing shadows!

~No joke…when I asked a Spanish friend why Spaniards don’t have automatic clothes dryers, my friend replied in complete seriousness, “Because clothes dry faster on a clothes line.” And it wasn’t a man who said this!

~Daily, in Jaca, I almost get hit by at least one car! As I’m crossing a street and am first looking left for traffic…I forget about the car to the right of me backing up into the empty spot where I am illegally J-walking from. I thought the concept of parallel parking was only used in driver’s examination tests!

~The canuck chicas, Lauren and Meagan, revisited Jaca. Something about the lure of comfort and cleanliness that can’t be found in a youth hostel. I’ve attempted to discourage their visits by forcing them to help me carry copious amounts of cat litter from the farthest located grocery store in Jaca…but they continue to return!

~Not much new to report here in the neighbourhood, except I suspect the Ecuadorians that live above me are trying to have another kid!

~I miss a bathtub. For Christmas I received a bathbomb so I put a plastic bag over the shower drain, dropped the bomb into the two inches of water and had lovely smelling feet for a day!

~The fridge and I have come to an understanding in our relationship, actually a standstill. It beeps. I unplug it.

~I’m still bewildered by the cartons of sterilized milk I am forced to buy in Jaca. The Spanish have fridges for fresh milk. And the surrounding mountains are full of fresh cows! No entiendo!

~Do you know the processed, never-goes-moldy, glow-in-the-dark fluorescent-white sponge-like stuff you can buy in Canada, called “Wonder” Bread? (An appropriate name!) Well, here it’s called “Bimbo”! (Another appropriate name!) So, I looked up Bimbo in Spanish…doesn’t exist…but in the English more-than-half of my dictionary, Bimbo translates to “tia buena sin seso”=a good girl without brains/intelligence! Once Spain learns to speak English, they may have to change this name!

~I’ve now skied 5 times in the Pyrenees mountains, which supersedes my Canadian expertise, and I can confidently announce that I have mastered the chair lifts! February 8, my last alpine insurance-less adventure…the temperature was 22 °C at midday! We had joked about skiing topless…good thing we didn’t, because my face was beet-red the next day! As my Spanish friend described, we looked like traffic lights.

~So, if the world is “getting smaller”…then why do parcels from Canada take so long to get to Spain?

~Like Pavlovian’s Law, Carb and Gas have learned to recognize that a Postal package notice equates to Temptations cat treats! I, too, am conditioned and get excited at the thought of anything Canadian! I’ve never so appreciated such basic gifts as: a new pair of socks, Werther’s candies, dish towels, tomato paste, chocolate chips and all the extras. Thank you soooooooooo much Karen and Cassandra! A Christmas parcel in January still feels like Christmas!

~Even in February…there really is a Santa Claus…I laughed a lot opening your gifts Bev…how will I ever explain where Providence Bay is to a Spaniard! Great “stuff”, but the book, oh, the book is like orgasmic or gold or both! I’m starving for good literature and wondered how I could survive while abroad in Morocco without a fix! I steered my eyes away from the synopsis on the back cover as I immediately slipped “Eat, Pray, Love” into my packed pack (I did catch the title and see below why my pack is packed!)) for fear the temptation would overwhelm me…! Many thanks for thinking of me and my furry friends. We feel spoiled!

~Now I know why I’m still single! I’ve been wearing my ring on my right hand…seems this is the wedding ring hand in this region of Spain!

~Jaca has just experienced 3 consecutive days of cloud…and already I’m suffering symptoms of S.A.D.!

~How well do you know cats? Are you aware of the phenomenon of cats magnetizing to papers…sit down to work or read a newspaper, for example, and the nearest cat plops themselves on the centre of your attention? Well, Carb has a similar intrinsic knowledge of locating my bladder when he feels it’s time to wake up in the morning!

~I’m taking the month of March off (overworked…need a vacation!) from my 3 hour a week job! I have successfully accomplished attaining the 5-day weekend, or 2-day workweek! That’s right, I’ve downsized my work schedule, I quit my day job! Lauren can vouch for me, it was glorified babysitting, and that’s not in my job description this year! Lauren and I are meeting in Sevilla to venture through Morocco for a month! Meanwhile, it’s a game of musical cat sitters for 31 days! It’s been 27 years since I last roamed Marruecos…wonder if sandstorms still blast through the glassless windows of 3rd class trains filled with goats, chickens and people like me, or if random guys still run up and faceplant kisses on unsuspecting travellers (I am 27 years less attractive!) But if they still speak Arabic, then I sill remember how to say “Get Lost”! Stay tuned…I’ll update you in April!

~Flying to Latvia in May for a week! An all-expense paid excursion courtesy of a European Project. All I have to do is pretend I’m a Spanish-as-a-Second-Language learner. I can do that! Isn’t life just full of opportunities…all you have to do is notice them!

Con todo mi carina (just imagine the “n” in carino has a little curvy line over it!)
Dana, Carb and Gas xox

8 FEET EN LOS PIRINEOS AND 2 VACATING TO MOROCCO! feb 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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~For Christmas, Lauren collaged a card for me with these words: HOME is where the river flows Pushing past the willows Home is milkweed in your hair With hemlock moss your pillow Home if only you could know Is any place I see you It’s in my heart And from the start I’ve known my home would be you.

~Christmas, New Year’s and the 3 Magical Kings have come and gone…and I never did finish my annual Xmas poem! 26 years of tradition…I’d better get at it. It’s not like I have nothing to write about this year…

~Since last I wrote you…I have skied thrice, attended Spanish Mass twice, obtained a black eye, hosted 4 post-adolescent Canadians, introduced 2008 in Basque Country and as a result of one CRAZY month, received a whopper of a cold!

