A couple of weekends ago, I went on a weekend trip aboard the Gran Azul (Big Blue), a fair-sized sailing yacht, to do my prácticas for the PER (Patron de Embarcaciones de Recreo — aka “Spanish boating licence”). I “passed”, if one can call it that — I don’t know if it was my school or just the general approach to certification here, but it was quite…what’s the word: easy? We were “rubber-stamped” on a lot of the required elements for certification. I suspect/hope there are more exigent schools and sailing clubs out there.

A similar sail-cruising course I took in Canada a few years ago was much more demanding — not to mention safety-conscious. That being said, this was an interesting social experiment: living on a boat with seven other men and our Captain/instructor; full Catalan immersion; practical jokes; ribbing (calling me yanquí, for instance); swimming while far out at sea; seasickness for all but me; excessive drinking (albeit not while on duty) and other shenanigans one might (or might not) expect.

Since then, I’ve been focusing my attention on a completely different topic: Nepal. It’s somewhere both Dulcinea and I have wanted to go for years. I’ve spent all my time exploring flight options (routings, pricing), trekking companies (how many are there to choose from? TOO MANY! and how to choose?), possible hikes to do, visa inquiries. This all culminated with me booking a trip for us in late September/early October. We’ll be trekking through remote areas of Nepal near the Annapurna Circuit, including multiple >5,000m passes (that’s 16,500 feet for you — ahem — yanquís ;-). Higher than any point in Canada outside the Yukon. And considering the highest point in Quebec is well under 2,000m, it’ll be quite something for me (Dulcinea has been just over 4,000m in the Atlas Mountains).

So there’s plenty to do in the coming month: immunizations (for me, of course she’s had ‘em all); visas from Nepal and India (hope this goes faster than my Spanish visa-obtaining experience); buying and breaking in new boots for both of us; gearing up; continuing our exercise routines for serious high-altitude hiking; making sure we have proper insurance coverage; you get the idea. There’s a lot.

Certainly, on one level, we’ll be roughing it. A bit more than three weeks tenting in remote regions (no Annapurna tea-houses for us this time, though we may regret that decision) will probably push beyond our comfort levels now and then (ha — yes, I’m known for the occasional understatement). But I do feel weird about the fact that we’ll have an entourage of something like ten people supporting just us! Ten people for two? Cook, cook’s boy, porters, guide, the list seems to go on forever.

It seems wrong, on one level, yet it’s the basis of much of the economy of the region. It’s a poor area, but one which does not rely on handouts. I know we’ll be shamed by how hard they work, and all that on our behalf. Well, we’ll have to see — I’m curious to see how it feels once we get there. In my fantasies we’ll have a very “authentic” experience, establish relationships and get a feel for the real people who live there. At the same time, I doubt this will happen: dropping in for a fully-supported trek strikes me as quite artificial. We don’t belong. Or do we? Hopefully, more come on that topic, in a couple of months!

I’m not truly “home”, since home is now in Spain…but I am back in Montreal (with travel insurance to visit my own country, if you can imagine). My three month ticket return date came up, and since all my Spanish paperwork is now in order (and thus I should be able to legally re-enter the country), I decided to take a three-week jaunt across Canada by plane, train and automobile. First to Montreal, then out west to see my sister and her new daughter, then more family. (If “more family” sounds dismissive, please — it isn’t. I’ll be glad to see everyone; it’s just that having a two-month-old niece is particularly exciting.)

It’s a great time to be in Montreal, of course: the street fair, fireworks competition, Jazz Fest (starting later this week). The place probably hasn’t changed that much in the three months I’ve been away, yet it’s undergone the spring to summer transition (which is always dramatic, and not only in the amount of clothing people wear) and all the restaurants have new menus, prices bumped up by $0.25 (best case) to $2.00 or more. Guess this is the price of oil, food…or just opportunism, with a new tourist season heating up?

The other noticeable change is the proliferation of bicycles. Montreal has always been a big biking city with great bike paths (more developed and bike-friendly than Barcelona in almost every way except for Bicing). But there are so many new bike paths this year that bikes are especially viable, even for people who need to commute to and from downtown. Bikes are absolutely everywhere. There are new links that run down avenue du Parc, along de Maisonneuve…it’s impressive (and makes me a little jealous) to see all the new developments. Hopefully Montreal will learn some things from Barcelona’s “public biking” approach, but Barcelona could learn plenty from Montreal, too.

