Larry Muffin at home

Cultural Weekend

2012-01-21T22:01:00.001-05:00

This weekend we have been to two cultural events, on Friday night to the theatre to see the famous Canadian play which has been translated in numerous languages and produced around the world in the last 15 years entitled Two Pianos Four Hands by Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt. It chronicles the dreams of two boys who aspire to concert pianist stardom. Highly entertaining with lots of piano playing. It reminded me of my own days when as a youth I took piano lessons. Then this afternoon, we went to see live from New York, MET performance of The Enchanted Island by Jeremy Sams. The Metropolitan Opera has been on the radio for more years than I can remember, decades really and heard around the world. Now its HD Live in large cinemas and it is as if you were there in person. The cinema was full and it is shown in another cinema in Ottawa, so during the MET Season seven cinemas in Ottawa pack them in to see these live performances. There is a great demand and it is hugely popular and a great way to spend a cold winter afternoon, today it was -23C. The conductor was William Christie who was sporting his Legion d'Honneur. The Cast was Neptune, Placido Domingo, it was his birthday today, Sycorax, Joyce Didonato who we saw in Milan at La Scala, Caliban, Luca Pisaroni who we saw in Salzburg and in Ravena, Prospero, David Daniels. We had such great fun and I enjoyed my afternoon immensely. A lavish production, great music of the Baroque era. Jeremy Sams used music by Handel and others and simply put in new wording to very familiar tunes. I have to say that the wording was sort of pedestrian but nonetheless enjoyable.

Today was a sunny winter day and thousands of people were skating on the Rideau Canal, so far 4.3 km are open but next week it will be the full 11Km within the Capital. You get a full workout on such a long stretch of the skate way.
Tonight I am making chicken soup from scratch, I love to do this, it brings back such wonderful memories of my childhood and I basically copy my Mom's recipe, easy as pie and its smell wonderful.

On a Sunny Sunday in cold Ottawa.

2012-01-15T14:51:00.002-05:00

As this is a quiet Sunday morning at -30 C in Ottawa under a bright blue Sun filled winter sky, I sit here with puppies quietly listening to Angela Hewitt playing the English Suite by J.S. Bach. In fact winter officially arrived in Ottawa on Thursday 12 January 2012 in a snowstorm which created meter high snow banks on the streets everywhere, making street parking impossible for a few months to come and walking difficult and hazardous. I wonder what was my ancestor thinking when in June of 1662 he boarded a war ship in Brittany for Quebec City in far away Canada. Knowing that life expectancy upon arrival in this French territoire outre-mer was at best one year. If disease or the elements did not get you the Aboriginals living in the dark primevil forest would. I would rather live in a more southern temperate clime.

Near our home while walking the puppies this morning at 8 am.

The Rideau Canal finally ready for skaters, the longest skating way in the world, I forget how many kilometers it is but it is very long indeed.

cleaning the snow off the canal for skaters to enjoy a good exercise.

quiet streets and a brave few walkers along the canal.

This morning in the New York Times, Lee Siegel has a very good opinion piece on Mitt Romney and race.
Describing Mitt Romney as the whitest white presidential candidate anyone can hope for to replace that black fellow in the White House. It seems that Americans are incapable of accepting a black president, the old race card comes again to haunt the political agenda. Sad for a country which loves to present itself as forward thinking, modern and a defender of freedom and human rights. What is it they say about Freedom, '' the price of freedom is eternal vigilance''. The Americans or at least the Republicans are unable to free themselves of their old prejudices, they inherited the narrow minded and mean views of people like George Wallace of Alabama, nothing has really changed since the 1960.

Lee Siegel says and I quote; Of course, I’m not talking about a strict count of melanin density. I’m referring to the countless subtle and not-so-subtle ways he telegraphs to a certain type of voter that he is the cultural alternative to America’s first black president. It is a whiteness grounded in a retro vision of the country, one of white picket fences and stay-at-home moms and fathers unashamed of working hard for corporate America.

In this way, Mr. Romney’s Mormonism may end up being a critical advantage. Evangelicals might wring their hands over the prospect of a Mormon president, but there is no stronger bastion of pre-civil-rights-America whiteness than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Yes, since 1978 the church has allowed blacks to become priests. But Mormonism is still imagined by its adherents as a religion founded by whites, for whites, rooted in a millenarian vision of an America destined to fulfill a white God’s plans for earth.

He goes on with: ''as became immediately apparent in 2009, millions of Americans were unwilling to accept the basic democratic premise that Mr. Obama legally and morally deserved to sit in the White House — and that was before they confronted his “socialist” and “un-American” policy agenda.

Mitt Romney knows this. He knows that he offers to these people the white solution to the problem of a black president. I am sure that Mr. Romney is not a racist. But I am also sure that, for the many Americans who find the thought of a black president unbearable, he is an ideal candidate. For these sudden outsiders, Mitt Romney is the conventional man with the outsider faith — an apocalyptic pragmatist — who will wrest the country back from the unconventional man with the intolerable outsider color.''

Terribly sad but so true of the USA. It seems that some ghosts of the past are unshakeable.

In Canada this week the law on same-sex marriage was firmly enshrined by the Federal Government by a simple declaration by the Minister of Justice, for anyone who thought that it could be changed by the current administration or some exception was about to be made in Divorce Court. The law was passed in 2005, giving full marital rights, recognition and protection to same-sex couples. Thousands of foreigners have come to Canada to marry because it was not possible in their own country. A great coup for Canada and the Government.

It is a beautiful day but too cold despite the fact that the Canal is open to skating, I can stand the cold and even the puppies don't want to go outside for too long. So we will enjoy the view from inside.

Nora in the Sunshine

Nicky dozing in the morning sun

New Look for the New Year

2012-01-13T19:54:00.000-05:00

2012 is the Year of the Water Dragon according to this year's Asian Lunar or Spring Festival which starts on 22 January, a bit early. If one wants good wishes which comes in the form of a Dragon this year, you should pray to the Dragon Emperor Ao Guang who lives in the East China Sea. Dragons in Asia are good creatures who bring happiness, prosperity, wealth and many good things. They are more serpent like and fly in the sky unlike the European model who has wings and is associated with evil. You will also find Dragons in Japan and in Vietnam, they are symbols associated with the Emperor like in China. The Han Chinese will say that they are the sons of the Great Dragon, the Emperor. The dragon is the mythical beast iconic to many Asian people. Let's hope that this year of the Dragon brings all manner of good things to all people.

Japanese Dragon

Dragon Gods

Chinese Dragon

I also changed the look of my blog page and added a new icon photo and clock. I love the old wall effect with the paintings and the colour scheme as a background. The pocket watch also has that old elegant look.

Will left on Thursday for London for a few days, to visit friends and go to the theatre. He is staying in Kensington and will dine on Friday night at the Garrick Club, lucky bugger. See website www.garrickclub.co.uk It turns out the David Garrick (1717-1779) was of Huguenot French descent ant the family name was De La Garrique. The Club was opened in 1831 it is quite beautiful and in many ways what a gentlemen's club should look like at 15 Garrick street in Covent Garden.

I on the other hand am snow bound, major snow storm in Ottawa, in fact from my window today I thought it looked like I was inside a snow globe so intense was the dancing snow outside. Well for my dinner this evening I had a black squid ink Risotto Venetian Style with freshly chopped vegetables and jumbo shrimps and a little glass or two of one of my favourite scotch, Laphroaig, single malt from Islay, nothing fancy, all simplicity, the other being Talisker.

Puppies are very quiet and asleep now, they went for their walk earlier jumping in the snow, quite covered in the white stuff, they are obviously getting use to it.

Musical interlude

2012-01-12T19:20:00.001-05:00

A little music on this day full of snow and freezing rain in Ottawa. This piece of music by Edvard Grieg
celebrating King Sigurd I of Norway. The piece is known as Sigurd Jorsafar, which is old Norse for the Crusader also known as Magnusson or the great, lived from 1090 to 1130. His rule is said to be by historians, a golden age in Middle Age Norway. He did lead a crusade from 1107-1110. This excerpt is Played here by the orchestra of the CSSR, Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Stephen Guzenhauser. I wish I knew the name of the artist whose paintings are shown here.

Jean Pigott, 1924-2012

2012-01-10T23:17:00.000-05:00

Today at lunch I was looking at the news on the internet and saw that Jean Pigott had just died. She was in poor health and was living at Grace Manor, by a strange coincidence she was also born in the very same hospital then known as Grace Hospital in May 1924. She was 87 years old. I am quite sad to read this news, I knew her and her sisters, I worked for her in Parliament when Joe Clark was Prime Minister and Flora Macdonald was an M.P.

She was a great lady and a wonderful story teller, a champion of our National Capital, Ottawa. In her office she had this incredible collection of little pigs, her family name is Pigott so the connection. Her family are famous in Ottawa, they are the owners of Morrison-Lamothe Bakery, bread making and pastries is the trade mark of this family. She use to say never go a day without tasting the bread. She was for many years the CEO of the company. She became the Chair of the National Capital Commission and her legacy amongst other things is Confederation Boulevard, the great ceremonial road in Ottawa with its red granite sidewalks. She had vision which is so rare in politicians, she also was generous and was involved all her life in philanthropy.

We need more people like her in this day and age. She died on the birthday, the 197th. of Sir John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada, who like her belonged to the Conservative party. Flags on Parliament and at City Hall are at half-mast. In 1995 the Governor General made her an Officer of the Order of Canada. Her maiden name was Morrison and she married Arthur Pigott.

We will miss her, such a great lady.

This and that in the New Year

2012-01-05T21:54:00.000-05:00

Just a few photos in the New Year 2012.

Nicky's look, he has that intense stare, you never know with him.

Just snoozing in the morning sun. Nicky and Nora

Dinner at home, pasta, rose sauce and fresh schrimps and a glass of Moët

Dinner at home with freshly made fries, Will's specialty and a nice steak and a glass of Bolgheri

a sleepy, slow day 1 January 2012

2012-01-01T23:04:00.002-05:00

First I find it difficult to believe that 12 years ago we were living in Warsaw, Poland and the big topic had to do with Y2K and a theory that the Earth would collide with other planets and planes fall from the sky etc... the hysteria from our collective leaders around the world was something to behold, a bit like bird flu and frozen rock hard chickens scare a few years later, we were all going to die, all this seems like a million years ago now. This year some Mayan Calendar and the end of the world, looks more and more like the news is run by the tabloids at the check-out counter of your local supermarket.

First here is my official 2012 New Year's portrait taken on 30 December at the house of our dear friend CP where she served us a wonderful multi-course dinner. I told her this could be a second career and celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay and his mini-hamburgers at Laurier Bar-B-Q in Montreal could take a run for his money. She served amongst other things Cornish Hens, they were very good and I got from her a sea scallop recipe, simple and wonderful. The dinner service is well over 100 years old, very elegant.

During the Holiday period I promised myself I would tend to my army and take care of arranging it all properly. Took me 3 days to do it, quite the task, I know how Kim Jong Un now feels in underfed and hysterical North Korea. I had to arrange them by century, period, monarchs, battle and in an historical context. Have four basic periods, the easiest is the Coronation parade for Queen Elizabeth II, then comes the 7 years war at Quebec City, September 1759, I know my ancestors were there as they lived not far and were soldiers. In fact August 2012 will mark the 350 anniversary of the arrival of my ancestors in Canada, (1662-2012).

Then comes the Napoleonic wars, etc.. though it is not a period I like, 12 campaigns in a very short term if you think of it, a whole male generation in France slaughtered and economic chaos in Europe over some Corsican fellow, who admitted he did not like France or the French that much to begin with.
At any rate it is a lot of work but much fun, each piece has a history and a different provenance.

Today I also did a little housekeeping, polishing the silver ice bucket, a Christmas gift of my sister back in 1983 in New York, where my parents then lived. Will and I spent 3 hours at Fortunoff on Fifth Avenue deciding what we would get. It had gotten quite tarnished and it was inexcusable so now it is all clean again.

We also listened to the New Year's day concert from the Musikverein, Golden Hall in Vienna, the flowers in the concert hall are magnificent, a gift each year I am told from the city of San Remo in Italy. The tickets to the concert are obtained through a lottery and for 2013 you can apply now for your tickets, from the reasonably priced to the very expensive in Euros. See the web site, well worth it, www.musikverein.at

Last night the weather in Ottawa was miserable, slippery and wet, cold, humid, so like most of the people we knew, we stayed home and had a lovely dinner with fine wines and a lovely annual fruit cake by our friend J who has made them for the last 30 years, this year's cake is excellent. By 10 o'clock we were ready for bed but did stay up until midnight listening to the radio from Toronto to ring in the New Year. Had a glass of Marsala Vergine and went to bed. Today the 1 January the weather was quite warm at +5 C, water everywhere under heavy grey skies. Just quiet time.

Happy New Year and Best Wishes to everyone

2011-12-31T18:28:00.001-05:00

Tanti Auguri!
Bonne Année, prospérité, santé et paix!

Not wanting to forget anyone, my best wishes to you all for 2012!

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne ? CHORUS: For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup !
And surely I'll be mine !
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne. CHORUS

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou'd the gowans fine ;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
sin' auld lang syne. CHORUS

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine ;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
sin' auld lang syne. CHORUS

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere !
And gives a hand o' thine !
And we'll tak a right guid-willie-waught,
for auld lang syne. CHORUS

Robert Burns, 1788
and also Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians from whom I first heard on New Year's Eve 1961.

What no Television

2011-12-29T21:03:00.000-05:00

We are now at the 5 month mark since our return from Italy. Our intention was when we returned to buy a new television, we even made a date to go to the store and look at models, the latest technology with gadgets etc.... This was in August, we were still unpacking and moping for la bella Italia, boxes everywhere and chaos. So we postponed our trip to the shop and then simply forgot about it. It turns out that we did have a large flat screen TV in Rome but never watched it, we always had other things to do or things to go and see, so the television just sat there. Now last weekend we were in Montreal and our hotel room had a large screen TV, we turned it on mostly for the puppies as background noise when we were not in the room to distract them. I did watch a bit of news but overall I found the contents of what was being presented on various and numerous channels totally vapid and of no interest to me what so ever.
The talking heads in most cases, no in all cases had no idea what they were talking about, just flapping their gums about this and that and finding themselves very funny, I just found them boring, sorry Radio-Canada and CTV. Most announcers on television are so pretentious and so full of their own importance its comical, they are also desperate to look just like everyone else on the street, faux common bond. They are dying to tell you what is new and hip and why you should do like they do, because their mothers or someone in their family think its great. They got their finger on the pulse of things, really? All this to say that I would not buy a television set based on what I saw on television. I found most announcers and assorted talking heads good reasons not to get involved with the thing to begin with.

At Christmas lunch at one point the conversation turned to a series on television, I had never heard of it
neither had Will. We told family that we did not own a television set and did not plan at this point to get one. We got strange looks, in North America the television culture is deeply ingrained and is part of everyday life, no one really thinks of doing without a television. We have come to realize that we are a breed apart, too much travel, too much living abroad, too many different experiences. We are on a sort of permanent jet lag. So we will continue to do without a television for the foreseeable future.

