And now for some good news…oh, right

The Globe and Mail squares up to the fact that young people are in big trouble as far as the whole “prosperity” thing goes. Not too much of a surprise really, though I couldn’t have said it better.

I found two comments interesting.

First (reason: self explanatory):

You can bail yourself out all you want now, but when it comes to write the cheques in 15 years or so, me and my cohort will simply bail ourselves out by puting you into homes or icebergs.

Icebergs seem a lot cheaper, although global warming might pose a problem.

Second comment:

…. yes, they will surely demand more of their leaders. Like all youth, when they get really frustrated, about their prospects in life, they don’t go quietly into that good night. Bet on it. They will not lobby and protest in a ‘nice’ way. The street is their forum.

Sounds like either a deluded student government type or someone born in the 60s. Don’t they know it’s much easier to sit at home and watch TV than do anything about it. And more effective. Given voter turnouts and the general gray-hair-to-peach-fuzz ratio, it would take a pretty organized bunch of people to get something done. And we youth aren’t known for our organization.

Bandaged hands and a bloody phone

The phone was off the hook and there was blood splattered underneath. Nearby, outside a single-family home, seven or eight cop cars had their lights flashing. An ambulance was parked beside the phone booth and paramedics were walking around the area, not looking too urgent.

Police escorted a black woman out of the house. She wore a yellow t-shirt with a Superman logo emblazoned on the front in green and blue track shorts. There was a little blood on her t-shirt, just to the left of the logo and on her shorts as well. The woman’s forearms were in bandages and as the police gently led her away, they seemed to almost gently place her arms behind her back.

Several people stood near the phone watching. No one seemed to know what had happened. They were just curious.

The police led the woman to the ambulance and closed the doors after she entered. Later, they spoke to a tall man outside the house who also had bandages on his forearms. I left shortly thereafter.

A couple hours later I returned to use the phone. The blood had dried underneath and the receiver was back on the hook. As I pedalled past the house, the woman was in her front yard, speaking over a white picket fence with her neighbour. The police cars were gone.

Toilet unhumour

Incomprehensible: people who flush the urinal BEFORE they begin to pee. Do you really need a clean urinal? Is your piss going to be contaminated somehow? Why, oh why?

It’s not the same as flushing a used toilet before you sit down. Sometimes the toilet water can sploosh upwards. It’s gross, but it happens. Not so with a urinal. Plus full and unflushed toilets smell, and you spend more time at it. Not so with urinals. You’re in and you’re out and generally they don’t stink too bad.

I just don’t get it.

Playing chicken

Since it strikes me that I only posted once from our last trip in Europe/Africa, the following anecdote comes from our travels in Morocco.

The white walls of Rabat’s medina, or inner city, are quintessentially Mediterranean, with sea air (albeit, from the Atlantic Ocean) meshing with a million different smells, not always good. Unlike many counterparts, Rabat’s centreville is laid out in a grid pattern. Above it sits the Kasbah, which, with its blue and white walls is undoubtedly one of the finest sites in Morocco. But it’s empty. Below, in the medina, people are are crowded but generally friendly and the prices are good. It was there that we came across a series of quaint little stores, where locals could buy everything, from toilet paper to meat.

And some of the meat was quite fresh. Really fresh.

You know that joke you tell when you’re in a restaurant and your food is taking a while? “Are they killing the chicken?” you might ask. That’s not a joke you would tell in Rabat. Because it might be true. As we passed one butcher shop as the sun set in Rabat we looked to our left to see a man holding a fully-feathered chicken on a digital scale for a woman customer. And the chicken, which lay on its head in what was very clearly not a comfortable position, was squawking.

—————

Later, after the aforementioned Tangine dinner (boiled chicken and potatoes in a painted clay dish with a round bottom and pointed roof, like a party hat), we walked down the main drag where street sellers were hawking various counterfeit CDs, sunglasses and T-shirts. As we walked we heard a yell.

