The first "real" dirtbike adventure

So I wanted to capture this while the details were relatively fresh in my mind, but unfortunately I've slept a number of times since then, now I'm trying to scoop out a less fuzzy picture of what happened. With that caveat in mind, please enjoy my mostly first hand account of what was the neatest thing I've done in Madagascar since coming here.

Sunday started early. Way too early. Up and at 'em and a pot of fresh coffee on the brewer I hopped in the shower quick. Record time was made showering, it's amazing I came out clean. By this point the growing excitement meant that I likely could've done without the coffee. Down goes the first two cups, into the friends truck to the grocery store for some much needed supplies. "Damn this silly grocery trip, I should be RIDING", "WHY am I making delicious protein pancakes when I could be riding?", "Why are we sitting around talking when we could be riding?", "OH GOD WE'RE GOING RIDING! IM SO EXCITED", pretty much covers off the remainder of the morning.

Sort out the new gear, take care of the most important part of the ride first. Stickering up the bike appropriately.

Gotta represent the club.

It might be a bike - but you still have to be proud.

Stickers taken care of, it was time to actually gear up. Queue the butterflies. I'd never ridden offroad for any great length of time before. Luckily my nervousness was quickly gobbled up by the eager excitement to finally get to see some of the country side. Led by an intrepid long time riding roommate, we're briefed on the route. "Skip the main road by skirting the plant site railroad, ride cross country briefly, hop back onto the mainroad outside town, grab gas, and then head down the road to Tana for 20K before we hit the "real" trails.", awesome. Shit eating grins in place, the bikes are fired up before I know it and the three of us are on the road.

200 feet out of camp the first problem hits me. Why is the bike so slow? I'm hard on the throttle in first gear and it seems to not be pulling. I can't have gotten that fat on my rotation, could I? ... I mean the deep fried turkey and baking was good, but I ate that much? No... no way, well, I suppose there was the skittles, and the halloween candy, and... look down, realize you're dragging the rear brake with your riding boot... mentally slap oneself in the face and hammer down, there, that's better.

A hop, skip, and a jump North of site and we're skirting around the rail road tracks to avoid the first of many police check stops you'd run into if you take the road. Not that we're doing anything illegal, just that it very much simplifies ones day if you don't have to explain to a bunch of guys with guns why you don't want to pay them any money. :)

While coming around the corner of the tracks I notice our guide, Ian, is stopped waiting for us. "So this was a bit of a main route after the tracks went in, so to stop cars from using it they cut in a bunch of deep ditches.", he smiles. Nice. 10 minutes into dirt biking and I'm clearing some very deep ditches, at the time I remember them being quite intimidating, in reality I'm just a sissy. Feeling pretty awesome about myself and starting to get more comfortable in the saddle I'm having a good time sliding the rear of the bike around in the sandy trail. There's just something about rolling into the throttle and gently hooning a bike around in the dirt that is entirely too much fun.

I look up, huge grin, Ian is stopped again. This time in front of a water crossing, well, I think, I guess there is no time like the present to get comfortable with this riding thing. Nobody told me that you should lift your feet up when going through a foot of water, and why would I come to that logical conclusion on my own? That'd be entirely too intelligent. Across the 50 feet of water I go, odd, my feet are soaked, oh god! My pants are soaked! My fellow riders seem to be laughing uncontrollably. Hmmm... I've obviously done something wrong here, but I made it across without falling.

A couple more water obstacles (feet up this time), and some more sand hooliganry - yes that's a word, not really - and we're popping out onto the main road at a Shell station of all things. Yes, you can buy watered down Vpower in Madagascar. Pretty hilarious how universal Shell seems to be. The bikes topped off after our brief gas stop and we're ready to hop on the road. Ian briefs us, "It's up the road a ways towards Tana and then we turn left. This road can be a bit scary, so be careful, stay to the right, and watch your mirrors for guys that are going to come flying by."

Look down, check that your clodhoppers aren't dragging the brake, slowly release the clutch and feel the clutch start to grab, roll into the throttle ever so slightly and finish releasing the clutch and we're off. Second gear, more throttle, third gear, 250CC's of fury howling and a new grin forming, grab the clutch for the shift to fourth and, OH DEAR LORD THAT POTHOLE IS THE SIZE OF PLUTO. A quick lean and we've avoided the Hino sized obstacle. My attention is focused now, and I spend the next twenty minutes marveling at the fairly nicely paved, beautifully twisty road surface.