~The traditional Christmas turkey dinner, which goes without saying, was yet another Spanish cooking adventure. Trying to reproduce familiar tastes without turnips, cranberries or skewers made it challenging…but nothing is impossible! First, I had to buy a roasting pan which would fit inside my Spanish-sized oven (one forearm length in width), then I had to search and difficultly pre-order 2 small turkeys from a local butcher shop…seems turkeys only come in one size here, small, which I almost forgot to pick up Christmas eve day! Then without skewers or even a needle and thread, safety pins will hold stuffing in…in a pinch, sort of, as one turkey kind of exploded as the stuffing I made with an improvised seasoning expanded, a lot. And had I not found a platter and serving bowls in the garbage the week prior, we’d have been serving from the pots! Homemade placemats and place markers made from homemade paper, candles in wine bottles, twinkly Christmas lights wrapped around Simon and Garfunkle my 2 little potted evergreens, lights I formed as a shooting star on the ceiling, Christmas music, repeated a lot, as I only had 2 Christmas CDs, pinecones adorned with little red bows hung everywhere hang-able…and tah dah…the best make-shift Canadian Christmas imaginable!

~And Santa found us here in Jaca! 2 couches and a floor full of gifts! An unexpected Christmas morning for the “kids” and cats! Carb didn’t get his wall-to-wall carpeting as he had hoped, but he did get 6 new toy mice…all of which have disappeared. Gas was simply happy for all the shadows 4 houseguests could make while visiting! And me, I was happiest of all, having my kid “home” for Christmas!

~I forgot about life with Lauren. Long Lauren hairs everywhere, accumulative missing dishes from the cupboards, little trails of cookie crumbs, half finished projects engulfing my living room but I really love her!

~Why is it 2 soundly sleeping cats feel the need to awake and inspect my freshly washed wet floors, every time?!

~Carb kisses like a true North American, on the lips! He also shakes hands/paws. Gas does the European thing and gives me his cheek to kiss! Just a bizarre observation.

~Since the advent of heat/radiators at C/ Del Barco, 9 (bajo), which incidentally were installed the day before Lauren arrived (November 28th), and incidentally Spanish labourers make as much mess as Canadian ones, I have discovered I now have more heat potential than my electricity supply will allow! I now live in an electricity-juggling circus, a fine art, a multifaceted performance. For every stove element turned on, means one heat radiator turned off or “CLICK”, the main breaker pops! Juggling the coffee maker, hot water tank, washing machine or rechargers with radiators is also complicated! In other words, if I want food, clean clothes, a shower, or a caffeine fix…I must temporarily be cold! It sure has taught me to organize my day’s schedule well!

~I have well washed armpits! Rubber drip cuffs need to be invented for that concealed cupboard dish rack above my kitchen sink. Every time I reach up to put a wet dish in the rack, a stream of water dribbles down my arm to my armpit! Just a little annoying.

~Gas has discovered Carb has a shadow worth chasing. Carb has discovered Gas is truly psycho! I have a friend whose dog barks insanely at EVERY shadow he sees…I’m so glad Gas can’t bark!

~I’ve decided my fridge doesn’t like change. Yes, it’s disturbed again…had a couple months reprieve. If I remove even one egg it complains. Add a pound of butter and it beeps. Drink a glass of water from the water jug and it flashes hysterically.

~NEVER order Gulas con Gambas in a restaurant…or you’ll go away hungry! Lesson learned…never order something that’s not in your diccionario!

~In Spanish, one doesn’t miss a bus…they lose it…Lauren and I lost 2 buses in the same day trying to return to Jaca from Canfranc Estacion. But we made some cool friends in the bar during our one hour wait at midnight for the 26 € taxi!

~I just can’t understand how a country can function without peanut butter! Thanks Jo-Ann and Blaine and Rhonda and Linda for the chilli powder, real Baking Soda and Powder, rubber spatulas, Christmas ornaments, peanut butter and cat treats! Life is now complete! And we’re good to go till July!

~Spanish Special K cereal has a hint of a suntan with blisters.

Loving life as always, and hoping you are too! Dana, Carb and Gas xox

TOO MANY FEET IN THE PYRENEES...december 2007-january 2008 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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~Lauren is due to move in for the holidays! How awesome it is to be looking forward to spending time with my kid. Seems like only yesterday I was counting the days till she matured!

~Speaking of Lauren, at Thanksgiving, she and 3 fellow homeless travellers prepared a complete Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, a first for Lauren. She wrote to tell me of her experience and proceeded to “thank” me for ALL the turkey dinners I have created in her history…wow…she’s growing up!

~Have I told you about “the Cave” yet! The Cave is the name I relegated to my downstairs bedroom. You enter via a curved stone stairway. Stone walls, clay floors, exposed beamed ceiling the height of exactly me, spot lighting…everyone thinks it’s the highlight of my piso! I’m afraid to share it’s alleged history for fear of disillusioning potential visitors! Apparently, this building is situated on a river…should I have suspected something by the name of my street, Calle Del Barco = Street of the Boat! But worse than the running rio beneath the room is that the renovators discovered “the Cave” occupied by sheep skulls! It’s very curious…Gas has a daily morning ritual of “demanding” I open the Cave door, he then proceeds to sit on the second stair down with his face only millimetres from the wall, staring, for indefinite periods of time! Do sheep have spirits or is Gas simply retarded?

~On my street, it’s not customary or necessary to have a doorbell! Visitors simply stand on the street and SCREAM the sought after’s name, LOUDLY, until someone answers or they give up realizing no one’s home! I now know the name of every resident on my street!

~After 3 month’s growth, most people’s normal volume of hair, I finally figured out all the Spanish words to make a hair appointment to get my hair cut. Walked away from the salon after making the appointment feeling p-r-e-t-t-y proud of myself, and my growing command of the language, till I realized the time I had arranged coincided with my work schedule! So, next day, with the help of my diccionario, reworked my vocab so I could reschedule my appointment…told the girl I had to rebook because of a funeral! I now have a Spanish hairstyle (No, Lauren, not a Mullet!) and I still don’t look Spanish!