My three favourite composers and remembering 2011

2011-12-28T20:39:00.006-05:00

There are pieces of music which I can hear over and over again and always love because they evoke memories of my childhood. Not to say that I do not have other favourite composers, Shostakovich, Eric Satie, Mahler, Bach and Cécile Chaminade.
But my three favourites are French, Claude Debussy (1862-1918) who composed Peleas and Melisande, my favourite opera, Maurice Ravel (1875-1935) for Le Tombeau de Couperin and Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) for Le Dialogue des Carmélites and his piano concerto.

They are all modern composers and I simply like their musical style, it makes be dream. Which brings me to reminiscing.

A few more days and we will be into 2012. Certainly 2011 was a year of change for us. We did go in January to Padova and visited this great Italian city, full of incredible art treasures not to mention St-Anthony, my mother's favourite Saint, then to Innsbruck and Salzburg, we stayed at the Hotel Bristol while we attended the Mozart Week and a short visit to Vienna. We also managed to attend the Venice Carnival, well worth seeing, though it can be cold in February, but we were lucky and had lots of bright winter Sun. Then in March I celebrated by 55 birthday and my 30 year of service with a wonderful dinner party in Rome and my friends Cathy and Collette travelled from abroad to attend the party. We visited Siena in early May, a not to be missed city in Italy. We then toured by car Sicily in May from Palermo to Catania, discovered many wonderful dishes and wines in every city we visited. We saw the Royal Canadian Air Force in Trapani. In Marsala we discovered more wonderful Sicilian specialties and we also visited some wonderful sites. Saw magnificent ancient Greek temples in Agrigento. We were very impressed with the beauty of Sicily and its wonders. Then in early June we went to Ravena and saw such wondrous mosaics, the city is renowned for it. On the 22 June we packed up and spent the next 4 months living in suitcases in what can only be politely described as a very stressful time which could have been averted had management been a little more thoughtful of its employees.

Then in June we attended the season closing of the Canadian Club in Rome at a wonderful cocktail party of the roof of the Hotel Minerva by the Pantheon to say goodbye to our friends. Not to forget the delicious dinner party Linda and Nazareno gave us at their home in Capena. Linda was so worried we might not like what she had prepared, everything was great and both of them are great company.

Just before we left we went just for one day to Spoleto to see a tribute to our friend Professor Alberto Testa, one of the great Italian choreographers, with whom we spent our Christmases and Easters at the home of dear Simonetta and her family in Rome.

We were very lucky to find an apartment in Ottawa which suited our needs and met our expectations. By September it was time to reacquaint ourselves with a changed Capital on the verge of becoming a big city. Our old Friends have been wonderful and very helpful in so many ways. One of our first weekends back in Canada, JAG invited us to the cottage, an old tradition re-instated with our return, then in September with visited Wakefield and the Grannies, in October Merrickville for Thanksgiving. In December our friend Cathy arranged for us to have dessert and coffee with Angela Hewitt and found her to be as charming as can be on top of being a great pianist. Also in December was a very special Birthday for Will with a special gluten free cake from Thimble. The puppies had to adapt to a new environment, Eleonora (Nora) discovered squirrels, Nicholas (Nicky) all kinds of new smells and grass everywhere to roll in and lots of dogs to growl at to our despair. With the fall being uncommonly warm up to mid-december and snow coming only at Christmas time, the puppies discovered they need boots and coats to go out. No, Rome was never this cold.

Yes 2011 was a charmed year, now the new Year and its new challenges, at least we are staying put this year, no transatlantic moves, at least that I know of so far.

What I got for Christmas

2011-12-27T22:07:00.000-05:00

Christmas 2011 has come and gone and what did I get for Xmas? A friend of ours in Italy when asked today told us, I got to spend Christmas with my family. For him this was the best gift because he thought of all those people who have no family or are estranged from their families. We all have parents, this is true of all people including orphans, this is where we came from and then with them came our family for better or for worse. Some have large extended families others have small contained families, others still have maybe one parent and maybe a few relatives. So at Christmas time it is good to be able to spend some time with our family. In our case ( W and I) as was the case today, we have our family, we visited in Montreal. Then we have another family which are old friends, who through all these years have been with us. In Ottawa our old friends have been with us since W and I came to this City in 1976, so many memories with them and we have all grown old together. We had a Christmas pot luck luncheon with them today with a toast to their health and a few words to tell them how much we care for them. It was a real pleasure to see them all again after 7 Christmases abroad.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas day we were in Montreal, to be with my mother who is gravely ill and my father who is in relatively good health depending on the day or the weather. Both are elderly and who knows how much longer they will be with us. For my mother who is suffering from Alzheimer and is in the final stages, it is always a pleasure to get a smile, a fleeting recognition if only for an instant from her, a squeeze of the hand. We had Christmas lunch with her and it was beautiful, beautiful flowers, music, good food and the company of relatives and siblings. My cousin L. did a lot of the cooking, turkey breast and a sugared ham, tourtiere and ragout de boulettes, salads and small tarts of creamed sugar. My father also worked at organizing this get together in the fashion he wanted with the help of my brother who came to spend 2 weeks with him. Trying to recreate a normalcy which given my mother's health and that she is confined to a care facility, though a nice and quiet place, is far from normal but it is our normal now.

Today W mentioned that he wanted to visit his brother who lives in Atlantic Canada more than one thousand kilometres away. To get there we need to take a ferry to the island and this depends on the weather and the ferry schedule. I hope we go, we would take our Nicky and Nora with us. It would be quite the adventure, considering that by plane it is a 2 hour flight, we plan to drive for this family visit. Canada is a big place.

Christmas smells

2011-12-23T22:59:00.000-05:00

Today as neighbours prepare for Christmas eve there were some wonderful smells in our building. We live in a condo building where most owners have lived here for the last 30 to 40 years. So everyone knows everyone else and it is a nice crowd. Today our neighbour at the other end of the corridor was cooking up a storm. Wonderful smells of roasting turkey and meat pies and other goodies. Our neighbourhood is largely composed of Edwardian style homes built between 1900-1914. They are large and comfortable with big windows and many formal rooms, reflecting the fashion of that era. So as we walk the puppies in the evening along the Rideau Canal you can see the Christmas trees in those homes. Some are quite large and have many wonderful decorations to them. People also put lights and natural wreaths on their doors. It is not the gaudy decorations seen in the far suburbs, decorations here reflect more the historical context of the neighbourhood. Finally tonight we have a carpet of snow just in time for Christmas and temperature of -20 C. to go with the season.

I also got the flyer from the supermarket and I see some great prices on lobsters and oysters and other sea food, I am surprised at the low prices. Too bad we have already done our menu, maybe next year I can do a seafood, oyster Christmas. Today on the news, an item on Canadian Caviar, apparently as the stock of Russian Caviar is becoming rarer and stock of sturgeons are depleted, Canada has developed its own stocks. We have sturgeons in Canada and now it is becoming a new market, not only the Caviar but also the fillet. Currently one kilo of Canadian Caviar sells for $3000 dollars the demand is such.

Tomorrow morning the 24th we will have a nice breakfast, have a small gift exchange, yes Nicholas and Eleonora went shopping online, clever little hounds, and then off to Montreal to see the family. Hopefully Nicky will not cry all the way as he usually does in the car.

Tourtière a favourite in Canada at Christmas.

Now A Christmas menu for my taste would go something like this, to start we could have some nice little pancakes with sour cream and caviar or a nice clear consommé, then a first course of tourtière (meat pies) a favourite in Canada, with a nice home made ketchup using usually the surplus garden vegetables of last September, followed by a wonderful roasted turkey with a chestnut sausage stuffing. The finish the meal a wonderful plum pudding with hard sauce, but not any old kind of plum pudding, no that would not do, it has to be the recipe favoured by King George V. The plum pudding is brought into the dining room with dim lights so that your guests can see the flames as it is flambe. To finish the meal a nice baby Stilton. The make it more fun, you compliment the meal with a variety of wines to suit each dish. Not to forget a good French Champagne for the toast.
Of course if turkey is not your thing, roast beef done rare is also excellent.

Plum Pudding

Merry Christmas say 80% of Canadians

2011-12-23T15:46:00.001-05:00

A recent poll published today in the National Post shows that in Canada the politically correct is finally receding.

Most Canadians are firmly in the Merry Christmas camp, according to results of the latest Ipsos Reid poll conducted for Postmedia News and Global Television.

Of those polled, a strong majority of Canadians, some 73%, defend using the more traditional greeting, saying it is the “original meaning and purpose of the holiday” in this country.

Canadians appear to be adamant about their more traditional tastes, with their attitude similar to findings when the question was asked last year.

“I think what we’re seeing here is an interesting renaissance where Canadians, many of them, don’t feel that they are being offensive to someone if they call it the Christmas Season,” explained Ipsos Reid pollster John Wright. “Because the majority of people in this country are Christian, the majority of people in this country believe that it is Christmas.”

Presepe in the Cathedral of Enna, Sicily 2011

Middle-aged and older Canadians — 73% of 35- to 54-year-olds, and 80% of those aged 55 and older — are more likely to have a preference for the traditional “Christmas Season” term, which Wright said is not surprising.

But younger Canadians also favour calling it the Christmas Season, and significantly more so than last year.

Sixty-six per cent of those polled between the ages of 18 and 34 prefer the phrase Christmas Season, up 10 points from last year.

“Again, I think there’s a bit of a renaissance here,” said Wright. “Who knows what’s happening, except to say that young people are carving out a niche of their own.”

Across the provinces, residents of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, at 80 per cent, are most likely to favour the term Christmas.

British Columbians come in at a close second with 78 per cent, followed by 77 per cent of Albertans and Ontarians, and 74 per cent of those living in the Atlantic provinces.

Sixty-one per cent of Quebec residents prefer Christmas.

For many Canadians, Wright said, Christmas is akin to American Thanksgiving, a time when people go home to reconnect with their family.

“It’s not about religion,” said Wright. “The No. 1 reason is really about family.”

Fourteen per cent think Christmas is a time for exchanging gifts this season, up from last year’s nine per cent.

Nineteen per cent think Christmas is a time to reflect on the birth of Jesus Christ, while 12 per cent see the holiday as just “a nice festive season in the middle of the winter.”

Thirty-five per cent of Atlantic Canadians see Christmas as a time to reflect on the birth of Jesus Christ. The rest of Canada isn’t far behind, but just six per cent of Quebecers agreed, which Wright said could have to do with Montreal’s cosmopolitan culture.

The online poll of 1,021 Canadians from an Ipsos Reid online panel was conducted between last Dec. 14 and 19.

December 23, 2011 Ottawa by the Rideau Canal

Christmas- Noël

2011-12-20T20:53:00.001-05:00

Well we are only a few days away and we are pretty much ready. No gifts this year, it was a year for downsizing and we really don't want anything. In many ways it is better this way. We have good friends, we have family, we have our puppies and we have each other. The tree is up and my sister and brother with their spouses are coming up to Canada for Christmas. The menu, lots of goodies has been arranged by my Dad. It is all catered, so no anxious moments or getting tired trying to cook and then cleaning up.
The weather appears to be promising some snow for Christmas, it was really cold today -20C. Puppies find it really difficult, being from Rome they have never seen such weather. They will be 3 yrs old in February 2012. They have their coats and their boots.

Lights in Roppongi Tokyo

Will says it was a difficult year, in a way it was, we did spend 4 months in suitcases and leaving so many friends in Rome and a very nice apartment and the life we had in Italy, all these changes were difficult. A lot of adjustments in returning to Canada, life here is very different, values, culture, attitudes, sometimes parochial, the food, heavy and starchy or too sweet. We are adjusting piano, piano, as we say in Italy.

The old Star on our tree, the same star for the last 34 years.

We have good friends here and we have been lucky to find an apartment by the Rideau Canal, making it easy to walk to work, to shops and other venues in the Capital.

some of the decorations on our tree.

Our tree is full of memories, every decoration from the Star on top bought in a dollar store, to all the other decorations, bought in all kinds of places around the world, many hand made or part of a tradition.

Best Wishes to our friends and to all a Happy Christmas. Who knows what 2012 will bring, we can only wish for Health, Happiness, Prosperity and Peace. It does not have to be peace in the world, that is too complicated, but just peace in our lives and of those we love and care for is quite enough for me.

All the best to all of you!

Books I am reading now

2011-12-17T19:13:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago I was reading the Globe & Mail, dubbed Canada's National Newspaper and Jeffrey Simpson whose column I have been reading for years, I wonder how old he is, I do like his column a lot. He recently recommended a new book which has been published on the War of 1812, titled the Civil War of 1812. This war will be commemorated in 2012 by the Canadian Government as will be the Diamond Jubilee of our Sovereign.
A monument to the war's bicentennial is under construction in Ottawa, but no one seems to know where exactly. I think I may have glimpsed at it today by accident at the corner of the Western Parkway and Wellington street just below Parliament. I saw what looks like the new footing of a great monument, but I digress. What I wonder is, will the government also build a monument to the Queen on the anniversary of her 60th year as monarch. She already has an equestrian monument on Parliament hill on her favourite horse Burmese (1962-1990), a gift of the RCMP.

H.M. the Queen riding Burmese

All this to say that Jeffrey Simpson in his column suggested that we should not commemorate the war of 1812 between Canada and the USA. It was according the author of the book Charles Taylor, more of a civil war between the same people, than a war between two nations. The book is full of very interesting facts, unknown to me. One in particular made me laugh, the White House sent an express messenger to Canada to warn us that war had been declared, so General Sir Isaac Brock had several hours head start on the US Authorities at the border who had no idea that they were at war with Canada. Brock took advantage of it. The book also shows that US politics was not much different then as it is today. The Republicans were against taxes of any kind. The Federalist were very friendly to Canada and willing to see things our way. Many of the great American heroes were nothing more than greedy businessmen and rapacious landowners, the 1% of their time. The USA was not well established as a Republic and it would take at least until 1867 or after the Civil War to firm up in the population the idea of republicanism and nationhood.

The other two books are on our first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald (1815-1891) born in Glasgow, Scotland, he move with his parents to Kingston, Ontario at the age of 5. Richard Gwyn has done a marvellous job of bringing the man to life in a very personal way, showing him as a human being with his frailties and not just as a politician. Macdonald was certainly a man of vision, who united the Nation, built the transcontinental railway, created the first national political party. He became Prime Minister at a time when Britain was no longer much interested in Canada, preferring India and openly suggesting that we might want to join the USA, it was an uncertain time, even our border with the USA was not clearly established, we had far more land to the south of the 49th parallel. It was a time when Macdonald had the vision of us as a distinct people, as Canadians different from the Americans. He was a Scot by birth but an immigrant by choice who believed in the possibility of his new country Canada. His vision, to secure land, the North West ( a.k.a. Western Canada), owned by the Hudson Bay Company and to build a railway to cement the national bond. He also had clear plans on governing, he created the RCMP, ensuring that our history would be different from the Americans. His vision was that of a country based on law, order and good government, settlement of the western provinces to the Pacific ocean would be done by the government in Ottawa and not as in the US model by whoever happened to be going westward. He also decreed by Order In Council that the Government of Canada would use British English spelling in all its documents and this is what we do to this day.