The exciting news from today is that I bought my annual supply of underwear and socks at the St. Laurent street sale (wonderfully named La Frénésie de la Main). But it had a nice Spanish(-language, at least) touch — I bought them from a latina shopkeeper (hablamos español). Meanwhile Spain was playing Italy (two emotional forces of La Main, especially now that Portugal is out) on the big screens in every bar and restaurant around. Spain eventually won the Euro 2008 match in a kickoff, so it’s into the semi-finals for them (I mean, for us).

I guess I must adjust to new situations quickly, because although it’s really good to be here, I’ll be glad to (when the time comes) go back to Barcelona. In Spain, probably I go on too much about how great Canada is for this or that. But here in Canada, I don’t find myself saying: “Phew, finally I’m back in a land where things makes sense,” but instead going on about how great it is…back home.

Last night, after 17 days in Barcelona, I dreamed of fútbol. Sure, I’m aware of the extreme passion people here feel for their (our) team, Barça — which includes meeting them with hate-filled protests at the airport and cursing them through the fence as they practice after another disappointing loss. But I, myself, am no sports fanatic. If I were to have any sporting thoughts right now, they’d likely be about my Montreal Canadiens, as they head into the playoffs after wrapping up their season triumphantly.

Yet, there I was, on the soccer (er, football) pitch. Argentina versus Brazil. It was never clear which side I was on (hidden meaning?), but I was with my Argentine friend from elementary school, so one might venture a guess. We weren’t doing well out there, and I in particular wasn’t very effective — but what would you expect? I’m no pro (besides, I don’t have the right hair to be a soccer star). What on earth was that coach thinking, putting me in?

So far this may sound like an anxiety dream, but I don’t think it was: I was really enjoying myself. It was exhilarating to run up- and down-field with all these soccer greats (even if we couldn’t seem to put the ball in the net). And everyone, on both teams, was very supportive of me. (Hmm, I should have realized I was dreaming, because it’s not like that would ever happen…least of all between those two nations!) Anyhow, what’s the message I’m supposed to take into my waking life from this? Perhaps: the ball is in my court…so what am I going to do with it? (Or perhaps, as a friend of mine would say, it was just random neurons firing.)

Question: is fútbol so much “in the air” here that you can’t help it seeping into your skin (and dreams), even if you try not to pay attention? More likely, the dream stemmed from a minor incident in real life: a kid’s ball bounced toward me the other day, and I actually managed to stop it in mid-air with my foot. While I didn’t subsequently “bend it” like anybody in particular, I did direct it back toward him in a reasonably competent way. He politely said gracias, then went back to the serious business of blasting it off the concrete wall, to the delight of all the gran gent out for a quiet “sit” in the park.

In other news: my crate of worldly possessions has finally left Canada (a week late). Actually, looking at the information from the shipping company, I was disappointed to see that it seems to have actually departed from Halifax (must have gone on a truck from Montreal; sigh). I had romantic notions of a port-city-to-port-city delivery. At any rate (or, more precisely, at an average rate of 19 knots against a strong headwind and 6m waves), it is now on voyage 14 of the ZIM Haifa, in the mid-Atlantic (track its position here!).

I’m Barcelona-bound, at last. I had seven months of visa-waiting (almost to the day). Now, seven weeks after that (precisely to the day), my house is under new ownership, my worldly possessions have been redistributed, given away, sold, or are en route to Europe. I’m at Trudeau airport, waiting for the adventure to begin. To continue, really, because the last while has been quite an adventure in itself. Months, days… In seven hours I should be in Europe.

There have been (so far) many hiccups and stresses, coulda-gone-wrongs and did-go-wrongs-but-worked-out-anyways, late nights, record snowstorms, farewell dinners and pub visits with friends, delays, glitches and surprises (both good and bad), but now I’m truly on my way.

You can’t expect much better than what I got. I mean, an ex-Prime Minister of Canada came to the airport to see me off. Not Trudeau, obviously, though the airport may bear his name. No — there he was, none other than Jean Chrétien, causing me to do a double take as I walked right next to him. In spite of myself, I had to turn back once I was past and sneak another look. Even better, my closest friend decided to save me the hassle and unpredictability of the shuttle bus, and took it upon himself to drive me to the airport and see me off. I really couldn’t hope for much better.