~Things I’ve noticed about Spanish women’s hair:
~few wear it short
~The Mullet forgot to go out of style here
~no one is grey
~some really bad dye jobs goin’ on in Jaca

~Thing I’ve noticed about South American men’s hair:
~the Mushroom cut…see Mullet above!

~I don’t know why the Spanish think it necessary to complicate a language with 15 different tenses (7 simple, 7 compound, plus the imperative). I’m operating in 2 and managing just fine!

~So I’m working with nuns! They’re grey. My favourite one is the short, plump, happy one who guards the front door…not really security material. She’s actually the only consistent daily contact I have in Jaca. I gave her some “Canada” Ginger Ale can earrings and an “I am Canadian” Beer lighter in my first week of teaching, as gifts, she was ecstatic, and now we must be best buddies because she’s forever presenting me with little Spanish pocket versions of bibles and religion related stuff…either that or she’s figured out the Pop and Beer themes of my gifts and she’s attempting to save me! While working at Colegio Santa Maria, I have this overwhelming feeling that I have to behave myself at school!

~Carb and Gas have never had such variety in their diet! Ultima “crunchies” are available in beef, chicken, salmon and turkey flavours! Plus, they make special mixtures for hairball or urinary tract repair work. Unfortunately they haven’t come out with Ultima Light, a weight watcher’s variety. How will I ever convince these cats to leave Spanish Ultima for Canadian Medical!

~I really like that every weekend for me is a 3 day weekend…but I just had a 4 day weekend…and I REALLY liked that!

~Coffee and Siestas have the same effect on me! Although one is a stimulant and the other is a relaxant, and I love them both equally, if I do either one too late in the day…I have difficulties getting my 12 hours of sleep at night!

~Gas is the only one of us who doesn’t mind that radiator-installer-guy still hasn’t shown up, but then we’ve only been waiting a few months, which is more than a couple. There’s supposed to be a radiator in every room. As the evenings have become brisk, Carb and I huddle around our sole living room heater, while Gas derives great satisfaction basking on the cool clay floor in any of the above mentioned non-heated rooms…a true Canadian he is! So, unless we start keeping the butter in the living room…there’ll be no soft butter in this casa…until summer!

~While “Visado” to most Spaniards means “a Visa”, the Asturians of Northern Spain know that it actually means “leftovers”…because the word VI-SA-DO contains the first 2 letters of VIernes/Friday, SAbado/Saturday and DOmingo/Sunday! I love rule breakers who play with language and their food!

~Gas has taken up the sport of shadow chasing, fulltime. Our smooth clay floors provide the perfect surface for doing donuts and major skidding! Neither Carb nor the furniture really like it, but I think he’s hilarious.

~Mind my tears…I just started and finished Anne of Green Gables, an evening’s indulgence to what I belief is THE classic Canadian Fairytale. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read this story, and I’m still in love with Anne, Matthew, Marilla and Avonlea. I have always admired Anne and while my childhood peers wanted to be princesses and knights, I wanted to be Anne of Green Gables! I have also been echoing Lucy Maude Montgomery’s words since I was Anne’s initial age, 11. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to myself, “Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet”, since living in Jaca!

~When the Spanish greet on the street, dicen “Adios” or “Hasta luego”…instead of hello! The first time I encountered this, I thought the guy was being rude by replying goodbye to my hello! Evidently, it simply means, “No time to talk”…so why not just say “No time to talk”!

~Gas has started to talk in his sleep! I’ve watched these guys twitch and vibrate while dreaming…but never before have I heard them talk…not sure in what language!

~Just bought some tampons labelled “Normal”…so what do abnormal tampons look like?

Happy almost Christmas shopping… Amor y Besos, Dana, Carb, Gas and almost Lauren xoxo

10 FEET IN THE ALMOST SKIABLE PYRENEES! november 2007 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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~Man, or as they say here, a lot, “Hombre”! I’m in the mood to write! Three and a half months into this venture and I’ve got the urge. 4 months generally seems to be my comfort mark in a new living situation. I’m ahead of schedule! My home and work are set up and I have routines now, thus, more free time and a clearer head. Clutter, especially of the brain, creates chaos! The simplicity of my world could present itself as boring to some. But for me, I have found a freedom from the weight of stress. The kind of stress associated with my living situation abroad is really different from yours, well, you’ve been reading all about my dilemmas. Very gentle really. I don’t lose sleep over lack of language or confusion of culture, these issues actually make me sleep better because I tend to be exhausted at the end of a day. It’s somehow more OK to make mistakes in another country than in your own, easier and funnier. The stresses in people with normal lives seem more serious. Really they’re not, they just feel that way. If only we could replicate the way of thinking of a traveller into a normal lifestyle, wouldn’t we all be much happier?

~Peanut butter and banana sandwiches are back on the menu again! Thanks for caring, Laureen and Joe of Thunder Bay, and for keeping me fixed! Evidently Rhonda’s parcel is taking the scenic route to Jaca, but the unplanned staggering of peanut butter packages is strategic. Prohibits me from overindulging!

~Carb and Gas received a taste of their heritage too! “There’s nothin’ like Temptations”, would say Gas if he could say! Carb will, and has been, eating anything, the pig, but Temptations make him DROOL, the pig!

~The neighbours, across the street, are actually my entire Gypsy neighbourhood! ... which assembles, nightly, in the vacant, dilapidated building directly across from my living room window, 2 metres across, where live, loud concerts are performed, 7 nights a week, more frequently on holidays! How lucky was I to move into the front row apartment of this nightly assembly!? Actually, it is loud but it’s quite cool! The music is traditional Spanish Flamenco, a very intense sound, and it religiously adjourns, by 9:30 PM. And I don’t have to pay to hear it! And should I decide not to want to hear it, I simply crank my music and turn on my “teacher ears”, which instinctively tune out any unwanted noise on demand!