Sir John A. Macdonald as First Officer of the Privy Council of Her Majesty in Canada. This picture is a favourite of mine and hangs in the Foyer of the House of Commons in Ottawa.

Certainly Sir John ranks amongst the great Nation builder of the 19th Century, men like Disraeli, Garibaldi, Bolivar and Bismarck. It is most amazing that a man who suffered so many personal tragedies, his first wife died young, his first son died in infancy, his second son Hugh John was distant from him, and though his second marriage was a happy one, his daughter Mary was born an invalid, he love that child and 30,000 letters survive full of gentle and funny words for his dear daughter. His strenght of character allowed him to rise above it all, in other words he took the high road and who we are today as a country is thanks to him. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about Canada.

Sir John A. Macdonald as a young man 1842.

Earnscliffe, the home of Sir John on Sussex Drive in Ottawa, it is the Residence of the British High Commissioner since 1930. He died there in his study in 1891.

The Oath

2011-12-14T22:40:00.004-05:00

Our Minister of Immigration and Citizenship who is also responsible for Multiculturalism, the Hon. Jason Kenny ordered yesterday that anyone taking the Canadian Oath of Citizenship had to be seen and heard by the Judge administering the Oath and it had to be done in either of Canada's Official Languages, French or English. Since 1977 and until now the Oath was taken in various forms, in a variety of languages and the Judge or Consul administering the Oath could not be certain if the person understood what was happening. The new measure clearly spells out that the Judge who administers the Oath of Citizenship has to see the person's face and hear them say it in our Official Languages since it is a legal process.

It's the old principle come forth and be heard which is the principle of Justice given by the King under the Oak tree, it goes back at least one thousand year if not more. However there are people who are screaming loudly against such a simple measure. The media has turned this into a feminist issue because it involves Muslim women who wear face covering in public. Editorials on Freedom, Tolerance and accommodation, Canada being such a welcoming country, allowing just about anything to please just about everybody. I have come to understand that the free Press is not about informing you as it is about fomenting discord in society under the guise of trying to inform you. A lot of the editorials are half baked and ill conceived and gloss over facts by being facile.

The measure announced clearly states that anyone, man or woman, even a child over the age of 14 must show their face to the judge so that he can see them pronounce and make the Oath. It is not just a question of hearing someone but of seeing them. It is a public gesture you are showing yourself in public and affirming your allegiance to the Crown and to the Country. But again the critics say we should not even ask foreigners to take the Oath, apparently is infringes on their rights. They should become citizens simply because they are here. What a concept, more a fantasy really. Other Western countries demand that you speak the National language to be able to drive a car or become a Citizen. Exam are given in the National language and you have to pass a test administered by a Government inspector, the pass mark is high and citizenship is given after a long painstaking exam. In Canada we simply ask that you go through what can be called a simplified process and take an Oath in public. I think here of the American process or the French, Italian, Polish, German, Swiss, Austrian or British processes to acquire Citizenship, much more difficult than Canada. So why the indignant cries from the media?

In a Court of Law, you swear in front of a judge and everyone present that you will tell the Truth, when you marry, you say to all assembled that you are entering into matrimony, it is your pledge. It is something we do here in Canada, our pledges, our Oaths are public displays, it is our tradition. It should be pointed out that in Canada to obtain a driver's licence which is a Provincial jurisdiction you are required to show your face to obtain a driving permit because an ID photo is inserted into the driving permit, no one Muslim or otherwise has protested. But wait, for Canadian Citizenship which is a high privilege, you have all this moaning. Why?

What I have noticed in the last 25 years in Canada is an evolution, there are some people and they are loud, who simply reject any notion that belonging to a society, any society, involves responsibility to others or duty to that society. There are many selfish people who only wish to take and see what they can get for themselves. Rejecting commonly held values for such people has become a virtue. The Oath of Citizenship in certain quarters has been ridiculed amongst many other public symbols which makes our Canadian identity.

What I find particularly disturbing is the CBC, the State broadcaster, making itself the mouthpiece of such groups, giving them a platform. People are encouraged to phone in and voice their opinion, so the sample of calls being broadcasted ridicule the notion of Citizenship as not important, taking an Oath is not important, it does not matter. Our society is Patriarchal so of course men tell these Muslim women that they cannot cover their faces in public. It is dangerous, to have men say such things we are told. The Citizenship Oath is just a ceremony of no importance apparently. We are asking foreigners who wish to become Citizens to jump through hoops like circus animals. Since when is taking an Oath comparable to some kind of cheap trick? This last remark comes from a University Professor in Ottawa, presented as an expert. The number of offensive remarks being broadcasted on the CBC are nothing short of shocking and maybe this is what the public broadcaster wants, shock value for ratings. Responsibility, Civic duty is not important because individual rights come first. What appears to be important is the notion of what can the Country do for me, is this the last stages of a culture of entitlement.

I am just happy that the Government has finally taken steps to ensure that the Citizenship Ceremony is restored to what it was intended to be to begin with, a dignified affirmation of the wish to become a Canadian Citizen. Foreigners need to understand that in taking this Oath, you have duties and responsibilities and that you will be asked to uphold certain principles, one of which is that we are all equals as Citizens and that women cannot as is the case in certain cultures, made into second class persons with no voice. In an open society like ours certain foreign cultural concepts have to be abandoned if you wish to be part of our Canadian Society, for the sake of harmony and social peace.

Certain cultural habits you bring with you from foreign lands are a private matter and not part of who we are as a Nation, you do not like how we live as Canadians, fine, but, if you wish to become a Citizen of Canada, you will have to accept our basic principles. Canadian Citizenship is a privilege not
a right!

The Oath of Canadian Citizenship

I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.

Further this week a poll by Forum research reveals that 81% of Canadians overwhelmingly support the decision of the Government to have no veils or face coverings at Citizenship Oath Ceremonies.

Birthday and trimming the tree

2011-12-11T19:20:00.002-05:00

December by Hans Thoma

Well we had a good birthday for W. surprised him with a special cake of orange spice with a white cream icing in a Laura Ashley design. The cake was made by Thimble Cakes of Bank street in Ottawa, they specialize in cakes that are gluten free, lactose or nut free for people who have allergies but still like their cake. The design they have for the cakes are beautiful and make for a unique presentation. It was my contribution to a lovely dinner at old friends on Parkdale, a nice bottle of Moët et Chandon, some nice wines and many other delicacies. Our friend R contributed as always his own artistic place settings for each guests. I have a whole collection of dinner parties place settings R has provided through these many years.

Wonderful gluten free cake

The cake was so good everyone had 3 helpings. See their website, the staff are also most helpful, we had a sit down chat about the sort of cake I wanted. Their website www.thimblecakes.ca

W also received many messages of good wishes from friends. Now he can enjoy fully senior citizen discounts.

Birthday bouquet homage from Scrim's my favourite florist in Ottawa since 1976.

Many years ago when I was in Jordan, I would fly to Canada for Christmas and the flight usually stopped in London. I used the stop over to shop for baby Stilton which W, likes especially. The first time I went to get one I was not prepared for the size of the cheese, it is the size of a baby, I paused for a moment when the shop attendant asked me if I wanted the whole thing, I thought W had played a trick on me, so I did my King Solomon and took only half with me to Canada, a smelly baby indeed.
I remember one year, a colleague suggested we go see about wines and spirits at one of London's great wine stores, Berry Brothers and Rudd at 3 St-James Street. I love London in December, there is such an atmosphere in the City. We did find some great wines which I brought with me to Canada. That Christmas we were going to Niagara-on-the-Lake for the Holiday period, staying then at the old Oban Inn, prior to the great fire.

Last night we put up the Christmas tree, pre-lit, this way no grand schemings on lights and were they should go etc.. One of the time honoured tradition is to polish the Sterling Silver Xmas tree balls all 30 of them. Starting with the first one marked 1979, our first Xmas together. This was the year Neiman Marcus of Dallas introduced this item to their catalogue, we stopped at the year 2009. Mostly because we thought we had enough for the tree. What is most fun about those silver balls is that each one has a special memory, of a city or a place we were living in the world at the time. I was looking at 1987 Mexico City, 1998 Warsaw, 2007 Rome, so many happy memories.

''It was Katmandu in the Spring, well you see as I said to LaBouBou as he was then.....

The weather is definitely cold now at -6C and the Rideau canal is partially frozen, still no snow but we are told that after the 15 Dec it is likely that we will have some snow at least for Christmas. I only wish for an elegant covering of white, no need for masses of it, a delicate blanket, I hope Mother Nature is listening.

Polishing those famous N&M sterling silver balls

Dachshund God guarding the balls and Christmas tree 2011

All I want for XMAS! Courtesy of H.M. Royal Navy

2011-12-08T14:12:00.000-05:00

There is nothing quite like the Royal Navy and the skits they invent to amuse themselves, a fine old tradition. This piece has gone viral. I just love it.

Colonna dell'Immacolata, Piazza di Spagna, Roma, Italia

2011-12-08T13:45:00.000-05:00

Today is 8 December and in Rome the Catholic Church celebrates the Immaculate Conception.
This is still to this day in Republican Italy a National Holiday. The Pope will travel from the Holy See on Vatican Hill to Piazza di Spagna usually taking a route were he will cross the Tiber River at Ponte Cavour, then down Via Tomacelli and Via Condotti turning towards Pizza di Spagna. The streets are effectively closed off thus cutting the city in two creating giant traffic snarls. It may be a holiday but people are shopping for Xmas. He will come deposit a garland of flowers on the arm of the statue of the Virgin Mary a top the column on Piazza di Spagna with the help of the Vigili of Rome ( Fire dept) and a cherry picker. The Piazza is usually crowded on this day, so much so that the metro stop at Piazza di Spagna is closed, the crowds are too great.

All the religious congregations in Rome will come to the Piazza wearing the different uniforms of their congregation to greet the Pope, sing hymns and pray to the Virgin. Leaving at the foot of the column many flower tributes. This being Rome the whole scene takes on a Carnival air.

The column itself was taken from an ancient Roman temple, the statue of the Virgin is in fact an ancient statue of Venus, remodelled somewhat. At the foot of the column sits 4 Hebrew patriarchs from the old Testament. They represent the links to the promise made by God the Father to his people to send a Messiah.

The column stands in front of the College for the Propagation of Doctrine of the Faith, which the current Pope use to be the Head and next to the Royal Spanish Embassy to the Holy See.

a corner has been turned.

2011-12-04T19:28:00.000-05:00

A little over 4 months ago we returned from Italy. It was a difficult return, we had become well established in Rome and we had a routine and a life and friends. We became very familiar with the city and what it had to offer. We often also travelled around Italy to several small cities discovering a good restaurant or some are treasure or a good wine. There was always something to see either in Rome, a new exhibit, a cultural event or somewhere else outside the city, just a short train ride away. Our departure from Rome was not helped by certain individuals who created administrative difficulties which made our move longer than necessary. We arrived back in Canada and the settling in period started, it was not always easy, meeting with obtuse government officials, a changed city and indifference. It all looked so parochial and limited.
But this week finally a corner is turned, maybe it was that concert at Knox Presbyterian or the Christmas lights all over the city, on public buildings, in city parks or the change in the weather and the firming up of plans for the Holidays. Who knows but it seems we now have a new routine and we are finally settled.

For sure we will always have strong fond memories of Rome and of our lives and friends we left behind.
But for now Ottawa seems to be our new home and that thanks to long time friends here who have been helpful, we have been able to start a new life and look to the future and make plans.

Canadian Parliament Building, Ottawa

Winter and Xmas

2011-12-04T00:31:00.000-05:00

As I was sitting in my cubicle office on the 16th floor looking south over Ottawa on a cold morning this week, it was -1C outside and windy, it suddenly occurred to me that your brain tells you to eat more as a form of comfort against the cold and greyness outside. The coffee shop across the street called Les Délices, is privately owned and has beautiful Belgian chocolates, butter croissants and other pastries in the morning to have with your coffee. It is very tempting and the cold weather entices you to just get a cappucino or a caffe machiato and a croissant which was made just an hour prior with that freshly baked scent. Of course it is all a question of control and not overindulge and over eat. Winter is approaching slowly this year, with a record breaking warm autumn in Ottawa. Today was a bright sunny day with a cold wind, the puppies put on their coats before going out. They find it cold now at -4C I wonder how they will feel on those winter mornings when the temperature is -30C.

Since our return to Canada a few months ago our friend C.P. has been an angel, she has arranged for us to be kept informed of what is happening at the National Arts Centre and in various other locals, sending us information on concerts, choirs and cultural events. We have been to quite a few choir concerts and symphonic concerts thanks to her. C.P. is a soprano and sings with the Cantata Singers of Ottawa under the direction of Michael Zaugg. Thanks to her, we met with pianist Angela Hewitt who is from Ottawa, at a private function, she is one of my favourite pianist and such a nice person, it was a delight to be able to speak with her while enjoying desserts at Le Café of the National Arts Centre. We also saw maestro Valery Gergiev, he too is one of my favourite conductors, Riccardo Muti being the other. This evening we are going to hear yet another choir concert, with Christmas Stories read by Adrian Harewood of CBC Radio and the Ottawa Cantata Singers at Knox Presbyterian Church (c.1844) at the corner of Elgin and Lisgar Street . This is a beautiful stone church, a landmark in Ottawa with its roof of Red British Columbia cedar and red Oak doors. We will dress warmly for our walk down to the church as the wind is biting and cold.

About the NAC apparently plans are afoot to change the outside look of the building,first inaugurated in 1967 for the Centennial of our Canadian Confederation as the cultural and national showcase of the Federal Government to the country. Plans call for a transparent glass wall to replace the current pebble brown concrete exterior with a new entrance off Elgin Street. The idea being that it would reflect openess and transparency, themes dear to the heart of the Civil Service in Canada. This renovation of the building's outside exterior is to coincide with the Anniversary of 2017 when Canadian Confederation will mark 150 years.

On Parliament Hill and everywhere in the centre of the Capital Xmas lights have started to appear. It is quite beautiful. We are putting up our tree on Saturday 10 December. A new tree this year to fit into our smaller apartment. Our neighbours have also started to decorate, a nice change for us, because in Rome no one put out any display of lights, or at least it was rare, even at the Vatican, you had the corporate looking giant crèche and a sorry looking tree with white lights, usually a gift from Catholic Austria, but that was all. So we are looking forward to all the lights and decorations around the city. The concert at Knox Presbyterian is also a chance to re-aquaint ourselves with a tradition that of the Xmas sing along Hymns which is very popular in Canada.

The week that was

2011-11-27T22:10:00.001-05:00

Well this week we had the first snow fall in Ottawa, strange how on this one day everyone has instant amnesia and forgets how to drive. Puppies Nicky and Nora being from Rome had never seen the stuff and there was much panic. Will made a little movie of it on his site.

