Buffalo, Day 1

So here I am, six years after my first visit.

This isn't a proper trip. I'm basically here for a conference which begins Thursday night, and I will have to spend my nights working on my presentation. This is hardly ideal - there are some interesting pubs around here that I wanted to check out - but I will still have plenty of time to wander and explore during the day. And eat. Definitely, definitely, definitely. That all begins tomorrow.

Earlier tonight I asked two dudes on the street, both African American, if they knew anywhere I could get soul food/southern food in Buffalo. The first guy responded "fuck you man!" and stomped away. I wonder if perhaps he thought that I was being racist. The second guy told me to check out Broadway Market, in the East Side (not the safest part of the city). He then demanded money for having answered the question; I think he may have been a hobo. I gave him a dollar.

The end

I'll be back in Canada in less than ten hours, and already thinking about getting back into my life there. First, my beloved Club de Hockey Canadien. They're having their best playoff run in 17 years, and I've basically missed all of it (Game 7 vs. Washington, all of the Pittsburgh series, Game 1 vs. Philly). I'll be back in Toronto in time to watch Game 2. And thank goodness.

A little tougher will be getting back into my work. I've done bits and pieces while on this trip, but obviously not enough, and I will have a mountain to plough through when I get back, not least of which will be preparing a presentation that I will be giving in at a conference in Buffalo on June 4. Usually when I travel, I have a brutally hard time getting back into my work; for me to be an effective, efficient academic, I must be sealed in the academic bubble. It has to be my entire life, or at the very least, I have to live by its logic. Traveling has the nasty side effect of prompting in me an existential crisis: traveling takes me outside this bubble, forces me to interact with loads of interesing people who live fulfilling lives outside the academic realm and inevitably results in me questioning why the hell I'm doing a PhD in an obscure field in which there are basically no jobs. Why do this when I can work for an NGO in London like B? Why do this when I can be a teacher in Sweden like Cailan? Why do this when I can have any number of rewarding jobs that actually pay decent salaries, which of course would allow me to travel even more? I've already begun asking these questions, and I suspect it will take a little bit of time before I can adequately answer them.

In the meantime, I already have another trip lined up: Buffalo! It's for a conference yes, but I've arranged to go a few days earlier so that I can adequately explore the city. I'm beyond excited to be in the rust belt again, and in a rust belt city with such a crazy local food culture no less! I'm sure I will be dispatching reports from there in this space as well.

Denoument: or, a frenzied return to London

So I am probably by now the world's foremost lay expert on ash clouds and that blasted Icelandic volcano. This is what happens when a much desired holiday is imperiled. I have actually been very lucky with my flights so far. My Toronto-London flight took off as scheduled only two days after ash cloud related cancellations in the UK. My London-Stockholm flight took off, but only after a dramatic shift in winds that prevented the ash which had wiped out flights as far south as Birmingham from descending upon London. So I was probably due some ash-related inconvenience.

The story is this: I was supposed to fly from Stockholm to London (Stansted) on Monday night, and then London (Gatwick) to Toronto on Tuesday morning. But then, upon my arrival in Stockholm from Helsinki, I read that more ash was drifting southeast and had forced flight cancellations as far south as Manchester and Liverpool. Every news story I could find predicted that the ash would continue moving southeast and disrupt flights in London on Monday (the day I was scheduled to fly). I guess I began getting really nervous when East Midlands Airport, not too far from Stansted, closed. I called my airlines, and here is what I figured out:

If my flight TO London on Monday was wiped out, stranding me in Stockholm, but my flight FROM London on Tuesday morning went ahead (a very, very, very, very real possibility), I would have had to buy a brand new ticket back to Canada, because Air Transat would be unable to accommodate me.

So basically, I had to answer these questions:

1. Did I really need to get back to Canada quickly? (YES)

2. If so, how much would I be willing to pay to ensure this? (Unclear)

3. Assuming that there would be ash issues in London on Monday preventing my arrival there (and every single report that I read on Sunday anticipated that there would be), was I willing to pay for a one-way Stockholm-Toronto flight? (NO)

So I took a massive gamble, packed up all my stuff, bolted to Arlanda airport, and bought a ticket on the last flight into London Sunday night. It was expensive... not as expensive as it could have been, and certainly not as expensive as a ticket to Toronto, but expensive nonetheless. And now I'm in London. And wouldn't you know it, it looks like all my freaking out was for nothing: flight restrictions in London were JUST lifted (literally five minutes ago), and it appears as though my originally scheduled flight will proceed. But I don't give a shit. I made the best decision with the information that I had at the time. As far as I'm concerned, I bought myself rather expensive flight insurance for my London-Toronto flight, as well as piece of mind. I had a good sleep last night. I probably would have stayed up all night in Stockholm monitoring weather reports.

