canada

Sep 11 2007

Four

4-more-years.jpg
image source

Today I’m four years in Montréal. The events on 11 September 2001 had a lot to do with the fact that I ended up here. That’s a long story however and I’ll save that for a time when I’m not so busy.

By • canada, english •

Aug 10 2007

Toys

ordering toys

The real reason for my presence in Toronto is that Alison has a team building meeting with all the members of her team. And the partners were expressly requested to come as well, and dogs and children also. I left Poupoune and Pepe at home though, since they’re not allowed in the train and I didn’t want to drive that far after a busy week at work.

The meeting was held in one of Alison’s colleagues’ cottage in the Muskokas, a two hour drive north of Toronto. We rented a car and upon arrival we found that everybody brought their toddlers, so there were enough small creatures. And they all swam, canoed, kayaked, barbecued, tanned, and chatted. So now I can put faces to names when Alison mentions her colleagues. Halfway I started to order the huge amount of toys that belonged to the son of our hosts. All cars and bulldozers (O, I wish I had those Tonka trucks when I was a kid) in a row, all the spades together. And the balls, the buckets, the fishes, the rings et cetera, et cetera. In the end I made a huge and very unstable tower of a few toys that were hard to categorize. It stood upright for a couple of minutes, until a breath of wind cased it to tumble down… People enquired if I suffered from OCD, and that made me laugh. They should see the mess in my office.

By • A., canada, english, outdoors, travel •

Aug 9 2007

Toronto

Via first class with wine

The first time I arrived in Montréal was by train from Toronto. And now, almost 6 years later I took the train to Toronto. I hadn’t been there in the past six years and since Alison was already staying there in the Royal York hotel, it was not that expensive. Through Alison I also got a free upgrade to VIA 1, so I travelled first class, with free wine and a meal. Nice. It’s so nice to be able to stare out the window and watch the landscape going by. When I drive I can never do that, since I’m never a passenger, and always have to watch the road. Maybe it’s time that Alison gets a drivers license.

(O, and on the way back I forgot my laptop again. But two days later, when the Lost & Found office opened on Monday, I had it back again. I’m so lucky. And stupid to keep testing the honesty of Canadians…)

By • canada, english, travel •

Aug 6 2007

Sirup

grapefruit sirup

When I immigrated to Canada I put only a few food items in my shipping container. Lots of dropjes (Dutch Liquorice) of course but also a box with twelve tin bottles of this sirup. It is grapefruit flavour (100% concentrated juice and sugar) and it’s the best sirup I’ve ever tasted. And I can’t get it here. Sure I can buy various sirups in the import stores but they’re all the regular flavours like lemon, berries and mint. But no grapefruit. And this sirup, with some water or soda water makes a perfect drink. Not too sweet and with just a hint of bitterness.

Over time the stash was used up but some visitors brought new bottles and I also brought back a few bottles myself every-time I went back to the Netherlands to visit my mother. My suitcase was usually quite heavy.

Today, when I opened a new bottle I was in for a bad surprise. It stank. And the reddish liquid had turned all brown and gooey. I checked the “best before” date and it said July 2004. Oops. I checked all five bottles I still had in stock and they all had the same date. Quintuple oops.

Apparently I had put all the newer bottles in front of the original batch of 2003 so those bottles had plenty of time to go bad. Darn. Now I have to go back to the Netherlands soon, I only have one bottle left. And my suitcase will be very heavy.

By • canada, english, food, montréal •

Jul 19 2007

Lost

[no picture]

I went with a client on a hunt today for a bathtub. He’s quite tall and wants me to make a new, larger bathroom for him, but he has a hard time finding a bathtub that fits his frame, one that is actually big enough for him to lie in.

After visiting a number of stores we both have to pee. But asking “Do you have a bathroom?” in a bathroom store is kind of awkward, and pissing in the showroom toilets is generally frowned upon (apparently it does happen though, at least that’s what I heard). So we head to a Tim Hortons nearby and have a muffin and an orange juice. Coincidentally we order exactly the same muffin and the same kind of juice.

Afterwards we drive the long way home and even though a lot of people are on vacation, there is still a lot of traffic and it takes quite a while. I drop of my client, and when I arrive at home I can’t find my bag. I search the car, but it’s a big red bag and not easily overlooked.

The dogs are barking around me while I try to concentrate and think where I remember I had my bag the last time. I think it was at the Tim Hortons. I get the Yellow Pages, but can’t find them. Wait, the internet! But on the Tim Hortons website there is no restaurant finder. Canada411.ca. No Tim Hortons in Montréal on that street. O wait, Pierrefonds is de-merged and is a separate municipality now. Yes, there it is, in the long list of telephone numbers. I call the number and start talking to the woman who picks up in English. They all speak English in the West-Island so I’m surprised when she asks “French, please?”. I repeat my question (“Have you found my bag?”) in French, she goes to look in the place I tell her I was seating and then she comes back: “Non monsieur, votre sac n’est pas là…”

Fuck.

