The worst place to be a pedestrian?

In all the places I’ve travelled to, I’d say the biggest hazard I’ve encountered is being a pedestrian.  Seriously.    I’ve been to nearly 30 countries on this planet and have rarely felt threatened or unsafe, until it comes to crossing the street.

In Vietnam, crossing the street is such a hazard there are hundreds of youtube videos documenting the hazard and giving advice on how to cross the street.  When I first went to Vietnam, I was given strict instructions on street crossing.

-       only cross at a crosswalk.

-       Don’t wait for traffic to stop:  it won’t.

-       Maintain a constant rate of speed

-       Don’t look left or right

-       And for god’s sake, if there’s a bus or truck coming, jump out of the way.

I’m not making this up, and yes, it’s that bad (if not worse).  The cars and (mostly) motorcycles are judging the rate of speed that you’re crossing.  If you speed up, slow down or god forbid stop, you WILL be hit.  It’s an absolutely nerve wracking experience to have cars and motorbikes whizzing past you with mere centimeters to spare.  The first time I did it, I stood on the curb for a good 5 minutes contemplating if I REALLY needed to cross a road.  I swear it would have been less scary to jump out of a plane.  But I did it.  And after a few tries, it became a game and I just wanted to cross the street continuously.

Another bad spot is Bolivia.  Walking in Bolivia at all requires a certain skill.  IF there’s a sidewalk, it’s sure to be cracked, buckled or have potholes that could easily swallow up small animals.  Walking at all in Bolivia requires constant attention and you don’t dare look up after a month in Bolivia, I couldn’t tell you what any of the sights look like, but I could draw you a map of the sidewalks.  After all of that, you’d think that crossing the street would be nothing in comparison, but it is.  Though not as bad as Vietnam, crossing the street does involve playing a game of chicken with oncoming traffic.  And in true South American fashion, once you avoid a near miss, they’ll honk and cat whistle at you because you’re a female.

Now, Bolivia and Vietnam, you’d sort of expect to have a less than perfect pedestrian experience since those are examples of less developed countries.  The big surprise is that in my beloved Switaly, being a pedestrian is no piece of cake.

The situation is odd on a number of levels.  Lugano has a population of roughly 50,000 people, so you wouldn’t think traffic is an issue.  But it is.  In the past year, I’ve just learned to take a deep breath that I don’t have to go anywhere that fast.  Secondly,  Lugano has (without a word of a lie) a designated crosswalk every 200 meters (if not every 100 meters) so there are no shortages of crosswalks which would imply that drivers “should” be used to them.  And lastly, Switaly can’t use the excuse that it’s not developed.  The streets are relatively wide, clean and the crosswalks well lit. 

Now there could be a game that the drivers play called “Scare the shit out of the foreigner” or “aim for the foreigner” that I’m not aware of, but failing that, I’ve never had so many near misses in my life.

I will regularly cross at a crosswalk (which in itself kills me because I was born in Montreal- the capital of J walking and people will regularly zip around the corner and come within inches of bowling me over.  Now, I don’t want to perpetuate any rumors that Italians are bad drivers, but I am seriously blown away with the amount of times I’ve had near misses.  If I don’t get hit by a car while living in Switaly, I will consider it a success.   I suppose each town has it’s own characteristics, and in Switaly, it’s a tough place to be pedestrian!  

Sidewalks in Bolivia 

road crossing in Vietnam

You would never expect that crossing a street here would be a danger!

Running like no one is chasing you

I don't run.   I don't run so much in fact, that my motto has always been "I'll only run if someone chases me".   It's not that I'm unfit, I've done boot camps, cross fit classes and hiked 140km thru Northern Canada a few years ago, by most definitions, I'm fairly fit.  But running has always felt like sheer torture.  I could give you 50 reasons of why I hated running: shin splints, tight hips and it just seems downright boring.  

But if you're gonna be active in Switaly, you need decent cardio.  If you're going to do any biking, hiking or pretty much anything else outside, there's a mountain to climb.  I could have joined a gym, but being Switaly, those are expensive and make me feel like a hamster on a wheel.   And I'm also a fan of multi tasking, so since I have a high energy dog, I'd rather kill two birds with one stone and exercise her while I'm exercising.   So it was by default that I started running.

