Tag Archives: summer

Community on a European Vacation

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As it turns out, the recipe for Community is very simple; Singing in public, beer, and a little dash of wild animal. Surprisingly, I am not talking about drunken nights of karaoke (exclusively). I recently spent 6 weeks studying in Copenhagen, Denmark and followed that up with a two week northern European Vacation. Below is a selection of the top five community building places and activities I encountered in my travels. These are the things that made me think, “Man oh man, I wish I could do this at home!”

 

1. Mauerpark Market and Bearpit Karaoke (Berlin)

Late on a Sunday morning we headed over to Mauerpark for the Berlin’s local favourite flea market. After several hours of exploring the winding stalls of the outdoor market, with several stops to rest in mini-manufactured-beach beer gardens, we had had our fill of bargain hunting and novel snacks. So, made our way over to Bearpit Karaoke just outside the market gates. We were lucky enough to arrive just in time to hear a rousing rendition of Frank Sinatra’s My Way performed by a bearded, German, older gentleman. I was not entirely surprised to find out that this was not his first time in the Bearpit. The only performer who gave him a run for his money was this little girl who made the crowd fall silent before we all joined in to clap along with her song. It was a gorgeous day and the hill over the stage was stacked with people of all ages and walks cheering on the performers. The organizers turned an umbrella, a wagon, a laptop, and some speakers into one of the best boundary breaking, community-building events I have been to.

 

2. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Denmark)

This was my favorite museum and is a great example of how to make art an accessible and fun experience for a wide range of people. Before I made the trip myself I had heard from many people who couldn’t speak highly enough of the museum and one who said he took his kids there as often as possible. After spending several hours exploring the facility, all that I felt was missing was that feeling of backache that usually accompanies long walks on hard museum grounds. These grounds were not the usual museum grounds though and moved the visitor almost seamlessly between in and outdoor exhibits. There was even one point when we got to use a slide for transportation! (A transportation method that should be adopted on a much wider scale.)  Exploring the outdoors was a refreshing way to discover Louisiana’s impressive collection of sculptural works against a backdrop of the beautiful Øresund beach front and manicured hills that are perfect for a picnic on one side of the property and a beautiful lake nestled into a wooded area on the opposite side.

 

3. Midsummer’s Eve Celebrations (June 23, Copenhagen)

People go out en masse, not just to one spot but basically to any park, beach, or barge in town. They eat hogs, drink beer, and laugh and chat until someone lights a huge bonfire with a scarecrow/witch on top. That’s when they start singing in unison. Amazing.

 

4. A la Mort Subite (Brussels)

Founded in 1928, this was a stunningly beautiful Belgian bar whose name translates to  “At the Sudden Death”. Well if sudden death were to strike, there are plenty worse places you could be. Picture soaring ceilings, golden yellow walls and pillars, and locals enjoying a selection of Belgian beers so flavorful that it is probably impossible for anyone to claim they don’t like the taste of beer after trying these variations. This place had an incredible community atmosphere. We sat down at one of the long communal tables next to an older couple from Brussels who were only too happy to share with us the secret of the Brussels classic brew called Gueuze (it has to do with a reaction between the yeast and a bacteria that is only found in the air in Brussels) and their life long dream to travel to Canada. A perfect Belgian experience.

 

5. Elephants in the Park (Frederiksberg, Denmark)

Anyone who remembers when the Vancouver Zoo had a place in Stanley Park is not likely to have forgotten how awesome it was to go and watch the polar bears from the zoo’s outer confines. The Copenhagen Zoo has elephants that you can get within about 40 meters of from the surrounding park without paying the zoo’s hefty entrance fee. They play and throw dirt and swim and splash and break sticks and lift logs and sit on each other. Watching gigantic, beautiful, social creatures makes for easy conversation with the other observers and was a perfect place to chat with the very friendly Danes who always seem to out for a leisurely afternoon. The elephants were a mere five-minute walk from my apartment so I made a practice of visiting regularly.

If we can’t travel to Europe or have elephants in our backyards at least we can get together to drink some great craft brews and sing about it. Anyone got a karaoke machine?

 

 

 

 

Month Long Heatwave (and counting)

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July was the hottest month on record for Ontario. While many parts of Canada have had to deal with lacklustre summer-weather, we’ve had the opposite. We’re just coming off the 6th heat alert of the season and on July 21st Toronto’s temperatures peaked at 37 C with a humidex making it feel like 51. This kind of heat isn’t always easy to deal with; it can be uncomfortable and sometimes even dangerous. But it is possible to coexist with it and I don’t mean just moving between air-conditioned spaces. There are lots of little things that Jim and I have started doing this summer that has made the heat easier to tolerate.