And oooh, let's rationalize this a bit further: the amount I spent on that flight last night was probably the same amount of money I would have spent on hostels in England, Sweden, and Denmark if I didn't stay with friends.

I hope I never have to write about ash clouds ever again.

Vegas-On-The-Baltic, and Helsinki

So here was the deal: an overnight sail from Stockholm to Finland, followed by a frenzied handful of hours in Helsinki, followed in turn by an overnight cruise back to Stockholm. Pretty much everybody who has ever met me knows that this isn't ideal for me. But I agreed to it because

1. I had awesome company for the cruise
2. This whole trip has been unideal and rushed, so why not rush Helsinki as well.
3. These cruises were evidently a cultural experience unto themselves.

And you know what? I had a blast. I may have had too much of a good time, as I barely got any sleep Friday night and basically explored Helsinki whilst running on fumes. And it's true, the cruise is a hell of an experience, with a very definite Vegas-on-the-Baltic vibe. There was a nightclub, a casino, slot machines, overpriced restaurants and tacky shows such as an American Idol style karaoke contest and an ABBA tribute band. The whole thing seems obviously geared toward Finns. Everybody who worked on board was Finnish, and all the emceeing for the shows and such was done in Finnish only. There was also a sauna. The passengers were a strange mix: seniors, families, and working class Finnish youth (mostly males) looking to get drunk on duty free alcohol.

I may have sung "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in the karaoke lounge.

Helsinki was very pleasant indeed. I wasn't there for very long, but I got a half-decent taste of what it's all about. It seems very livable, and there is plenty of water and green space. Very cool, but in an unpretentious way. The architectural mix is fun (19th and early 20th century), and was a welcome change of pace from Copenhagen and especially Stockholm. I encountered a lot of interesting bars, and some kickass music stores, where I ended up buying an album of Finnish surf music from the early 60s (I'm kicking myself for not buying the CD of Finnish do-wop classics). Mostly everybody I encountered was lovely. I was tired enough to butcher the Finnish word for "thank you" on three occasions, and each time the merchant apologized to me on behalf of the Finnish language. AWWWWWWWW! Finns are so cute and self-conscious!

I don't really have much else to say at this point.

This is my last day in Stockholm before flying back to London tomorrow and Toronto the day after. Or so says my itinerary: unfortunately, the ash cloud looks like it will probably screw this up completely. I told my Mom in an email that I should probably make it to London tomorrow night, but now I'm not so sure. Either way, it seems likely that at least one, if not both, of my flights will be disrupted in some way. We'll see. Come on north winds!

Södermalm, or how I discovered Stockholm's soul

Ahoy. In Stockholm now, about to sleep my second night here. Synopsis: it's a'ight. I definitely prefer Copenhagen, but there is a case to be made for this city too. It's very pretty, particularly the old town. The public buildings are large and impressive. There are lots of swell sounding museums. There is lots of green space. And so forth. But walking around today... I'm not going to lie, I was a little bored. There was little of the grit or impatience or EXCITEMENT that is so refreshing about Copenhagen, and that smacks you in the face as soon as you abandon the tourist hordes. Did this city have a soul?

I should have known better. Last night, upon arrival, we met up with Cailan's friend Henrik at a bar in Södermalm, which appears to be the trendy or boho or hipster district du jour. The bar was great, and so were Henrik and his friends, and then we went to another bar, with Henrik but without the friends, and it was pretty great too. And a lot of other bars that we didn't go to likewise appeared to be pretty great. A lot of them had lineups, and there was a pretty lively street scene too. Obviously, we should have made a beeline for Södermalm this morning, but we were stupid and chose to wander around Stockholm's shopping area, which was about as souless an area as one can imagine (bearing the scars of 1960s urban renewal projects). Better late than never I suppose. We went for dinner in Södermalm, to some really old beer hall with high ceilings and really traditional Swedish food on the menu. The ambiance was raucous, the food was... errr... Swedish (OK, I didn't like my dish, it was too rich, but my starter, herring and cheese, was amazing), and there were fun drawings on the walls. That was more like it. A brief stroll through the streets post-dinner confirmed that Södermalm was indeed the place that Stockholm goes to party.