I enlisted my friend Iphone into the process and downloaded an app.   I wanted something approchable and wouldn't make me feel like a loser for not being able to run.  I ended up with couch to 5K.   Though I'm no couch potato, I figured if I'd aim low, I wouldn't be disappointed.  I was right!   It started out easy enough, jog for 90 seconds, walk for 60 seconds.  I had no time to be bored and was able to get a bit of cardio in.   Every other workout gradually builds up.  Next thing you know, I'm running 2 minutes, then 3, then 5.  Now, 5 minutes of continuous running might not seem like a lot, but if you've never done it, it feels like quite an achievement.  And I'm living proof, your heart won't ACTUALLY explode from running.

This week, it's a big jump.  This week it goes to an 8 minute run and then next week, a straight 20 minutes.  I've heard about this runners high and endorphin release blah, blah, blah.  I don't get any of that.  Right now, I only look forward to the run ending!  I'm week 5 into the 8 week program, and now I'm doing it, just to get to the end of it.  But I already have my eye on the 5-10k app so I guess it's working!

2 years of European livin'

2 years ago this week, I left Canada for the great unknown which is European life.  Looking back, it seems kind of like a lifetime ago.  In 2 years of living on this continent, I've had more adventure than the past 5 years of living in Vancouver.

In 2 years, I've had 2 jobs, lived in 2 countries, had 2 surgeries, kept German lawsuits at bay, made great friends, and have been to some pretty cool places!

I left Vancouver because I wanted a challenge.  I'd been with the same company for 7 years, lived in the same apartment for over 5 years and though I thought for a flash of time that my life was headed toward settling down and having kids, it wasn't.  So, when the golden opportunity presented itself for me to shake my ass on over across the ocean, I jumped at it.

A lot of people thought I was crazy.  Vancouver is constantly voted one of the world's most livable cities and I had a pretty comfortable and flexible job which  awarded me twice yearly business class travel, flexi days and a 38 hour work week.

But an idle mind is a dangerous thing and idle I was.  So I gave up security, a support network, cheap healthcare and an apartment in the center of one of the world's most livable cities for life in a small Bavarian town. 

When small town Bavarian living didn't work out so well, I packed up my things (no I didn't, Romanian movers did, but details...) and moved south of the Alps to Switaly.

European living isn't for the faint of heart.  I used to pride myself on being an open minded and easy going Canadian that was adaptable to most circumstances, and though that's still (mostly) true, it's been put to the test a lot. For the most part, we North Americans think that Europeans are so much more cosmopolitan than us North American hicks, but I've learned that that's not always the case.  You see, Europeans may be a whole lot more liberal when it comes to nudity, but when it comes to multiculturalism, not so much.  No matter how much I look like a local and try to blend in, I'll always be a foreigner.  Auslander, Stranieri, whatever you want to call it! 

Being a foreigner aside, I'll never figure out all the rules.  I really wish when you moved to a new country, there would be someone to welcome you with a handbook of the unspoken rules of your newly adopted country.  Because there's a lot of rules here.  And some of them are just down right weird.  Like in Bavaria, washing your car on Sundays was "verbotten".   Or that J-walking was akin to capital murder.  Or in Switzerland, I get a washing "day".  Designated day, once a week, where I'm "allowed" to do my laundry. 

Sure, there are lots of weird things to put up with, but at the same time, a lot of it is oddly....liberating.   For instance, I don't feel like a leper because I don't own my own postage size condo that I paid 15 years salary for.  Or that I'm not on my way to 2.2 kids and a townhouse in the suburbs.  It IS normal to spend a weekend skiing with friends or enjoying a bottle of wine at the beach with friends (where in Canada, the beach patrol would ticket you)

I've learned in the past 2 years that there is no perfect country or perfect place to live.  I do miss Canadian affordable healthcare, multiculturalism and wilderness.   However, there's a lot about European living that I'm not in a hurry to give up anytime soon.  Something about 5 weeks vacation and the fact that a 3 hour flight can take me to easily 2 dozen countries is pretty sexy.   Even though there seems to be a lot of rules here, things seem to be, well, less regulated.  My favorite bar in the summer is on a floating dock with 2 inch gaps between the slats of wood on the dock.  In North America, that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen and so it wouldn't exist.  Or that in Germany, I can drive 200 km/h on the autobahn.  Or that I can walk thru a village that's over 10 times older than the country I was born in. Or that I can take Lucy on any train, bus and most restaurants.   It could be partially due to the fact I don't fully understand the language or fully know the rules, but I've found great comfort in European life, at least for now!