Cruising on the black top through a mix of semi-tropical, slightly arid forests mixed with the sights and sounds of a developing country is something that will always stick with me. It finally felt like I was actually doing some exploring, like even though I'd been here a year I was finally getting to see the "real" Madagascar. Passing through various highway side villages, coming over the tops of rolling hills to see beautiful landscapes, gorgeous rivers, smiling people, it was just.. excellent. Part of me is upset that I didn't have the foresight to bring my GoPro or take any pictures, but another part is happy that I didn't have a camera to worry about, all I had to do was soak it all in and keep the bike on the road. What an experience.

Take a quick left coming up hill and we're slowing down and turning off the road into a dirt path. I guess this must be the place. A few hundred meters off the road and we come to a power line corridor, or what passes for one in Madagascar, "watch out for the cables sticking out of the ground and follow me!", Ian warns, and off we go.

Riding some hilly, harder pack trail stuff is also quite fun. It feels good to be "in control" of something and communicating with a machine again in a way similar to racing. While I'm not going particularly fast, and I'm not out to win anything, I'm still digging into my concentration and paying close attention to what the bike is communicating back to me. It's that seat of the pants feel you get, something that all racers are familiar with, awesome.

Clearing some obstacles, hopping some hills, and generally having a grand old time we come across some denser bush and Ian steers us in that direction. In the mountain bike world we're now riding what most people refer to as single track. Just enough room for people to ride single file through a snake-like forested trail that winds it's way in and around the foothills. We've had some rain lately so everything is more green than normal, and I mean GREEN.

The semi-flourescent foliage is sort of unbelievable at first. It's like living in a photo that someone has cranked the contrast in, at times the greeness of it all is just unbelievable. The foliage is an assortment of all sorts of interesting plants that aren't quite like anything you see at home. There's evergreen varieties but with alien like leaves, regular bushy leafy things but with the added bonus of having microscopic velcro like grabber-onner things (technical term), and occasionally beautiful bushes full of various colours of flower. Occasionally I have to check my awe at the door and remember not to fall off my bike.

20 minutes into the trail, things start to open up a bit and all of the sudden we pass a few people who have been walking the trail carrying loads. And I'm talking big loads. Think a 5'6" Malagasy fellow carrying a 3ft diameter, 8 foot long bundle of sticks, and the guy couldn't have weighed more than 100lbs. Wow. A few hundred feet up from those dedicated folk we pop out onto a larger dirt road across from what looks like a hilltop settlement, complete with a bunch of young kids running around having a grand old time.

These kids are immediately amused by the three Vazah riding motorcycles and starting hooting and hollaring in our direction, smiling and running around. We wave, honk the horns, and head West down the dirt road. Up ahead Ian has stopped on the side of the road next to the river.

Now this next bit is the first time on the ride I remember that I had a phone and I could take some shots, I even grabbed a video! The video is a bit interesting but more than the footage what I like is the awe in my voice. I was totally blown away by the beauty of the ride thus far, the diversity of the people and their living situations, just.. everything. So, sorry for sounding a wee bit excited.

The riverbank just off the dirt path. Check out the green, and the cultivation.

Looking West down the dirt road. We initially came from the East. About 300 meters East of here is the little village I was talking about. Out of respect, I didn't snap any photos of their village.

Horrible Selfie looking West onto the river with the railroad bridge in the background. The village is just left of my giant head.

A nicer shot without my face in it. :)

Looking East up the road. Village is in the bushes just up the road.

Obligatory bike shot, the Kinlon gang. You can see the sort of stuff we rode through, look at the green. It's more dense than that in most places on the trail.

Click the play button the below to see the video.

This is a horrible zoomed in iPhone shot of the gentlemen pushing their barges up stream in a couple of feet of water. This weekend I will bring my real camera, promise. :)

After standing around chatting for a bit we realized one very important thing, it is much, much, MUCH sweatier when you stop riding. Now dripping, it was time to hop back onto the bikes and head back into the bush for some more exciting trail riding. This time heading deeper into some more bushier stuff we were getting into much more rutted, technical riding. This meant not as much time to concentrate on the beauty and much more time spent not falling off your bike. Also good fun!

