Vacation News From Europe

For most North Americans Europe is a gigantic theme park off the coast of Great Britain. It has wine, cheese, art and architecture, and even though it’s full of arrogant foreigners, we love to go there. Of course, nobody west of Cape Cod actually cares what happens in Europe unless it happened in World War II. However, every once in a while, European events do break through the MSNBC/FOX stranglehold on news — especially if they affect North American vacation plans. That’s what happened last week.

Ireland Legalizes Same Sex Marriage.

What a blatant cash grab! The Irish are the biggest tourism whores ever. Not content with marketing shamrocks, shillelaghs, leprechauns, Bono and the colour green, now they’re after the international DINK (double income/no kids) community. Make no mistake: those DINKs have money and the Irish want to get their hands on it. To hell with the dying Celtic Tiger. The Irish are going to create a wedding bells/honeymoon destination without any heterosexual limitations ’cause there’s a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. If you thought the line for The Blarney Stone was long before … this summer, DINKs will be everywhere — on tour buses, hanging out in the pubs, peeking out the windows of the Bed & Breakfasts. Personally, I think it’s brilliant, and when Irish TV starts broadcasting Gay Divorce Court, I’m totally watching.

French Government Makes It Illegal For Supermarkets To Destroy Edible Food. They Must Donate It To Charity.

This is one of the meanest moves in French history. In a nation of culinary snobs, forcing the poor to eat leftovers has got to be the ultimate slap in the face. Whatever happened to LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ? Basically, it’s, “Here’s the deal, mon frère: we’re all equal, but your Coq au vin is cold!” It’s like a modern Marie Antoinette saying, “Let them eat day-old cake.” And we all know what happened when the original Marie stuck her nose into French cuisine — heads did roll. I don’t expect the Parisian mob to be shouting “Aux barricades!” any time soon, but there will be repercussions. Rumour has it that Le Metro workers might go on strike this summer, and French waiters aren’t going to be quite so jovial as they have been in the past.

And that’s the news from Europe, North America — see you next year.

Letter to the Passport Office

Although I just got this letter it’s been running around the Internet for some time now. Normally, I don’t pass on e-mails but this one is too hilarious to miss. It styles itself as real — it’s not (since I received it I’ve seen a couple of different versions.) I’ve updated it a bit and cleaned up some of the language but aside from that it’s exactly as it came to me. If you’ve ever filled out a government form you’ll love it. Enjoy!

Dear Mr. Minister,
I’m in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this.
How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a TV cable from them back in 1997, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date.
For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand?
You have my birth date on my social insurance card, and it is on all the income tax forms I’ve filed for the past 30 years. It is on my health insurance card, my driver’s license, on the last eight goddamn passports I’ve had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I’ve had to fill out before being allowed off the planes over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms.
Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother’s name is Maryanne, my father’s name is Robert and I’d be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I die!
I apologize, Mr. Minister. I’m really pissed off this morning. Between you an’ me, I’ve had enough of this bull! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my freakin’ address. What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals workin’ there?
Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Edward Snowden? I don’t want to destroy Western Civilization for God sakes. I just want to go and park my ass on a sandy beach in the sun.
And would someone please tell me, why would you care whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I’d sure as hell not want to tell anyone!
Well, I have to go now, ’cause I have to go to the other end of the city and get another copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of $60 !!!
Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day??
Nooooo, that’d be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You’d rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find somebody to confirm that it’s really me on the goddamn picture – you know, the one where we’re not allowed to smile?!
Morons!
Hey, you know why we can’t smile? We’re totally pissed off!
Signed – An Irate Canadian Citizen.
P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it’s me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776 when one of my forefathers took up arms against the Americans. I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had security clearances up the yingyang.
I was aide de camp to the lieutenant governor of our province for ten years and I have been doing volunteer work for the RCMP for about five years.
However, I have to get someone to verify who I am – you know, someone like my next door neighbour, Mr. Park, who was born and raised in the South Korea.

Culture Shock, Jetlag and Me

There’s a fundamental difference between 3:15 a.m. and 4 in the morning. Four in the morning is “Famous Blue Raincoat” cool. It has the sound of smooth blues and dim brick cafe light; silhouette wooden chairs and a remembrance of stale yesterday in its eyes. 3:15 a.m., on the other hand, is just sleeplessly maddening. It’s the exotic and the ordinary, separated by 45 minutes. Intercontinental travel is like that: yesterday and today separated by a few lost hours stranded in the sky. In the end, you’re left with a middle of the night kitchen table, ordinary dark from a street light window and the room full of deep roasted Italian morning, dripping into the coffee pot on the counter. Two equidistant perceptions processed at the same time. Utterly confused by what the senses know to be true, they shut down, and for long minutes you stare-face — catatonic into the weakening darkness. You know morning will eventually arrive, but it isn’t going to be Italian and no amount of caffeine boost European stimulates can change that. It’s called culture shock and it’s not supposed to happen when you come home.

Human beings were never meant to climb into aluminum tubes and fling themselves across oceans, time and space. We were meant to stay home, close to the fires of our own tribe, huddled together against the “others” for warmth and protection. That’s what fifty thousand years of step-by-step civilization has taught us. Twenty-first century cultural voyeurism, sped forward by jet engines and the insanity of cheap airfares, is unnatural and disturbing.

The problem is nothing prepares the traveller for the “other” tribe. No amount of tourist tales, photographs or video recordings can replicate the smell of hot tea on a Galway cold morning. No carefully arranged after-dinner story is as lovers’ quarrel loud as an eavesdropped afternoon in the Borghese, when she finally throws the ring in his face. It doesn’t work that way. You need boots on the ground. Unfortunately, once you get them there you’re already lost. That exotic you so carefully loaded into your vacation starts passing for normal, and the ordinary life you put on pause to get there (here) becomes a familiar memory.

This morning, I’m reminded (again) that Italian coffee doesn’t travel further than the street it’s supposed to be brewed on; this place, strange as it may seem, is my house; and despite the fact that my mind thinks it’s cocktail hour yesterday, it’s nearly dawn in what feels like tomorrow. It’s called jetlag and my theory is that it’s Mother Nature’s way of holding culture shock at bay.

Essentially, the hours scattered like unruly sheep need time to re-flock into a new normal. Meanwhile, the senses, unable to process the discordant information they’re receiving, shut down to give the synapses time to catch up. So the dripping coffee pot becomes an hour glass; the half-light night, an incubator; and that strange 45 minutes between exotic and ordinary, the gestation period – because all true travellers are really cultural mutations struggling to be reborn.

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