Witch Hunting

When I got back from Vancouver last week, all the local shops and ads had witch cartoons and drawings.  I thought someone had missed the memo on Halloween until I started asking around.  It turns out it had nothing to do with Halloween but January 6th.  January 6th is a big holiday in these parts.  We know it as epiphany but it's not a big deal in North America: it is in Europe.  In Germany, kids come around, recite bible passages and mark the quotes they've read from the bible in chalk on doorways.   In these parts, epiphany inexplicably involves a witch. 

Befana as she's known, usually swings by on epiphany eve. From what I can figure out, Befana is a witch (or old lady with a broom, big nose, hat and a bag of candy)  and much like Santa Claus in North America, she comes down the chimney.  Like Santa, she brings treats.  For the good kids, she leaves out candy, for the bad ones, she leaves out a lump of coal, or onions (?!?!)  Where she's different than Santa is that she prefers wine to milk and cookies, so kids leave her a glass of wine.  Also, since she travels with a broom, she's known to sweep up after herself before she leaves.

When I found out that Como (a city about 30 minutes from where I live) had a famous Befana event, I had to find out what it was all about.  A colleague told me that the Befana shows up in Como on January 6th.  After googling it and looking up a YouTube video where the Befana swings down a zip line from the main cathedral, I decided I had to check this out.  So today, I set out to find Befana.

I headed to the main cathedral and tried to determine where she was going to zip line in from.  Seeing no zip line, I was confused.  Yet there were zillions of people so something was bound to happen.  Maybe Befana was going wireless this year?  I parked myself where the largest crowd seemed to be, by the fire truck and hoped for the best.   I asked about of older ladies equipped with a camera where Befana was planning on flying in from.  Apparently, that's part of the mystery, you never know.  Right at 4, firemen got on the truck and worked the ladder.  Befana was going to fly in on the fire truck ladder!   Even though I hate massive crowds, hearing all the kids shout "Befana, Befana" was pretty damn cute.

The Italian firemen picked up Befana from the rooftop next to the cathedral.   It was a cool to see Befana swinging in, but I have to say, I've seen safer things than a witch dangling from a 100 foot ladder.  At one point, it looked like Befana was going to crash into the cathedral and all the onlookers shouted at her "Befana, watch out for the cathedral", but maybe it was on purpose.  At one point, she was dangling directly overhead and I have to say, it was a little worrying have a witch with a bag of candy dangling 100 feet over you.

Halloween is not a big event in Europe and I don't know that it'll ever be.  But then again, when you have witches in January bringing you candy and carinvale in February where you get to dress up, why do you need only 1 night a year?

Going to pick up Befana

Add caption

I've seen safer things than a witch be dangled 100 feet above a crowd

Dating, European style

There are a lot of things I love about living in Europe but dating isn’t one of them. Dating in Canada was also one of my least favorite things, but I have to say, it’s worse here.  And that’s saying a lot!  Now dating in your 30’s is awkward to start with.  Dating in your late 30’s is either downright torture or comedy gold depending on your perspective (my vote is on the latter) My interest in dating isn’t necessarily about finding a guy who will bring me flowers and recite poetry to me every day (though flowers are nice, I could never take poetry seriously!) but it “would” be nice to have a friend, companion and partner in adventure.

Meeting single people in this age range is the first challenge.  My first choice is to meet people organically (i.e. the old fashioned way of meeting thru friends etc.…) but there are zero single men in my social circle.  Approaching someone out of the blue, is not something I’m a fan of on a good day and couple that with my inability to speak Italian, know who’s single and straight is not something I’d ever take on!

So, my next step is to approach the world of online dating.  Something I’m not afraid of and have tried before.  You know it’s gone mainstream when even your mother suggests you try it and in North America it’s an openly accepted way to meet someone.  From what I gather and the specimens I’ve met, it’s not nearly as open and accepted in Europe.