Now, I'm sure the stuff we were riding would be nothing to the experienced rider but it was sure challenging and exciting to me and the other non-offroad fellow that was with us. Ian was gobbling it up like it was no big deal but Phil and I were grinning ear to ear from the challenge. Between water filled 12-18" deep ruts, washed out trail, mud, and the occasional hard pack fast bit it was great fun!

Once again, our fearless guide Ian was stopped up ahead on the trail, this time at the foot of a very steep hill. I distinctly remember feeling a tinge of dread thinking he was going to be crazy enough to suggest we ride up the hill, but luckily he suggested we hike it. After climbing what was a very steep hill, steep enough that if you reached out horizontally while standing straight up you could touch the hill with your elbows, we were rewarded with an incredible view of the surroundings. Hills, palm trees, and the plant site. Check out a few of the shots I remembered to take.

That's the plant site in the background, and an old palm tree farm we're heading towards on the bikes.

Another horrible zoomed in shot of site. This is max zoom on the iPhone, sorry for the pixelation. :)

The cool part about an iPhone, the easy to shoot panoramas. Taken from the top of the hill. The left is where we came from, the right was where we were headed.

A flower at the base of a small tree at the top of the hill.

Getting ready to head back out, you can see the hill we climbed to the right. (Obligatory NASCC shot)

Oh no! It's dirty!!!

A view back up from whence we came.

 MORE VIDEO - a quick view of the top of the hill.

This was to be the last real stop of the days ride. At this point we were about two hours in and all getting pretty exhausted from the totally awesome trail riding thus far. Next up was heading out into the palm tree forest onto some more hardpacked stuff for some quick hooning around.

A quick shot of the entrance to the "batcave". A neat corridor of trees.

Some ripping through the tress brought us to a bit of a dead end where I promptly got stuck in the mud for the first time. Nothing that copious amounts of throttle, grunting, and pushing couldn't fix! Zipping in between the trees, enjoying the trails, being amazed by the rows and rows of palm trees, and mostly importantly loving the shade they create, I look up to see Ian and Phil stopped on the side of the trail presumably waiting for me. Low and behold, they've stumbled onto some free range piggies. I'm sure there was an owner somewhere around but these fellas were out all on their own, we couldn't locate a human.

Baby bacon. Cute, but tasty.

That marked the last shot I got on the days ride, after the piggies we all agreed it was time to head back to camp and grab a beer. Riding our way back out the bush we found our way to the power line corridor and hopped back onto the highway back to Toamasina. The way back was just as incredible as the way there, the road is remarkably well paved despite various massive potholes, so some careful fun was definitely had.

Over the river and through the woods to the beer house we went. Safe and sound back at the Tiki Bar in camp, a beer was had, a Formula 1 race was watched, and a hell of a day was ended. This weekend promises to hold another exciting ride, what a lucky fellow I am!

Picking up the new bike, and the first adventure

So in my previous post I mentioned that I caught Lisa in a moment of weakness and somehow managed to convince her to let me purchase a motorcycle. I'm still not worrying about the why - but at the time I was only worried about how I was going to get the thing bought and delivered before she came to her senses. Luckily, with the help of friends and roommates the process of tracking down a decently priced bike was a relatively quick one..

First on the list was trying to make sure I got a valid motorcycle permit / license so that when you inevitably get stopped at a police checkpoint you don't have to worry about getting thrown in jail or asked for a bribe. Well, they'll still ask for a bribe, but refusing with the proper paperwork significantly lessons the chance that they throw you in jail. I called in a favor with a fellow that works with me who I'd imported a laptop for previously and he was able, after three weeks of back and forth with the Malagasy equivalent of the registrar to get me a license. Had I known it was just a pink file folder with my picture riveted to it I may have taken a different... shall we say craftier route...

Regardless, the license hurdle had been leaped and it was on to finding "the bike". There isn't exactly a Malagasy Craigslist or Kijiji that a guy can hit and look for decent used bikes (or at least not one in a language I read or write) so I turned to some friends here and was immediately pointed at Erick the French bike guy. Turns out he isn't just some guy but rather some guy with a bike shop at his house (and a nice one to boot) that works with pretty much every local motor dealer in town and can find you anything you like. He's also used to dealing with clueless foreigners, so that helped too.