~How apropos I should be living amongst the Gypsies (Dictionary definition: gyp . sy n somebody who has a nomadic or unconventional lifestyle.)! But these Gypsies have been described to me by Castellanos/Spaniards as a Tribe of people. They don’t live in stereotypic caravans, but in apartments, thus, are not nomads. And this adjacent building, as I just learned last night while out on the town (sorry to report, no good garbage), is actually their church! Seems their music has religious undertones which I somehow overlooked. So who needs to go to church when your neighbouring church is amplified through your living room window Monday through Sunday, twice on holidays!

~ I live on the most “happening” street of Jaca. The most interesting part about my neighbourhood is “the morning after”! Every morning is a “morning after” I have discovered! If I happen to venture out of my apartment before the street cleaners have done their daily deeds, I get to walk through a minefield of vomit and broken beer bottles! (The reason I remove my shoes inside my house, how unSpanish of me!) You see, half a block from my door are the best fiesta bars for Jaca’s youth, one place is fittingly named Obsession, another Amnesia! And this being a Spanish town, well, it’s OK to drink on the street and all the aftermath that goes with drinking. It was a little intimidating walking home at night through the entourage of dreadlocks and teenage hormones when I first moved in, but I’ve learned that these kids are quite friendly and harmless, just drunk. And the winds must be in my favour because when I’m home, I never hear any of their drinking noises (over the music blaring from the neighbourhood church)!

~OK, so I’ve made my living arrangements out to be a tad hideous, but they’re not really. I love where I live! It offers an excitement that Little Current did not, not even living at the Anchor was this exciting!

~Carb has now eaten a total of 5 doormats in 2 ½ months. For Christmas I think I’ll buy him wall to wall carpeting!

~Payday has a whole new meaning for me in Jaca. I actually really appreciate it and notice it! My trivial number of work hours pays for my monthly roof and the contents within, despite the quirks. Living simply is not expensive. I always have money to share vino y comidas with people or to travel and experience but besides these necessities I have no other needs! I don’t crave extravagance meaning “stuff” and my scant wardrobe is sufficient. I don’t need to keep up with the Martinez’. For example, yesterday I contemplated buying a 1 euro oven mitt, but concluded my non-water absorbent tea towel works well enough. I’d rather put that euro to better use. I can buy an avocado, a pound of coffee or take a bus to a hike-able mountain for one euro. 4 oven mitts will buy me a 26-er of Amaretto!

~My dish rack. Put up your hand if YOUR dish rack is located INSIDE your kitchen cupboard! I have a built in model with a drip pan below! I only knew the function of this specialized cupboard because we had one in Madrid…otherwise I’d probably still be trying to figure out it’s purpose. This invention was one of a cat owner I’m sure. Carb can have total custody of my 2 square metres of counter space and my dishes are less hairy!

~I’ve just experienced Spanish Daylight Savings. So that means I only got 11 hours of sleep last night! But after the copious amounts of vino tinto we consumed last night, just might have to contemplate a siesta soon! Spain, siesta and sleep all start with the letter “S”!

~Things I’m most glad I brought:
~Carb and Gas (even if the feelings aren’t mutual)
~10 pair of underwear, now I can go 20 days without laundering
~my man Mac (Wow, I just found a Euro symbol € on Mac!)
~50 “I am Canadian” lighters
~my bank card
~my international electrical adapter/converter
~my Spanish dictionary

~Carb and I have just discovered he likes red peppers…we didn’t know that till just now! His head is in my salad bowl! He also likes cantaloupe. He’s one weird cat.

~Operating my shower is like driving a standard vehicle! The handle is even stick shift-like. You have to constantly change gears so-to-speak to keep the water temperature consistent. Probably has a lot to do with the small size of the hot water tank affixed to my kitchen ceiling. The tank, incidentally, has finally stopped dripping on my kitchen floor…Teflon tape is an international cure for most bad plumbing jobs. Teflon in Spanish is Teflon!

~It appears Gasoline grew his winter coat overnight…mine’s in the mail. I brush the guy daily…except days with hangovers because it hurts to bend over and put your head lower than your heart…he’s thicker today than he was yesterday!

~The Spanish equivalent to our Dollar Store is called the “Chinese” Store, all owned by Asians, and this is politically OK here. Where most cheap Canadian products are now made in China (used to be Tiwan), here they’re made in Changchun! I need an atlas. And Spanish Chinese food tastes just like Canadian Chinese food, the same greasy-doughed chicken balls with the same fluorescent/neon orange, glutinous, skin-staining sauce! I had to investigate.

~So I took the plunge, stood out like a sore thumb more than usual, and dressed up for Hallowe’en! My costume cost me 60 centimos (Euro cents), the cost of a black permanent marker. I scrounged a large box that had contained “fresh flowers” and dug out my Canadian flag packing tape and Spanish dictionary. Know what I was? I was the only walking Parcel from Canada in Jaca…perhaps the only one who dressed in a costume in Jaca! But my students loved it or maybe it was the Hallowe’en chocolates I gave them they loved. Kids are kids, everywhere!

~Guess what I found? Salt and Vinegar chips! Flavours have immigrated!

~Spanish holidays keep popping up unbeknownst to me! I hate showing up to teach in a closed school, or running out of coffee on a national holiday! But I like the mentality of the Spanish with regards to holidays. Holidays here generally and strategically fall on Thursdays so they can then also call Friday a holiday because, really, what’s the point of working one day in between two days off! Those Fridays have been given the official name of “Puente”, and that’s why I know how to say “bridge” in Spanish, in a landlocked Spanish town!