  • Windows and Fans: We’ve adopted an old fashioned approach to keeping our apartment cooler. Despite the heat during the days there have been very few nights where the temperate didn’t drop to at least the mid-20s. During the days we keep our windows and blinds closed. And at night we open them up and use a fan to blow the cooler air in. Using this approach means we’ve only had to turn our AC on a handful of times when the nightly temperature didn’t drop.
  • Summer Kitchen: We’ve pretty much stopped cooking inside. But that doesn’t mean that we’ve stopped cooking. Instead, cooking has moved to our back deck by using a barbeque and propane burner. Most of our canning will likely also take place outside this year, which seems like a much better place to have a large pot of boiling water.
  • Early Mornings: The coolest hour of the day is usually 5am and it isn’t a coincidence that it also happens to be around the same time that I run. Since I dislike indoors exercise more that waking up really early, I’ve made the adjustment. Outdoor activity is still possible later in the day, it is just a lot slower and sweatier.
  • Yogurt Pops: Cool and hydrating is a necessity for snacks. My favourite recipe is yogurt pops: 1 cup of in season fruit (berries or peaches usually), 1 cup of yogurt, and a tablespoon of honey mixed in a blender and frozen in pop moulds.

And in the spirit of John Horn’s positivity, here are a few reasons to love the steamy summer days in Ontario:

  1. Smog-less heat – it seams that despite all the heat there really haven’t been that many days where air quality has been an issue (not like a few years ago). I suggest it likely has something to do with the Provincial government’s Green Energy Act and closing coal fired power plants. Regardless, the heat and humidity are a lot easier to take when it isn’t also asthma inducing.
  2. Greenhouse growing conditions – there is very little diversity in my container garden (unless 12 different varieties of tomato plants count as diversity). But the tomatoes, jalapeno peppers and basil that I do grow are thriving in the heat and humidity, which is basically a replication of the conditions found in greenhouses elsewhere.
  3. Siestas – who doesn’t like a good excuse to nap, even if it is heat induced? While my working days are powered by Markham District Energy’s distributed cooling system (basically a community sharing AC), my weekends aren’t and as a result I’ve started to enjoy the occasional nap to get through the worst of the heat.

 

DANGER: The Sun will Melt Your Community!

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Undeniably – at least here on the West Coast – summer has arrived. And, for 99% of the population, the sunny days of May, June, July, August, and some of September make for an “enjoyable” and/or “the best” part of peoples’ year. Today, though, I’d like to talk about the 1% – or less – of people who truly dislike summer. In this group you’ve got your goths, vampires, body-self-conscious-folks, ice-fisher-people, and senior citizens (but, really, they don’t like any season because of how young people today have ruined it). Also included in the 1% are people like me, who are both terrified of and angry with Mr. Sun because we are allergic to him.

The condition is called porphyria. It is very rare and was made famous by vampires and King George III, who allegedly “went mad” on account of his Sun disorder (as it turns out, monarchs have to be outside a lot). Fun fact: King George III was the guy who “lost” the American colonies to a group of tempestuous oligarchs, and the United Kingdom has been pretty much anti-Sun ever since.

There are different kinds of prophyria out there, and the one I was lucky to win in the crappy-disease-lottery is called eurythropoietic protoporphyria, which means that, because of extremely heightened photo-sensitivity, the porphyrins in my blood react very, very badly to ultraviolet rays – I describe this way: “it’s like being sun-burned from the inside-out – basically my blood boils, my energy is sapped, and, if it gets bad enough, a chain reaction of swelling, sores, scabbing, and scarring will put me out of commission for a few days.” For me, summer is a time of war against an unbeatable nemesis. His name is Apollo and, cloudy or not, he meets me for battle every single day.

For the record and with full disclosure, I have a very, very mild case of porphyria – there are folks out there who can’t go outside during a full moon, even with SPF 60 sunscreen.

So why am I telling you this? Well, the world being too hot and sunny is one of the biggest problems facing our global community these days. In the middle of our planet – and for a myriad of human and natural reasons – desertification is slowly eroding lush greenery and the water sources and two/four-legged food that make it a habitable place. With the greenery gone so goes most, if not all, of the natural shade. Such an inhospitable environment creates climate refugees – people who have to travel North or South in search of, well, let’s just call it “shade from the Sun” and let that be a metaphor we can all understand. More or less.

So, such is the case today in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Australia. But what about here, in Cascadia, twenty years from now? How will we cope with hotter, sunnier summers?