My roommate and I snagged a ride over to the shop to check out what he had in stock and to discuss pricing.

It must be official - the name is painted on the wall!

 
Between the tiny bits of French I remember and copious amounts of hand signals and writing down of numbers on paper a decision was made. No way in hell was I paying $7,000 for a "Nippon" bike as he calls them, but yes, I'd certainly love to check out his stock of Chinese made, Erik assembled, dirt bikes. Low and behold, days later I was the proud new owner of a Kinlon Motors branded, Zongshen powered, 250CC Chinese Honda knock-off. Awesome. All for a steal of a deal too (actually cheaper than the same bike in Canada).

So, on to robbing the ATMs for a week in order to put together the $1,400 CAD worth of Malgasy Ariary required to pay for the bike, a helmet, and insurance and registration for the entire year. Yeah... like I said, cheap.

This is what ~3.5 million MGA looks like in 10,000A bills... Numerically - this is way more money then I've ever held before. :)

 The big day arrived. The bike was ready to go. We snagged a ride from a residential friend nice enough to provide and brought along our trusty French speaking accomplice to translate. Upon our arrival a quick creepy peek over the fence revealed the trusty steed in all it's radiant splendor assembled and ready to go.

OK maybe it wasn't that dramatic but come on! It's a freakin motorcycle!

I bet the airline was shocked that they were violating a Chinese Motorcycle company's KLM trademark.... :)

A quick test ride showed all systems go on both bikes and we were both ready to hop on and enjoy. The only problem was we had to count the money yet... The downside to paying millions in 10,000 ariary notes is that it took about an hour to count out the nearly 8 million worth... Good times. Payment out of the way and sweating profusely due to the heat, it was time to get some wind through the ole' pits and head out.

The first adventure was thus far the most challenging, getting back to the camp on bikes from the other side of town in Sunday afternoon traffic, during political rallies.... Not our brightest timing. Two vazah riding through a half dozen side-of-the-road election rallies on brand new bikes did not make us the worlds most favorite people. Hindsight being 20/20 we may have wanted to take a different turn but it all turned out in the end.

Quickly losing daylight we took a spin out to the ocean and found that riding in sand is much more challenging than originally thought but managed to snag the last picture of the bike you will ever see where it is this clean.

Just look at that splendiforous helmet hair and awkward "I'm not sure how to stand next to a tiny motorcycle" pose. Statuesque!

After having hit the pier (and with dark clouds rolling in) we decided to see how far down the trail from the plant site we could get before getting soaked. Turns out that about 5KM South of the main site there is a tiny village, that was both delighted and not so delighted to see a bunch of idiots show up mid Sunday dinner time. The little kids we're laughing and hollaring and excited to see us, but the older folk were not so pleased. Queue awkward waves, a quick "Salama" (the formal greeting) and turning the heck around. It was a good thing too - as the sky promptly opened up and soaked both of us and our beautiful chariots.

And so came the end of the first ride, having only covered 30KM on the first day we were both affixed with a shit eating grin and the conclusion that purchasing bikes had been the smartest move we'd made in a while. I promptly left on rotation the following week and have only been able to make one trip since being back (as I've only had one day off) and man - is it ever cool. More pics and another short adventure in the next post.

On six months without a blog post and contract renewals

So that whole business about trying to post more regularly was really malarky. Its been 6 months since a post, but in my defence I never claimed to be a good person! :)

So how to sum up the last six months in as little words as possible? An adventure. That's for sure. Between travelling, working in a foreign country, learning a ton, being home, going through some more medical bullshit, the list goes on, but it's been a doozy. In some respects it's been much harder than I'd ever imagined it would be and in others it's been easier.

The distance from home, Lisa, family, friends, the dogs, that has been solidly the hardest part of the whole thing and I think caught both Lisa and I off guard. The silver lining being the perspective it has granted me on what things I previously took for granted will be something that I cherish the rest of my life. It has firmly re-aligned my world view and provided some much needed adjustments in some areas.

The work side has been challenging but rewarding. I continue to be excited by the work I encounter every day. A challenge is hard to come by, and something I'd been missing in my work life for a long time so this has been pretty fantastic. The team here is dynamic, interesting, and constantly evolving so it really keeps me on my toes - something that I need to stay engaged.

Lisa and I had the incredible opportunity to spend two weeks in the UK. In typical Sinfield fashion the first thing we did was rent a car and promptly drive around the entire island covering England, Scotland, and Wales in a little under 14 days. It was the trip of a lifetime, and the first real trip that we've taken just the two of us since our honeymoon. That trip alone was more than worth the year, we both agree.

Since then there hasn't been much adventuring travel wise as I've been back home for the rest of the rotations for various reasons, but more travel is planned for 2014. Which I guess leads perfectly into the next bit, it hasn't been "publicly" shared but the opportunity arose to stay in Madagascar and renew for an additional year as they were apparently OK with my performance thus far. :) Lisa and I discussed and made the decision to sign for one more year, so I will officially be extending my initial 1 year journey to Madagascar into a two year with my contract end date set at November 9th, 2014.

The decision was conflicted as it's obvious that I/we want me to be home, but at the same time the opportunities it affords us both travel and otherwise is something that we were unable to ignore. Short term pain, long term gain as they say.

With the decision made, I somehow managed to catch Lisa in a weak moment and prompt bought myself a cheap dirt bike here for getting around. The one regret I've had in the year I've spent here thus far is that I haven't been able to see any of the country itself. Everything I've seen I've posted about on this here blog. Really. It has been that boring. I have been out and about but mostly to the same places, doing the same sort of things. The bike has allowed me to travel and we've done one Sunday trip thus far which I will post about soon.... :)

So yeah, that's six months in a page or less. Apologies that it's a touch disjointed, but you get what you pay for I suppose. Will actually try to post more often than every six months this time, I promise!

Cultural observations on major life events

The title sounds pretty clinical but the reality is that the typical Malagasy circle of life is a lot more condensed than the typical Canadian one is. A good friend and colleague mentioned this to me before I came down on assignment and I didn't give it enough credit at the time but the truth of the statement has really set in since I've been here. So today, I'm going to blab a bit about how different it is here compared to home in a little more detail than normal.

Your typical Malagasy is born into what most Canadians would refer to as extreme poverty (~$1.5/day GNI/person) and it only gets different from there. According to World Bank data on Madagascar the average lifespan from birth is 67 years and that is if the person is born today and we're working in some optimism. These two factors alone translate into a world where life, death, marriage, births, divorces(they sure have a different attitude towards marriage here), and all the large life events you can think of seem to happen far more often than they do in Canada.

Depending on how you look at it these stats can be pretty sobering, or in some cases scary but the fascinating part about it is the Malagasy that I know don't look at it that way at all, to them it is just life. They have certainly adapted an interesting way of socializing and sharing these major life events as a group of people in the work place. More specifically for every major life event you can think of there is usually a collection taken from all members of whatever team they happen to belong to.

In our case in IT we've got about 75 team members and it's not uncommon that once ever week or two there is some sort of a collection being taken. At first, I was honestly quite taken aback by the "Hey, so and so that works here that you don't know had a kid, would you like to donate?" or "Frank's brother died, would you like to donate?" or "So and so's Mom is ill, would you like to donate?" type requests that fly around the office but being Canadian politely opened my wallet and donated.

It was only after a couple of beers and a totally misguided whining session with some other Expats that I gained perspective. You see, along with the faster pace of life here also comes a greatly reduced social net to help out when the shit hits the fan.

There is no social medicine, and what little medical coverage you get from your employer, if you're lucky enough to actually have a formal "job", isn't usually adequate (unless you work for Ambatovy or a couple of other larger firms here, thankfully).  Furthermore - actual medical care is few and far between as the population is quite geographically spread out and  the doctor patient ratio is in the high thousands. Combine all of these sobering statistics and your hopelessly ignorant hack of a blogger here realizes that the net at the office is not only a sort of awkward nice-to-have but a critical part of life for most.

So the next time you're in a shitty spot and need a healthy dose of perspective throw yourself in the shoes of your typical Malagasy and see how your situation stacks up.

Grocery Shopping

In this quaint little town of 200,000 there are approximately 3 grocery stores. There are however about 4.8 million medieval style food stands that you can buy food from, that is if you like 3 day old non-refrigerated meat and are looking to consort with the porcelain gods. Or, there is two grocery stores called SCORE and one called Shoprite (a South African chain) that you can purchase various forms of almost-like-home-but-not-quite food and other grocery type stuff from.

Recently the roof in good old 5B4 began to leak something fierce and though ignoring it for a while was a sound strategy the constant 1/4" of water on the floor was beginning to get annoying. As such I hatched a plan along with three friends I've made while here and we are now all sharing the same 4 plex at 9A. The unfortunate part is that I am now a full 300m further away (and this interferes with my laziness) but the nice part is that we all pitched in and have decided to buy a couple of basic appliances to attempt to make to feel the common area of the 4plex a little more hospitable.

I only moved in on Tuesday and Sunday's are the only days we get off so today was the first shopping day. We caught the 12 o'clock bus and hit the bank and then headed over to the first grocery store. We did some price checking and determined that we'd be buying no appliances if they wanted $75 for a cheap Chinese coffee maker. While commiserating and complaining that we didn't want to pay triple the Walmart price for half of the Walmart quality the first of the lights shut off. Odd I thought, if the power was out (as is usually the case) the whole store would be dark. At which point the rest of the lights started going off.

I guess this particular grocery store closes at 1PM with no exceptions. We quickly hustled to the entrance, which had already had all of it's lockable steel panels pulled shut, and made nice with the security guard who begrudgingly let us leave. On to the Shoprite it was.

We were pleasantly surprised at Shoprite as it was still open and we managed to find some pretty excellent deals on shoddy, lead painted, cheap Chinese appliances and dishes. After much careful shopping (grabbing the cheapest things we saw) we managed to snag a 2000W dual burner counter top stove thing, 12 cup coffee machine, 3 pots, 4 bowls, 4 mugs, coffee, coffee filters, 16 pc utensil set (in stylish off-white), and 2L of water for a whopping 196,000MGA or approximately $95. Not a bad deal! Take that Walmart!

It was after the purchase that I experienced something very strange. There is a little desk that sits after the check out but before the door where a little guy sits. I'd always wondered the few times I'd been through there what this magical desk was for and it was today that I learned this is where they unbox all electronic items you buy and test them in front of you. The burner worked first try aside from a little smoke but I assumed that was just packaging oil burning off and we moved onto the coffee machine. It also made smoke of the melty short circuit oh god it's on fire kind.

The poor fellow plugged this wonder of China into the wall and the plug immediately melted... in his hand. Rather than scream like a girl and pull away (like I'd do) he manned up and grabbed the now completely molten 240V plastic inferno death plug and yanked it out of the wall. I guess he gets fired if the place burns down eh? Thinking that he'd take a minute to recover I was even more astonished when he flipped the coffee machine onto the desk whipped out a knife and snipped the plug off the end of the still very hot wires. In broken English he says "plug no good" and pulls another out of his magical pocket, strips the wires, and reassembles the whole thing and plugs it back into the socket. This time the little red light came on and no power smoke came out so in his eyes we were golden. This happened in no more than 60 seconds. Amazing.

Hauling the newly purchased slightly melty goods back involved spending 45 minutes waiting for the bus. The bus stop just happens to be a bar, which happens to be on a beach, which happens to sell cheap beer... We caught the later bus. :)

Following bus stop beer rigorous testing of the appliances occurred this afternoon when we made Chocolate Peanut Oatmeal with Madagascar 100% pure cocoa powder (mancooking 101) and some coffee at 4PM. It was the best meal I've had in camp yet even if I'm sure it contained at least 1000PPM lead contaminants from the Chinese pots and bowls. Things are definitely looking up. Next on the list is a BBQ - hopefully this week if we play our cards right. 

Men with funny hats

On my way back to Madagascar at the end of February I once again had the typical ~7-9 hour layover in jolly old England. Typically I don't really make plans beyond leaving the airport and heading to Picadilly but this time around I was determined to make it in time to catch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. My flight landed at 920AM and I knew the funny hat men started to sing and dance at 1130AM so it was going to be close.

I rushed off the plane, cleared customs surprisingly quickly, hit the luggage pickup and grabbed my bag and hockey sticks (since you still can't check bags through to your destination... thanks South African Airways), dropped them off with the sketchy Eastern European fellow at the baggage storage place, and hopped on the Heathrow Express. Long sentence - short series of tasks. My gross, post overnight, unshowered scruffy self made it to Paddington station for the transfer to the tube to Picadilly Circus at 10:40. I knew if I hurried I might make it.

The tube or underground or whatever you want to call it is very unique... For the Edmontonians think of the LRT but older, noisier, far more packed, and with significantly more unidentifiable oh-dear-lord-what-is-that type stains everywhere. Yah. It's safe to say that the person whose idea it was to use plush, squishy, plaid material on the tube seats wasn't really thinking long term, or hygienically. Eww.

A short journey on the tetanus express brought me to Picadilly Circus at 11:15. Fat man run mode engage! I jogged up the steps and out of the station onto Regent Street. It was then I realized in my thin sweater that perhaps the 0 degree C day with a light mist and cold breeze wasn't ideal changing of the guard weather, but it was too late to quit now. A six block jog down Regent towards St. James park, a quick right onto "The Mall" - the road running parallel to St. James on it's North side - and a few deep breaths later and I'd arrived to catch the funny hat parade just marching onto the Mall.

Funny hats, Eastern Europeans, and pooping horses. SO EXCITING!

As a kid I remember bits and pieces of the time we managed to see what I think was the changing of the guard at Buckingham (and by bits and pieces I mean funny furry hats). Today I was to learn that what they call "the changing of the guard" is British for "battle of the marching bands - funny hat edition and also horse poop".

All fecal joking aside, the music and the pageantry is pretty cool. The music is especially fantastic. I am a fan of all things instrumental, classical, etc and it was really very neat to march halfway down The Mall next to these folks as they played some fancy music. Apart from the gypsy that tried to pick pocket me (here's looking at you Julian) I was impressed by the sound they managed to produce in the 0 degree weather all while looking absolutely ridiculous.

This is the first band that I encountered halfway to Buckingham on the mall. They shall henceforth be referred to as Franklin and the Furry Hat Men.  They come marching down Marlborough road from what I presume is St.James palace (though I am making most of this up) and then turn right and head West towards Buckingham.

The best part about these bands is the marching band leads the way and then shortly behind is a group of furry hat men with automatic weapons to presumably force anyone caught not enjoying the awesome to enjoy themselves. I can't help but wonder if this is the same tactic they deploy at Celine Dion concerts.

Following Franklin and the Furry Hat Men towards Buckingham Palace

Look at all of the fellow tourist folks. Dedicated bunch - it was damn cold.

As you round the bend the group of police officers on horses politely prevent you from taking the easiest route to the show and just following the band down the street. After pushing various families, small children, unsuspecting old people, puppies, and other defenseless human beings out of the way I made my way through the crowd and across the street to the Palace.

Last shot of Franklin and the Furry Horse Butts.

As I stood and slowly froze to death I watched Franklin and the Furry Hat Men proceed through the square into the front courtyard of the Palace. At this point they emphasized their awesomeness by playing one last tune, angrily stomping a bunch of times, and then had one fellow yell angrily to presumably signal the end of the show.

Thinking of leaving as my ADD was kicking in and I was starting to get bored I heard another band playing their way in from the South side of St. James park. I would upload the video I took of the challenger band "The Furtles" sounding off their battle challenge but the Blogger platform is garbage and when I attempt to upload says "an error has occurred" so alas, you will have to imagine the awesome.

Look at the  stern look on this officer's face as he guards the entrance of the The Furtles. Serious business.

And so the stage was set for a badass brass clash like no other, excluding the last few hundred years worth of the same thing. The Furtles stomped and played their way into the courtyard, finally marching to a stop to face Franklin and his assembled battle group.

Both sides stood firm, the very picture of moderate seriousness with a hint of disdain for the cold weather. The tension built as the battle groups exchanged seriously stern looks, loud yells, and more very, very stern looks. But, just as Franklin and his ragtag gaggle of partially frozen fur encrusted brass players were about to unleash their sixth volley of really quite stern looks The Furtles took to their instruments and began the first of many volleys in an epic brass battle that can only be described as average.

The battle raged for what seemed like at least two or three minutes. Both sides alternating pauses to look seriously at the other as they played their little furry hats off. When finally, against all odds - the victor was decided. Not by the crowd, nor any sort of totally awesome clap registering machine like at those cheesy band battles on TV, nor by Ryan Seacrest, but by the queen's own cavalry. That's right - the cavalry. These Brits take their music shows seriously, I mean look at Simon Cowell.

It's judging time.

Anyway, the cavalry stormed into the square (not really, it was more of a slow trot) in funny red dresses carrying judgement swords, spreading horse manure, and dispensing battle judgement. Franklin and the Furry Hat Men had defeated the Furtles and earned the greatest honor of all -  the right to stand in front of the Palace for a while in funny outfits while noisy tourists photographed them.

Following their disgraceful defeat The Furtles were escorted off the grounds by the red dressed horse folk who even in defeat showed honor in saluting the victors by playing their way out. Another video I could show if you Blogger didn't suck.

Anyway, that brings me to the end of the battle of the bands. The losers are presumably escorted back to the barracks where they are executed for failing to uphold the honour of the Queen... or maybe they just try again later, I'm no expert.

Following the show I headed back to Picadilly to grab a bite to eat, hopped back on the train and that was my six hours in London.

Until next time here is a picture of a very confused pelican and a moderately amused duck.

His head is on backwards.

Quack.

Clear skies over Greenland

This is the fourth time i've tried to post this since I got back. Sorry all - the internet here is LAME. Anyway, I will update with an other post tomorrow or Sunday. AAAAAAAAAAAARGH and now the formatting is broken because the blogger platform is HORRIBLE. I am only slightly TOTALLY UPSET. Oh well - the next post won't be broken but I refuse to spend anymore time trying to fix this bullshit interface. Sorry it's so painful to read. Blame Google.

So I've broken my solemn oath to update the blog more often for the upteenth time. But hey, what better way to make up for that then by putting together a post? 

I spent the last two weeks at home on my second rotation. It was absolutely wonderful to be home and spend time with Lisa, the dogs, the family, and friends. Negative highlights include the molar root canal, catching some type of horrendous throat / lung / sinus / icky infection, and gaining 15 pounds. Spending more than half of your fourteen days at home hacking, coughing, snotting, and otherwise being disgusting is not ideal, but home is home!

I write to you now from my wonderfully hipsterish iPad enjoying a terrible movie about a teacher-turned-MMA-fighter just over halfway between Edmonton and jolly old London. The only thing that makes this movie watchable is that it distracts from the terrible turbulence we had earlier.

Now a little background - I am one of those types that given a window seat never, ever closes it. Do you like sleeping through sunrise on night flights? NOT IF YOU'RE SEATED BY ME! :) You see, I like being able to occasionally catch a glimpse of neat stuff and have been rewarded in the past by things as neat as seeing other planes, catching fireworks displays on two occasions, seeing an engine on our plane flame out (don't ever want to see that again), catching beautiful night and day time scenery, scoping out our ice race tracks on my way in and out of the city, among other wonders.

All of those neat things aside tonight's brief view has been a special treat. Whilst watching the most excellent movie I mentioned earlier and trying to catch up on some work email I peeked out the window and was blown away. It's not very often that you get a totally clear glimpse of the ground from 36,000 feet and even more rare does that happen at night off the Western coast of Greenland. Using the wonders of modern technology (my horrible iPhone camera) along with some suitably horrendous apple approved software I present for your review the following spotty (and horribly digitally enhanced) night shots of the Southwestern coast of Greenland taken from my seat.

A view of Edmonton at take off

Grainy awesome 

More grainy awesome

I promise it was actually pretty.

You have to believe me!

This is roughly where I was. Apparently that's the capital of Greenland. According to Wikipedia they have the highest rate of suicide per capita out of any other country. How cheery!

It's unfortunate that the shots are so poor but take my word for it that the sight was breathtaking. A crystal clear view of stark white Greenland with what I only assume were two fairly sizable cities shining brightly against the bleakness. Had I internet access I could use the awesome that is google maps and figure out just what those cities are buut alas Air Canada hasn't figured out inflight internet yet. :(

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy a glimpse into my inflight boredom. Maybe it's time to catch some shut eye. I've got some Londoning to do tomorrow before catching my economy (ugh) flight to Johannesburg.

Daytime snap of the Western UK

Planes are neat.

That's all for now!