So yeah, we're heading there first thing tomorrow morning.

København

I had an awesome post planned for today - seriously, probably the most awesome post in the history of the universe - but I am cold and tired and generally feel like shit. I will do my best not to sound too grumpy. Evidently people don't especially like hearing bad news when you're on vacation and they're not.

Regardless. I like this city. Most people do, I think. But I REALLY like it. I've tried very hard to find reasons I don't like it, but this has proven a frustrating exercise. The only thing that I knew really about Copenhagen before I came here was that a) it was the capital of Denmark, and that b) it's currently very, very, very trendy in architecture, design, urban planning, and food circles. This made me want to dismiss it as a little too perfect: too many clean streets, too many perfect little squares, too many perfect waterfront apartment buildings, too many contented, perfect-looking Danes whizzing by me single file on their bicycles, too many photonic energy workships. I tried hard to see it as a souless city that was too happily post-industrial, post-racial, post-political, post-everything.

Instead, I found a city with a surprising (?) amount of grit and soul, and a whole lot of really yummy smørebrøds (open-faced sandwiches) to eat. I've seen a lot of really awesome graffiti. I stumbled into what must surely be the coolest bar in the world (even though I never went inside). I was shocked to find an immigrant neighbourhood - Nørrebro, where I'm writing this blog - so close to the city centre, since immigrants have priced out and pushed to the periphery in pretty much every other major European city. I met some squatters. These are all good things.

Smørrebrøds are the cheapest things here to eat, by far: you can get them for as little as 10 kr (~€1.30). Consequently, I ate a lot. It would take me hours to describe every kind of smørrebrød I had, because I definitely had over 10, and maybe over 15. I will however say this: dill pesto may be the most perfect sandwich condiment every created. Yessir.

Tomorrow is a travel day. I'm headed back to Sweden, meeting Cailan and Sarah in Stockholm for a Swedish long weekend. I am very much looking forward to sitting and sleeping on a train for most of my day tomorrow. I think a day spent outside of Scandinavian drizzle will do my cold very good.

æ i ø u and sometimes y

I already wrote this point once, but dodgy pirated Swedish wireless wiped it out. So perhaps this is the tuncated version.

I am in Copenhagen now, after 3 days in Orebro visiting with Cailan and Sarah. On the first night I snored and Cailan had to wake me up and tell me to roll over. On the second night, Sarah and I wandered around Orebro and bought me train tickets and ate yummy sandwiches and then met Cailan at her school and bought groceries and I ate a yummy dinner and then chatted with two of Cailan's Swedish friends about the lead singer of Europe and Swedish pornography from the 1970s. Orebro isn's particularly interesting to be 100% honest. "Functional" is probably the best word for it. My favourite part was probably where Cailan lives, Brickebacken. Brickebacken is what the locals would describe as the "ghetto", which in Sweden means the place where the dark-skinned immigrants live. I've read a decent amount about low-cost housing projects in Sweden (look up the Million Programme if interested), so it was rather fascinating to actually live in one for a few days.

And who knew that 1970s Swedish porno was so noteworthy?

Saturday was magic. We basically spent the day sleeping and watching 90s movies, resting up for the snaps (schnapps) party that night at one of Cailan's friends apartments. Here is the premise of a schnapps party: a bunch of Swedes make their own booze, prepare a bit of food, and then assemble at somebody's apartment to drink the booze, eat the food, and sing Swedish drinking songs. Unsurprisingly, I had a blast. These are the kinds of experiences I hope for when I travel: local booze, local food, and access to locals, all at the same time.

There were about 10-15 different kinds of booze, including one bottle that somebody had brought from Vietnam with a snake in it. Most of them were emminently drinkable, but my favourite was that one that was flavoured with chili powder, giving it one hell of a finish. It went really nicely with a piece of herring (of which there was plenty). For a while I tried to drink shot-for-shot with a tattooed gentleman named Kristian, but it soon became clear that this would likely result in my hospitalization, so I slowed to a more relaxed pace. And ate more herring. And then we went out to a bar for more drinks, and an exuberant fellow came in and began singing the Hives, and I had the inevitable soccer discussion with some dude where I got to show off my knowledge of Swedish soccer.

Everybody was lovely, even the bitchy people. I have decided that I like the Swedes. Except for that racist guy who got into the fight with the Englishman on the bus Sunday morning.

