darrenchartier.ca

i’ve been keeping my eye on the prorogation kerfuffle, in particular the discussion happening in blog posts by people like remarkk and the members of the extended changecamp community, trying to get my mind around this “moment” as Mark likes to call it, and i’m left with a vague unease.

of course i’m uneasy over what’s happening in ottawa, we have a minority prime minister actively subverting the democratic institution with seemingly great effect. it may sound like hyperbole to say that having government answerable to parliament (no matter how screeching and ineffectual the house may and often be) is one of the fundamental principles of democracy in canada, but it’s bloody true. yes we have other pillars holding up our system here in Canada*, but i can’t help but feel that this prorogation is just the latest sign of a system crumbling under it’s weight. AB, a commenter on remarkks post decrying complacency, would disagree (as would others) but just because something is technically legal doesn’t make it right or good for democracy or society.

we’re really lucky in canada, so lucky that most people don’t bother to become involved in politics at all. i don’t really blame them. unlike Mark, i’m not particularly angry at people who don’t bother to vote (although i do try to convince them to do so, even if only to spoil their ballot), politics is a game with weird rules filled with unlikeable players who often make terrible decisions while acting like spoiled children who won’t share their toys. i wouldn’t care either, if i wasn’t obsessed with trying to figure out why our world is so eff’d up and looking for ways to make it better.

Mark has made a call for people to get up, do something. connect with their communities, and somehow, we’ll forge a new world and come up with “something better”. i believe this is possible, but i worry. we may come up with “something just as bad” or “something worse”. in an effort to both act on his call and satisfy my own worries, i think it’s important for us to talk concretely about what it is we’re doing. what is this new present we’re trying to make?

i don’t know what it is, but i think i can try to describe some of it’s attributes.

• it’s definitely more connected. individuals matter more but some individuals matter more than others. we can talk about how the internet allows for anyone to hop on their digital soapbox but the fact remains that building a strong network you can influence is work. if you have the time and resources to do that work good for you, but recognize that there are lots of people who don’t (or don’t want to) and who are only perhiperally connected. these people still matter.
• it’s definitely global. sure in canada we’ve got a prime minister who has gone prorogue, but democracy is under threat everywhere. it’s not a question of having good versus bad people in power, democracy pretty much guarantees that we’ll always (at some different points in time) have stupid/mean/corrupt/evil people in power at some point or other, the problem is that our democratic processes aren’t resilient enough in our new global/technical/connected context when the inevitable dumbass comes around.
• it’s definitely more equal (for some). among my group of friends, and my wider network of connected individuals it doesn’t really matter if you’re black, white, aboriginal, asian, indian, gay, bi, straight, baptist, atheist, or muslim. yes we all bring our own point of view, but your cultural identity doesn’t exclude you. that said, you’re not excluded by virtue of race, religion or sexual orientation, but there aren’t really very many people in the wider networked group i’m observing who aren’t university educated or working in a professional capacity.

i think that the change we’re (and i say we, but i can only of course speak for myself) all actively participating in has those attributes. it’s still too vague for my liking though, and i don’t agree that simply re-establishing community is enough. we need to change institutions and the rules of democracy to update them for our new context. we need to get into the difficult details. i think we need to stop fiddling with the symptoms, and start thinking about tackling the very real, and very tough problems with foundational code underlying our society. in canada that means the constitution, but what we’re going through is (i think, hunch really, but i trust my hunches and maybe one day i’ll try to write out a justification for it) symptomatic of a wider global difficulty with trying to come up with a governance system that fits the new reality.

*namely an independent judicary enforcing a strong set of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, a fundamental lack of corruption amongst our public bureaucracies (this is not to say our bureaucracy isn’t without it’s faults, but i have yet to be asked for a bribe by any public official. try getting through a routine traffic stop in many parts of the world without paying i a bribe) and a democratic process (read: elections) that is generally not open to cheating

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politics by darren

let me just set something straight, i don’t normally travel completely plan-less. normally i have a good month or two of research before i go somewhere, so even if i don’t have a reservation (although i do make them when i know for 100% certain i want to hit a particular spot) i have a good sense of what i’d like to do and what my options are.