It now really dawns to me. I lost my bag. My really nice red bag. With my camera in it, and my cigars. And my brand new MacBook Pro laptop.
I thank the woman for watching and give her my phone number just in case. Just before I hang up I ask if there are any other Tim Hortons in Pierrefonds? She answers me that she’s not in Pierrefonds but in Côte de Lièsse. OMG. I called the wrong restaurant! Yes, it is the telephone number just below the one we visited. I get new hope. It’s not even an hour ago since we left. I call again, making sure to call the right number this time.

Unfortunately my hope proved futile. My bag hadn’t been found. I call all the bathroom stores we went to, one at the time. No luck.

Shit.

I call Alison and she has no idea what to say to cheer me up.

I hang up, and I don’t know what to do. I haven’t even paid off my credit card bill of the new laptop and I already lost it. Visa will be happy. Then I remember that my bank just recently upgraded me to a new credit card that included an extended warranty or something. I frantically try to find the leaflet that came with it. Yeah, there it says: “The Purchase Security Plan protects most purchases made with the card for ninety (90) days from purchase.” I quickly try to find the line that says what is meant with that word most. I’m sure I will find a line saying that “computers are excluded”. But there is no such line. I call the toll-free number, and someone takes my card number, address and the value of the item I lost. Thanks to Apple’s online invoices I can still find that information. She’ll send me a form that I’ll have to complete. Wow.

For the first time in an hour I can sit and calm down a bit. There is a possibility I didn’t lose a huge pile of money, but just some.

I eat a cracker with cheese and try to recall what I’ve lost, what haven’t I backed up yet.
Some photos, obviously. But for the rest I just lost the changes I made today and last night to the drawings of my client’s bathroom. Just a couple of hours to re-create those, so that’s not too bad. A good thing I worked on woodworking projects the past week and that I make regular backups. But not daily, even though I bought a new hard drive just for that purpose. But I haven’t had time to set it up yet.

I even manage to look at it from the bright side: I now have an excuse to replace my 6 year old camera.

By • canada, english, story, tech, various, work •

Jul 15 2007

Developments

lac de la cabane

Our nice tranquil lake, with boats nor cottages, surrounded by pristine forests, dotted with majestic boulders, with its beautiful sandy beaches, its coconut palms…

Okay, I’m carried away a bit. But our very nice secret lake, an hour from Montréal but almost never frequented by any other living creature than deer, moose and otter… Oops, there I go again. Anyway, that lake is going to be spoiled. A developer lay its filthy hands on it and now he’s going to build cottages around it.

We went there today and found big signs with “Domaine Privé” and “Défense de circuler”. We ignored them for now, since it’s construction holiday and also to investigate. The lake is just as pristine as ever, but there was doom in the air. The doom of big trucks, by and builders coming in, to build monstrous houses. (For some reason people who can afford a second home in the Laurentians have no taste.) Followed by loggers on a mission to create lake views for the owners by logging all the trees between the lake and said houses.

It’s only weeks before they put big steel fences around it and declare it a real No-go area.

So I’m going to spill the secret and give you all detailed instructions how to get there. Rent a car and enjoy this really nice lake while you still can get in, albeit by ignoring some signs. If somebody tells you to go away tell them you come here for years and nobody ever told you to go away. They probably tell you that things have changed but I bet you can stay for the day if you tell them you came all the way from Montréal.

How to get there

First locate the lake on this Google Maps map. Follow the included driving instructions from highway 15 North to the parking area in Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard.

From there:

  • Park your car at the parking area on the Chemin de Val de Loire. It’s a rather big parking, for around 20 cars (so all readers of loglog can go at once; plan car-pooling in the comments), at the North side of the street, on the map above at the letter D (of “De-Loire”), just right of Lac Morgan.
  • Get out of the car, pack your things (sunscreen!) and enter the area by going through the big gate at the east side of the parking lot.
  • Turn left (NW) and follow the wide path. At a crossing there is a small cabin for cross-country skiers (there are not many of those around) and an orange plastic barrier.
  • Ignore the signs, walk around the barrier and continue on the narrowing path. Enjoy the nice ferns at both sides of the trail.
  • Cross a almost destroyed bridge (I bet one of those fat builders tried to cross) over a small stream.
  • You now approach an open area, with on your left a pumping station for the municipal water supply of Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard since our lake is their main reservoir. To the right you see the newly constructed road that leads to the new cottages, surrounded by big boulders.
  • Continue straight ahead, ignore another sign and follow the slightly sloping gravel road.
  • We’re almost there now. After a slight bend you’re at the highest point of the road and the magnificent “Lac de la Cabane” is right in front of you.
  • Follow the road 100 metres and there is the beach. Soon it will be a private beach, no longer accessible by us mere mortals, without hundreds of thousands of disposable dollars.
  • If you follow the path that starts at the other side of the beach you can go to a nice private rock.
  • A few hundred metres from the beach there is a large boulder, slightly hidden under the foliage.
  • Just before it is a small path passing on the left side of the boulder, and leading to a magnificent flat boulder that is an excellent starting point for a nice refreshing swim in the crystal clear (the whole village is drinking it) water. Clothes are entirely optional. A pillow or mattress might come handy however, since the rock is quite rough on your bum/back.
  • Enjoy your stay, don’t get sunburned, and please leave only your footprints.

