April 3, 2012
By the time the beginning of spring rolls around each year, I’m feeling so cooped-up and caged in from a winter of torrential downpours and hurricane-force winds that the merest hint of blue sky on a weekend is enough to send me clawing my way out of the apartment or the coffee shop and into the great outdoors, where everything feels so refreshingly open and new.
Of course, when I say “the great outdoors”, you should keep in mind that I am, at heart, a true city girl, and therefore my version of the great outdoors is one which is easily packaged up and consumed in small, carefully measured quantities. I love walks. I love lounging in parks or on beaches. I find day trips or short weekend getaways to remote, nature-intensive places to be fascinating, albeit in a way that does some serious stretching to my comfort zone (my comfort zone is stretched whenever I go somewhere that requires me to wear shoes more functional than a pair of ballet flats). And I mostly like hikes, as long as they’re relatively short and convenient enough that I can bookend them with an energizing latte beforehand and a relaxing shower shortly afterwards. They don’t have to be easy (I have no problems with steep uphill climbs), just convenient.
On Sunday morning, I was sitting at my usual table in my usual coffee shop, and I was feeling restless, tired of sitting, and tired of being inside. Because it’s at moments like this that I start to crave a dose of the great outdoors, I opened up Facebook and typed, “who can I coerce into going hiking with me?”. I was fairly certain nobody would respond and I’d therefore end up inside breathing in the sweat fumes at the gym rather than outside breathing in the smell of moss and pine trees and damp earth – but then a friend responded, plans were made, and before I knew it we were pulling into the parking lot at the base of a mountain.
For a city tucked onto the tip of an island, there are a lot of mountains around Victoria. If I’m being completely truthful, I’d have to tell you that as far as mountains go, almost all of these are barely more than a pimple on the earth’s surface. They’re a far cry from the serious, jagged, snow-capped type that probably springs to mind right away. In fact, two of them are basically oversized hills with the letters “Mt.” tacked in front of their names in an effort to make their disturbance in the suburban sprawl seem a little bit more legitimate. But a couple of them are slightly more worthy of their mountain status, and we chose Mt. Finlayson, with one edge firmly in the fringes of suburbia and the other edge poking into the tree-blanketed psudo-wilderness beyond; the tallest and most legitimate mountain around.
When I hike, I do so with a sort of blithe carelessness for proper preparation (checking the conditions beforehand) or proper accessories (water bottles) – instead, I just start marching my way up the mountain at my typical break-neck speed, wearing the exact same clothes and shoes that I’d wear to the gym. And when those clothes involve cropped yoga pants and the temperature starts to drop as the wind hits the exposed top half of the mountain, or when those shoes involve sparklingly new runners and then I’m confronted with a lake of mud or a small stream flowing down the middle of the trail, it occurs to me that truly outdoorsy people take the time to actually consider the conditions (early spring in Victoria? The mud will be plentiful and it will never be as warm as it looks) and plan accordingly.
Also, there’s the tendency to block out the part of the hike that I hate and then rediscover it all over again each time I tackle this mountain: Towards the top, the trail – which up until this point has been a legitimate path, steeply and steadily inclining but very manageable – suddenly ceases to exist and is replaced instead with little reflective orange markers and arrows stuck tauntingly to a cliff face which hikers are then forced to scale, scrabbling up slick boulders and shimmying along next to decidedly intimidating drop-offs en route to the summit. My problem with this part of the hike isn’t so much the physical challenge that it presents – after all, I go rock climbing on a regular basis, and surely all that time on the Stairmaster must have counted for something – but I’d be lying if I said that my own klutzy tendencies didn’t cause at least a hint of worry. After all, there are no ropes to catch me if I fall here, just a row of jagged boulders a few dozen metres below. And if going up is difficult, the descent is nerve-wracking bordering on terrifying.
Still, back in the parking lot, back in the comfort of the car where we’re free to laugh at the smudges of mud on our hands and legs, there’s the sense that it was all worth it. Worth it because it was a workout packaged up as an adventure, because it was a couple of hours spent surrounded by trees, streams and the sky, and because it was a small portion of the week that wasn’t spent in front of a computer screen. But honestly? Ultimately, hiking up the mountain – getting that dose of nature – was worth it because I could then spend the evening lounging guiltlessly on my couch, full of sanctimoniousness over having communed with, and conquered, the great outdoors.
Photos taken with my iPhone, because yes, I do bring my phone with me while hiking. You never know when you might need to check Facebook.
April 2, 2012
Several weeks ago, I spent a few days in San Francisco for work. Well, two of those days were spent huddled around a conference room table on the twelfth floor of a stately brick Financial District office tower, but the weekend was dedicated purely to a self-indulgent mix of eating, wandering, and meeting up with friends – which, to be honest, is how I try to spend every weekend, regardless of where in the world I am. San Francisco is probably my favourite city in all of North America (and I say probably only because there are times when I’m sure that the title of “favourite city” actually belongs to New York), and although I’ve been there numerous times already, I’m fairy certain that I’ll never get tired of going back. The city manages to be – all at once – lovely, weird, and intoxicating.
Wednesday evening, Union Square:
The hotel is only a few blocks away from Union Square, so I choose to tow my suitcase up Powell Street, through a curtain of misty rain, just so that I can relish the feeling of being in a large city. It’s midnight, midweek, but the streets are still very much alive and bustling – this instantly sets San Francisco apart from Victoria, whose sedate downtown streets would be dark and sleepy by now, and it makes for a somewhat dramatic arrival. There’s the swish of tires against wet streets, a swirl of voices, the blast of music from a busker, then the rattle of a cable car as it heads up the hill into the fog: an urban cacophony.
Thursday morning, Blue Bottle Café:
Everyone here looks alike and talks alike, which sounds like a bad thing but actually isn’t, at least not when I feel like I’ve discovered one of the few places where I’m surrounded by my people: Fellow designers, entrepreneurs, creatives, people with iPhones glued to their hands and MacBook Airs tucked into their bags, people gearing up for another day in front of a computer screen.
Thursday evening, Le Colonial:
I could write about how good all of the food was, or how I felt oh-so-slightly intimidated by the hovering black-clad waiters and that little plaque on the door demanding smart attire, but instead I’ll write about the brussels sprouts, which were life-changing. Envision a little white platter stacked full of sprouts that appear to have been roasted to buttery softness, then charred on a searing hot grill and mixed with crispy shallot pieces before being glazed with some kind of explosively flavourful, delicately sweet sauce: These were not the same brussels sprouts that you turned your nose up at as a child. These were addictive. Perfection. The show-stoppers of the night; the dish that took the spotlight away from all the meat dishes, all the elaborate plating, the nice glasses of wine, and yes, even the dessert.
Friday morning, Blue Bottle Café:
Window seat, Kindle propped up in front of me while eavesdropping on conversations about one web startup or another, a latte in my hand and an order of poached pears in yogurt headed in my direction: This is how I fuel up for another day of meetings.
Friday evening, somewhere in the Mission:
I’ve set out on a search for a specific pizzeria that I kept reading about in books, on blogs, and in magazines, but that search has turned into something slightly more than I bargained on when I take a wrong turn after emerging from the BART station and slog through the rain for ten minutes while heading in the wrong direction, one that leads me into a neighbourhood full of graffiti, rows of nearly identical taco shops, and groups of hooded guys congregating under dripping convenience store awnings. Eventually I realize my mistake, turn around, and slog back up the opposite side of the street. It’s somewhere around this point – water sloshing around in my shoes, skirt clinging to my legs, hair damp and frizzed up angrily around my face – that I question whether a pizza, even if it’s a very famous pizza, is actually worthy of this much trouble.
Saturday morning, Ferry Building:
If a city has a farmers’ market, I will find out about it, seek it out, and spend a blissful morning eating my way through it. The farmers’ market at the Ferry Building is a favourite, partly for its picturesque location (Oceanside? check. Bridge view? check) and partly because it’s got enough variety that I’m able to arrive first thing in the morning, fuel up with a latte from the Blue Bottle kiosk (by this point it should be clear that I have a slight obsession with Blue Bottle), and then eat everything from fresh fruit to doughnuts.
Saturday afternoon, North Beach, Nob Hill, Chinatown, all over the place:
I’m very good at wandering aimlessly over long distances until I suddenly realize that I’ve made my way from one end of the city to another. This is what I did for most of Saturday (with a break in the middle when I met up with Jamie for an over-the-top decadent French toast extravaganza at my personal brunch mecca, Olea). I took a few photos while I was wandering, but mostly I just looked: I will never get tired of the way it feels to come to the top of one of those iconic hills and look down at the way the city sprawls out all around me. And to be honest, I’ll also never get tired of watching drivers trying to wedge their cars into tight parallel-parking spaces all along those iconic hills.
Saturday night, Union Square to Maven and back again:
I learn three things in rapid succession as I’m making my way to the wine bar: 1) The busses in San Francisco wait for nobody, not even the girl sprinting down the sidewalk like a madwoman, 2) Sprinting down the sidewalk like a madwoman is almost always a precursor to sprawling out on that sidewalk in the most ungraceful way possible, and 3) Scoring a taxi in Union Square on St. Patrick’s Day is like winning the lottery – and I’ve always been unlucky. Fortunately, the trip back to the hotel – on foot – is uneventful, with the evening’s two glasses of wine giving the walk a pleasant haze.
Sunday morning and afternoon, Olea, Fort Mason, and all over Nob Hill:
Out of San Francisco’s wealth of brunch options, I’m drawn back to Olea like the place is magnetic. This time, I zero in on the eggs, with the previous day’s French toast still causing its complete carbohydrate overload. The eggs turn out to be a good choice, as they fuel a trek over Nob Hill and down to Fort Mason to view an art exhibition, then back over Nob Hill and back to the hotel to pack up the suitcase before heading to the airport.
March 15, 2012
Think about the ordeal involved in travelling somewhere by air under even the best of circumstances: There’s the packing, the transportation to the airport, the time spent aimlessly wandering around the airport, and then finally the trip itself. There’s half a day – at minimum – dedicated to the process of transportation, even when the destination, San Francisco, is only two hours away. Now think about how that ordeal escalates exponentially in a series of unfortunate events; even the best-laid plans can go awry, and of course the best-laid plans do go awry.
First there’s the sound of rain pinging violently against the bedroom window as I wake up, a dark omen for a day of travel. The sky is flat, steely grey and deceptively smooth, and the tree outside my window is swaying ominously, shuddering every few seconds as another gust of wind hits it. I’m nearly swept away as I head to the coffee shop for my morning dose of caffeine – in fact, I’m tempted to stay at home, call off the trip, call off work, and bury under a mountain of blankets on the couch while pretending the outside world doesn’t exist.
Unfortunately, that’s not an option.
Next, there’s the bad news: My flight has been cancelled. This is the point where every traveller’s stomach gives an uncomfortable lurch accompanied by a swoop of irrationally intense disappointment. This is the point where panicked phone calls are placed to the airline, where a tinny-sounding pop song is played repeatedly, to the point of near-insanity and certain rage, into one ear while on hold for a seemingly infinite period of time.
The flight is rescheduled. I call a taxi. Two minutes into the ride, the driver makes eye contact with me in the rear-view mirror and somehow, inexplicably, launches into a complete and unabridged history of his life and family tree. I nod and make mm-hmm sounds at appropriate intervals while contemplating how, out of all of Victoria’s speed-hungry taxi drivers, I managed to get the one who drives well under the speed limit but compensates by talking at a mile a minute. At one point, he cranks up the radio, which is tuned into some kind of comedy talk program, and begins to laugh loudly at every point the speaker makes, whether funny or not.
At the airport, the girl behind the check-in counter informs me with a flip of her hair that once again, my flight has been cancelled. Apparently there is excessive fog in San Francisco, or some kind of unusually menacing low-hanging cloud that’s wreaking havoc with air traffic. She reschedules me on yet another flight but tells me, with another flip of her hair, that I should expect this one to be cancelled as well. I feel a sense of frustration – or maybe it’s hopelessness – settling into the pit of my stomach.
The next several hours are dedicated to obsessively and compulsively checking flight statuses and airline notifications. Somewhere during that period I take the first flight, the tiny and turbulent puddle-jumper between Victoria and Vancouver, and then I reposition myself at a table in an airport Starbucks and continue my neurotic status-checking. The chaos of airport life is swirling around me: A woman a few tables away is yelling into her phone, the hand cupped around her mouth doing nothing to hide the angry tones. A pilot saunters up to the counter and orders a quad-shot caramel latte, swapping jokes with the baristas about how his flights are powered purely by caffeine. A couple of kids are driving a remote-control car in dizzying loops around a fountain until a frazzled-looking parent swoops in and takes charge of the situation. And I’m sitting there, sipping an unimpressive airport latte, poking at a caesar salad sprinkled with limp strips of chicken that look as though they’ve been cooked until they’ve mutated into an alternate form, stabbing the tines of a plastic fork into a cup of tired fruit, and reloading, reloading, reloading the flight status website.
It’s time to go to the gate. The flight is delayed, but not cancelled. There’s a feeling of anticipation in the air. The flight boards, slowly and methodically. I want to push people forward onto the plane, to urge them to take their seats faster as though their slowness will cause the flight to be cancelled. From seat 16A I watch a row of suitcases inch their way into the belly of the plane, then inch their way back out (I am convinced, momentarily, that they have decided to cancel the flight), then back in again. Finally the door is snapped shut with a satisfying thud, and after an endless taxi (during which I joke that the pilot has decided to drive all the way down to San Francisco – the lady next to me, somehow, doesn’t find this as funny as I do) we’re airborne. A day in the airport, two hours in the air.