Nora and Nicky on their morning rest, such a hard life. Notice the little Dachshund statue next to the chair.

Nora in the snow at 06:45am by the Rideau Canal, what is this stuff ?

The Saga of Bus #96 which crosses Ottawa continues to be reported on CBC Morning Show. According to news report or if news report are to be believe it has to be the most unpleasant bus route in the National Capital Region, nasty stuff all around. You really want to get your SUV and go drive instead of taking public transport. If you want action take number 96 it is high in drama, not to mention the occasional fist fights and bad language, parental warning advise but again its the kids who are causing all the trouble.

The saga of the singing bus driver also continues, 12 passengers complained over a period of time that the poor fellow did not know how to hold a tune, but then 300 passengers thought it was nice to hear him sing. Our good Mayor Jim Watson from his chauffeured driven limousine told him to shut up and drive the bus. So the passengers in a show of bravado decided to board the now silent singing driver's bus and sing in defiance of the Mayor's dictat. You have to wonder in what other Capital of the world would such events occur, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, Rome, Copenhagen, NO only in Ottawa, a city where eccentric behaviour is encouraged.

We also celebrated our 34th Anniversary this week and the retirement of a colleague after 35 years in La Carrière. We went to the Café of the National Arts Centre a solid standard, the food is excellent and the service good.

Dinner at the Café of the NAC.

Yesterday our local daily The Citizen had a full front page dedicated to IKEA, the new store, the mystique, the legend. A new giant store is opening shortly, you will be able to enjoy Swedish meatballs and a panoramic view of Highway 417. Some places have things like StoneHenge we have IKEA. I am aslo starting to think that the Editorial board of the Citizen have shares in IKEA they have given that store alone tons of free publicity, I wonder why. Maybe the Ottawa Citizen is run by a bunch of Swedes passing themselves off as innocent Ottawa valley folks.

We also bought a new Xmas tree this week a somewhat shorter version from the previous version. We went to several stores, compared prices, number of tips and lights, etc... our dear friend B came with me and from my cell phone would rally the info to Monsieur at home who played Nero and gave the thumbs up or down to whatever tree we thought might suit us.

I went to the auctioneer's today, Maclean on Laperriere to see how our various items were selling, well we did good and I was happy with the results. Lots of people and fast action. They also had a area full of 54mm lead soldiers, all good makes at very low prices. I just could not help myself and had to stop to look and bought a few.

Tonight we are returning to Grill 41 at the Lord Elgin Hotel, will see how they do this time around, I will review the restaurant afterwards.

The weather so far in Ottawa is very much like that of Warsaw, grey skies, a bit of rain and temperatures around 8C. I would not mind at all if it continued like this all winter. Tonight the temperature climbed to 13C for the end of November this is exceptional and me think WONDERFUL!!!!!

Home

W has a big birthday coming up in a week's time and I will follow Chinese Tradition and serve him a big bowl of Gluten free Noodles in chicken broth for breakfast on his Birthday, it is called Longevity noodles, we will also wish him 10,000 more birthdays.

Le Jour du Souvenir 11 novembre 2011

2011-11-09T21:06:00.001-05:00

I read today in the newspaper that Remembrance Day was a forgotten holiday. I do hope this is not true, many things can be forgotten but not that day. Too many young, brave and often scared Canadian soldiers made great sacrifices for all of us. We should not forget what they did in the First World War 1914-1918, the Second World War 1939-1945, the Korean War or during all those Peace missions around the world and more recently in Afghanistan. They secured our future and I am proud of them and grateful.
Friday 11 November at 11 am we shall remember them.

Prince of Wales laying a commemorative wreath.

A private evening with Angela Hewitt

2011-11-05T23:07:00.000-04:00

Last night we went to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa to hear Angela Hewitt play Ravel. I have liked her for so many years and with Alicia Della Rocha she is one of my favourite pianist. After the concert she had arranged for a small group of people to meet in the restaurant of the NAC for dessert, many of the people present have known her since childhood. She came and greeted everyone in a very personal and friendly manner. Not only is she a great artist, she has wonderful people skills. One could be excused for being tongue tied meeting someone like her, but she put everyone at ease by speaking in the most friendly way as if we had known her for years. Angela Hewitt has a house in Ottawa but she also lives in Trasimeno, Umbria, Italy where every year in June she organizes a Music Festival with other great artists. This coming year in June, Anne Sophie Von Otter will be part of the Festival program. This Music Festival also includes now concerts in the towns of Gubbio and Perugia.

I was thrilled to meet Angela Hewitt and be able to speak to her over dessert as an old friend, I thanked her for her talent and the many hours of pleasure she has given me listening to her wonderful piano playing.

Bolshoi le grand gala d'ouverture

2011-10-31T19:29:00.001-04:00

This past Friday the Bolshoi, (great) theatre in Moscow re-opened with a grand gala of artists, music and dance.

The Bolshoi company of Ballet and Opera was created in 1776 by Prince Peter Urusov and the Englishman Michael Maddox, a famous theatre owner in London. The Bolshoi Theatre building was designed in 1824 by Joseph Bové built with a classical facade and an opulent interior, known for its acoustics. The first work to be performed was the ballet Cendrillon by Fernando Sor on the 18 January 1825.

The Friday gala opening was broadcasted live on Russian television and friends in Rome went to the cinema at Piazza Repubblica to see it. I wish we had this opportunity in Ottawa, not likely though, here we are waiting for the opening of the new IKEA store in the West end of the city.

Russian television (RT) put up a segment on YouTube and it struck me how Russia today is celebrating its culture and its past, Imperial symbolism are prominent, from the uniforms of the honour guard which are from 1800 to the choice of music, God Save the Tsar, to the restoration of the Imperial Coat of Arms now used by the President of Russia and on all buildings. So the past, prior to 1917 was not so bad after all.

Russian Television and the artistic team responsible for the production of this gala did a superb job. It was very impressive. There was the opening chorus of modern construction workers on stage acting out the renovation of the theatre and singing an excerpt from the opera A life for the Tsar and then the march of the Tsar's Life Guards as the entire corps de ballet and other artists who are part of the Bolshoi Theatre came on stage in a choreography of what looked like a Debutante's Ball. Outside a jeux de lumières projected unto the facade gave the public the history of the cleaning, restoration and rebuilding of this great theatre, ending with peals of church bells and fireworks.

Made you wish you were there. Well maybe one day we will visit.

Nicholas and Eleonora

2011-10-29T22:26:00.000-04:00

Here are some photos taken this past week after Nicky and Nora went to the groomers. The last time they were groomed was in June prior to leaving Rome. They needed a good grooming and though they are hunting dogs, wire hair dachshunds need regular grooming for their coats as it grows fairly quickly and becomes ever thicker.

Eleonora di Capena (Nora)

Nicola di Capena (Nicky)

posing quietly waiting for a biscuit.

They are hounds and they make hound sounds like a hunting howl which is frightening. They are also very clever being Dachshunds so you have to watch yourself because they are good at training people.

Photo albums

2011-10-26T17:28:00.000-04:00

I have been going through boxes of photo albums going back 30 years or even 50 for some photos. So many souvenirs of so many places we travelled to around the world, of our dogs Bundnie and Reesie who are both associated with posting in Egypt and in the USA. They in fact were so well travelled, they also lived with us in Poland and in Canada, Reesie died in Rome at age 16. Our Vet Dr. V. use to joke that our dogs were better travelled than him. Same now with Nicky and Nora who were born in Rome and now live in Canada. What is strange is that I see clothing I still have and still wear from 25 years ago, I suppose if you take care of your clothing it will last a long time. So many souvenirs, we have the same friends we had 35 years ago, we all grew old together, some have lost weight, other have white or gray hair, some regretfully have died. Memories of so many parties to mark a departure usually to a Post, or a Xmas in Canada, some fancy meal prepared by Will, photos of his famous Plum Pudding recipe from the kitchen's of Windsor Castle, C.1912. We also have lots of pictures of table settings for dinner parties we gave over all these years. I had written notes on each photo so they are easy to identify, others bring back instant memories of events.

Now we have to scan all those photos and put them on disk so that they do not fade, it is also easier to carry and consult. Some I may put up on my Flickr account, though I have learn to restrict access.

All this is part of the clean up and downsizing of our belongings, call it rationalization, in any event to many things to hold on too and not really necessary. I suppose we have to become a little more Zen in our thinking.

looking for a vacation

2011-10-25T12:42:00.000-04:00

We have started to look at cruises around the Baltic we would like to go to St-Petersburg and spend 3 days visiting. We thought we could fly to London and see our friends there and sail from London. With the economy the way it is a lot of cruise lines offer very good deals. We are looking for a smaller ship, about 1000 passengers or less. We like top of the line, nice cabin with a balcony, don't care much for on-board shopping or entertainment. If they have a good restaurant or bar that is a plus. They also offer excursions in every port and we usually skip those and do things on our own. We did that on the Danube cruise from Budapest to Nuremberg and it was great. We are still thinking of going back to Italy to see friends also.
It is all a question of saving our pennies and we have already started to do so, aiming for May 2012.

As for Xmas and New Year's, it will probably be Xmas in Ottawa though we have no idea with who or what we will do.

Death of .....

2011-10-23T22:10:00.001-04:00

This week the dramatic events of the death of Muammar Ghaddafi on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, beaten to death and shot by angry Libyans, shocked many in the world. It was not totally unexpected, the hatred he generated amongst ordinary Libyans was such that any other outcome dictated that he flee the country quickly to a friendly nation like Zimbabwe. The airspace closed by NATO planes only left him a desert road to Niger. With his death he is the most recent Pan-Arabic leader to fall signalling the end of a generation of leaders who came to power following the example of Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt, the man who in 1953 overthrew the Egyptian Monarchy and asserted that the Arabs would govern themselves. Nasser was against the old Arab Aristocracy, the princes who had ruled for centuries, the old colonial powers, Britain, France, Germany, the corrupt ruling class who abused ordinary citizens. The Nasser revolution in July 1953 was a genteel affair, King Farouk was given 3 days to pack his things including part of the National Treasure and leave, he went into exile sailing to Rome on his yacht. In Irak a few years later it was a less genteel affair, the Royal family was massacred by the high military command in their beds. Jordan was to be next and Nasser and Assad of Syria tried for years, even paying Yasser Arafat at one point in 1970 to try to overthrow the Hachemite king, to no avail the Bedu tribes came to the rescue.

Nasser never liked Ghaddafi much, he had taken over Libya in a bloodless coup while King Idriss was away on an Official trip abroad. Nasser would say that he found Ghaddafi untrustworthy and a little strange. Pan-Arabism as an ideology sought to be a Socialist Arab movement devoid of religion, it never achieved its aims. The ideology quickly turned into whatever each dictator wanted it to be in his country, in all cases a police state, a dictatorship style of government and like many Fascist movement exalted the leader in a huge personality cult with the national army as the enforcer. Egypt, Syria, Irak, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria all fell into the same morass. Because they were all semi-agrarian or with semi-nomadic people or fierce tribal groups, rapidly growing, largely illiterate poor populations, they became pawns of the Cold War games between the USSR and the USA, having been pawns of the colonial powers, Britain and France previously. Each dictator needed lots of cash to pay off the elites and weapons to keep their armies happy, both the USSR and USA were happy to oblige in return for political allegiance.

Nasser died of a heart attack in 1970 realizing that his ideas of one pan-arabic government by the masses was nothing but half baked ideology. Assad died of old age a few years ago in Syria to be replaced by his inept son, who may meet the same fate as Ghaddafi if he does not flee in time to Iran his ally. Yemen is into a civil war with President Saleh hanging on barely having survived an assassination attempt. Egypt is in chaos and Libya well it all remains to be seen what is going to happen next. As for Irak turmoil continues in this ravaged country, divided by political tensions along religious lines.

Tunisia is the only one so far who seems to have been able to pull it off with an free and open election this weekend. So bye-bye Pan-Arabic leadership and hello uncertainty. It is really not clear what is going to happen next, certainly not western style democracy, getting rid of a dictator does not mean that everyone understands what democracy means or how it works in everyday life, if Irak is an example of what can go wrong when you have no tradition of dissent or open plural society. I am sure that many outsiders will certainly try to make helpful suggestions on how to go about it, but often suggestions are not welcomed and are seen as nothing more than interference.

As for a trial for Ghadaffi at the International Court in The Hague, as much as this follows the idea of a society based on rule of law and international recognized standards of Justice, this was never going to happen. Ghadaffi knew too much and he had become a bothersome figure, he could have embarrassed more than one leader. The trial would also have been yet another platform for him to spin out his ideas of the world, it would also would have made him a martyr to some. In a cynical world his death closes a chapter. Looking back on it, when on Christmas day 1989 Ceausescu and his wife were summarily executed in front of a firing squad in Romania, after a trial which lasted 30 minutes, I do not recall the same call for an investigation. He had been the President of Romania for years and a thorn on the side of many countries but the good ally of others. But then again this was another time in history.

Mirick or Merrickville on the Rideau Canal

2011-10-22T11:05:00.003-04:00

The Ottawa valley has a lot of interesting villages along the Rideau River and the Canal. One is Merrickville, a very picturesque town. It is a short drive from Ottawa in pleasant countryside reminiscent of Northern Poland formerly Oriental Prussia.

Sketch by Bainbridge

William Mirick an Empire Loyalist or a late loyalist, in other words someone who was fleeing the American rebellion against the Crown, established his saw mill on the Rideau River where the river drops 24 feet. He was amongst thousands of Yankees who disenchanted with the American revolution and high taxes after the American war of Independence, came to Canada for the free land and low taxes. It is recorded that in 1790 he was given a Crown grant of land (200 acres), the community grew around his saw mill and it became known as Mirick later MerrickVille. By 1800 it boasted a lumber mill, a foundry (still in operation today), blacksmith shop and several hotels and taverns.

By 1824 Lt Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers was drawing plans for the Rideau Canal, the canal was built to protect Canada from a possible invasion by the Americans, who where constantly scheming to invade Canada even at this early stage in their history, feeling compelled to annex land and expand their territory. When you read this part of the history of Canada you see that the USA was a threat to its neighbours both Canada and Mexico. The canal's main purpose was to move troops between Kingston and Ottawa which is connected to the Saint Lawrence river (Montreal) via the Outaouais river.

The Canal was opened in 1832 and it brought a great deal of prosperity to the town and the area being a major commercial hub. But in 1860 with the arrival of the railway and other points being chosen as railway stops, Merrickville suddenly fell into slumber being bypassed by progress. It was only in 1960 that the town saw a new era with modern tourism and historical refurbishment of the Blockhouse and locks as the Centennial of Canadian Confederation (1867-1967) approached.

Today Merrickville is one of the best preserved 19th century town with more than 100 historical buildings, many of them made of stone, colony of artists and artisans. It is said to be one of the most beautiful small towns on the Rideau known for its gardens and flower display. It also has good restaurants and friendly people. The foundry is interesting, set in the original building it still produces many products for Canadian Embassies, Government buildings, official organizations, and private individuals. You can order from their catalogue a personalized hand painted plaque for your house.