And now I am amongst the Danes! Copenhagen is pretty breathtaking so far. I'm staying with my friend Tiffany, who I met once upon a time in Malawi. She's interning with the WHO this summer, and has graciously allowed me a rent-free existence while in Copenhagen (much appreciated, accommodation in this city is stupidly expensive). She lives in an industrial area southeast of the city centre, about a block from what appears to be the Hell's Angels Copenhagen headquarters, in some sort of strange industrial era house/apartment building along with a gaggle of itinerant German labourers. This, of course, is awesome.

Sweden?

I haven't been here for very long, only long enough to land at "Stockholm" Skavsta Airport (not actually in Stockholm, or even very close... thanks Ryanair!), take a bus to Stockholm, purchase a ticket for Orebro, and ride on a very lovely train through some fun countryside to Orebro. Initial impressions: this is like the bizarro NWT. The trees are the exactly the same: small, stunted, mostly pine, basically shitty. There appear to be lots of little lakes basically exactly like the ones out past Yellowknife on the Ingraham Trail, with cabins built on rocky shores. Except there are railway bridges soaring over these lakes, and next to a thicket of those pathetic little trees is what appears to be a fertile field. Things actually grow here! That, and periodically, there is a large city like Stockholm or Vasteras or Orebro, where in the NWT there are only places like Fort Providence and Hay River.

Servings of herring I've consumed so far: 0

Open-faced sandwiches I've consumed so far: 0

Conversations I've had about ABBA so far: 0

A-Bomb in Wardour Street

Greetings. So, it appears that this bastard of an Icelandic volcano has begun to act petulantly again. It appears that the ash will drift south overnight and disrupt flights certainly in Scotland and maybe in the northwest of England (Liverpool, Manchester) tomorrow. And indeed, I've just read Scottish airspace is closed tomorrow morning. But the UK weather office is predicting that the winds will shift and blow the ash out of UK airspace completely in time for my flight to Sweden on Thursday. This better well bloody happen. That volcano DOES NOT want to mess with TG's travel plans.

It's unfortunate that I had to catch wind of that story this morning, because it really did prevent me from completely enjoying my day. Nothing spoils a day of wanderings more than worry.

So. I am tired as hell and ready for an early night's sleep before my equally early train to Leicester this morning. This is why. Please keep in mind that I walked this whole trajectory unless otherwise noted.

1. Angel to St. Pancras Station. Purchased train ticket to Leicester for tomorrow. It was expensive. Felt some very British righteous indignation about British trains. Again.

2. St. Pancras to Piccadilly Circus by tube. Went to see an art exhibit close to the south end of Savile Row - Soviet Art from the late 1980s. It was pretty fascinating. All of it was intensely critical of the regime, even despite Glasnost. A lot of the paintings were perversions of the hammer and sickle flag. There was a painting of Brezhnev making out with Erich Honecher.

It was very, very, very, very, very nice to go to an art gallery in a city named London and not have to worry about seeing 60 people I know. I knew 0 people in that gallery.

3. Piccadilly Circus to Soho. Went to check out a music store just off Wardour Street. Good selection, too expensive for TG. I had decided ahead of time that I wasn't buying anything for more than 3 or 4 pounds.

4. Soho to Covent Garden. Canadian/Australian/New Zealand/South African import shop. Bought two jars of Kraft peanut butter to deliver to Sweden, though I was stuck buying the Australian Kraft as opposed to the Canadian variant. Evidently the pb in Sweden is shite.

5. Covent Garden to Clerkenwell. Lunch at Exmouth Market. I was afraid that the food stalls were going to close - they're open for lunch only - so I had to resort to a mad dash up Farringdon Street. Turns out all that effort was for nothing, as not only was everything still open, but the Ghanaian guy from who I wanted to buy my lunch hadn't even started cooking yet. The solution: eat two lunches. First, a big cup of proper ramen, which I obliterated in about 2 minutes flat. Then, chicken and peanut stew from the Ghanaian bloke. Yummy. I definitely want to eat (and cook) more West African food.

6. Clerkenwell to Islington. More music perusal. Found and bought a cheap second hand CD by a singer/songwriter I like named Hermas Zopoula. He is from Burkina Faso. The capital of Burkina Faso is Ouagadougou.

7. Islington to East Finchley by tube. What a terrible, terrible decision. East Finchley is far - zone 3 on the underground, which means that getting to it costs a lot of time and money. I went to check out a legendary music store, which I was led to believe had lots of used CDs, and better yet, had used italo disco CDs (finding italo disco CDs of any sort is generally difficult). I was poorly informed. Good vinyl store, mediocre CD store. And no italo disco anywhere, from what I could tell.