Lakes should be public and not private. They’re part of the land that our ancestors stole from the natives. Well, maybe not my ancestors exactly, but you get my point.

If you don’t get my point you can always go to the developer’s site and buy one of the lots and have your dream house built. Be quick, they’re going fast. If you do, please invite me over once in a while. In return I can do some maintenance, I’m quite good at that. Then at least I can lay my eyes on “our” lake once in a while.

If you have access to other lakes please do not hesitate to email me.

By • canada, english, outdoors, rant, travel •

Jul 10 2007

Joint

joint

Invariably one of the first things people ask me when I tell them I’m from the Netherlands is if I smoke. I tell them I smoke cigars, but that wasn’t what they were interested in. They wanted to know if I smoked marijuana or hashish.

Well, I did. But not very often, and ever after I was kicked out of art school I smoked maybe 2 joints (and that was in the strict sense of the word, with others) a year. And I didn’t inhale. Okay that’s a lie, but when I inhaled I started to cough loudly, and that never went away, not even when I blowed (that’s the term used in the Netherlands for smoking softdrugs) regularly at art school. It always made people laugh, but I hated it since it prevented me from keeping the smoke in and getting high. Maybe I should have built a water pipe but that was just too much of a hassle.
So no, I’m not a pothead exactly. And I don’t know many people in the Netherlands that are, even though you can buy the stuff at almost every corner “coffee shop”.

To give an example, this joint we recived from Alison’s brother (the other brother, not the one that has pot-induced schizophrenia) as a Christmas gift, has still not been smoked, a year-and-a-halve later.

I figured I’m still not yet assimilated to Canada, when I read the following:

Marijuana use in Canada is the highest in the industrialized world, far higher than in the Netherlands where it’s legal, and more than four times the global rate, a report by the United Nations has found.

So it’s about time we smoke that joint.

By • canada, english, health, netherlands •

Jun 30 2007

Crossing

flat battery

If you ever need to cross the Canadian-USA border with ten kilos of drugs, a couple of guns or a dead body in the trunk, I have a tip for you.

Do as we did.

There was a long line for the border crossing, apparently we weren’t the only Canadians who thought that spending the Canada Day long weekend in the US was an excellent plan. The line in front of the customs stretched out all the way to the toll bridge. So since the road was on an incline I turned off the engine and when the cars in front of us moved I just pressed the clutch down and let the car move by gravity. This went on for more than an hour, but the final part of the line was on flat terrain so I had to start the engine in between the long periods of waiting.
Just when we were the first in line and it was finally our turn to approach the booth I tried starting the engine but it didn’t do a thing. The battery was completely flat. O shit, I forgot to turn off the lights and we were listening to the iPod so the lights had completely drained the battery.
I stepped out of the car, and started pushing. Immediately four US Immigration officers ran towards me. O shit, I though again. But they didn’t jump on me but instead went to the back of the car and started pushing until it was in front of the little booth. Four officers! No wonder those lines are so long.

Arrived at the booth the immigration officer refrained from all the questioning and the “trying-to-make-you-nervous”-spiel (that usually works with me) and just asked us where we were going and after we answered we could go. The same four officers gave us a push to a parking space a bit further along the road, I went inside to get my visa and to be fingerprinted (foreigners are all criminals) and that was it. That was by far my easiest border crossing ever.

After I received my visa, Alison single-handedly pushed the car (Okay, it helped that the road went down a little), I kick-started it into gear and we went on with our journey.

Please take advantage of this tip while you still can. I’m sure that when the US authorities read this loglog entry they will close this loophole immediately.

By • canada, english, travel, usa •

Oct 8 2006

Plane

couple on a plane

This flight home to Montréal is the first time Alison and I fly together in the same plane. Because I often stay a bit longer in the Netherlands and buy my tickets far in advance we always travelled separately. But now we sat next to each-other and I could actually bend over her and peek out the window once in a while without getting slapped in the face. What a luxury!

By • A., canada, english, travel •

Oct 8 2006

HBC

hudson bay company

Because we were early and close to Winnipeg’s airport we had some time to visit Lower Fort Garry. This was the basis the Hudson Bay Company used for their exploration and exploitation of Northern Manitoba. It’s also the place were Treaty Number One was signed, a treaty with the Native tribes of Canada that turned out to be far more profitable for the white Westerners than for the original inhabitants of Canada.

It’s still hard for me to grasp that most of Western Canada was owned by the Hudson Bay Company and later sold to Canada.

The Hudson Bay Company that still exists today and has a large chain of department stores (think “Bijenkorf” for the Dutch readers of loglog) was recently sold to an American investor.

By • A., canada, english, travel •

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