“Agent!” the cry went out. (It being in French, it sounded more like “eh-Zhawnt.”) Immediately the street sellers swept their goods, which sat on various sheets of cloth, up from the sidewalk as a stern looking policeman walked down the narrow road, which was barely wide enough to accommodate an occasional motorcyclist). He pointed and gave off your general police-officer air of authority but as soon as he passed, and before he was out of sight or even smell, for that matter, the vendors were already throwing their goods back down on the street.

For 15 seconds, counterfeit peddling was disrupted. Then everything returned to normal.

A change of address…

Returning to Canada necessarily means a blog with the address of ninehoursahead and the title of Perogies and puzzled looks must die. It also means I have another set of priorities and obligations on my hands, of which first and foremost is finding a job or begging for freelance gigs.

I haven’t altogether stopped blogging however. My new gig will hopefully be more focused and probing and will continue to provide me with a reason to compulsively check my stats.

To see for yourself go here.

I said, go here.

Thanks and all the best.

That’s sick

Island1, at Polandian, has come up with a neat graph that pretty much sums up the situation here.

Unfortunately, he seems to miss the illegal alien sitting in his Warsaw apartment with a bag of Kleenex (yes, bag. Kleenex only comes in those little travel packs here) and a cup of tea.

Not that that illegal alien is me. No, not at all.

In other news, check out the Life section in tomorrow’s Globe and Mail for a story about what we did on Magda’s birthday.

The Safety Dance

While the sun is no longer setting at three o’clock, it still gets dark quite early here, given the fact that we are further north than Edmonton (don’t worry, all the snow’s gone here and the temperature is hovering around five degrees). Living so far north during winter, and not having a car, means I’ve been spending a lot of time walking in the dark. Often Magda is with me, but sometimes I’m alone.

And yet, considering we live in a densely populated area of a large city, I feel very safe. This is not extremely surprising. While Warsaw’s eastern district of Praga is known to be a little violent, elsewhere there doesn’t seem to be much threat of robbery or crime. It’s certainly easier to do the ol’ safety dance here than in Salford, Manchester’s grubby little brother, where I lived for a few months in 2005.

And yet, Salford and Poland seem to have one thing in common: an emphasis on security. In the UK, I lived in a student housing complex with a guard’s gate and 24-hour security. If you tried to LEAVE the wrong way the security guards acted like you had offended them personally and all but threatened to throw you in jail. Thankfully, we have no such guards here but our door includes two locks, one of which has two seperate deadbolts.

Elsewhere, we were instructed to lock the door behind us; not only when we were leaving but also after we entered the house. Even out in the forest at Mazury, locking the door is a must-do. For someone who for long stretches of his life hasn’t seen the need to lock the door behind him after leaving home, much less, when he is home, the focus on security is a little strange and alienating.

Even Magda, who, in Canada, prefers to lock the door at night has been taken aback. Still, we have been conforming to the norm, locking the door when we leave (and sometimes when we return) home.

Texting, one, two, three

Yesterday I sent my first ever cell phone text message. It felt just as icky as I always thought it would. Sending a message over the phone? What’s the point? Why not just call?

But, it turns out you feel less like you’re harassing the people on the other end of the phone when you text message, which is ironic since texting has probably only increased the growing ranks of the cell-phone-annoyed.

As for the text itself, I unfortunately forgot that texting apparently permits gross abuse of the English language. Thus I spelt ‘you’ Y-O-U and only shortened the word ’season’ to S-E-A-S. Still, I’m on tricky territory. The next blog posting may just be three letters and a smiley emoticon. You never know.

Cold, red Torun (photos)

Having sufficiently de-thawed my once blue fingers, I can now finally post photos from our recent skull-chattering trip to Torun, a historic city a couple hours west of Warsaw notable for its brick architecture.

A common observation of the trip was how, when you’re travelling in the middle of January, taking photos becomes less like part of the trip and more like the focus. You walk out of your hostel, shiver and bee-line your way towards the attractions, quickly snap some photos, go to the next attraction then try and find somewhere to warm up, be it a restaurant or museum.

Torun boasts its own leaning tower. Literally, that’s what this is called:

And did I mention it was cold?

No winter cruisin’ for us.

A Mazurian Winter (photos)