Main cross roads in Merrickville

The blockhouse guarding the canal

The Rideau River below the dam

the old foundry covered in ivy.

some of the old heritage buildings

marmalade, mustards, other products made by locals in the valley.

the Rideau canal locks at Merrickville, unchanged in their original state.

the locks of the canal and next to it the Rideau river above the dam. The locks are still all operated by hand, the doors are pushed open with long poles with teams of men operating them daily to allow small boats to pass.

So this was our little trip along the Rideau river on this Thanksgiving Day weekend. It is the last weekend before the canal is emptied for the winter. The locks all along the canal system where opened on Wednesday 12 October and only in the city of Ottawa proper is there enough water left in the canal so that it can freeze and be turned into a 10 Km skating rink between Parliament and Dow's Lake.

Autumn

2011-10-19T18:10:00.000-04:00

We have so far had a very nice Autumn in Ottawa, lots of sunshine and the morning air is crisp at 6 C.
The trees have changed colour and with the sunshine it makes for a festive look all around. The walk to work in the morning is pleasant walking to work down quiet streets. Only the last portion about 3 blocks do I enter the central office district. It is true that the streets in Ottawa are very clean and the sidewalks even which is a good thing given the number of old people in our neighbourhood.

The view from our kitchen window.

Along the Queen Elizabeth Drive

The Rideau Canal water level has already been lowered by 2 meters leaving just enough water so that come winter freeze the Canal will become the longest skating rink in the world.

on the economy

2011-10-17T18:57:00.001-04:00

''Austerity is a political ideology masquerading as an economic policy. It rests on a myth, impervious to facts, that portrays all government spending as wasteful and harmful, and unnecessary to the recovery. The real world is a lot more complicated.''
This little quote is taken from an editorial in the New York Times of Saturday 15 October. It illustrates what I and many people around the world think of the salad we are being served by politicians in general to explain what they themselves do not understand but are too proud to admit.

So next time you hear some hack politician about the austerity thing, cutting taxes and giving you everything for free, just think of this quote.

The easy life

2011-10-10T21:25:00.000-04:00

Our Nicky is a lucky boy, as dogs go, in the morning he gets to walk on the Canal, a nice green area, then he gets his breakfast which is all biological, organic, fair trade, and totally wholesome for a little dwarf Wire Hair Dachshund like him. Then he goes and lies on a 70 year old Central Asian carpet to take in the morning sun. Nicky loves the sunshine, I do not know how he stands the heat but he loves it and snoozes, all happy and content. Not a bad life, it's like the Country Club everyday. He is a hound so he spends most of the day snoozing with little burst of activity. This weekend we had glorious sunshine in the high 20's Celsius.

Nicky just loves this carpet, I am sure he would want to take it to the pool to lounge around next summer.

Musical Evening in Ottawa

2011-10-09T11:56:00.003-04:00

Our friend Blake, invited us to the house of his neighbour in Old Ottawa South, a district of the city which at one point about 60 years ago was the southern border of the City marked by the Rideau River. The other side, today's Riverside drive, was all farmland.
It remains a very nice quiet neighbourhood of prosperous looking homes. A neighbour, John has opened his house for musical evenings, it is by invitation only and it is a select small group. We were about 55 last night, the recital was held in what could be described as the music room with a large grand Steinway piano at one end. These evenings happen from time to time in an informal sort of way.

see her web page www.silviecheng.com

We heard a pre-concert recital by Bryan and Silvie Cheng, natives of Ottawa. Though Silvie was born in Tokyo. They will make their debut at Carnegie Hall in NYC at the Weill Recital Hall on October 16.

Bryan is 13 years old and studies in Montreal with Yuli Turovsky. It is amazing to hear this young cellist. Such talent and he is also well spoken and poised, something that is very rare in someone that age.

His sister Silvie is older by a few years. She is a pianist and has a beautiful light touch on the keyboard. They had a good program and no easy pieces, it showed their talent. Being so close in this intimate music room, I realized for the first time that a cello makes a breathing almost asthmatic noise as it is played, at first I did not understand where the sound came from and then I realized it was from the instrument. As Silvie mentioned when introducing Sonata no. 59 by Haydn, this was composed for his client the Princely Esterhazy family whose great Estate at Eisenstadt was a cultural hub in the 18th century. The piece was played in a setting much like the one we attended for a small group in an intimate setting. It gives a completely different feel to the music being so close to the instrument and the musician.

Esterhazy Palace, Eisenstadt, Austria

Another piece they played and I enjoyed a lot was Bringing the Tiger down from the Mountain, by Canadian composer Alexina Louie. A modern piece composed in 1991, with great shifts and shows what one can do and the range of the cello.

The parents of Bryan and Silvie were also present, they had brought the refreshments for the evening, we had Peking duck, fresh fruits, cheese plates, and fancy cookies, wine, coffee and tea. It was such a nice convivial evening.

I also found this quote this week, in a newspaper article and I really liked it because at the moment their is so much talk about integration and multiculturalism in Canada:

“Being Canadian is not about losing your identity, but adding your identity to what is the fabric of Canada.”

Queen's Park Provincial Legislative building, Toronto

In fact the Provincial Election this week in Ontario ( pop. 11 million) saw the re-election of Dalton McGuinty also known as Premier Dad, for his 1950 fatherly style of government, more dotting than adventurous. A lot of the candidates in this election to the Provincial Legislature at Queen's Park were of immigrant stock, having been born abroad and raised in Canada. This is certainly a change from 25 years ago when most if not all candidates were white born Canadians. Our re-elected member of the Legislature is Yasir Naqvi a Pakistani born Canadian who came to Canada as a boy. I spoke with him and he came across as well informed, well spoken and involved. I asked about him to colleagues and friends and everyone had good things to say about him.

Today is Thanksgiving Sunday, we are going out for dinner tonight at Grill 41. Tomorrow off the Merrickville on the Rideau Canal. The weather is summer like at 25 C., it's what we called Indian Summer. It will not last so better enjoy it. I just discovered that the first Canadian Thanksgiving service was held in 1578 on Baffin Island in the far North by Martin Frobisher and his men. Our modern version dates from the end of the First World War. It was Thanks Giving to God for Peace, Canada had sent 10% of its population at the time into that war. This contribution was more than any other allied Nation in the world including the USA who arrived very late in the conflict.

Fall colours in Ontario.

In the Gatineau near Ottawa

Countryside

2011-10-03T22:05:00.001-04:00

Getting out of Ottawa and into the countryside is easy, we are surrounded by parkland and agricultural land. In a matter of 10 minutes you are out of the city. We went to Wakefield or La Pêche as it is also called in the Gatineau Hills on the Quebec side of the Outaouais river, these are the hills North of Parliament Hill and it is cottage country for many people who live on the Ontario side of the river. There are also many golf courses and the Prime Minister's Official Summer Residence at Meech Lake. The hills are very ancient, this is why they are so low, erosion and time, millions of years, have whittled them away. The forest covering is not so old, maybe 100 years at most, prior to that the forest was almost exclusively giant Pines, all cut down by the lumber industry between 1810 and 1920. Nowadays the trees are a mix of variety but Pines still exist, some groves preserved because they were on land owned by the Crown. The lumber industry has largely disappeared.

Wakefield has always been a picturesque village with lots of artists and prosperous city dwellers who inhabit the area. The Gatineau river runs along the old rail road tracks and there is also an old wood covered bridge, you could almost say that it is Ottawa's version of the Russian River near San Francisco.
On a sunny day it is very pleasant to go up to Wakefield and enjoy a lunch in a nice restaurant or visit an art gallery or friends who live in the area.

Gatineau River at Wakefield

The old wood covered bridge

the old homes in the village, keeping much of the flavour of an earlier time.

I also love to buy preserved made locally by people in Wakefield. In this case to help a local charity, QUAIL which supports independent living in Chelsea, Quebec for people with handicap or elderly.

or buy some of the heritage variety vegetables grown locally, species of vegetables you can no longer find in supermarkets. The Russet potatoes are excellent in stews or soups as they do not fall apart when cooked and the purple carrots or the yellow squash.

Here are the famous Wakefield Grannies or at least 3 of them with Will and Robert.
They are local grandmothers helping out other grandmothers who live in South Africa and are responsible for bringing up their grandchildren left orphans by AIDS. The Canadian Club of Rome invited Brenda and Robert last year to attend a fund raising event in Rome held by the Club and the Canadian community in Italy. See their web site for all details: www.thegrannies.org
The Wakefield grannies have raised important sums of money and have greatly helped their African counterpart. They are truly wonderful ladies.

It is such a peaceful place and the quiet is so relaxing. In the fall when the leafs on trees change colour the area becomes spectacular.

more news

2011-09-28T18:22:00.001-04:00

Well I finally found a barber, at least one I like. IMPERIAL is a men's barber shop in the old style, where you can get a shave with hot lather and a straight razor, hot towels etc... The decor is the way barber shops use to look like before 1960, before they became confused in style and feminized. In Ottawa the first IMPERIAL barber shop opened about 20 years ago at the corner of Sparks street and Elgin street by the National War Memorial. At first they caterer to the Canadian Military, it was not uncommon to go in and find officers waiting for a haircut, never saw enlisted men there. So I think I will continue with them. See www.ImperialBarberShop.com

I have now taken to walking up Cartier street and at the Old Teacher's College I continue on Elgin street towards the National Cenotaph at Confederation Square, then turning unto Laurier street to my building.
A nice walk as long as you watch out for the legion of bad drivers on their cel phones in this city. In Ottawa a car is a weapon to be used against people who walk. In the last two months I read about five stories of fatal hit and run, it looks like an epidemic in this city.

I also stopped listening to the CBC in general, CBC radio use to be the best radio station for its music, news, commentary and simply for the hosts they had on the air. Nowadays every morning they have these long, sad, boring stories about some cause like Charitable drop boxes for 3 days running who are in fact for profit and not free and how they should be regulated with stiff penalties. Another favourite topic on Ottawa morning is about some feminist group who think that being pregnant is unnatural for women or the feminist cause is under constant attack from all men who we are told are violent psychopath, etc..

The other morning they had a special appeal from the SPCA no less, looking for foster families to adopt baby squirrels, considering that they belong to the same family as the common rat, one wonders.

The CBC being a public, government funded broadcaster appears to delight in leftist politics, sometimes verging on the extreme left or just plain bizarre. In other words if you are a weirdo with a cause you can be sure they will put you on at CBC Ottawa in the morning before the 8 o'clock news. It's not terribly pleasant for listeners.

Now the CBC is the English public radio broadcaster, if you listen to Radio-Canada, the French public broadcaster they have an entirely different approach, lighthearted, engaging, speaking to a large public, cultured and interesting. They certainly do not preach like their English colleagues and have kept to a programming which is well known and well liked.

To give ourselves diversity we now have at home a device called Airport Express which allows us to listen to 2075 radio stations from around the world. So we can enjoy a more enlighten approach to our radio listening. It is my understanding that CBC Radio might be on the way out come the next budget, maybe it is time to say goodbye. What we have now has nothing to do with what the CBC use to be, how very sad.

A recent business survey revealed that 75% of Canadians are peeved at others in the Office for not taking responsibility for their actions, no wonder in this Nanny State country, it's always someone else fault. Also 58% of women in the Canadian workplace are annoyed at clothes that are too revealing. Strange too much competition ladies? After all most offices today in Canada have a majority of women working. But there is much more, it would appear according to statistics in the workplace that women also complain about scents of any kind, what other people eat at lunch, peanut free zones, sunlight (too much of it), cel phone ringtones. That is a lot and shows in my opinion poor social skills.

The one country who has no pet peeves or little ITALY!!!! I am not surprised, Italians are not the sort to get fazed by others. I found them to be very tolerant in general.

Cocktails and things

2011-09-22T20:20:00.000-04:00

We have fallen into a little routine in our new abode in Ottawa on the Rideau, each night my personal barman Mr. W. will ask what would you like to drink this evening. Mr. W knows how to a make stiff drink, none of those watery half oz. or one oz. drinks you find around town for $10 or more. His drinks are measured with a sharp eye.

He makes a very nice Bloody Mary and a wonderful Apple vodka cocktail. The vodka he uses is Polish, either it is a potato vodka Luksusova or the famous grass vodka Zubrowka which has that greenish tinge to it. This knowledge comes from a posting to Warsaw many years ago where we learned about good vodka compared to ordinary commercial vodka, one thing I learned in Poland, the Poles know their vodka, more so than the Russians.

So Mr. W also serves our drinks with corn chips or wasabi nuts. What a nice way to end the day. Then we have our wine cellar from Sicily, the Marche, Lazio and Tuscany to choose from for that wine with dinner.

What a hardship our lives in the great frozen tundra. This evening we are having a white wine Miano, from Catarrato, Sicily, vintage 2008, producer is Castelluccimiano. This wine comes from vineyards 800 meters above sea level. Sicily with its fertile volcanic soil is perfect for wine and vineyards.

Is democracy dead as a concept?

2011-09-18T21:01:00.001-04:00

When we were living in Rome we saw the workings of the Roman Catholic Church at Vatican City up close and we had a privilege entry into the world of the Holy See which is not open to ordinary people. In fact most people who visit St-Peter's Basilica only see the religious trappings which is mostly window dressing for the gullible. The real drama is behind the scenes but that is not for public consumption.
Maybe it was too close, you see the warts and all and you start to realize that faith in God has little to do with the institution of the Church run by the Pope. You have Faith but this is a personal belief not one based on the trappings of an organization.

Back in Ottawa the Capital of our Dominion of Canada, I wonder if we as a people have not come to the end of participatory democracy. Are we entering another age, a new feudal age, big business are the new Lords and our politicians the new Princes who rule over us the people, the great masses. Yes we vote and yes we can toss out a group of politicians as we did in May, is that it?

So many people do not vote anymore, so many people take no interest in what is going on in Parliament. Participation is at an all time low, not a good thing.

In the USA, Social Security is about to collapse, unemployment is at historic highs, millions of Americans live in poverty, the figure of 15% of the population is given, imagine 15% out of 300 million people. This number is growing, these Americans cannot hope for a dignified life. Same in Canada where more and more people, children in particular live in poverty.

The Republicans in Congress and in the US Senate could not care less, the greater good is of no importance to them. Can this explain why only 12% of Americans believe their representative are doing a good job.

Wealthy Americans do not want to share their wealth and pay their fair share to help the nation. Poor Americans are not seen as fellow American Citizens but as an inconvenience, lazy and not worth the bother. Since when in a Democracy do you have two levels of Citizens. If a so called democracy is to function at all it must include everyone, all Citizens without exception, the common good is the most important element in a democratic society.

I do have the impression that our politicians realize that we are at a cross road and that if they do not act in a responsible manner there could be great upheaval in our societies. A democratic society must provide for all its Citizens not just those with money, power and privilege.

at the Movies

2011-09-16T19:32:00.001-04:00

The old Bytowne cinema has been a fixture in Ottawa since 1947, it's the original building at 325 Rideau street, one of the oldest streets in By Town (Ottawa) it was the highway East to Montreal in the 19th century. It remains one of the major roads in Ottawa leading to Parliament Hill.