I’ve only went on a few dates since I’ve lived in Europe, but to say they’ve been horribly bad would be a safe description.   There was the Australian living in Zurich who was not only socially awkward, controlling and racist (I was able to determine all of this on our first and only date) Then there was the Scottish guy I went for dinner with in Barcelona who made me pay the bill and then asked for the receipt so he could get reimbursed by his employer.  And recently, there was the Italian osteopath I went out with last month who said he could never be in a relationship where he was forced to be faithful and where his partner wasn’t open to partner swapping (swear on my grandmother’s grave- you can’t make this stuff up!)

I was starting to think the whole thing was a hopeless game and then on my last business trip to Hong Kong, I went to see a street side fortuneteller.  For no other reason than the fact that I’d been to Hong Kong almost a dozen times, and there’s only so much shopping and eating you could do.  

All she asked me for was my birthday, time and location of where I was born and looked into my eyes.  The first thing she said to me was that my 30’s were no time for love.  No matter what I did, love wouldn’t work in my 30’s.  If I got married in my 30’s, it would be a “great disaster” (at this I smirked as I spent a short time married to a narcissistic physopath when I was 35!)  She told me some other fun stuff about being careful around water, that my second marriage would be long lasting and full of love and that in my 50’s I would have it all.  

I’m not really one to put too much faith into something a street side fortune teller was telling me, but it did get me thinking… maybe no matter what I would have done and where I would have done it would have left me with a laughable love life for the past 10 years! 

Yes, dating in your 30’s is peculiar, because it’s a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.  Of course I still believe that there are attractive, active, funny and single men out there that aren’t too emotionally scarred from previous relationships, but I can tell you based on my experience of dating this decade, it’s a bit like believing in unicorns: I’ve heard about them and seen pictures of them, but I haven’t met one! 

After a plethora of losers and a short lived marriage to a narcissist psychopath later, my street side Hong Kong fortune teller has given me something to look forward to as I turn 40 in a few weeks.   It can’t really be any worse, can it???

Dancing while wearing a helmet

I started 2012 celebrating New Year’s eve in Berlin. I don’t know what celebrating New Year’s is like everywhere in the world, but in Germany, it involved a lot of public drinking and a lot of fireworks. So far, normal, right? Well, I learned that though Germans are extremely careful and safety oriented (I got chastised more than once for J walking) on New Year’s eve, that all goes out the window.

There are few times in my life where I’ve felt physically unsafe and New Year’s eve in Berlin was one of those times (and I’ve gone skydiving!) Originally, we tried to get into the main area by Brandenburg gate, but by 8pm there were already more than 600,000 there and they stopped letting people in. Instead, we were relegated to the outskirts of Brandenburg gate. We had a great time of dancing and drinking at the little cafes while still being able to see the Brandenburg gate for midnight. However, I now know why 600,000 people crushed into the main area. No fireworks were allowed there. You see, on the outskirts, extremely drunk people were launching fireworks from glass bottles on the streets. It was unlike anything else I’d seen in my life. Random explosive devices going off inches away from where people were standing and cars still driving down the streets (and in some cases, driving over fireworks) I was honestly worried for my personal safety and thought it was just a matter of time until someone got glass debris in their eye or their hair went up in flames a la Michael Jackson 80’s pepsi commercial style. So I did what anyone in their right (sober-ish) mind would do: I bought an army helmet!

2 blocks from the Brandenburg gate there was a store selling random kitsch. In this random kitsch, they had a selection of headware. And in that random selection , I found an army helmet. The irony was not lost on me that there I was steps from the Brandenburg gate in Berlin buying an army helmet to protect myself from explosive devices. Completely different circumstances, I know. But the irony was there.

I had no idea that an army helmet would cause such a scene. People would see me, laugh and knock on my helmet. I should mention that the helmet was metal so this knocking was extremely loud. At one point, a guy ran up to me, manoevered around the metal edge and kissed me on the cheek. He claimed to be a Syrian freedom fighter that had just escaped Syria and he thought it was adorable that I was wearing an army helmet. It was also a hit with a group of American soldiers. If you have a thing for military men, I highly recommend wearing an army helmet next time you go out.