8. East Finchley to Southall by tube and train. This entailed taking to tube from East Finchley to King's Cross/St. Pancras, then switching lines and riding to Paddington, then getting on a regional train to Southall, which is out by Heathrow. Southall is known as London's biggest Punjabi neighbourhood, and it was wild. I figure Southall is as close to India as is possible in countries like the UK. Punjabi is definitely the main language there. Best part - the vast array of street food available: corn, vada pavs, tandoori meats, chaats, whatever. I opted for two cups of corns, served with lime and chili, and a vadapav, which is a mini potato and chutney sandwich that is popular in Mumbai. I tried to go shopping for some music, primarily bhangra and soundtrack music from the 70s, but everybody tried to rip me off. One lady quoted me outrageous prices for used CDs that couldn't have cost more than 2 pounds. Another guy asked for 3 pounds for CDs I found in a 1 pound bin. So in the end I didn't take anything home with me, other than the makhani daal I bought for B.

9. Southall to Old Street. Malaysian-Chinese dinner. Sweet and sour fish curry with okra. Yummmmmmmmmm.

10. Old Street to Angel. Home. Sleep. Leicester tomorrow!

Don't be a dick, ash cloud.

We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue

Greetings. I am in London now. More specifically, south London. More specifically, in an internet cafe on Brixton Road. Truth be told, I'm glad to be here. I very much enjoyed my time in the countryside, but by Sunday I was itching to get back to a city. And here I am.

Obviously the best part of my tenure in the country was Amy's wedding. She got married in her home village, a place called Hanbury somewhere between Birmingham and Worcestershire. Hanbury Church is absolutely stunning, so of course I didn't take any pictures. It's on the top of a hill, and on a clear day you can see for miles, all the way to the Malvern Hills. Evidently the old stone church was used in some BBC program called the Arches. I don't know what that is, but everybody seemed quite pleased about it so I smiled and nodded.

I hadn't been to an Anglican wedding before, and the ceremony turned out to be simultaneously completely foreign and totally familiar. Foreign for obvious reasons; familiar because the structure, the music, the priest's spiel, the vows, and basically everything else are what we see on TV in Canada all the time.

There was a choir there, as well as people specifically charged to ring the church bells.

The reception was incredibly fun. Obviously I didn't know anybody other than the bride, the groom, and to a lesser extent Amy's family. Also, a fellow I encountered in Nottingham several years ago, who snuck into a club wearing jorts and hiking boots while the door Nazis were inspecting my passport. But he didn't remember me. No problem; being the Foreigner Who Has Drank Too Much is a role that TG can play very, very well. I don't really want to give a blow-by-blow summary of the reception, so I will leave you with three things:

-An entire pig was roasted towards midnight, and I estimate that I ate about a tenth of it.

-TG: "hello, I've never met you before. I'm from Canada, that's why I talk this way. Want to do a shot?"

-TG: "Hello, pleased to meet you. My name is Terry.
Lee: "Hi, my name is Lee, and this is my partner _________." (I'm pretty sure he said Danielle, but I'm not 100% sure.
TG: "Excuse me? I didn't quite hear that."
Lee: "My name is Lee, and this is my partner ___________."
TG: "Did you say that this is your harlot?"
Lee: "No. This is my partner."
TG: "Oh. Sorry."

This was when I stopped drinking.

So now I'm in London, enjoying the hospitality of Yellowknife expat and London bon vivant B, who has a much better blog than this one. It's a bank holiday today, so I'm just wandering around. I dropped by the Tate Modern to look at early Soviet propaganda posters, and I ran into a bunch of joyous Madeirans cecebrating Madeira Day in Kennington Park. I then proceeded to argue with an old man about how one is supposed to properly eat sardines. In Madeira, they peel all the skin away, and suck the meat off the bones. They discard the head, and ignore the liver and other inards. I think this is incredibly wasteful... in Greece, we eat EVERYTHING, although to be fair our sardines are much, much smaller than the ones I was eating. The old man thought that was tantamount to savagery. Proof that this man has doesn't have the palette to make that argument: he was happily drinking Portuguese beer, Sagres to be exact, which is likely the worst beer I've ever had in my life (other than Super Bock, another Portuguese beer).

I have big, big plans for tomorrow. Big plans. Also, Leicester on Wednesday. And Sweden on Thursday!

Ta.