It wasn’t just a move, because then you can just have movers stuff everything into boxes and cart it off to your new home. No, I wanted to take this opportunity to lighten my load, the sheer amount of stuff I had, to feel free. Also, there’s the fact that the apartment waiting for me on the other end doesn’t have a whole lot of space. I managed to get rid of at least half my stuff. I was scolded several times for being too “unsentimental” — too ruthless with my purging. That may be so, but there are still a surprising number of boxes in a crate in a warehouse somewhere, waiting to be loaded on a ship that leaves Montreal next week. Port city to port city, not bad — assuming all works out fine (ha!), they should deliver my goods in a month.

Well, the plane awaits. Let’s see if this precious visa is all it’s cracked up to be! And what the Spanish customs folks make of my meticulous list of all my (remaining) earthly possessions…

Note that I’m no longer talking about visas, or about my preparations to move, but rather about the AVE, the Spanish high-speed train, which today (February 20 when I started this post) made its first runs between Barcelona and Madrid. I can’t wait to get to Barcelona, and at some point to give this thing a try — I love zippy trains.

Today’s first-ever commercial departure, packed with more journalists and television crews than regular passengers, left Estació Sants on time (6am), and arrived at Madrid’s Estación Atocha early…a good start! And they run every hour until 9pm (with four per hour during peak hours!), so it’s really going to be moving a lot of people, and quickly. It takes under 2 hours and 40 minutes, moving (for most of the trip) at 300 km/h. The prices are not bad, either (I can only imagine how much such a thing would cost in Canada — just a regular Mtl-Ottawa train can be more expensive than a cheap AVE ticket Bcn-Madrid!). It will definitely shake up the domestic air market, with perhaps six million people expected to use this new route in 2008.

Unlike those ads that used to run on TV here, I can’t go point at the AVE and say: “That’s a Bombardier!” In fact, some of the AVE trains in the RENFE system are made by our Montreal friends, but the ones running on the Bcn-Madrid line are the S/103s, made by Siemens; a train that has the world record for fastest unmodified commercial service trainset (yes, faster than the Japanese Shinkansen, because their record was using a test model). Of course, for a whole range of comfort/maintenance/safety reasons, they won’t run it over 300km/h, even though they could technically go over 400km/h.

Now, if they can figure out a way to keep the Sagrada Familia or Casa Milà from collapsing into an underground tunnel, they hope to open new track all the way to the French border in 2009 (2010, anyone?). There’s been lots of controversy about where it should route under — or around — the city. Last year, many balconies in the Sagrada Familia area had big sheets hanging out, painted with: “AVE per litoral” or “AVE=Carmel”, indicating a few alternatives the locals would prefer (essentially, on one side or the other of the neighbourhood).

Time for a short but sweet quiz… What is 2008?

International Year of the Potato?
International Year of Sanitation?
International Year of Languages?
International Year of Planet Earth?
International Year of the Reef?
Chinese Year of the Rat (starting February 7)?
European Year of Intercultural Dialogue?

Well, yes, actually it’s all of those things. But, it also looks like it may be the International Year of Me Moving to Spain (pending official UNESCO designation). I found out a short time ago that — after all this waiting (more than seven months for something that’s supposed to take three or at most four) — my visa has been approved (in a spirit of Intercultural Dialogue, perhaps?).  I need to contact the consulate tomorrow to see what the details and timeline are, but basically…I guess I’m in the Spanish club.  Or will be, soon enough.  Por fin.

Of course, now that the stress of waiting is over, the stress of totally reorganizing my life begins.  A new adventure awaits!

But the best news of all is that, when people inevitably ask me: “So, have you heard anything about your visa?”, I can actually respond with an answer they haven’t heard before.  ”Yes!  And it’s: ‘Yes!’”

P.S. Interestingly enough, my first-ever trip to Spain was exactly three years ago…isn’t life funny, sometimes?

P.P.S. Also funny was that I was having my teeth cleaned at the dentist’s office, practically next door to the consulate, when they phoned and left the happy message on my machine. And, this afternoon (before I discovered the message), I was on the verge of booking a short trip to Spain for a visit…just as well I held off on clicking that tempting “buy” button.

Sigh. I flew on Air Canada to San Francisco on Friday. A nice flight, non-stop from Montreal, on an A319 with upgraded interior, comfortable seats, personal touch video screen. But — guess what? It looks as though they will start charging for the seat-back entertainment as of January 2008! I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised.