By 3am, fireworks were still going off, but I felt well protected in my army helmet. By that time, I also found myself proper drunk as you do at 3am on New Years eve. So there I was dancing in the shadow of the Brandenburg gate to Beyonce wearing an army helmet and down jacket (it was cold out)

Flash forward to December 15th…. I find myself in Southern Switzerland at a work Christmas party. I also find myself well and proper drunk as you do at a work Christmas party. Our hosts had a climbing wall on their patio and some of us found it appropriate to climb it. At some point, someone had the foresight to equip us with a climbing helmet. After our climbing adventure, we find ourselves dancing again, to Beyonce. So I did what anyone wearing a helmet would do and start dancing along.

I started the year wearing a helmet worried for my physical safety in what looked like (for lack of better words) a warzone. I’m now finishing that same year while wearing a helmet because someone else cared enough (or more likely found it funny) for my physical safety. To say that 2012 has been a crazy year is an understatement: I’ve had 2 surgeries in 2 countries within 6 months, moved countries, switched jobs and escaped Germany with the threat of a lawsuit from my former employer, so I’m taking the fact that I ended my year the same way it started but for much different reasons as a good sign. You better be good 2013, I have high hopes for you.

Canada is not a great white tundra

NOT a typical Canadian house

Whenever people hear that I’m from Canada, they automatically assume I’m used to cold and snow.  God forbid I complain that it’s a little cold, I inevitably get “But you’re from Canada!”  and my response is usually “yes, I’m from the part of Canada that had to ship snow in for the Olympics”    Yes, the majority of land mass in Canada is freezing cold in Winter, but not many people live there.  It’s called the arctic and a good reason why 90% of us Canadians live as close to the US border as possible.  It’s less cold (also our neighbors have cheaper gas and booze)

I was born in Montreal and yes, it was cold.  Really bloody cold.  3 feet of snow and -15C cold.  But for 17 years I lived in Vancouver.  Glorius temperate Vancouver.  Yes, Vancouver is still Canada but it rarely snows in Vancouver (I swear!)  and when the odd time it does snow, it’s great because there is usually mass panic and the city shuts down.   In my 17 years in Vancouver, I can count the amount of times there was more than 5 cm of snow on the ground on my hands.  But when it’s happened, it’s been memorable!  Like the time in 2000 when my family and I wanted a white Christmas and rented a cabin a few hours away where there was sure to be snow: it snowed 20cm in Vancouver and we could barely leave the city!  Or the time in 2008 when it snowed and we could actually toboggan down some of the hills.  In Vancouver, when more than 5cm of snow is forecasted, there is a snowfall warning and people cancel plans, stay off the roads and get ready to hunker down for days at home.  In the winter of 1998 we had 30cm of snow and pretty much all grocery stores, businesses and transit were shutdown for 3 days.  I swear.  YES, this is in Canada.   Of course some of us from the rest of Canada laugh at Vancouver’s snow antics, but after 17 years, I got used to it.  If there was more than 5cm of snow on the ground, you could count on getting sent home early from work.   Yes, Vancouver is an hour and a half drive from some of the best skiing in North America and there is lots of snow in the mountains, just none in the city.  Just the way it should be!  Most weekends in the winter, I would head for a 20 minute drive to the local mountains, snowshoe or ski in a winter wonderland and drive back down to a snowfree city.   Perfect really.

Flash forward to my first winter in Europe. I thought I was going to die.  Not only was  it-20C and there was not a drop of moisture in the air (instead of snow, we usually get 5 months of rain you don’t have to shovel it and it keeps your skin moist year round) .  My skin felt like a lizard and no amount of clothes could keep me warm.  My colleagues couldn’t grasp the concept of the Canadian complaining about the cold.  

This winter I live in Lugano, Switzerland.  When you think of Switzerland, you think of snow and the Alps.  And there is plenty of snow in the Alps, but drive south of the Alps, and you leave the snow behind.  Again, the way it should be: mountains, snow! City, no snow!  (Until today when we got a few centimeters but that looks like it’s going to melt away any minute)

So when you think about Canada and Canadian, understand that not only do we NOT live in igloos, chase wild buffalo, ride a snowmobile to work and ice fish, some of us also aren’t used to the cold and snow!