Olympic Anniversary, Vancouver

So I have to admit that I was a little disappointed to have landed in Vancouver almost a year AFTER the Winter Olympics had come and gone. If I’m ever stuck trying to make conversation with a Vancouverite, all I have to do is ask “how was it here, last February?” and they erupt in a wide grin and start talking up a storm. Most mention where they were for the men’s gold medal hockey game, and the sonic boom (well OK…but “loud noise” probably just doesn’t cut it) created by over a million people simultaneously cheering in the Greater Vancouver area the moment Sidney Crosby scored the “golden goal” on Feb. 28^th, 2010. Here is an overly lengthy (but so darned heart-warming) mash-up video of people celebrating the win (9 minutes, but who can deny them their unbridled joy?).

(props for this picture go to the CBC website)

Interestingly, aside from that goal, a lot of people mentioned how amazing it was to have seen the Paralympics. Most are just regular people who could never afford to go to many of the Olympic events, but the Paralympic tickets were much more reasonably priced. Some said that for the first five minutes it was hard to see beyond the person’s disability, but after that they got so caught up in the athleticism of what they were watching (be it wheelchair hockey or blind biathlon where athletes hurtle themselves down hills and curves they can’t see) that they forgot about any of the athletes’ limitations.

Anyways, I digress. Thanks to the one-year anniversary of the Olympic Games, I was able to witness and experience some of that Olympic spirit myself. On the one year anniversary of the opening ceremonies I headed downtown to see the relighting of the Olympic Flame (no uncomfortable-looking Wayne Gretzky this time folks). My spot in the crowd was so poor all I could see were a group of people huddling under umbrellas (it was raining…are you surprised?) and a giant Canadian flag.

While waiting around for stuff to get started some people spontaneously started singing Oh Canada, which was heartening. And then voilá, after another 20 minute wait and a 10 minute speech, the flame was lit!

There are actually two Mounties and a ton of former-volunteers in Olympic blue jackets in the crowd. My favourite is probably the guy in the foreground in the Canada jersey with a flag, about to topple backwards into the pool in 2 degree weather.

Cool orca statue by Douglas Coupland in the vicinity. Captures the symbol of Vancouver and our digital lifestyle:

The obligatory non-photoshoped picture to prove I was at the scene:

And half-an-hour later “holding” (well, touching with the supervision of two other adults) an Olympic torch.

There were plenty of other activities going on along Granville St. and Robson St. including street hockey, couples dancing, and free ice skating. I also witnessed a flash mob of hip-hop dancers which happened so suddenly and was over so quickly I didn’t manage to capture them on camera. It was neat how as soon as their choreographed dance was over everyone just melted into the crowd.

Lots o’ fun and lots of happy people out and about. I’ll leave you with a few more shots of a quieter part of Vancouver near Jericho Beach. I ventured out a little further than usual though and almost came across a nudist beach. Probably no one out in February, but I turned back before I could disturb anyone ;)

Eurovision Song Contest 2010

Greetings from Vancouver! I am settling down just fine and am happy now that all my furniture is here and has been put together. It’s a nice feeling to no longer eat dinner sitting cross-legged on the floor with a moving box acting as a dinner table. Everyone warned me about the rain and it’s true it is rainy. Just look at the forecast for the coming week:

I normally look up Edmonton’s forecast directly afterwards to make myself feel better. There it’s typically blowing snow with a high of -20°C. Brings out the Schadenfreude in me.

But Vancouver weather is not actually what this post is supposed to be about. Rather, I found myself bored the other night and started to watch the Miss America pageant on TV, which reminded me somewhat of the spectacle which passes for the Eurovision Song Contest. I somehow managed to live in Germany many years before witnessing this uniquely European cultural phenomenon on TV last spring, when it was hosted in Norway.

I suppose unlike Miss America, a lot of Europeans take this quite seriously. The way it works is that each member country submits a song which is performed live on TV, and then each country casts votes for other countries to determine the most popular song in the competition. It is part spectacle, part talent show, part popularity contest and always controversial. It often seems that there is some political bias as judges and televoters are perceived to allocate points based on their nation's relationship to other countries, rather than the musical merits of the songs. The contest has been broadcast every year since 1956 and is one of the longest-running television programs in the world. It is also supposedly one of the most-watched non-sporting events in the world according to Wikipedia.

In 2010, 19-year old Lena from Germany won it all (Youtube link to her performance). I’m personally not crazy about the song, but at least she seemed pretty down-to-earth compared to most of the contestants.