~Simon and Garfunkle are still alive and green! I can’t say that they’ve grown at all, but the haven’t died! Christmas is looking promising!

~Vale, estoy bebiendo mucho vino tinto y ya las palabras son muy borrosas! Less the accents that I haven’t been able to locate on Mac, I sincerely thought my Spanish was improving, evolving from a vocabulary of about 10 words (when I first landed in Madrid) that I learned from childhood cartoons like Speedy Gonzalos, to the ability of carrying on a half human conversation of multiple concepts beyond name, occupation, place of birth etc. Immersed in a new language can make one appear stupid! Even if one is not really that stupid in one’s first language. Learning a language means reverting to basic speech like that of a young child, although with less grace and receiving less empathy from one’s audience. Using simple vocabulary, creating choppy imperfect sentences, accentuating incorrect syllables, speaking at a snails pace, constantly asking for repetition and clarification, utilizing body language making oneself look “challenged” or Italian, etcetera! So the word that I innocently have been using for “straw”, in colloquial terms, actually means “masturbation”! I didn’t know!

~Gas has been burping a lot lately…and I didn’t even know a cat could burp!

~I have a dead banana lying on my kitchen counter calling to me! Better go and make a cake! Adios mis amigos hasta la proxima carta, Dana and soon-to-be-on-a-diet cats (My Ecuadorian upstairs neighbours with the scrawny cat keep asking me what I feed Carb and Gas…wait till they meet my kid…she’s 2 Ecuadorians in height!) xoxo

10 FEET IN THE PYRENEES & QUITE COMFORTABLE...oct-nov 2007 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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~I used to hate walking, says the woman who used to drive daily the 2 blocks to work! But hiking in the mountains isn’t really walking, is it? It’s more like doing stairs, meaningful exercise in disguise and if you can take your eyes off the path long enough to suck up the vistas, you forget about the blisters, sweat, weight on your back and distance remaining till the peak. Of course, like anyone with still functional knees, I much prefer the return trip, downhill and usually a cerveza or 2 as a reward!

~When…who knows when WHEN will be…I return home, I will have compiled a collection of WAY too many digital mountain photos, but I promise, in advance, that no one will be introduced to the Pyrenees peaks one by one! I still have 400 photos to prove I was at my first bullfight in Madrid 3 years ago…thus, on October 12, 2007, my second and probably last corrida de toros (the bull never wins), I have saved 10 photos worth viewing.

~Teaching is teaching, I have learned. And kids are kids, everywhere, I have learned. I still love teaching, as long as I’m rested ‘cause they’re a tough species!

~I am back to being my own Spanish teacher! I have 2 new books to work with. My fees are cheap (free) and I never assign homework (to myself)! It takes self-discipline, but I am dedicated and like learning at my own pace. I have concluded I will never be fluent in Spanish, but who cares! It’s all about survival and the challenge of learning and growth. Although I would never push my lifestyle on anyone, I do recommend learning and growth to everyone! It’s really stimulating!

~We’ve been receiving visitors in the middle of the night as of recent! Spanish architecture is such that the roofs all connect at different angles and levels, a stray cat labyrinth! And as Jaca is a smallish town, word’s out that there are “dos gatos canadiense living at number 9 Calle Del Barco and follow me I’ll show you a shortcut”! But angled clay tiled roofs are slippery, I’m suspecting, as frequently a stray or two slides and plops into our terraza during the wee hours making a lot of noise en route. And then how does one help these wild, undomesticated and scared critters to escape, after one puts some clothes on. One guy cleared a stonewall in one leap that I can’t even reach fully extended on a chair! I named him Supercat! Then of course Carb must investigate and “mark” every centimetre of territory which has been contaminated by stray paws! Oh how I love the smell of baked pee in the hot summer sun of the next day! It’s hard to get a consecutive 12 hours of sleep around here!

~I love my toilet! Can you say the same? It has two special separate buttons for “BIG flush” or “LITTLE flush” (no, they are not labelled). All you have to do is decide what’s what!

~Let’s return to the concept of clothes dryers, or lack of, for a moment. I used to believe people were simply being tight by not drying towels and I realize these are big consumers of energy. The exfoliating quality of a stiff towel is quite satisfying after a hot shower. But sometimes I miss fluffy! Especially in my clothes which can stand up by themselves after coming in off a clothesline in brisk temperatures. And I always counted on my dryer to get what the washer missed, i.e. cat hairs. And I refuse to “do” the ironing thing. So I’m one crisp and hairy looking Canadian broad walking these Jacian streets.

~I have learned how to use Jaca not just as a proper noun (Jaca, Spain) but also as an adjective (a jacian day), adverb (he spoke jacianly) and verb (to jaca or not to jaca). I have also used it as both a gerund (jacaing) and past participle (jacaed). It’s not legitimate vocab, but it works…and where else could I ever use it?

~Halloween is a North American word. I’ve seen only 2 stores in Jaca pretending to know what it’s about. Commercialism at it’s best. It’s one of my favourite celebrations and I will miss it this year. I admit I love it for the candy, although I ALMOST gave up trick or treating when Kraft stopped making caramels, almost! (Can’t remember what year it was…but not that many ago.) I think it’s one of the reasons I became a primary school teacher and a parent, an excuse to dress up retardedly justifiably. Still deciding if I just go for it and freak out the locals, or hold back and pretend there are only 30 days in October. I have such a limited supply of costume-producing-stuff in my apartment, but then I know the best creativity always comes from less. But I don’t want to get arrested and some costumes just don’t translate well or are not culturally correct. Contemplated dressing up as a bowl of Paella-too messy. If I lived in Italy I could do the spaghetti and meatballs one again-I could move. I’ll let you know my final decision.