The one screen cinema was built by the Berlin Family of Ottawa and opened in February 1947 as the Nelson Cinema. It was operated as one of Ottawa's main cinema house for many decades until it was closed in 1988. The Berlin family sold the building to the operators of the independent Towne Cinema of Beechwood ave in the New Edinburgh area of Ottawa. They renamed it the ByTowne in honour of Ottawa's original name of Bytown. It has become the venue for alternative and foreign films.

The Bytowne shows a variety of Foreign films each month and films from International Film Festivals which would not be shown at regular cinemas. It has become sort of a club, you often recognize the patrons. It is relatively small about 640 seats, one screen. You can buy a yearly membership which allows you to pay only $7.00 dllrs per movie, which is not bad in this day and age of high prices.

Today we went to see the new Woody Allen movie, Midnight in Paris, cliché ridden with flat acting, characters we cannot really relate too. The story line is interesting and the shots of Paris beautiful. It reminded me of Brigadoon in a weird sort of way. Owen Wilson plays the role of the American writer who wants to live in 1920 Paris, this role would have been played in his younger days by Woody Allen, now too old.

We also saw recently an Italian film with English subtitles, Mine Vagranti (Loose Canons) by Ferzan Ozpetek, a great film, a comedic drama in a contemporary setting in Puglia Italy, engaging and believable. The Bytown is the place to go for a movie, the patrons are quiet and everyone is there to see a good film.

The Bytown the place to be on a cold or rainy day in Ottawa.

a few photos

2011-09-12T21:36:00.000-04:00

We are down to our last 10 boxes, we have made great progress. The house or apartment is starting to look permanent and we are getting new curtains for the den, master bedroom and for the large kitchen window.
So the end of the moving period is in sight.

Learning a new language

2011-09-10T20:00:00.001-04:00

We went back to school today and so did our kids, Nicky and Nora needed some guidance so we called in Bark Busters. Our teacher Marco is Austrian, we chatted on Austria and the trips we have made there in the last few years. For the lesson we explained the learning problems and what could be done about it we asked. He first explained that Dachshunds do not speak any human languages and do not understand them either despite what Walt Disney has been telling the world for decades in his movies. They guess at what we are saying but most of the time do not understand what we humans are saying. So he told us that we had to learn Dachshund, it is easier than any human language I had to learn and it can me mastered in about 3 hours with a bit of practice and bingo Nicky and Nora now understand everything we tell them. I am quite serious, it works, forget the sit and stay and come and bad boy or whatever, it does not work but start talking dog talk and well you enter another world. Nicky and Nora were astounded that we now spoke their language, you should see the faces, quite unbelieving. The teacher explained how we humans do not understand another person who does not speak our language, any tourist who has been abroad where no French or English is spoken can vouch at how difficult it was to communicate. So we learned all the stock phrases Mommy or Daddy Dachshunds would say to the young ones. We then went for a walk and today being a gorgeous day in Ottawa, blue sky and a few puffy clouds here and there and a pleasant 22C, lots of people on the Rideau Canal walking or running or bicycling and of course lots of other dogs and squirrels.

Nora whose Hungarian-Italian family background has a long list of European Hunting Champion is always willing to kill a few cats or squirrels or whatever for dinner. So we walked by 2 Squirrels who were enjoying some nutty food, usually Nora would have pounced but this time she quietly walked by and there was no fuss after I spoke to her. Same with Nicky who goes nuts if he sees another dog or person. Now a few words in Dashchunds and bingo, we have calm and civility. So now we just have to work on other behaviour things and we should have a more harmonious household.

As for the Internet campaign around the world to save Nicky's balls on facebook, well it all depends on how well Nicky responds and stops marking his territory in the house. We will re-assess in a few weeks.

Report from Stalag 13

2011-09-03T19:15:00.001-04:00

For those of you old enough to remember the television series Hogan's Heroes featuring a group of Allied soldiers in a German POW camp during World War II, the prisoners were always a step ahead of the dumb Nazis and the Camp Commander Colonel Klink who was an old softy from the first World War and his side kick Sargent Schultz who knew nothing, nothing!

Well life continues in Ottawa, I have found 2 places who can make a decent Espresso, at least as close to what I use to drink in the morning in Rome. One is the Elgin Dinner on Elgin street of all places, the other is a small café on Kent Street called Délices, I told the owner that I thought his espresso was as good as Rome and now I get a double espresso for the price of a single. Also found a good barber on Gilmour street called Toss. We had a great dinner at Al's Steak House on Elgin last night, it has been around since 1967 run by the Saikali family. I think Al has passed on because his kids are now running the place. The food is excellent with great service. We also noticed that dining out in Ottawa is about the same price as in Rome strangely enough.

My brother and I, he was visiting from Washington DC

A few days ago I posted a rather unflattering review of life in Ottawa, I have to be careful because people or friends who live in Ottawa will read this blog and may be offended, no offence intended. At any rate those who know me, know that I am a loveable sort and infamous, that's why they are my friends, though as I say it's my view of what I see. This past week I read in the local paper an article by Andrew Cohen, a journalist and University prof at Carleton University, about how Ottawa is a city of tenants. His article was picking up on another article by a British journalist who visits Ottawa regularly and has done so for the last 25 years. It confirmed what I have been seeing all along. In one sentence the article defined Ottawa as a city of Tenants not of Landlords, being tenants no one takes a stake in the city, everyone is detached, it does not belong to them so why bother. An example major bus route cuts are happening on 4 September so the newspaper reports that people will take a taxi now because there is no public transport. That is bizarre to me, but that is the attitude no one will raise a peep about it.

This week is now over and this long weekend we will work around the house continuing to unpack and organize, we are into week 12 of the move, yes 84 days so far, will it ever end. We have done so many visits to the St-Vincent de Paul Society that we should be shareholders, if you want to see our lives go visit them on old Wellington street. W has done a great deal of work, it is starting to feel like home. We have favourite shops already, found a good dry cleaning place. food places, coffee place, some good restaurants. It seems that going to independent businesses is the way to go in Ottawa, if you want service. Have visited with old friends which is always good and re-comforting, thank God for old friends, bless them all. We have our season tickets to the symphony and looking forward to it. We are also making plans for the future in 2013, stay tuned for that one, major lobbying effort underway.

So we have to remain philosophical about all this and create our own cocoon. If all else fails we have 172 bottles of wine to drink, I am quoting freely from Greek philosophers and Stoics.

Art Work

2011-09-02T18:22:00.001-04:00

Some 20 years ago I lived in Chicago, that beautiful city on the lake. I use to walk up and down Michigan Avenue to go to work and loved to have lunch at Neiman Marcus. We had season tickets to the Chicago Lyric Opera and we would wear our tuxedos each time. Our apartment was on State Parkway near the old Playboy Mansion turned into a university building of some kind.

There was a gallery which sold art work and they always had the most interesting stuff. One day my eye caught sight of La femme en noir ( the lady in black) by René Gruau, who is the great fashion illustrator of the XXth century. Still celebrated today despite having died in 2004 in extreme old age.

He was not French as his name might lead you to believe but Italian, an aristocrat from Rimini that little town on the Adriatic just a few kilometers north of our beloved Pesaro. It is also the town where Federico Fellini the great Italian movie producer comes from.

Gruau had an interesting life to say the least, born Renato Zavagli Ricciardelli in Rimini, Italy, on Feb. 4, 1909, he was the son of an an Italian count, though his true muse was his aristocratic French mother, Maria Gruau, whose name he took. He showed a talent for drawing in his teens, and in his 20's he moved to Paris and began doing illustrations for fashion magazines like Femina, Marie Claire and Vogue. He spent World War II in Lyon, where Marie Claire moved during the Second World War and the German occupation of France.

His career took off after the war when he met Christian Dior. In 1947 Gruau created the Miss Dior image. In 1948 he moved briefly to New York, where he worked for Harper's Bazaar. In the years that followed he worked from his home in Cannes, he did fashion drawings for major couture houses, including Pierre Balmain, Jacques Fath, Balenciaga, Givenchy and Rochas.

Clothes were the focus of his work, but the women he drew often seemed to come alive. As is the case in La Femme en Noir.
Recently the gouache painting of La Femme en Noir sold at Christie's New York for $146,000 USD.
I have the lithographe, not worth as much but just as stunning.

Artist		René Gruau
Title		La femme en Noir
Medium		Lithographe
Size		45 x 34.3 in. / 114.3 x 87 cm.
Year		1980 -
Description		RENE GRUAU (1909-2004) La Femme En Noir, circa 1980 lithographe 45 x 34¼ in. (114.3 x 87 cm.) signed lower left

Excellent diner last night in Gatineau

2011-08-27T20:08:00.000-04:00

We were invited last night by Marc-Aurèle and Frederick for dinner at their new home on the other side of the Outaouais River in Gatineau (Quebec). Marc-Aurèle is a chef, really, the food he prepared was wonderful and he has flair and talent. Knowing that Will has an allergy to gluten he prepared an entrée with endives and balsamic vinegar reduction which was truly very good. The filet mignon were wonderful cooked just right, he knows his timing when it comes to meat. For desert a personal favourite of mine, Crèpe Suzette flambée, wow! Now he must have gone to Hotel school to learn this or he simply has natural talent.

M.A. should consider as a second career as a chef or caterer. Fred with his sparkling Prussian blue eyes was delightful like always, a graphic artist he has an eye for colours, their lovely new house is tastefully decorated and the colours are relaxing and warm, with beautiful wood floors.

It was very nice of them to invite us, we had a great evening, which helps us re-integrate the great wilderness.

Royal Wedding in Postdam, Germany

2011-08-27T14:19:00.002-04:00

H.I.R.H Prince Georg Friedrich Ferdinand of Prussia, great-great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, married Princess Sophie of Isenburg Saturday, a royal wedding that has rekindled German interest in the nation's Royals.
The couple were married in the church of Peace in Potsdam, outside Berlin, the former seat of the prince's family that ruled much of Germany until 1918.
After Saturday's ceremony, the couple traveled by horse-drawn carriage to Sanssouci Palace for a dinner and ball. Several hundred onlookers lined the streets outside of the church to see the couple.

The 33-year-old bride wore a dress designed by Wolfgang Joop, and a diamond tiara belonging to her family. The 35-year-old groom was dressed in a top hat and tails.

Wedding kiss on the steps of the Church, like his cousin Prince William, a summer of Royal wedding.

The event was broadcast live on local public TVand was splashed across the pages of newspapers and glossy magazines. The couple held a civil ceremony on Friday in Potsdam.

Seen together in Monaco on 2 July 2011 at the wedding of the Prince of Monaco.

From 1871, the Kings of Prussia also served as German Emperors, with Wilhelm II being the last. He abdicated in 1918. The Hohenzollern family are first cousin to the British Royal House and many other Royals of Europe.

Descendants of German royal and Imperial family still carry their titles as part of their names.

Sans Souci, the summer palace of Frederick the Great, Voltaire visited here often.

The couple has known each other since childhood. Had the Prince chosen to marry a commoner like his cousin Prince William did with Kate Middleton, he would have lost his role as leader of the Hohenzollern Imperial House. As a descendent of the Prussian Kings, Georg Friedrich has family ties to the most important royal families in Europe. The House of Hohenzollern celebrates it's 950th anniversary this year, this wedding called for a little pomp and circumstance.

the happy couple, best wishes to them.

Ottawa habits

2011-08-18T22:11:00.001-04:00

Ottawa is since 1867 by Royal decree from Queen Victoria the Capital of the Dominion of Canada and it can be said that since then the population of Ottawa has fought the notion that it was a Capital of a nation.
Quebec City, Montreal, Kingston and Toronto have all been at one point the Capital of Canada, even Aylmer which sits across the Outaouais river from Ottawa almost became the Capital.

The city by its own Mayor's admission has been stuck in small town thinking, parochial pursuits, unable to think big like other world capitals. Politicians come to Ottawa because Parliament is here but they do not live here, their families and interest are elsewhere. Even those politicians from the region are often from rural stock and take little interest in the city itself. Ottawa remains a sleepy town, expensive to live in but firmly stuck with its blinkers on.

People will tell you that it is a great town to raise a family in or that it is an interesting place or that its great for winter sports, they mean the skating on the Canal or cross country skiing in the Gatineau park across the river. But it you press them to explain further, you will find the conversation will drift and then turn to the weather, in fact the weather in Ottawa is one of those topics which is discussed with passion.

The mayor today in an interview said that he had changed his thinking, he use to be prudent and hesitant to make any decision on any topic, this by his own admission. City Council dithered about everything including garbage collection and snow removal. But now that the city stands at one million people it was time to think big and go for risk taking, though the mayor re-asserted that he still would be prudent, no revolution in thinking here. He is hoping for massive Federal Government funding for projects which have been debated for the last 40 years and have never gotten off the ground. He seems to think that this is about to change. How or why, he does not say, obviously the mayor has not read the plans of the Federal Government who is about to slash budgets overall. Like many politicos in town this sort of talk is cheap and easy, if nothing comes of your great plans you can always blame someone else.

People in Ottawa are said to be on the whole friendly, but there is a core attitude of very unfriendly even rude behaviour about town. You will find that a lot of people have difficulty saying good morning when they come to work or meet people or show any kind of interest in people around them. These are the same people who work or live right next to you, but cannot bring themselves to the simple courtesies of life. They will say, I am not a morning person or I need my gallon of coffee before I can be social. It seems that the attitude can be described as, it is better to ignore people than to acknowledge them, sort of zoning out everyone, I don't want to be here mentality. Recently I even heard several people say that emails are not even answered let alone acknowledged, it's the I am too busy attitude or the sender cannot help or benefit me so I will just ignore him or her. Everyone wants to live in their own little space and just ignore everything around them.

I always found Ottawa to be a very cold and impersonal city despite official efforts to present it otherwise in touristic brochures. If you removed the Parliament buildings and the handful of museums there would be very little to speak of beside urban sprawl, which is Ottawa is now greater than Toronto a city of 5 million people. Would Ottawa fit in Dante's Divine Comedy, probably.

Then and Now

2011-08-14T18:47:00.000-04:00

Last night we had a lovely dinner at our friend Cathy who lives East of us in a lovely house with a beautiful garden, she knows all her plants and takes good care of them. She even gave me a great sprig of Sage, what an elegant perfume sage gives, its a full, rich and creamy, I am thinking in Italian morbido meaning pretty much what I just said. She cooked corn on the cob it had been years since we had any and a lovely roasted chicken from a William Sonoma recipe.

Today we placed furniture in our new apartment, I have counted so far 15 boxes of stuff we have either given away or taken to the auctioneer, not mentioning a room full of furniture. The books are next in the sorting out, we already did a first exercise before we left Rome and we will do more again, books as lovely as they are we will never read again, so let someone else enjoy them. Then all the framed stuff, too many things and so many we no longer care for, they too have to go. I am glad we are doing this because it needed to be done and should have been done a long time ago.