Although most of songs were exaggerated emotional love ballads with overly sexy costumes and dancers (not really my type of music), it was entertaining in its cheesiness. I loved how at the end of nearly every song, the over enthusiastic wind machine guy would really turn on the air, completely destroying some perfectly coiffed hairstyles and throwing the artists’ long flowing scarves and dresses in their faces.

The Ukraine contestant gets some wind in her face towards the end of her ballad.

Even worse is this poor girl whose hair is now defying gravity:

Some of the songs weren’t so deep, such as Azerbaijan's aptly-titled "Drip Drop". A surprisingly hard-rockish song from the group Manga ( representing Turkey) won 2nd place. The cool-looking robots in the background probably didn't hurt either.

I think my favourite though was Greece's more traditional "Opa!". A lot of countries choose to play up their own national stereotypes. Georgia's entry (Sofia Nizharadze) was kind of strange, as the woman got carried around the stage by these two guys the entire time:

Other interesting facts:

The rule regarding in which language songs have to be sung in has changed over the years. During various periods it had to be sung in an official language of the country, but as of 1999 it can be in any language. More and more countries sing in English since nearly all Europeans can understand it to some degree, and winning the contest depends on having other countries (not your own) vote for you. The new language ruling has been pushed to the limit in various years though as in 2003 the Belgian entry was sung in an entirely fictional language.

Lots of crazy hair (eg. of Milan Stanković from Serbia, where young boys are imitating him everywhere) and outrageous costumes make for half of the fun.




Cheesiest costume ever: butterflies from Belarus

ABBA won the contest in 1974 for Sweden, which launched the band's career

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to wish everyone a belated merry Christmas and best wishes for 2011! 2010 has been an exciting year finishing my PhD and moving back to Canada, and as many of you already know, I’m moving to Vancouver to start a new job in January 2011. I am excited and just a little scared about starting a new life on the West Coast, but I think I’ll fit in fine with the lululemon-wearing, coffee-guzzling, ultimate-playing Vancouverites, not to mention enjoying the milder winters.

I managed to find a beautiful one-bedroom apartment only 10 minutes by foot to the beach, which I’m sure won’t look so desolate in the spring and summer. There are lots of great running trails with superb views of the downtown skyline! If you are ever passing through, please let me know.

While I was there apartment-hunting, I also enjoyed the views of the sea planes landing near Canada Place and the sea wall walk to Stanley Park, surrounded by sparkling skyscrapers.

Happy holidays everyone and hope to see you in 2011!

German Sauna Culture and Beer

As winter is full upon us here in Calgary and it’s getting colder everywhere in the northern hemisphere, I thought it might be time to do some reminiscing about German spa culture. I think European spas are something that North Americans probably don’t have a concept of. When I used to hear the word “sauna”, I would think about my local public swimming pool steam room which was suffocatingly uncomfortable and boring. Well in comparison to that Germany has the Disneyworld of saunas, namely Therme Erding. Thanks to the Therme Erding website for all these pictures; for reasons one can well imagine there are no cameras allowed in these strict birthday-suit-only German spas.

In early spring last year after submitting my thesis, I took a day off to relax and enjoy everything that Therme Erding has to offer thanks to a birthday gift certificate from my group.

This is a crazy luxury spa with every type and temperature of sauna and steam room. The saunas ranged from 38°C to 90°C with various decorations (dead branches, antlers, hundreds of thousands of real rose petals, a fireplace, sandalwood). The “aromatisches Dampfbad” had pure vapourized menthol (think breathing in super-heated Tigerbalm) with stars on the ceiling. Think pools of water decorated to be a Roman bath and cold showers pouring down from giant lilies twice my size designed to boost your immune system. (As an aside, Germans are big into cold showering. You can be called a girly-man or more accurately be saddled with the insulting “Warmduscher” moniker if you insist on warm showers).

Roman bath and the giant freezing cold lilies:

At this spa they also recreated part of Stonehenge adding thundering waterfalls cascading over an upright circle of stones. There were benches over a warm stream for a foot bath while you read. Infrared heat lamps. Freezing natural “Tauchbecken” pools outside to take the plunge, simultaneously sending all your muscles into spasm as well as stopping your lungs, heart, and all other organs. Pools with jets and in-pool bars (remember everyone except the staff are naked).

Cocktail anyone?

One of my highlights was bathing in three separate mineral baths with calcium, selenium and the last one had salt levels rivalling the Dead Sea which made you float. They had specially designed metal handles to hold on to otherwise you’d float away into your less-than-pleased neighbour.

I also participated in two “Aufgüsse” ceremonies in which they pour water on the hot stones to make the room feel even warmer, and then with a towel (or a huge flag in the Celtic sauna) they fan every person individually so that you really feel the warmth. In the Celtic sauna there was even a throne at the top for the hottest spot in the room; one good natured older guy took the challenge. The guy waving the flag spent an extra long time on him (“the king”) and I’m impressed he didn’t pass out!

One of my favourite parts was the “Al hambra” rest area with super-comfy water beds for a nap after all of that sweating.

Here is a Youtube video of the attractions if you’re still interested ;) I’d highly recommend a visit to the sauna as part of any winter trip to Germany.

http://www.therme-erding.tv/?v=i_ytTypabY8

And while on the topic of German culture, I just can’t help but provide you with the following link regarding a controversial new beer name the Germans have registered in the EU:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,686305,00.html

Hamburg, Germany

In the spring I ventured up into northern Germany for the first time and visited Hamburg, an ultra-cool harbour city known for its fish market and great night life. It still made me laugh though that the local people who live in Hamburg are called Hamburgers. I met an American woman living there who claimed “she fell in with love a Hamburger” and could never leave. Despite single-digit temperatures I still had a great time in this down-to-earth, laid back city.

Hamburg has a splendid city hall/legislature (yup, Hamburg is also a German state in and of itself as well as a city).

There weren’t very many old churches or other older buildings since anything which miraculously survived the great fire of 1842 was pretty much destroyed in the firebombing of WWII. In my high school social studies class you normally heard about Dresden being destroyed, but I had no idea that Hamburg was also carpet bombed by the allies. Apparently 35,000 died in only 4 air raids in the summer of 1943 and almost a million people were left homeless after operation Gomorrha.

I did a free walking tour pointing out all sort of interesting stuff including this Kontorhaus (literally counting houses which served as office buildings), which at one time had the distinction of the being the pointiest building in the world (I tried to find the world’s current title holder, but even Google couldn’t help me there).

Stolpërstein:

These “stumbling blocks” are the work of artist Gunter Demnig and are scattered throughout Germany. They are tiny memorials for a single victim of Nazism commemorating those deported and killed, generally placed where a victim lived or worked.

I did a Großhafenrundfahrt (aren’t German words cool?) which was a tour of the historic harbour including Speicherstadt (which literally translates to “Storage-city” although it’s now a trendy place with boutiques and €4,000 a month apartments) with canals, bricks and beautiful green copper roofs. We then went through some locks and into the modern harbour with the huge container terminal. The scale of it was pretty impressive, with cranes stretching out as far as the eye could see and thousands of container boxes stacked and lying around waiting to be loaded onto ships. A huge “Cosco” ship was being loaded while I cruised by with claws, cranes, and other machinery working away.

Historic harbour:

Speicherstadt:

Container terminal:

The centre of Hamburg night life is the Reeperbahn where the Beatles played at various local clubs at the start of their career. Hamburg claims the Beatles as their own since they spent nearly two years in the city and it’s where they had their big break. John Lennon once said “I might have been born in Liverpool - but I grew up in Hamburg".

Some of the famous bands who passed through the “Star Club”:

I went on a fun pub crawl which included some clubs with live acts including this guy who had a sort of Michael-Jackson-does-Metallica persona:

It may sound unusual, but I really liked the food in Hamburg. I had the best falafel I’ve had in Europe (rivalling Calgary’s fabulous Byblos Bakery) as well authentic Baklava and a delicious curry wurst (see picture below) for only €2.60. Hamburg is definitely more affordable than Munich.

Below is a statue paying tribute to Hamburg’s favourite pirate legend Klaus Störtebeker. Störtebeker is a nickname which apparently meant “empty the mug in one gulp” in old lower German. Legend has it that he could empty a four-litre mug of beer in one gulp. I’m sure he would have been a hit at Oktoberfest. Aside from his beer-guzzling abilities, he is celebrated as being the Robin Hood of the high seas who robbed rich merchant ships and gave to the poor. He was however caught and executed along with his men in Hamburg around 1400 AD. Legend has it that he negotiated with city’s mayor to release one man per step he took after being beheaded. His headless body supposedly managed eleven steps before the executioner (paid by each head and wanting to earn the maximum possible) tripped him with an outstretched foot. Apparently the mayor ordered that all of his men be killed anyway, but Störtebeker is fondly remembered by the entire city to this day.