~My fridge has lost the battle, given up…it works now, finally, without beeping! It’s been beeping since the day I moved in, August 1st, 2007. For 2 ½ months it’s been playing head games with me. It only stopped beeping because the Spanish fridge repair guy, Jose Miguel, had been notified, so it was the phone call that stopped it from beeping! Kind of like going to the doctor when you’re sick but you feel great when you get to his/her office! I have absolutely no idea what changed it’s mind to stop beeping, but it did. It stopped. Now every day I wake up and pat it…good fridge…Buena nevera…it’s a bilingual fridge.

~I’ve decorated my apartment in Early…how would one label it…Garbage! Every time I go out for the evening, usually in pursuit of beer and tapas, I spy with my little eye some good garbage! This one Beautician store is always throwing out the coolest of glossy billboards advertising make-up or skin care products. Of course, I then drag these monstrous sized advertisement boards into the bars with me…creates for good conversation amongst the patrons, I’m sure. Lauren would be soooo embarrassed! They now hang where there were once the tackiest of wall-sized paint-by-numberish paintings, the Spanish version of velvet Elvis’. I kept one 18 x 24 inch framed photo hanging in the kitchen, circa 1950’s, featuring hunks of raw meat, tomatoes, a decanter of oil (I suspect it’s olive oil), and a chunk of half eaten bread. It’s a keeper! And so many walls, so many maps! I’ve also kept almost every bottle of wine I’ve consumed since my arrival. I’ve clear-cut a few fields of wild dry flowers, stuffed my bottles and they garnish every household surface…when they collect too much dust, I’ll chuck them and harvest more, but I’ll buy work gloves before I cut any more teasels. My windows and sofas have been draped in sarongs and my bookshelves are stacked full of cool rocks and stuff-of-nature collected on hikes. A touch of incense, candles and recessed spot lighting and I have the funkiest digs in all of Jaca! When visitors enter they always gasp and say, “Que (with an accent) precioso!” Which means lovely, beautiful…I looked it up just in case!

~Bleach/lejia is a worldwide clothes wrecker! Just lost a pair of pants, or as the British would say-trousers, to the wretched stuff. I’m now down to 4 pair, makes for an even duller wardrobe. The problem is the washer…blame it on the washer. All front loaders here, which makes you dependent on that little drawer to distribute the toxic liquid evenly…guess what, it didn’t…guess what, won’t use it again! They were cream colour and now they have psychedelic splotches…do I detect a potential Halloween costume here?!

~OK, something’s up here…I most definitely have possessed appliances…just after I wrote of my haunted (pardon my language, mind-fucking) fridge, I discovered my non-sucking vacuum suddenly sucks! Like magic! Was cleaning the clumping littered cat box, for the tenth time today, and I always use the vacuum-like appliance to SLOWLY remove the sand that never made it into a clump from the carpet I have strategically placed at the end of the box, like I’m going to teach these cats to wipe their feet after pooping…Gas, is the typical guy cat slob who scatters the gravel absolutely everywhere, digs like he’s headed to China. So it’s like God has answered my prayers and has pumped more voltage through my electrical sockets or something! OK, so now I believe there is a God!

~Ever tried talking on the phone in another language? You’re at a great disadvantage without the assistance of sherades or lip reading and you can’t pretend you know what’s being said because usually, as in most conversations, you’re expected to say something intelligible back! Almost as difficult is watching a dubbed movie with no subtitles, but at least here you have moving pictures to help you guess the main ideas and you don’t have to respond! No, most definitely foreign phonecalls are my biggest nightmare! That and forgetting where I live.

~The Weather! Let’s talk about it? I try to avoid this topic for 2 reasons, 1. I don’t want the majority of my readers to be envious and 2. It’s such a typical Canadian thing to do, talk about the weather. I’m not sure when it happened, a couple of weeks ago maybe, but the weather changed. Mostly, it’s still sunny, blue skied and warm during the days, but nighttime lows are gradually dropping. We’ve had some rainy and grey days, a nice reprieve, but that’s what makes this area green as opposed to all but the northern regions of Spain. It’s Halloween and the leaves are still on the trees (I don’t mean the conifers)! See, talking about weather is dull, another reason to avoid this discussion…there’s just nothing funny about it. No mistakes or oddities about it.

~Just made Rice Pudding Soup! Made it just as I would at “home”, measured carefully, and I’m a measurer…and I got soup! Ingredients are simply different. It generally takes me 2 or 3 attempts to make most things right here. So by Christmas I’ll be able to eat my pudding with a fork!

~I have discovered, while watching the street cleaners (I watch everyone) that there is a secret foot pedal on the garbage dumpsters…I no longer have to open the dumpster by hand, yay for foot pedals!

~You know you’re getting old when…the hot flashes begin! A few times during my precious sleep, I’ve awoken in a serious sweat…unless it’s erotic dreams I’m having and just can’t remember them…memory loss is also a sign of aging…darn!

~#1 reason to shave your armpits…according to Gas, it’s where the fur mats most!

Muchos besos y abrazos (that’s many kisses and hugs in your language) xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo dana y gasolina y carburador

10 FEET IN THE PYRENEES WITH A DUSTING OF SNOW! october 2007 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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~As of September 16, 2007, I’ve been in Spain for two months. Two of these days produced a little rain…the other 59 have been sunny and blue skied. It’s because I brought an umbrella. If you have an oily complexion, this is a great country in which to dry out!

~Of course, the day I wrote the above entry we had a wild thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Living in a valley amongst mountains creates an amplified sound effect. Carb who is a “scaredy cat” in the normalest of storm conditions…well, I don’t know the technical term for “fear of thunderstorms” or “fear of loud noises like vacuum cleaners”. Gas, on the other hand, suffers from “fear of plastic shopping bags”.