How do I know about the $$$? Well, compared to previous flights, this time the menus were a bit different. They split the options (ACTV, CBC News, Movies, Satellite Radio) into two parts. Into the very limited selection of free stuff, and then the “good” stuff for which we had to pay. The price? To quote the screen: $null. Obviously a glitch, as they prepare to phase in a new pay-to-watch service. We could progress through to the movies, or Sirius Radio, or whatever, but once you tapped the screen to start viewing the film, it asked for your credit card info. Even worse, they expect you to type in your private card info on the touch screen, with your seat-mates watching!

After complaining, the flight attendant said we weren’t supposed to pay “on this flight”. They tried resetting the system many times, spent the first hour and a half of the flight trying to get it switched back to the old free system. Finally, the pilot contacted Montreal to find out what to do. They needed to reset each seat individually. Once my seat was “fixed”, I could finally watch, as before, for free.

I suspected this new pay system would be introduced next year, and indeed the flight attendant did actually mention “January” to someone seated near me, who asked. Looks like it will be a fixed fee to activate the good stuff for the duration of the flight, but no idea how much it will cost. Currently, on our flight at least, it was “null”.

I’m hoping they’ll be generous and drop their prices by the equivalent amount, just to be fair. Hah, right!

I’m not talking about the TV show. Instead, I’m talking about the first edition of the Barcelona World Race. Nine teams, of two professional sailors each, are in a non-stop race around the world in 60-foot yachts. The race started on November 11 in Barcelona, and now the teams have cleared the Canary Islands and have caught the trade winds and are headed towards Brazil for a while (via the dreaded doldrums).

You can find out more and keep up with all the latest news here. (RSS feed here) They have daily blog-style reports, satellite video interviews with the racers, and you can follow and review the progress of the boats in special 2D and 3D viewers. You can even sign up to race along with them in a simulation game…

The race covers some 40,000km, and is expected to take a bit less than three months. That’s right, they actually are trying to go “around the world in 80 days…” (Actually, the record on this course, in this class of boat, is 87.5 days.) The usual route for sailing around the world goes through the Suez and Panama canals. Because this is a non-stop race, they more or less have to go the “clipper route,” which passes around the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa, across the Indian Ocean, south of Tasmania, threading between New Zealand’s islands, across the Pacific, then around Chile’s Cape Horn and back up to Barcelona. There is plenty of danger from very big and heavy seas in the southern seas, not to mention floating ice.

So, who to cheer for? Knowing little about the technical aspects, the technological advantages and disadvantages of the various boats, having only read the short sailor profiles on the website, I find my heart wanting to cheer for these three teams:

• Educación sin Fronteras, featuring a Barcelona native paired up with one of only two women in the event; at 26, she’s also the youngest person in the race.
• Estrella Damm, featuring another Bcn native, a very experienced circumnavigator paired up with an American (Olympic gold medalist).
• Temenos II has a six-time circumnavigator paired with the only other woman in the race, who of course is also a very experienced sailor (they all are, obviously!). Also, this boat’s name keeps making me think: “We have two,” (i.e. sailors) because I keep misreading it as tenemos dos, although the word is actually temenos, which means something like “the domain of kings” in Greek. Oh yeah, turns out it’s also a banking software company.

Hmm. Only problem is that these three are currently…in the last three positions! Well, not all hope is lost. There’s still the all-Spanish team to cheer for: Mutua Madrileña, featuring two guys who live in the Baleares. And they’re in…well, okay…so they’re in fourth-last place. Sigh. But anything can happen, right? — there’s still about 85% of the race to go…

Seriously: Go, everybody, and have a safe race. What an adventure!

I’ve never been the kind of guy to try to pick up women with come-on lines, and it was interesting (actually sad and/or funny) to see one in action. Something rarely seen in the wild, like out of a National Geographic special. Except with more blood and gore.

I was on the plane a few hours ago(!). I happened to be sitting next to a very glamorous, well-dressed woman, with whom I’d had some minor interaction as we got seated…just the usual pleasantries. Two-thirds of the way through the flight, I’d been trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep when I heard a man’s voice close by. A fellow from a few rows back, who’d been seated on the opposite side of the plane, was now squatting in the aisle next to my lovely seatmate.

“Here,” he said, holding out a chit of paper to her, “can I give you this?”

“What?” said the woman. “What is this?”