this isn’t the case with this trip. for those that don’t know, i’ve been a bit busy at work for the past couple months, and this isn’t so much a vacation i’m on as a forced escape from work. i don’t want to burn out, so i needed to get away, simple as that. in the limited planning i had done Switzerland was not much more than a good location from which to get to france and italy, not a destination i had planned to explore thoroughly in and of itself.

so, imagine my surprise that i find myself visiting nothing but Switzerland for this trip. the reasons were simple, the route to Italy was through Switzerland, giving this country enough time to impress upon me that ‘hey, wait a second, what’s all this then?’. it’s an astoundingly beautiful country. also, the Canadian dollar is almost the same as a swiss franc in value, so it’s easier to gauge expenses (bloody expensive) while the euro is more than $1.60! one quick purchase later and i had an all Switzerland rail pass and no idea what to do with it.

this, of course, is all a lead up to explain how, at 1pm today, i ended up in Gimmelwald (wow, beautiful) at the mountain hostel, where, if you’ll peruse their website, you’ll see that they don’t open until the 18th of April. ahem

Petra, the owner, was around when i arrived and graciously offered me the run of the hostel, even to stay the night in the empty hostel should i wish. it was gorgeous, and until about 5pm it was my plan to do so. after hiking up to Müren, enjoying a late lunch and a cappucino i returned to the hostel ready to get some domestic chores done, shower/shave, wash clothes, catch up on my blogging/photo processing & organizing, etc. having showered, and started my laundry i then discovered that the internet was down. faced with a long boring night in an empty hostel on a coldd mountain (it’s warm during the day, but even down in luzern it was sweater weather at night) i’ve decided to leave while i still could, semi-damp clothes be damned.

now i’m on the train, after catching the second last gondola/bus/train combo out of gimmelwald, heading back to interlaken in search of a hostel. if all goes according to plan, i’ll be posting this while drinking a beer and eating dinner. *fingers crossed*

p.s. found a wonderful hostel in interlaken – the happy inn lodge.Only one room left, a single room all to myself (perfect for drying all the clothes that was still damp), will stay another night in the dorm. joining a group going to the highest trainstation in europe tomorrow (over 3000meters!), many pics to follow.

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over 3km’s above sea-level, and the cellular phone reception is better than in my apartment.

today i went to visit titlis, a popular skiing mountain in the luzern area. there’s a train directly to the town, engelberg, where you then take a series of ski lifts and/or gondolas to the peak. the train from luzern to engelberg takes just about an hour, and it takes perhaps another 30 – 45 minutes to make it all the way to the peak. the whole thing is very surreal to me.

(more…)

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for vasta, people i’ve met

it usually take a few days to go from ‘normal’ to ‘travel’ mode, thankfully i managed to fast track my entry into traveler mode thanks to my roommates in the hostel, a couple interesting people who helped keep me awake and fighting off the jet-lag.

Marc, from Spain.

Marc came into the room right as i was wondering how exactly i would stay awake for the next hour or two (it was around 9pm) in order to put my sleep schedule back in order. within five minutes of his arrival he was sitting next to me, giving me a detailed account of his whirlwind tour of Switzerland, complete with hundreds of photos to accompany the story.

Marc’s a young guy, living just outside of Barcelona where he’s going to university. he’s catalan, and when he started to explain to me what it meant to be catalonian vs. spanish, i was able to simply say “ah, like Quebec, i understand”.

i was way too tired to remember the details of his trip, but i know he went to Zürich, luzern and interlaken (places that i now intend to visit, in part thanks to his enthusiastic descriptions), but the one detail i do remember was his particular talent at posed photographs. i don’t think i’m exaggerating when i say he took at least a hundred self portraits with his little camera and tripod – i call it the “Marc Style Photo”

my attempt at a "Marc Style" photo

Marc, having helped me stay awake for at least an hour, left the room to take some night shots of Geneva, while I gave up and prepared to go to sleep regardless of the consequences of sleeping too early.

Kristine, a Canadian living in Germany who missed her flight to the UK

thankfully, distraction arrived again, this time in the form of Kristine a fellow Canadian (from Oakville) who had missed her flight due to a delayed train. she’s in the UK by now, visiting her boyfriend, but she lives in Frieburg, Germany while she’s doing her masters degree in materials science (studying solar cells, how cool is that?).

she was super friendly and nice, despite the crappy circumstance of missing her flight, and within 5 minutes of learning that i had just arrived in Geneva from Toronto she was trying to convince me to go visit her in Frieburg, offering me a space on her couch (apparently Frieburg is a very beautiful medieval town, worth a stop if you’re in the area).

she told me about living in Europe, and the strange combination of homesickness and attachment to Europe that develops when living here. on the one hand you miss your friends and family, the unique Canadian’ness of Canada. on the other, the thought of all the huge, unnecessary cars, the lack of decent regional transit (seriously, why can’t we have trains like in Europe?) and the lack of town squares and decent little cafe’s everywhere counts against Canada in a big way.

unfortunately in a bout of stupid i accidently deleted the photos i had taken of Marc and Kristine, i’m FB friends with Marc now, so i’ll try to get him to send me the photo he took of us and update the post
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when i was home, thinking about how i’d like to spend the 10 or so days i had available to me, i used a combination of googlemaps and various flight booking sites to pick somewhere that was both interesting to me and not too expensive to get to. that’s how i ended up in Geneva, it seemed the most geographically close to a few areas of interest, France and Italy. Switzerland was really just a side bonus, i’d heard it was nice but never had a burning desire to visit, it certainly wasn’t in my top-ten to visit spots. imagine my surprise then as i purchased an eight day all Switzerland rail pass today.

it turns out that switzerland is absolutely gorgeous in the spring, or at least i have lucked out and hit a particularly beautiful patch of weather. 20C and sunny, warm enough to walk around in a short sleeved shirt, but cool enough that you’re never hot. so, in the interest of simplifying my life, and knowing in advance just how much i’ll be spending on transportation (it’s pretty damned expensive here), i’ve decided to stick to switzerland.

ok enough blather about my plans… going back to basics, i’ll leave you with a mini review of my dinner.

restaurant santa lucia – Zürich (all amounts in swiss francs)
1 bottle san pelligrino water – 5.20
pizza prosciutto alla spalla – 20.00

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travel by darren

well i made it to geneva in one piece, but next time i’m packing some sleeping pills. for some reason i always forget just how unpleasent inter-continential flights are for me in cattle class. being a 6 foot 1 man in a seat too small for a 5 foot 7 woman makes it a very uncomfortable experience. i alway imagine before taking a red-eye flight that i’ll get a solid 4 hours of sleep in, but never manage to make more than 2. live and learn i guess.

enough complaining, i’m in geneva! it’s 20C and beautiful. no real stories yet as i’m tired as fricken hell, but i’ll give you some photos, and maybe a movie or two.

check out the set

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travel by darren

my approach to blogging is, at best, spotty. if i’ve posted on average once a month for since i started this blog i’ll be surprised. it’s not like i’m not doing other things, i’m super busy at work (where, believe it or not, i write the occasional blog post), and i do have a regular podcast with the most awesomest person in D.C., but in general i let darrenchartier.ca slide unless i’m particularly exercised about some issue or other (or have new photos of my tattoo to share).

but, there is one area of blogging which i do believe i have a pretty good track record. travel blogging. i like to travel, generally alone, and while travelling along nothing focuses the mind on what’s happening everyday like keeping a travel blog. in the past i’ve treated travel blogging as one off projects, first with something that wasn’t really a blog but more a thorough flickr adventure documenting my trip to italy, then with my gastronomic exploration of thailand (with a big of japan thrown in for good measure), and most lately with my first adventure into the crazy world of videoblogging (OMFG lots of work), also gastronomically inclined.

well, i’m taking another vacation (to offset the many many evenings and weekends i’ve been putting in lately, and will likely be putting in again soon) and have decided to just blog it on my main blog. also, i hope to depart a little from my normal travel food blogging (although i expect there will be lots of food related posts, don’t despair foodie friends!) and cover some non-food aspects of my trip.

so, here i am again, sitting in pearson airport, typing away on my eeepc (holy tiny keyboard batman), waiting for my gate to open. i hope to post at least once a day, let me know if you have any requests (i’m looking at you pipesdreams, i figure i owe you a custom travel blog post since you’ve been so good at the international scavenger hunt game with your awesome japan blogging) while i travel and ill do my best to cover them if they’re not too crazy

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normally i am the last person to propagate an internet meme, especially one of those do this and get _x_ number of people to do this also type memes, but today i will relent. mostly because Sameer is the one asking, but also because my word for 2009 is open and really, if i can’t think of 7 things to tell you then i’m not really being very open am i?

here’s the meme, with a slight edit:

the rules

• Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post. (see above)
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post. (see below)
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged.

i’ll share my facts, but a) i don’t like to peer pressure anyone into a meme and b) honestly (and perhaps most importantly), i don’t really think i have seven friends with blogs (many acquaintences, but really my friends are generally not bloggers).

1) the first concert i ever went to was a grimskunk show, i was fourteen and my good friend Matt (no blog, no internet at home, hardcore anarchist punk social worker) bought me this shirt. i wore it for years until finally letting it go in a purge a couple years ago. also, i can’t believe that grimskunk is still kicking and still selling the same shirt.

2) i have read and re-read the entire chronicles of narnia more times than i can count. i was given the set when i was a child, and ever since i read them when i’m especially tired or sick. my favourite is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

3) i dropped out of high-school missing one OAC credit, but graduated university magna cum laude. i think some of the most important lessons in my life were learned between those two events.

4) i managed to make it through four solid years at york university without a strike. phew.

5) i have an older brother who alternately amuses, aggravates, and challenges me. i love him for all of it (except maybe the aggravating part). assuming he passes the physical, it looks like he’s going to be joining the canadian military soon. i wonder if this will bring out a conservative streak in me?

6) i was the first ever high school co-op student at northern telecom (back when it was still northern telecom). i passed up the chance to work there the summer after my co-op term, instead deciding to work at summer camp (why? short answer: girls). while i don’t waste time on regret i sometimes wonder how my life would gone have had i decided to stick with northern telecom.

7) i am an n-generational north american, meaning i have no idea when my ancestors came to north america. on my mothers side we’re french canadian with deep roots (apparently i’m related fairly closely to the bloc MP for Gatineau) and American going back to early settlement. on my fathers side i’m less sure, but i’m pretty sure it’s all quebecois and franco-ontarian. that makes me decidely a minority in toronto, where almost all of my friends are from one to three generations away from immigration to canada. given the franco roots, it’s a crying shame i can barely speak french.

so that’s it, no tagging of people for me. although if i could i’d tag my best friend Geoff who really should have a blog but i think he’s holding out just to piss me off =P

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deardiary by darren

for most, new years day marks an annual beginning, a time for resolutions and looking ahead. for me, new years day marks the end of a year past, and january second marks the beginning of a new year in my life. as of today, i have successfully completed 31 full levels in this MMRLRPG (massively-multiplayer-real-life-role-playing-game).

yes i’m a geek, i make no apologies for horribly bad geek jokes.

while i’m not generally superstitious, i like to think that how i spend my birthday sets the tone for the year to come.  last year, for my 30th, i spent my birthday traveling, en-route between koh tao and chiang mai in thailand as part of a commitment to myself to explore new places and ideas for that year.

today, i intend to spend my day thinking, writing, and being with people who are dear to me. Sameer, always an inspiration, challenged everyone he knows to come up with a word for 2009 to guide them. it’s a good exercise, thinking of a single word to act as a guiding light for a year, i encourage you to give it a try (and let Sameer know in the comments what you choose, it’ll make him smile).

my word for 2009 is open.

open is a good word. if you know me professionally you know that openness is something i’m advocate for in large faceless bureaucracies, and i think this year i’m going to try very hard to push an open agenda.

looking beyond the professional open is a good word to guide me personally. for 2009 i hope to be more open to my friends, family, and myself.

open is both an ethic and a goal for me this year, i hope i can do it justice.

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deardiary by darren

Well I can’t imagine any of you reading this blog who don’t know, but just in case… for the next week and a bit I’ll be blogging just about daily @ http://thedinerdash.wordpress.com, check it out and let me know what you think!

d_c

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