~Carb has taken to liking showers…we have no bathtub here. He also likes to be vacuumed with the quiet, hardly-sucking, low wattage vacuum like appliance.

~Good news…I found part-time (7 hours/week-he he he) TESL work (Teaching English as a Second Language) and Baking Soda (in the soft drink section of the remaining grocery store to be explored in Jaca)! Finding work and cooking/baking are truly like a scavenger hunt here!

~Clay floors are wonderfully easy to keep clean…if you can tell they are dirty in the first place! My floors are a mottled terracotta colour, the same colour tone as regurgitated dry cat food, that’s no longer dry. Gotta watch where you’re stepping amongst two hairball-proned cats though! Clay is slippery when wet!

~Haven’t had to buy a can opener yet…not because I can’t say it in Spanish (abrelatas), but because most canned goods here have the pull-off lids! How cool is that!

~So Mac, my buddy, accepts Spanish formatted DVDs. I’ve now memorized the 1st three Harry Potter movies in both Spanish and English. Words like witch, spells and magic are practical when you live in the heart of a Gypsy neighbourhood. I don’t know about my control of the Spanish language…but my British accent is certainly improving!

~One of my greatest adult desired goals in life has been to be or become wise! My mom was probably the wisest woman/person I have ever known. I know wisdom does not arise from formal education, but from practicing life, picking up common sense and the ability to rationalize. Experiencing various lives by changing its familiar patterns, taking calculated risks, and making mistakes make one wise. Being observant through all the senses, an efficient listener being utmost. I have been called a “wise woman”, and this is the most distinguished compliment I could ever hope to receive…but I know I still have a lot more experiencing to do before I feel I have truly achieved my goal. Part of the reason why I’m here!

~I have no real “To Do” list here this year. I’m not accustomed to wandering aimlessly…but I like it!

~I love countries that promote Siestas!

~Canadians take note…the Spanish have designed a plastic grocery bag that can successfully later be used for a garbage bag! (No holes!)

~Towels hung to dry on a clothesline are excellent defoliators!

~If you’re not “on” Facebook (www.facebook.com) and you don’t want to be…then you can read both Lauren and my Blogs or updates on www.travellerspoint.com. This is a very cool information sharing utility for anyone who likes or wants to travel anywhere, anyhow, anytime. Even if it’s simply a 2 week holiday somewhere, just put it “out there” and you’ll receive oodles of feedback of great places to eat, stay and/or visit. Fellow travellers will share their experiences, the good, the bad and the funny. You’ll discover the stuff not found in travel books. Lauren doesn’t email her updates so Facebook or Travellerspoint are your route of reading about her journey! She also bought herself a cell phone: +44 799 090 31 54 and her email address is: lauren__mccormick@hotmail.com (2 underscores).

~Have you ever played the memory game? You know, the one where a bunch of objects are placed on a table, something is removed, then you have to guess which object isn’t there…well, a friend just asked me for a list of grocery items that I can’t purchase here, things she could possibly send me…and now I’m trying to remember what’s missing in this country’s grocery stores!

~I’ve got to stop cooking and especially baking so much…my clothes are starting to fit again!

~As I age, I find if I don’t wear my glasses when I clean mi casa, then I don’t have to clean as hard!

~Carb has a new cat toy…it’s a rug. It’s quite pathetic to watch actually. He sits on his mat and flicks up the edges with his paw…for hours on end! It cost me 60 centimos…cheaper than those fake furry mice that accumulate under the sofa that I’m forever having to move in order to retrieve them. Gas’ favourite pastime is jumping out of my bedroom window, in the middle of the night. He can’t reverse the jump, as the terraza is substantially lower than my bedroom…so he meows at the backdoor until he disturbs my sleep. He likes this game! As screens don’t exist in windows here, my choices are few. So, the first night I closed the window, I awoke to the sound of Gas’ head reverberating off the window pane! He only played that game once! His other favourite pastime is sitting in the bathroom and staring at the ceiling which is mirrored, and meowing at his reflection. It’s apparent they are quite missing the freedom of the great outdoors…and that they are quite psychotic!

Besos y abrazos xoxo Dana

DIEZ PIES (FEET)/PATAS (PAWS) EN LOS PIRINEOS! sept-oct 2007 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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~So, translating domestic duties have presented a FEW challenges…I think the expression “trial and error” must have originated in Spanish! (She says as her 1st attempt of a banana loaf made in Spain bakes weirdly in an ever-so-different Celcius oven-like appliance.)

~1st the purchase of cooking/baking utensils and equipment. I bought one mixing bowl and one measuring cup…that’s all the store had, one of each, lucky me, an electric handheld mixer/cutter sort of gadget, forget measuring spoons and rubber spatulas-they don’t exist, and loaf pans here must be metric or something ‘cause they’re sure a strange size and shape…but “improvising” and “making do” are the name of the game of living life abroad…and should have scouted for oven mitts because I just burnt my hand using a non-water-absorbent but obviously heat-absorbent tea towel I purchased. People here use aluminium foil the way I use plastic wrap.
WHERE IS GLOBALIZATION WHEN YOU NEED IT!
(This is my favourite line, and my new philosophy this year!)

~The banana bread tastes great, not quite the same as Canadian banana bread, but it’s stomach-friendly! It baked in record time…I’m beginning to suspect this ain’t no normal oven I have here. Took me a week to figure out the stove’s funky touch-top keypad “induccion” elements. This figuring out was with the assistance of the landlord…seems you have to have a pot/pan ON the element before it will work…who’da thunk! Thus, the word induction…so, I’m not a genius! It’s just all so overwhelming that sometimes thinking is tough! This oven-like appliance with the multiple dials with funny little pictures on them MAY just be some kind of “bake-it-faster confusion convection contraption”! I’ll have ‘er all figured out in another 11 months.