“You look like a nice person [ooh, yes, I’m sure you’ve judged her ‘niceness’ merely from watching her walk past you to the lavatory!] and I would like to give you my phone number and address.” Wow, this guy wastes no time, pulls no punches and beats around no bushes.

Her fantastic reply: “For what?” You have to imagine a really strong, contemptuous emphasis on the “what!”

“Um, well…” Long pause. He knows he has a hull breach, now; he’s going down in flames. Oww, it burns! “I guess…for friendship. Can I just leave this with you?” Almost begging, now. Humour him, I’m thinking; take the chit, spare his feelings and throw it out later.

“No, thank you. Goodbye.” Cool, professional, deadly.

“Oh. Okay. Goodbye, then.” And off went poor Sad Sack, back to his seat. He wasn’t a young guy, perhaps in his late thirties or forties, and (sorry to say) not particularly good-looking, either. Not that it would have mattered, in this case. I really felt for him… Well, a bit… Okay, actually I was trying to keep from exploding with laughter. But I did feel a bit of sympathy. It was just so…pathetic. I can’t claim to have never considered doing a similar thing, but my common sense kept me from it (at the time I thought it was cowardice, but it turns out it was common sense masquerading as fear). Seen from the other side, this kind of thing is more than a smidge creepy.

Of course, ironically, the incident gave me an immediate “in” with her. Yay, I could be the “non-creepy guy”! Not that I was looking for an “in”, and indeed I had (unlike our sorry friend) noticed her very obvious wedding band.

“Hey,” I said, sulking. “Why didn’t that guy offer me friendship? You know: his number and address?”

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “I can’t believe some guys! I’m married with three kids, you know.” She pointed to her ring, at which I nodded knowingly.

We went on to have a very nice chat, since any ice had been thoroughly melted by all those flames. I suppose having such “offers” is one of the pitfalls of being a good-looking woman. Or possibly, being any woman. I’d just never witnessed such a blatant and misguided attempt.

So, what do you think? Was this creepy? Funny? Flattering? Or just sad? Yeah, yeah; I’m sure he was actually a really nice guy! And so courageous — doing something like that really takes guts. Er, maybe foolhardy’s the better word. Desperate? I just wanted to take him aside, give him a good shake and say: “Ohhh, no-no-nooooo… That’s just not gonna work. Nooooo, stop… What are you doing?”

Oops, too late.

I’ve had a series of wonderful “nature moments” in the last week… I was awakened early Tuesday morning by a bugling bull elk outside my open window, expressing his rutting randiness with that eerie trumpeting sound. My goosebumps were not from the frosty mountain air…

Then I was watching a glacier (Cavell Glacier in Jasper National Park) on Tuesday when I happened to witness a massive chunk of ice calve off into the lake. Over the years, I have occasionally seen bits break off glaciers and make that impressive “gunshot” sound of ice cracking, but this was on a huge scale — really special. It’s hard to judge precisely from across the small lake, but I’d estimate it was a chunk maybe 50m wide and 15m high that broke off(!). After several internal groans and bangs, it dropped into the lake in “slow motion” with a giant splash that caused a minor tsunami…a wave that worked its way across the lake. By the time it reached our shore it was mostly a ripple, though, since the lake was almost frozen over and the wave lost a lot of its energy.

Last night, I flew from Edmonton to Montreal on the Air Canada red-eye flight. We left Edmonton at 1h15 and arrived in Montreal 4 hours later, just after sunrise, around 7h10. Somewhere in between (I suspect when we were over Saskatchewan) I suddenly jolted out of my semi-conscious reverie and looked out the window. I was greeted by two unlikely sights…first, a bright meteor shot vertically downwards just at the moment I looked out. Second, the view out my window was filled with green and very dynamic Northern Lights (aurora borealis) from horizon to horizon. What a treat! They continued for a long while, and so I didn’t sleep much after that, just kept staring out the window.

I tried to take a few pictures when they were at their most dramatic, to give you a vague idea what it was like… (note that the window was quite greasy in spite of my attempts to clean it, and also it’s hard to hold a camera steady for a second or two on a bumpy airplane!) Luckily aurorae are not “hard-edged” phenomena, so a little blur doesn’t hurt. Note that this is pretty far south for such an intense display — probably the plane was around 51 or 52 degrees North at the time.

When I got home, I checked SpaceWeather.com, and discovered the following:

High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras tonight. Earth is entering a high-speed solar wind stream, which could trigger a geomagnetic storm.

Indeed…