From me (a guy who has the superhuman ability to find shade and protect himself from the Sun) to you (a person who probably knows what suntanning feels like), here are some tips on how you can prepare for the future:

  1. Invest in a wide-brimmed hat. Cowboy, Tilly, Pirate, or Sombrero – they’re all good and they will all be in high demand in the future; start your stockpile today!
  2. Make friends with tall people. Tall people are automatic shade-makers. Enough said.
  3. Buy or make a UV-proof umbrella and/or tarp. Cool, shady brands like No Zone aside, such inventions are, sadly, few and far between; using umbrellas to ward off harmful UV rays is already popular in Asia and Africa, so you can start the trend here on the West Coast with one of these fine designs.
  4. Long sleeves, long pants and gloves. Let’s face it, gloves are cool and historically sexy – since Pharaohs sought to protect themselves from dust, Sun and slaves, gloves have been a part of out cultural fabric. Wearing them here and now might feel weird at first, but you’ll get used to it.
  5. “The Full Ninja” (pictured). Pictures say a thousand words, and this happy little outfit has gotten me through hikes, camping and road trips, as well as a jaunt through East Africa.

John and his friend, Sun-worshiper Natalie, on a summer hike across Nootka Island on the West Coast

So there it is. With this knowledge in your toolkit, I think and hope, you will be well-prepared to cope with the Sun. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it takes a bit of time to layer-myself-up for the walk from my office to the bus stop.

And, believe me when I say this, friends, whether it’s tomorrow or a billion years from now, the Sun has a pretty clear and transparent plan to engulf us all in giant balls of fiery death. I recommend you start planning for tomorrow today.

Good luck. And have fun with it.

Farmer’s Markets Coming to Your Community Soon

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That’s right. Pretty soon Farmer’s Markets across the lower mainland will be pitching their tents around the city and offering up local fare for fabulous (usually…) prices.

I love Farmer’s Markets and am incredibly excited about the season that’s set to start soon. In the past I’ve had some great experiences picking up fresh and tasty vegetables (thank you Courtenay Farmer’s Market) and sightseeing in the open air of the market (Ladner and Kits Farmer’s Markets).

Perhaps the keenest part about the whole experience is that it gives us urban dwellers a chance to taste (eat your heart out Costco sampling booths) and purchase produce, meat, fish, and honey (honey seems to be the main staple of almost all the markets I’ve been to). In fact part of the beauty of the whole experience is that everything is seasonal and you’ll never know quite what sort of food will pop up that weekend.

The experience certainly beats the Safeway shopping sojourn and even (gasp!) the East End Food Co-op grocery run.

Nothing is more fun than trying a small piece of smoked salmon in the open air of Steveston as gulls crow about in the distance and the fisherman who caught the fish stands proudly near by.

So, without further adieu, here’s a little list of some of the market’s springing up this summer:

Trout Lake Farmers Market Saturdays, May – October
9am – 2pm each week
May 16 – October 10
15th Avenue & Victoria Drive in the Parking Lot of Trout Lake Community Centre
Map of Market Location

West End Farmers Market Saturdays, June – October
June 6 – October 24
9am – 2pm each week
1100 Block of Comox Street across from Nelson Park at Mole Hill
Map of Market Location

Main Street Station at Thornton Park Wednesdays, June – October
June 10 – October 21
3pm – 7pm
Thornton Park across from the VIA Rail Station and near the Main St Skytrain Station
Map of Market Location

Kitsilano Farmers Market Sundays, June – October
June 7 – October 25
10am – 2pm each week
10th Avenue and Larch Street, Parking Lot of Kitsilano Community Centre
Map of Market Location

Winter Farmers Market Alternate Saturdays, starting November 8, 2008 – April 25, 2009
November 8, 22 December 6, 20
January 3(cancelled), 17, 31 February 14, 28
March 14, 28 April 11, 25
10am – 2pm
WISE Hall, 1882 Adanac Street at Victoria Drive
Map of Market Location

Holiday Market Saturday only Annually in December
Saturday, December 12, 2009
11am – 6pm
Croatian Cultural Centre, 3250 Commercial Drive *new location*

To get more info – check out Vancouver farmer’s market site…

Opening Doors to Coolness

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Open doors invite conversation and community. Closed doors don’t. But here’s a way to build community and keep cool this summer.

This summer, I’m anticipating our little apartment turning into a sauna. Our apartment won’t be the only one in the building like this. So how do we avoid baking like turkeys in an oven? We could buy fans and leave them running day and night, running up the electric bills. Or we could go out and buy (go consumerism!) a fancy air conditioning machine and deal with the heat LA style. Or we could just suck it up and recognize in the summer, its supposed to be hot.

Well, how about secret door number four (pun intended). Open up your doors and bang on the doors of your neighbours and see if they will open there’s when they are around. Suddenly a jet of air flows through the building. Suddenly you have an apartment of open doors (infinitely more neighbourly). You’ve also got the cool and warm air are moving through the building, sans electricity. You’re using physics as your own personal air conditioner. Go physics!