~You don’t want to know what I’m storing my baked goods in…no, you just don’t want to know! You’ve got to walk in my stinky shoes to know where I’m coming from…remember what I said, “Improvising and making do” are 2 important survival techniques. I’m still alive to tell you about it! That’s all that matters! Good loaf.

~Now, back to the purchasing of ingredients. Cancel vanilla flavouring, and it’s make-your-own chocolate chips with a knife and a semi-sweet dark chocolate bar I found by accident, flour has the consistency of cornstarch…sold in 1 kg. bags…I’m going to wear a path to the grocery store this year. Then the bananas I bought…you know, the yellow ones that really look like bananas…well, they were bendable-couldn’t-even-break-them-in-half impostors…but once I put my handy-dandy chopper to them, they actually tasted like mushed bananas. And then the oil. There is an entire aisle in every grocery store dedicated to olive oil…but where’s the normal vegetable oil? Found 2 lonely bottles of sunflower oil, glad I took my portable pocket dictionary shopping, tucked up and back on a shelf where no Spaniard could ever reach, so I bought them both. And eggs aren’t refrigerated in stores here…why are North Americans so paranoid? No first aid aisle in this grocery store, therefore no baking soda, so had to ask about baking powder…my pocket dictionary was simply too compact. Pardon my Spanish…described, “white powder to put in cakes to make it rise”…I thought I was doing a fine job with my description…and what a confused looking shelf-stocker. So then I added some body language…tricky miming baking powder…should have guessed it was called levandura en polvo…next time I’ll be ready with the language! So, baking one loaf of banana bread has been a day’s adventure! And what did you do today!

~Next, spaghetti sauce. Are you tiring of this yet…’cause I’ve only just begun! Tomato paste doesn’t translate, so Dana buys one of every tomato product in a can to take home and investigate. My tomato vocabulary has expanded ten-fold. I can now say cut-up, ground, peeled and fried tomatoes. How can fried tomatoes come in a can? I think I added tomato soup to my sauce. The outcome was a successful flavour despite the lack of paste and language. Every grocery store sells only the same 6 spices…buy them all and get creative.

~Last cooking complaint for the day. I’m living in a grape infested country, you know, Spain, wine making capital…well, do you think I can find raisins anywhere? Where there are grapes…there have got to be raisins! So, I finally found a store that sells them…in 125 gram packages! Is there no justice in this world?

~Okay, so next domestic duty that’s non-translatable…the cleaning! As soon as a vacuum is measured in Watts as opposed to Amps, one should become suspicious! My blow dryer at home has more oomph than the vac I just bought. Anything heavier than a cat hair MAY suck half way up the hose and then if you hold the hose above your head and vertical, the pieces will fall due to gravity into the canister bag! Glad I also bought a broom. Sponge mops don’t exist in Jaca and I refuse to use a string mop…they just seem to dilute the dirt and spread it around, sloppily! Exposed stone walls are beautiful, but I think they are forever shedders of grit…the price one has to pay for beauty! Something like cats. Buying a cleaner. Go with what you know! Don Limpio…this one I could translate all on my own AND I recognized the picture of “Mr. Clean” himself, dressed in white of course, smiling his obsessive compulsive smile. And he smells good!

~On to other things. I must have a sign attached to my back, on which is written, “Please ask ME for street directions in Spanish” (as opposed to every other Spaniard walking around/near/beside me)! Not only am I new to Jaca, but also slightly unfamiliar to the country (and the language). And I seem to get targeted every time I venture out of my safe haven. Is it that non-English speaking tourists can guess that I carry a map with me at all times-biggest fear, not being able to find your way home! But I love getting Spanish directions. There’s not a Spaniard who won’t give them to you if you ask. They may not be correct directions but they’ll always be considerate and point you in a direction. I’ve learned to ask 3, then average out the results before moving on.

~Let’s see, what other mistakes can I report on! Well, I accepted an ESL teaching position in a little village called Benasque, a couple of valleys away, toward Andorra and the Med. Spent a week immersion teaching and hiking/exploring the mountains and towns surrounding the village. What appeared to be employment served on a silver platter was not cat conducive…so had to give it up! Will find something more local!

~Just bought 2 teenager-aged evergreens. Named them Simon and Garfunkle. Will see which one survives to serve as my Christmas tree…only 106 shopping days remaining. (Peanut butter…Temptation cat treats!!!)

~Requests for a Lauren update! 3 days till departure date! She flies to Amsterdam on Sept. 12 to begin her journey of independence. She has my address and phone number, so I anticipate a visit when she needs a breather from travelling…or money! I am soooooooooooo excited for her. It’s taken years of brainwashing and training her for this year abroad pre-University. Her acceptance to Queen’s has been deferred for a year, so I think she’s set for life…or at least a year or two. As a parent, it’s a nice place to be…I can sit back, relax a little and watch her life unfold…and wait for the phone calls! I envy her adventures because I still value and view my post high school travels with care and clarity, like the learning was yesterday, but I seem to be in the midst of my own adventures today! But it’s different now…I’m different…I’m old(er). I don’t really want to sleep under bridges with rats swimming at my feet, or feed on canned lentils for consecutive days, or have to call collect…I’d much prefer struggling with foreign language-ed appliances and having to carry Spanish kitty litter home without a vehicle.

So enough idiosyncratic rambling from me. Ew, just found a spider the size of Gas’ head! Cats refused to kill it. Looked (simple past tense) like a daddy long legs that had been eating my levandura en polvo!

Here’s to IT being September and ME not having to plan for a year of teaching! Salud!

dana, carb and gas xox

RECOMMENCING 10 FEET IN THE PIRINEOS! aug-sept 2007 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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18 FEET IN THE PIRINEOS! august 2007 remains copyright of the author hiitsdana, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs