Pride, pomp, and circumstance

Graduation. Well not quite. It’s a “presentation” ceremony, the degrees are issued by the University of London, not the LSE, and rather than being handed a rolled scroll with a ribbon I’ll get my sheepskin via the mail likely in an envelope stamped “do not bend.” I didn’t bother to attend the graduation of my Bachelor’s, even though it took me 4 years to complete, I just couldn’t be bothered to fly 5 hours across 3 time zones to listen to a list of names. Of course my folks are a different story, which is why they flew almost 7 hours to London at insane rates just to see me prance around in my magician’s robes.

I believe the last time my folks saw each other was my high-school graduation, about 6 years ago, suffice it to say I’m hoping this time it works out better. We start off by meeting my dad for breakfast at the Rock Garden café in Covent Garden. He’s pretty sharp looking but his face looks strained, similar to that of someone in a dentist’s chair. He must be more stressed than I am. We order a very sub-standard and over-priced English breakfast, why is it that the touristy places have to be expensive AND crap, the best English breakfast comes from the little smoky diner on your local corner.

I arrive at the LSE and pick up my robes, and then its paparazzi time, click click click. After a few dozen shots we go into the hot stuffy theatre for the ceremony. Its long, boring, and dull. We re-emerge to head to the foyer for the reception, champagne orange juice and little sandwiches, huzzah. Of course it wasn’t the ceremony that I came for, I came for my friends, and it is good to see them again. We meet at the White Hart on Drury Lane for some proper pints (versus the 25cl goblet you get in Brussels) and laugh and joke. The bar is full of the dense smell of smoke that reminds me that here in this centuries old bar in England there's still a little character, versus the sterile cookie-cutter chic yuppie bars so popular back home. For me the year at the LSE is much more than the end day in which I shook the hand of a director I never knew, but the hundreds of days before that where I met the people and had the experiences that shaped and changed me.

The next day Tatevik and I overeat at the buffet breakfast, a very bad choice since today is the designated meal day. The folks probably would have wanted to have a formal dinner on Wednesday after grad but my father made clear that he couldn't tolerate a common dinner, besides I wanted to see friends at the bar. It starts off with Dim Sum with my dad, he eyeballs a restaurant near Russel Square but I ask if we can go to Shanghai Blues near Holborn, my favourite Chinese place in London. With a posh decor and an entire menu page dedicated to teas, it can come off as pretentious but the food is damn good. Without a reservation we have to settle for a small table but its fine for only 3 of us. Tatevik's never had Dim Sum, or used chopsticks for that matter, so I enjoy watching her as the strange and colourful dishes come. After the meal we walk around Oxford street and then head to the Natural History Museum for ice skating. Unfortunately I accidentally take us off the tube at Knightsbridge so we walk quite a ways only to find the rink is a giant puddle and closed off. We wander the small market near the museum and then go in for the power tour as Tatevik drags us through all 4 sections of the museum in around 1 hour.

Even though its been almost 6 hours I'm still nowhere near hungry enough for what's coming next, but I wouldn't miss it for the world. I asked John to book "someplace expensive", and he indulges me by booking us a table in the Picasso room of l'Escargot in Soho. My cousin Casey and his wife are there, the powerhouse couple they're both loaded professionals working in the city, plus John, Mum, Sammy and Tatevik. Through the all the wine, food and laughs the 3-4 hour long dinner is exactly what I had in mind. Afterwards Casey, Lora, Tatevik and I grab a martini across the road. Unfortunately the combination of English, Chinese, French, and a lot of booze does a number on me that night, still it was all well worth it.

"Travel is only glamorous in retrospect" -Paul Theroux

No one really knows where the expression “Murphy’s Law” came from, but the most accepted theory was that it was coined by military scientists at Edwards Air Force Base (named after Murphy Edwards). The spirit of the law is that “if something can go wrong it will”, or “anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. So if you choose a line at the grocery store it will be the slowest, if you drop your toast it will land jammy side down, the day you forget your umbrella it pours and vice versa. In 5 days I travelled thrice, from Brussels-London-Paris-Brussels, and something had to go wrong at every step. At the same time though, amazingly, everything worked out at the end. Every ticket got printed, every train and plane was a caught, and no luggage was lost. So perhaps not everything that could go wrong did, but enough things went wrong to make the trip sufficiently colourful.

Brussels to London
Departing 12/12/06 19:35 at Brussels Airport

Brussels airport is only 1 bus stop away from NATO, so we opted to fly to London instead of the train. Its almost 6 and we’re ready to go when Tatevik calls, she thinks the French rail company has refunded her for a ticket she had bought. I check her statement and say that it appeared so. She had bought a ticket for New Year’s eve from Paris to Lyon when really she should have bought Paris to Bourg en Bresse. As with most modern day tickets it was the non-changeable, non-refundable, totally inflexible sort. Faced with the possibility of spending New Year’s alone in Lyon at the train station, Tatevik wrote what must have been an impassioned appeal to SNCF, who gave her back her money. Unfortunately she wants to buy the new ticket now, a process which slowly requires us to recheck that we have the right date, time, departure, and arrival station over, and over, and over. We buy the new tickets and print them but now we have to haul ass to the bus. We get to the airport and check-in, and are told that we cannot sit together and have to take middle-seats, I don't mind since its only an hour long flight (in theory). We shop around duty free for a while and then decide to go through security when we realize, oh shit, we’re screwed. The line is enormous, in typical Belgium style they have 3 security checkpoints and they are crawling along. We pick a line and begin waiting, but our flight leaves in 30 minutes and the line looks like its an hour.

We stand, I’m shifting my feet left and right like I have to pee and nervously peek above to see if in the past 3 seconds I’ve moved closer to the xray machine. I turn to Tatevik, “This is so typically incompetent, I haven’t waited in a security line this long since my flight 5 weeks after 9/11, and at least then there was a good reason for it.” Its at that moment that the eves dropping lady in front of me turns around, she’s about 5 feet tall and wide, with a huge poof of curly hair and clothes about a size too small, I hear her distinct American twang as she says “There’s still a very good reason for it.” I roll my eyes a little and say “I’m not so sure about that”. She turns back around muttering something about “well then you ought to go back where you came from”. I still don't know what she meant but fair enough, she believes in the necessity of airport security, she’s entirely entitled to hold that view. So when we finally get to the security checkpoint, I’m sure she doesn’t mind at all that she gets the full workdown by security, probably the reason why there is a huge queue. They take her aside, have her take off her shoes, riffle through her bags, I see her getting on some strange detector machine as I walk out. Tatevik and I spend about 5 seconds getting through, and I smile a little to myself as we leave her behind. We hustle off to our gate, and we would have missed the plane, were it not for the fact that its 30 minutes late, I’ve never been so thankful for a delayed flight. Unfortunately that wasn’t the only delay, due to winds we spend about 30 minutes circling pointlessly above Heathrow before finally landing only to wait again for a gate to dock into. Then it was a 23 stop ride on the Piccadilly line finally leading us to bed.

London to Paris
Departing 16/12/06 7:37 at Waterloo Station

I’ve seen the tragedy many times before, some hapless tourist buys a European train ticket on the internet with a credit card of a spouse, or one they just don’t take with them. Then they show up to collect their tickets at the station only to be told that, totally and without any exception, you cannot get your tickets without the credit card used for purchase. I’ve seen a woman on the verge of sobs as she’s told that there’s no way she can board her train without the credit card, “but my husband bought it”. In fairness they do have a disclaimer on the website now, even so the policy strikes me as idiotic, if it isn’t necessary for plane tickets why would it be for train, and the seat is reserved to the name, so why can’t a passport suffice?

We’re eating with my mum, stepdad John, and sister Samantha. My mum quips:

“During today’s shopping Sammy and I did a little damage on John’s credit card”.
“Why are you using John’s credit card?”
“Oh, well I have to, I left mine behind in Canada”
“You left it behind?! I bought your Eurostar tickets on it! You’re screwed you can’t get them now! I called you before to specifically tell you NOT to forget it!!!”

Well John and Mum have a common credit account, same numbers, different names. Maybe, maybe it can work with a little negotiation. I give mum and John their reservation numbers and tell them to go to Waterloo to sort it out.

The alarm goes off at 5am, I hate waking up this early. I turn it off but don’t get up, instead I just lie there and accidentally let 30 minutes pass by. I jump out of bed, oh God we have to pack, we have to get ready. We furiously stuff all the clothes into bags, shower, dress, and roll it all outside. Mum, John and Sammy are there. We’re taking the tube, a cab probably would have made more sense but in this quiet area there aren’t any roaming for fares and we don’t have time to book one. We take the Piccadilly to Leicester Sq. and switch to the Northern Line. We’re making good time when I say:

“Well maybe we can get a coffee”
“Oh, well we still have to get the tickets”
“What? Why didn’t you get the tickets yesterday!!”
“Well we decided that it would be a waste of two hours to go there twice”
“Do you have any idea how long this could take to sort out, you could miss your train!!”
“Well then we’ll just buy new tickets”
“Oh my god even buying your tickets in advance it cost hundreds of Euros!!! Two hours of your time isn’t worth that!!! Besides how do you know they even have 3 tickets still to sell!!”

It's as I’m saying this that I realize we’ve just left Tottenham Court Road, I shoot straight out of my chair. “Oh my god! We’re going in the wrong direction!!” We’re heading north instead of south, so we hop off at the next station and switch sides to go back south. I’m sitting in a daze cursing that I would have gladly gotten the tickets for them if they had just told me. We’re approaching Embankment, the station before Waterloo, when the announcer comes on “There are no trains going to Waterloo station, the Waterloo underground station is closed”. Shit! What are the odds!! We jump out of the train and I carry our heavy sack all the way to the top to catch a cab. We’re waiting opposite the Thames for a cab but its dark and there’s none around. Now the time is getting really close, and they still have to try and get their tickets. They are all asking how far it is to walk, I know exactly the path, we’d take the footbridge over and run past the National Theatre, at a good pace we could sweatily arrive in 15 minutes, but the ladies are wearing heels and we have bags. We see a cab heading in the other direction but it’ll do. The 5 of us plus luggage are a snug fit but we’re off.

We get in the station when it dawns on me that we’re at the wrong end of the station! Waterloo station is one of the longest ones with maybe 30 platforms, I take John’s credit card and the reservation number and run ahead with the suitcase. I’m trying to get the tickets for the 2nd time when they show up, its not working. We’ve got about 20 minutes until the train leaves but they only let you check in until about 10-15 minutes before, and then there’s security and passport control. John and Mum head for the queue as Tatevik and I get our tickets. I contemplate going ahead of them but then how will the day shape up, painfully I suspect. They’re at the front of the queue where a sympathetic Eurostar rep says she can sort them out and goes back to arrange the tickets. The big board changes to announce that our Eurostar train has gone from “Check-in”, to “Closing”, meaning that check-in will soon be closed off. Tatevik and I do our check-in at least, which consists of sliding your ticket into a turnstile of sorts. I can see them coming up so we head for security. We go through security and the passport line is enormous. We look behind to see that Mum, John and Sammy are at Security but they aren’t processing people until the passport line clears up. We go through passport control and wait, and wait. Its about 5 minutes until leaving when they come through. We head straight up to the platform and we’ve got car 16, one of the last, we’re walking down the train when its noticed that I’m not carrying the new attaché case my father gave me as a gift.

Do I leave it, do I get it, do I leave it, do I get it, what happens if the train leaves without me, will the bag go to lost and found or will they blow it up?? I take a step back and forth about 10 times when Tatevik says JUST GO!!! There’s no escalator down, its designed so that once your are on the platform you have to board the train. I have to run down opposite the escalator past people coming up while two very confused men checking tickets watch me. I say “I LEFT SOMETHING I’LL BE RIGHT BACK!!” I get back to the passport area, its also only one way, so I jump under the red cord to pass the police. No one pulling guns on me yet…I run to the xray machine at security and there’s my case with two guards looking at it with walkie talkies, I run up, its mine I say and rush off before they can answer. I go back to the passport line and go straight to the man who already stamped me, I say in panicky French that he’s already stamped me, he opens my passport which is riddled with stamps and decides to let me go. I run back up the escalator to the platform and am running alongside the train when I finally catch up to them. They are up near the dinning car when a man on platform starts running down blowing his whistle, they pull the stairs inside the train. “Get in, get in anywhere, just GET ON THE TRAIN!!” We jump the gap with the bags onto the train in the restaurant car with the man in the kitchen helping us, our bags barely make it in when the automatic doors close and lock. In near shock we stumble to our seats and collapse. Everyone can laugh about it except me who’s too tired even to smile. I take a tally at what I would have lost if I had left the case behind. Digital camera, new Burberry cufflinks (grad present), digital camera charger, 2 books, and of course the new case itself. Close… too close.

Paris to Brussels
Departing 17/12/06 20:55 at Gare du Nord

John, Mum and Sammy are taking their train about 15 minutes after ours so we all head to Gare du Nord together. The station is open air, cold and drafty. They’ve installed red pillars equipped with heat lamps inside and we move to stand by them. I leave Mum, John and Sammy with the bags while Tatevik and I go up to get our tickets. We put Tatevik’s card in the machine, it asks her for a pin, she doesn’t know the pin for this card. Well, we can do it at the counter. We join the queue, and I tell Tatevik to get her passport for ID. She asks, “where did I leave my passport?”, I calmly ask her to think about it, having an instant nightmare of having to grab a taxi to run back to the hotel. Its in her purse, relief. We get to the counter and we give the reservation code and card. We anxiously hope she doesn’t ask Tatevik to give a pin. She doesn’t, instead she just looks at us and says “This isn’t the card”. We tell her we are sure it’s the card and she tries again. I’m looking at our printouts when I see page 2, page 2 says that the purchase was under Taylor. Did I book it under my mum’s card? Oh shit, maybe, but she doesn’t have her card!!! I panic and explain to the lady that we don’t have the card, she tells me, predictably, that there’s no way to get the tickets. She suggests we buy new tickets, and agrees to refund our old ones even though we bought non-refundable tickets. But there are no tickets left on our train, only first class for a later train, it’ll cost 120 euros for the pair. I see no other choice when Tatevik reminds me that John’s card is here and that it has the same numbers. Its worth a shot. We leave her and I run to look for him.

They aren’t where I left them, I run up and down the station looking when I see mum alone, I ask her where John is, she says he’s left for a smoke. Just then Tatevik runs to me and urgently asks “Do you have my wallet?” “Me? No, why?” She says she doesn’t have it, my stomach sinks and I pat my pockets and pull out her wallet, I have no idea when or why I pocketed it, my brain is stressed and turned off. We spot John walking outside the station and we run to him. I explain the situation to him and take him with me. We go back to the lady and ask her to take John’s card. It doesn’t work. Well that’s it, les jeux sont faits, in my stressed and broken French I ask her to reimburse the old tickets and book new ones. Suddenly I look back at the printout that says Taylor, its for the Hotel, not the train tickets, so maybe we didn’t use my mum’s card. There’s still my card. I quickly ask her if she’s already refunded the ticket, she says no, I tell her there’s one more card that could possibly do it. I give her my visa. In the meantime I tell Tatevik who hasn’t followed the French conversation that we’re probably booking a later more expensive ticket. She’s asking how late, how will we kill time etc, when they lady announces that it’s the right card and pushes the tickets and everything through the little window. I can tell she’s had enough of us but we thank her so many times she breaks into a small small smile.

What do Prince and Macedonia have in common?

Last week I went with a colleague to the Macedonian delegation, we were reviewing a list of NATO activities that they want to participate in for 2007. The list of activities is chosen via a computer system, however the Macedonians refuse to use the system themselves, they boycott it because in the system they are labelled as FYROM. Macedonia became independent in 1993 and named itself the Republic of Macedonia. The Greeks rejected this name claiming that it belongs to Greek culture and the ancient Kingdom of Macedon, and that the modern day peoples who are descendants of slavic tribes have no claim to it. Nevermind that the people living in the region have self-identified as Macedonian since at least 1944, the Greeks refused to budge resulting in a dilemma at the UN, where the body could not admit the new state without an accepted name. The temporary compromise was to officially refer to the country as FYROM (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), a name that makes grows more archaic as each year passes. At NATO we use the official name FYROM, except the Turkish delegation which recognizes Macedonia, probably just to piss off the Greeks.

I forgot I was going to the Private Office today, and because I was pressed for time I didn't bother to shave. I stare disapprovingly at my peachfuzz in the mirror but there's nothing to do about it. I head in and wait for the Macedonian Foreign Minister to arrive, different levels of visitors get different degrees of treatment. Last week when it was a President the Sec-Gen went down to the front door to meet him and walked him up to the meeting room. The Foreign Minister has to make his own way up and he waits in the couch area for the Sec-Gen to come out, at just 30 he stands out a bit, though not nearly as much as me.

The Sec-Gen mentions the importance of resolving the name issue, as his predecessors have probably been doing for the past decade. I remember how once a colleague suggested that the computer system could maybe use flags instead of names for the countries, as a way around the dispute, I really wonder what the programmers who probably spent years studying engineering think about our requests.

Despite the fact that everyone knows the conflict is basically at a standstill everyone talks hopefully about resolving it. The foreign minister quips that he would be prepared to replace "former" with "future" and "Yugoslav" with "European", when the entire room laughs I wonder whether its because they all think its clever, or because they think its so unlikely.

Aachener Weihnachtsmarkt

Aachen (Aix-la-chapelle) is the westernmost city of Germany, and gets it name from the Roman Aquis-Granum because of the hot sulphur springs under the city. The holy roman emperor Charlemagne visited the town in the Christmas of 768 and decided to build his palace in the city so that he could enjoy the revitalising qualities of the springs. So it seemed only fitting that after the aching 2 hour long bus ride that Tatevik and I would head straight for the spa Carolus Thermen. Unlike the centuries old bath-houses you find in Budapest or Istanbul its totally modern. They have several whirpools and pools, some inside some outside where the steam rises up and makes clouds. We soak for about 2 hours taking in all the mineral-goodness and relish the heat before spending the rest of the day outside. The water's salt and minerals made us float up quite easily, including the little dress attached to Tatevik's bikini!

After the spa we were starved so we hit the market where all my favourite German treats were available. Our list of delicious goodies included reibekuchen (deep fried potato and onion cakes with applesauce), half-meter bratwurst, schweinehaxen (a roasted pig's leg), chocolate covered marzipan, and of course plenty of Gluhwein (mit rum or mit amaretto). We headed over to the famous Aachen Cathedral which was built by Charlemagne and contains a special shrine containing his bones (well, most of this bones). The most striking feature is the choir room which has glass windows rising up the entire length of the wall. The windows themselves had been destroyed numerous times because of war/fire and the current windows were installed after WW2 but are nonetheless very impressive. In order to see the choir (and the throne of Charlemagne), you have to take a tour and there is only one english tour per day. We went to buy tickets but the tour had sold out, so we had to buy tickets for a tour 2 hours later in German. Luckily I was able to sneak us into the English tour, the tourguide wasn't fooled though, we handed our tickets and she asked (these are for the 4pm tour yea? its ok just go ahead). A really lucky break since a tour at 4 would have really pressed us for time (and of course we wouldn't have understood anything). On the 2nd floor sits the very plain throne of Charlemagne, a simple chair consisting of marble slabs brought from Jerusalem where supposedly they were part of a pavement where Jesus stood.

We nearly get lost finding our way back to the bus but luckily we left a little time aside just in case, its another 2.5 hours back and despite traffic we are on time, too bad there's no warm spa bath waiting to help my back this time.

Croatian Presidential Visit

I spent about 10 minutes in the bathroom fixing my tie and picking lint off my jacket, staring in the mirror and fussing about something every 2 minutes. I headed off with a colleague to the private office, the small elite antechamber of power. Nicer furniture, nicer carpet, its own guard, not exactly swanky but by NATO standards it’s the Ritz. I’m introduced to a couple PO staff, they’ll introduce me to the Secretary-General downstairs, the President is running late though so it will be 10 minutes. I’m standing around when the SG whizzes by, its time to go. We’re in the front hall, the NOS people are wearing formal uniforms I haven’t seen before, there’s cameramen and people buzzing about. Somebody takes me up to the SG, I can just catch the end sentence of one of his aides who says “no you just have to shake his hand…”, the SG turns around and I’m introduced, one his aides asks “Who are you?” , “I’m an intern”, “ohhhh, you look like an intern!” ouch!

A police motorcycle rolls by the door and then the stream of black cars for the President’s motorcade, he rides in a silver car though, I wonder if its wise to single himself out. The SG goes up and gives him a warm handshake and we start to walk down the corridor, the camera men are walking backwards ahead of us to take photos for every moment. We go up to the private office and into a small meeting room. A moment of panic hits me as I wonder where in God’s name do I sit? Well there’s 5 on their side and they take one side of the table, so I opposite 1 over from the SG. The President starts off his remarks by introducing his delegation, this is my Defence Minister, this is my Deputy PM, etc etc. It dawns on one of the SG’s aides that no one told him my name, the colleague next to me leans over and quietly but pressingly asks “what is your name?”, he writes it down and slips it over to the SG, a moment later he introduces me like I’ve been an office fixture for years, very smooth.

Some Ground Rules

I've always had a thing against blogs, mostly because they strike me as egotistical. A webpage dedicated to you and what you think, its almost like building a shrine to yourself. I mean who reads these anyways. The internet gives you access to hundreds and hundreds of pages about every interesting topic from 19th century pornography to which celebrity marriage is likely to end in tears. So who wants to read about what I'm up to?

So why start one? Well, a blog also has the quality of being a kind of mirror for yourself. One or two entries don't really amount to much, but people who have had long running blogs have a kind of record that outlines them in a way, sort of like personal journals. I have a journal actually (its in the photo), I bought it years ago in a small art store off Spadina in Toronto. I mostly filled it with details from trips I've taken, the museums I saw, the restaurants I liked, people I met in hostels, etc. I also pasted a lot into it, especially air and ticket stubs, so its like a scrapbook. I've only ever shared it with 1 other person, and even then I kept parts of it to myself, because of that it will always be a much more honest record. Blogs are read by your friends, and who really wants to fess up to being a total ass on a public webpage. So I think by their nature blogs must always portray the author as better than they are. Anyways while I like the journal I haven't touched it in over a year, who has time to get out the pens and sit and write anymore. There's a small chance I might be able to regularly write here.

I obviously have issues with blogs, so I've made a few commandments to help me:

1. I will write in it only when there is something worth writing. There is no need for anyone to know what I bought in the grocery store.

2. I will not write political editorials. I share my opinion often enough in a bar, I might still toss a remark in here now and then but no dedicated entries.

3. I will not mudsling, people who trash talk on blogs are cowards.

4. I will not write articles about girlfriends/dating/breakups/etc

5. I will not get dramatic

6. I will use full sentences with proper spelling and grammar, cuz its n. a sms whr u pay per lttr

Ok, well this is good to begin with, I'll probably add some and then break some, but let's get started...