The apartment is starting to look like home give us another 2 to 3 weeks and all should be back in order.

Then: our former apartment in Rome.

Now: our new apartment in Ottawa, not yet decorated we only moved in 8 days ago.
Some familiar touches and a few boxes still, a work in progress.

A week ago now...

2011-08-12T23:22:00.000-04:00

So much has happened this week in our lives in Ottawa on the Rideau, we moved into our new home and ran around Customs and other licencing bureau at Service (sic) Ontario to obtain clearance to drive our car.
Unpacked numerous boxes and gave away a ton of all manner of things we no longer want nor need. More to enter the great give away. We want to pear down to be essentials but will still have lots on hand. We accumulate so much in one's lives, it becomes an ever increasing canon ball which only gets bigger with the years. Today I opened quite a few of the wine boxes, that was fun, all these wines we bought in Siena and in Sicily. So we have Tuscan and Sicilian wines. We had a bottle of a very nice red from Sicily tonight with our steaks, from the Duca di Salaparuta Vineyards, Calanica 2009 is very smooth it is a combination of Nero D'avola and Merlot. We bought a case in Trapani in an Enoteca recommended to us by friends.

We are tired from all our doings, it has been a lot of work and it is not finished yet. I return to work next week, will have to continue at night after work to undo boxes, mostly books now and arrange the apartment to be liveable and enjoyable. We are already enjoying our new home, I can sense that we will be happy here.

The Foolish Chicken, Ottawa

2011-08-10T23:20:00.001-04:00

No this is not a political story or about a politician, though the title might lead some to think.
This is about a rather nice small restaurant in Ottawa I discovered thanks to my friend John and Rick. It is located at 79 Holland ave. in the Parkdale area, see the web site www.foolishchicken.ca . It is a simple place, with a good menu of chicken and ribs, a nice wine list and desserts made by co-owner Natalie. Her spouse greets you and is also head waiter with a nice smile and an affable manner. It is a bit like going to dinner at friends, it has that simple friendly atmosphere and the food is good. I like their onion rings with a great Chipotle dipping sauce and their sweet potato fries.

The name comes, according to the story given by the owner, from their own experience in the restaurant business, a bit foolish and a bit of a game of chicken. He also told us that a family friend wrote for their kids stories about a Foolish Chicken, so there you have it.

We went for dinner the other night, I had a quarter chicken which was delicious, juicy and tender. Will had the half rack of pork ribs also very good. The place reminds me of a restaurant I use to like in Chicago 20 years ago called the Fireplace Inn, 1448 N. Wells street.

The art on the walls is for sale and is made by a friend, it compliments well the restaurant, at this time it is modern renditions of poppies. There was also on the wall one other drawing, that of a chicken entitled Chicken looking East. In fact according to the location of the wall in the restaurant it is East, drawing for sale at $1.00. I asked about it and was told that this was made by a little girl whose father is a nearby owner of another business, they are regular customers. She has already sold 4 such drawings in a couple of days. She is about 6 years old and the drawing is endearing, customers like to buy her naif style drawing simply for the fun of it and to give her confidence. She is apparently quite amaze that people would be interested in her drawing and are actually buying them.

This is why I like this restaurant in Ottawa, the food is good, the service is nice and the art work on the walls is charming.

Chicken looking East

The Foolish Chicken Restaurant
79 Holland ave. Ottawa
tel 613-321-4715
www.foolishchicken.ca

A quote in a book

2011-08-10T19:15:00.000-04:00

Today we took a break from the move and went to the National Gallery of Canada on Sussex Drive to see an exhibit marking the 150th Anniversary of Italian Unity, it features an exhibit of works by Caravaggio and painters of his time who were influenced by his style. Afterwards, we went to have lunch across the street in the Market, since we had time we decided to visit the Nicholas Hoare Bookstore, which always has a treasure trove of books. I found a new book, a biography on General Georges Vanier (1888-1967) and his wife Pauline Archer Vanier written by Mary Frances Coady.

His Excellency, the Right Honourable, General Georges Vanier was the 19th Governor General of Canada since 1867 and the first French Canadian to occupy the position of Commander in Chief and Vice Roy of Canada, two Prime Minister's served under him, John Diefenbaker and Lester B. Pearson. A war hero (1914-1918), a founder of the Royal 22nd Regiment of Quebec, a diplomat, he was the first Canadian Ambassador to France (1946). He also started the policy of official bilingualism, (French, English) in the Canadian army. His wife Pauline and he were also humanitarians, actively involved in many organizations to help Canadian families and the disadvantaged, they also helped change the restrictive immigration rules to permit 188,000 refugees from Europe to come to Canada after the Second World War. They had five children and one, Jean has become famous for his work with the handicapped
his Foundation L'Arche is very well known, I had the honour to meet him in Jordan some years ago and was very impressed with him.

A quote by General Georges Vanier from his speech upon becoming Governor General of Canada in 1959, struck me, he said: If Canada is to become a great Nation, each one of us must ask ourselves, how can I serve. His was a time when people served others and their country without asking what they were getting in return or demanding rights.

H.E. the Right Honorable, General Georges Vanier wearing on this photo his uniform of Governor General of Canada with his wife Pauline.

So many clothes

2011-08-09T22:43:00.000-04:00

I remember reading that the Kaiser had something like 350 different uniforms and tenues d'apparats with medals and ribbons to wear on any given day, the challenge for his staff was to select the correct uniform and medals to wear for the different functions of the day. Un-doing all the wardrobes and different boxes today reminded me of that, my own Wilhelm would have nothing to envy the Kaiser. I too have been, during my time in Italy, guilty of over shopping for clothes and shoes and shirts and ties and scarves and the list goes on and on. Italy is a country where people dress as an image of who they are and what message they wish to convey. In Canada it's the opposite, there is no message or image, old jeans and T-shirt suffice in any social situation at home or in public, this explains the lack of closet space in most Canadian homes.

This morning I was up at the crack of dawn, a feat for me, so that I could bring my car to that great institution, Canadian Tire, who to this day in politically correct Canada, has the effigy of a miserly Scot as its corporate logo. This is were the emission and safety check for the car took place at 07:30 am. at a cost of $140 dollars, for this sum a certified mechanic, kicks the tires, looks at your car and gives you a piece of paper which enables you to get your permanent licence plates. But that is not all, before you get your sticker for the plates you must pay again $74 dollars and again prove who you are by presenting photo ID, did that yesterday, proof of insurance for said car, did that too yesterday and proof of ownership, again did that yesterday. It seems that the computer data bank of the Ontario Ministry of Transport expires every 24 hours. Its official I can now drive my 11 year old car in Canada.
Said car was purchased in Ottawa, but having such an old car is an oddity for most Canadians, on average people change car every 4 years, so I am the odd man out, much raised eyebrow at such a phenomena.

We have really been pushing ourselves this week with un-doing all the boxes and the next 3 days are just as heavily booked with activities. I also try to do any driving around town before 3 pm because of the terrible traffic and grid lock in late afternoon all over town. Ottawa has become sadly famous for its terrible grid lock and I am told that in courses on Urban planning, Ottawa is shown as the urban model to avoid.

I was at the supermarket today, I was struck by the abundance of what is on offer food wise, the selection is endless, the new trend is all organic and biological, this type of variety borders on the obscene, almost pornographic, is there really a need for 100 different types of breads, or 40 different makes of ice cream, all too sweet and full of chemical ingredients you cannot pronounce. I was looking for a pesto sauce, they only had 2 makes, one had 19 different ingredients on the label, since when is potato starch and corn syrup part of making a pesto sauce. I picked the other brand, because it only listed 6 ingredients all of whom can reasonably be part of a good pesto sauce.

In the cheese section, I note that most cheeses on offer are from Northern Europe, mostly Germany, Holland and France, Italy only had 3 cheeses, the obvious three. Canada produces a lot of excellent cheeses but in a supermarket you usually get only cheddar, mild or strong with that funny orange colouring.

I also learned how to shop at the By Ward Market in old Ottawa, this market has farmers and others, if you wish to buy only local fresh farm produce look for the F1 tag on the licence of the vendor. An F2 or F3 notes a re-seller trying to pass himself or herself off as a farmer, in such cases their produce come directly from a grocer.

The dogs are behaving very strangely, Nora has bloomed into a full hunting hound and howls madly at squirrels, we have lots of black squirrels in Ottawa. It is very difficult to walk her. Starting to think that she would be more happy on a farm. Nicky sniffs everything in the park along the Rideau Canal but is generally surprised at all he sees. He often does not want to walk, looks afraid and has to be coaxed gently with much re-assurance and a biscuit or two. Probably after Rome, Ottawa is just a tad too foreign for them.

Licence plate saga Part II

2011-08-08T23:01:00.003-04:00

Well this morning early at 9am we return to the Service Ontario desk at City Hall. We had all the paperwork in hand including the English translation of the Italian language document they had requested at a cost of $80 dollars. What happened is so indicative of the whole mismanagement of the Ontario Government these days, first they did not need that translation, the officer did not even look at it, but use the registration documents I had in hand which was sufficient to establish ownership of the car to do the actual work, secondly it took five (5) persons all gathered around the computer to enter the data, it appears that no one had ever issued a licence plate at that central office before. They are use to issuing other documents like the Health Cards but nothing else. It seems again that lack of training is the main issue.

Tomorrow I have to go do a safety check and an emission check and then I can get my permanent licence plates. So it cost me $35 dollars for the plates, $80 dollars for the translation they did not need and a further $240 in extra car rental fees. I am writing to the Hon. Kathleen Wynne, Minister of Transport in Ontario to complain at the lack of training and preparedness of her staff for what should be a routine operation. With an election coming in October, one hopes that it might have an effect given that the current government appears to be about to be thrown out of Office, if all published polls are correct. Her stated mandate according to her website states the following: As the Minister of Transportation, Kathleen is responsible for ensuring that Ontario is a world leader in moving people and goods safely, efficiently and sustainably to support a globally competitive economy and a high quality of life.

This is the sort of statement you routinely get in Canada from politicians it means nothing but it is suppose to make you feel good, a bit like pissing in the wind, it gives you that warm feeling. It is also the sort of statement you would find on the Chinese Communist Government mission statement, I am starting to believe that politicians take lesson from China.

Tonight we had a very nice dinner and opened a bottle of Langhe Chardonnay produced by Massolino, Serralunga d'Alba, Provincia di Cuneo, Piedmont in Italy, see www.massolino.it

As my mother use to say, Drink to forget!

Overwhelmed and exhausted

2011-08-07T22:42:00.000-04:00

Since last week we have been in move mode, receiving deliveries of personal effects in long term storage and then other boxes from the Sea shipment. One thing is certain we will have to get rid of a lot of stuff, from porcelain to silverware, damask tablecloths, all kinds of things which have been accumulated through the years. Even some art work and maybe even oriental carpets I collected in my travels in the Middle East.
Its a painful process, many memories in each objects, however it must be done as we try to downsize and rationalize how we live. Apartments in Canada are small, in fact very small, most people live in one large room which is usually a kitchen, eat in area and living room, office combined with a separate bedroom and bath. Because we live in a throw away society, the only real item of furniture is the giant television set, apparently the standard size now is about 1.70 meter in size, it is difficult to find smaller sets, says a lot about Canadian society. We must be marginal people as we do not have a television set. Luckily for us our apartment is larger since our building was built in 1976 at a time when people were not forced to live in cramp quarters. A funny thing today, I was reading the Ottawa Citizen, the local newspaper, they have on weekends 2 sections in the papers devoted entirely to housing trends and house sales and new developments, what this is actually is free publicity for big developers, the reader is lead to believe that this is general information when in fact it is cleverly arranged promotional material for housing projects, with interviews of real estate agents and developers, telling the readers that this is what the public wants.
It seems that the Rupert Murdock school of journalism is alive and well in Ottawa.

Unpacking is going well, now it is a question of organizing and arranging our things. We will probably have to move in the future and at least with what we are now getting rid of, it will be less to worry about.
Though the whole process is exhausting.

Tomorrow its back to the Service Ontario Office to get temporary licence plates for the car. They are so concern about stolen cars, it is apparently an epidemic in Ontario, that you almost have to give blood to get a temporary licence plate. The entire attitude of the staff at the so called ''service centre'' is to treat every taxpayer as if he or she was a known criminal. I have to wonder who trained them to behave in this manner. Also wish government would stop using the word service, they are not providing a service, its a State Monopoly you have no choice.

Luckily so far the weather has cooperated and that is important when you move. Hopefully by next weekend most of this will be behind us.

Food

2011-08-01T09:38:00.001-04:00

Living in Italy for 4 years and taking an interest in the diet and food habits of Italians changed our minds on what our diet should be to stay healthy. We all heard about the Mediterranean diet but if you are not from that region or living in that area of the world it is difficult to follow, different places, different habits. Prior to my coming to Italy I was in China (PRC), I noticed how the average Chinese man weigh about 42 Kg, a teen would weigh about 32 Kg on average. I wondered why did a Chinese man looked so slim compared to a Westerner, you could say some had almost a famish look. Once you put aside body mass and body morphology and other characteristics about race, what I noticed was that the difference in weight had to do with eating habits and what people actually ate or did not eat.

Asians in general eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, and no dairy products or bread. Westerners eat a lot of bread and dairy products and little in terms of vegetables or fruits. Red meat is also eaten in small quantities in Asia where in the West and North America its more red meat the better. An example in most restaurants in Ottawa a small steak is usually 250 gr. where as in Asia it would be chopped up and less than 100 gr.

In Italy, though bread was part of the diet and pasta is an important food staple, butter is not used in cooking, olive oil is used for cooking instead, more healthy. However Italians make conscious choices, per example if you have a plate of pasta, the portion is usually half the size of any North American portion and you will have NO bread or butter with your pasta dish.

Italians will also eat a lot of grilled vegetables and other green vegetables with their main course, potatoes are not necessarily a part of a meal. How often at lunch time I would see men and women eat a plate of green vegetables, grilled or steamed as a main course, no butter just a little olive oil on top and salt and pepper for seasoning.

We have been thinking about all this since our return to Canada, we are trying to avoid what we believe to be unhealthy eating habits, large portions, overly sweet desserts, breads and extra seasoning.

The other night we had Tilapia which is a white fish, simply cooked in olive oil and then seasoned with lemon juice. We have fresh fruit for dessert with a little lemon juice or simply as is, no ice cream or heavy cream and or sugar on top. It is going to be difficult because the food culture in North America tends to be on the heavy, sugary, overly seasoned and large portions per person. We must not forget that we are only 2 generations removed from the days when our grandparents would plough fields all day and tend to large farm animals, heavy and strenuous manual labour, today's lifestyle is plain sedentary and not too strenuous physically.

We certainly do not want to return to un-healthy North American food diet and it is going to be a battle to follow our diet and not fall into the convenience of fast or frozen foods at the supermarket.

Our new Home as of today.

Countryside

2011-07-31T22:25:00.000-04:00

Today we were invited by J.A.& G to their rustic chalet on the Gatineau River just 20 minutes away from Ottawa. They are located in a vast green forest and park land just outside the Nation's Capital. Every summer we go to the cottage for the day, have lunch and take in the silence and tranquility of the place.

This year to celebrate our return to Ottawa after a 7 year absence, J.A.&G invited us right away to come up to the cottage. They have had this place for at least 30 years if not more, its rustic but beautiful and so green and peaceful. We always have the most wonderful meals and lots of fun conversation. These are old friends and no pretence here, we all know each other too well.

It is just fun to be there in good company. A good day, with good friends and good food, today we had venison meat, a Moose that A shot a few months ago, not Bullwinkle, it was delicious.

The Gatineau River flows into the Outaouais River which then connects with the Saint-Lawrence River that great Canadian River. It use to be an area of lumberjacks and wood mills, nowadays it is cottage country, just outside the city, hard to believe that we are so close to a large urban centre and yet surrounded by so much wildlife.

The wooden pathway from the cottage to the river.

Quiet Weekend

2011-07-30T23:06:00.000-04:00

This is a long weekend in Ontario, August 1 is Ontario Day. The weather has been very pleasant and there are a few tourists about. We continue to prepare for the coming week which will be very busy with two moving days on Tuesday and Friday and a visit to Customs in between. Setting up house is serious work, however so far it has gone well. We will have to continue to downsize and get rid of things we no longer want nor need. Walk around a bit today, had a very nice lunch at the Parliament Pub in front of Parliament on Wellington street, the menu is written to reflect current politicians in office and dishes they might like, it is quite funny to read. Then later this afternoon I went to buy some wine at a shop on Elgin Street only to be told by the store owner that he had just been robbed, I turned around to see about 6 police cruisers converge on the shop. This is something that is not much talked about in Ottawa, but the level of poverty and despair, drug abuse, homelessness, economic disparity is just below the surface, there are a lot more beggars here or at least they are far more visible than what I saw in Europe, it is something you notice right away.

We often complained in Rome of poor client service, it is not much better here, unless you deal with a family owned business or a small independent business where the owner and staff have a stake in cultivating local clients, you will find the big box shop or business to be very indifferent to clients, borderline rude, Starbucks, Bridgehead, Loblaws, staff is surly and indifferent. It pays to go to smaller businesses. We have had on average one meal a day in a restaurant, noticed that a sandwich is about $12. dollars, a beer $6.50, a glass of wine about $10. a coffee $3.65, desserts $5.00, no bargains here.
Dinner for 3 persons around $160 dollars + 13% tax and 15% tip, no wonder tourism is way down to the levels of 1974. Ottawa has become a very expensive city and I do not find that quality is present in the price paid.

We will certainly have to get use to a lot. Making our own coffee, bringing lunch to the office, etc...

On the other hand, there are lots of summer festivals in Ottawa, one is ChamberFest, another is the Buskers, another is dedicated to the Rideau Canal as a UNESCO World Heritage site with bands playing and entertainment around the parks and street in the city centre, most of it free to be enjoyed.

Sparks street, Ottawa

2011-07-29T22:00:00.002-04:00

We have been walking a lot around downtown Ottawa, getting organized for our move in days next week, Tuesday and Friday. Wednesday will probably a visit in the morning to the Customs office for clearance of the sea shipment. Then I will have to get the car tested etc.. to get my permanent licence plates from Ontario. The kids come home from summer camp Thursday, by then we should be able to live in the apartment. It will be a busy week, lots of organizing and sorting out. Ours is a Unesco World Heritage address on the Rideau Canal in the Golden Triangle.

Enjoying a glass of white wine on Sparks Street

The Rideau Canal, c.1826, our living room window view.

The Rideau Canal is 202 Kilometers long, built in 1826 it links Lake Ontario at the City of Kingston
and our National Capital, Ottawa.

a new beginning

2011-07-29T09:32:00.000-04:00

Now in Ottawa, a new life, a new beginning. We are bit by bit getting our papers in order getting organized, settling in. The move into our new apartment is next week, with all the work of unpacking this implies, of organizing and deciding how to make it into our new home. The services we have received so far from the different government bodies has gone well, even smoothly one could say. The puppies are fine. On the other hand, Ottawa is an expensive city, right up there with other world cities. Housing is unaffordable, food is very expensive, restaurants overpriced and overtaxed, traffic gets snarled easily, there is a lot of poverty amongst the riches and it seems nearly everyone has a tattoo or piercing or both, a form of social protest?

It is all a matter of getting use to a new life, new habits as Rome fades like the disappearing shore as one travels out to sea. Once the routine of life is established we will be more used to this new groove.

Departure

2011-07-24T12:45:00.001-04:00

Today being Sunday I had lunch, Pranzo, at Simonetta and Renato, who were so very nice to invite me on my last weekend. What I realize today is that I am tired of saying goodbye and changing life every 3 to 4 years. I am getting to old for this kind of adventure. I know what Will means, it sometimes takes me time to get it, but in the end I do understand. There were also coincidences today, the white wine I brought came from the Whittaker Estate on the Island of Mosia in Sicily near Marsala, the famous Grillo. I did not notice when I bought it, we visited the island in May, site of the biggest Phoenician settlement known in the Mediterranean.

I had also given Renato an old illustration from the London Illustrated News 1854 and it is about the Italian war of independence picturing the French Troops allies of the Pope against the Italian. Renato pointed that out to me, he has another illustration on the same topic.

Had a very nice lunch on Friday with colleagues and looking at the pictures, how much I enjoyed working with them all and how much I will miss them.

Michi and Georgia

Linda, Jolka and Gail

Arrivederci Roma!

2011-07-23T12:10:00.002-04:00

My last weekend in Rome, on Wednesday I fly to Canada for a new chapter in our life. I never thought that leaving la Citta Eterna would be so difficult. Had a wonderful lunch yesterday with colleagues to say goodbye and tonight had a wonderful dinner with colleagues and tomorrow Sunday lunch with Simonetta and Renato.
We always say we will return, but life is funny and one never knows if we will be able to come back one day and even if we do, will it never be quite the same. As I write this, I am listening to the Opera Madama Butterfly by Puccini. To me this is by far my strongest memory of Italy, of Rome. The music brings me back to that evening at the beginning of our stay in Rome, Will had mentioned many times the summer opera season at the ancient baths of Caracalla and we went quite a few times. But on that warm summer evening as we sat in the open air amongst the majestic ruins and the great Roman Pines listening to the music, I remember suddenly seeing this gigantic full moon raising slowly in the evening sky on the right of the stage, it was magical, the light of the giant full moon casting a glow on the old stones. I suddenly thought this is what is wonderful about Rome, this mixture of music, of the ancient, of history, the setting, thinking of all the great operatic artists who sang at Caracalla. It simply speaks to you. For a moment we were alone, Will and I, with the moon, the singers, the music of Puccini, and Rome. You will never see in the world anything like Rome!

Here is the production we saw that evening.

a recent picture at Caracalla

Real Italian Food

2011-07-21T17:00:00.001-04:00

Living in Italy I have been spoiled by the discovery of what real Italian food is compared to what is served in North American so called Italian restaurants. On a recent trip to Canada I abstained from going to those Italian restaurants, one look at the menu posted outside and I realize that it was fantasy Italian adapted for untrained and undisciplined palates. Here are some pictures of real Italian food served in Italy.
A warning there is no pictures of spaghetti and meat balls because it is not Italian.

salad of cherry tomatoes with capers and anchovies

Cuti a very good white Sicilian wine

semi-freddo with marmalade of pickled oranges

Ravioli Trapani Style

Spaghetti with shrimps and clams

a personal favorite, warm mash potato salad with octopus and Italian parsley
the potatoes are mashed with a spicy olive oil, no butter or cream is used.

Cod on a pumpkin purée

Breakfast foods in Ragusa

Said to be the best Ice cream shop in all Sicily and Italy, Ragusa Ibla

Gelato of Beets, delicious, who knew you could make ice cream from beets

Sicilian cheeses advertised by a cheese shop in Ragusa

Marmalades and pickled jams as accompanying regional cheeses

the Sicilian cheese plate

Fish croquettes

Seared tuna served with cherry tomatoes and balsamic vinegar

endives and pesto salad

green beans and giant shrimp salad

paté of eggplant in a tomato coulis with ricotta cheese

goose liver carpaccio

four years

2011-07-21T15:28:00.000-04:00

Today Will and I celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. We have been together 34 years. Will is in Canada today in Ottawa under a very warm and humid 32 C while I am in Rome in a breezy 24 C.

He left for Canada a few days ago with the puppies and I will be joining him in a few days for our new adventures in Ottawa. It will take some adjusting and we believe it may take as long as one year to re-adapt to the North-American lifestyle after all this time in Europe, but we have done it before.

at dinner in Rome in a Tapas restaurant

After the Rome Marathon with Walter and Vincenzo

At breakfast on the rooftop of our B&B in Agrigento

What I will miss from Rome

2011-07-17T17:43:00.001-04:00

Leaving Rome after 4 years in the Citta Eterna is difficult, the only other cities in my various postings abroad I had regrets about leaving were Cairo and Warsaw. Cairo had a special feel in 1991 when I left and to this day when I think of Egypt I always feel nostalgic, there was a certain elegance to the city and our lives there at the time, memories of Mountolive perhaps, our penthouse apartment on the Nile, to see this magnificent river pass under our balcony with Cairo at our feet and to our right the eternal pyramids of Giza in the distance in the setting sun was truly magical. Warsaw was another city, full of elegance and style in the only way the Polish people know how to do it, full of dignity, pride and sense of history. What a great place it was then in 1999, what friends we made.

Statue of the Bersaglieri soldier Piazza Porta Pia

Porta Pia known in antiquity as Porta Nomentana

Piazza Repubblica

the opera house of Rome

a good after theater restaurant in front of the opera house

via Genova leading to the gardens of the Quirinale Palace

Leaving Rome is a similar experience, so many wonderful memories, so many delights and experiences which will remain with me for the rest of my life. Like this morning seeing the white transport helicopter of the Pope flying him and the Papal Court from the Gardens of the Vatican to his Summer Palace at CastelGandolfo where he will remain until September escaping the heat of the city.

Via dei Serpenti leading to the Colosseum which can be seen at the end of the street.

the private family home of the Italian President on Vincolo dei Serpenti.

the full moon over the dome of the Church of San Rocco by the Mausoleum of Emperor Augustus.

the museum housing the Ara Pacis of Augustus, with his great text Res Gestae Divi Augusti which is the funerary inscription of the deeds of Augustus and the basis of jurisprudence today.

I will miss our box at the Teatro del'Opera di Roma and our attendant who always unlocked the door to our box or the summer evening open air presentations of the opera in the ancient ruins at the Baths of Caracalla. The Accademia Santa Cecilia concerts at the Parco della Musica and the very nice lady who would always reserved a taxi for us for after the show and who knew us by name. The many wonderful restaurants in Rome where we were regulars like Stella Maris and Checco e Lina Le Petit Bistrot or on via Borgo Pio at Il Mozzicone were we would go for comfort pasta like the best Carbonara in Rome, this is were we ended up when our dear old Reesie died 3 years ago. We could always count on a table. We also discovered many great eateries in Italy, often in small towns or villages, thanks to Gambero Rosso and le Guide Michelin. Being able to discover and taste the fine wines of so many regions including Sicily while the waiter explained the food specialties of the area.

The incredible choice of Men's fashion in stores, so much variety and so much style. I am so glad I took full advantage of it to renew my wardrobe. I will also miss my barber Franco and his colleague Mimo, sharing him with the President of the Italian Republic. How many people can say that or that is shop is below the President's private home on Via Dei Serpenti, steps away from the Quirinale Palace. I will also miss our butcher Armando on Via Alessandria, our having my morning espresso at the Australian bar served by Sandor, Massimo and Germana, excellent coffee, not to mention Judy's cooking at lunch time. All the wonderful people we met and of course our friends in Rome and the Canadian Club of Rome, www.canadianclubofrome.blogspot.com

an old street in Rome near the Tiber, a residential district.

the bridge King Vittorio Emanuelle II crossing the Tiber to the Vatican with the dome of St-Peter in the background.

On the more mundane, things like our fruit seller on Viale Regina Margherita or the Esso station attendant at Piazza Galeno with whom I chatted each time we walked Nicky and Nora, talking about results of cricket matches in Asia. The old 1950's vintage trams on line 3 or 19, riding them across town. Being able to walk over to the Villa Borghese park on a hot day in Rome when the sun is like hot lead and just enjoy the shade and quiet of this great park. The cashiers at our local CRAI grocery store on Via Alessandria. Or the ladies selling wine at the Enoteca on the Piazza Regina Margherita, who always had good advice and a little discount for the wine I purchased. Many people in the service industry are themselves expatriates, guest workers from Bangladesh, India and Egypt, all making a life for themselves amongst the Italians. Italy today, I discovered, is a cosmopolitan country with little to do with the Italy of the movies.

We are thinking of coming back one day, renting a small apartment, not in Rome, no, but possibly elsewhere like in Pesaro on the Adriatic, for a vacation.

our building entrance on Via dei Villini, an oasis of greenery.

On the rooftop of the Minerva Hotel, Rome
But now it is time to think of departure and goodbyes and renewal.

immigrating

2011-07-16T09:06:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow our two little dogs will leave their native Italy where they were born for Canada. All their papers are in order and their suitcase is packed. They have only known Capena were they were born at the Casa degli Orsi, our neighborhood streets in Rome and the gardens of the Villa Borghese.

A big new adventure awaits them in Ottawa.

Eleonora della casa degli Orsi aka Nora

Fantastico Nicky, our Nicholas aka Nicky

Remember little ones, no barking and no smoking in Canada.

SPOLETO

2011-07-14T12:39:00.002-04:00

On Sunday 10 July we took the Regionale train from the new Tiburtina train station just below Piazza Bologna to Spoleto about an 85 minute ride. Spoleto for the last 54 years has been the summer venue of the Festival of the two worlds. First started by Gian Carlo Menotti it is now run by a new group of people. The Festival is also no longer linked with Charleston, N.C.

We went to see a dance tribute to our friend Professore Alberto Testa, entitled ''Il valore de una vita''. He is a well known choreographer, former dancer, a man involved with all the great Italian movie producers like Luchino Visconti, Vittorio de Sica, Federico Fellini. A coincidence it was also on Sunday that another great choreographer, Roland Petit, died.

Testa mentioned Petit in his tribute, it was a very well done multimedia presentation with great classical dancing meant to tell the life of Testa. One dancer caught the attention of the public, Aran Bell, 11 years old who lives in Naples and takes the train each day to Rome to attend ballet school with choreographer Denys Ganio. Spoleto is a beautiful small town with great history, this is where Hannibal and his elephants marching on Rome were stopped. The city has been carefully restored since 1959. This little Sunday excursion was a nice way to say farewell to Italy.

Unfortunately we did not have time for a meal, Spoleto has several good restaurants and truffles are a culinary specialty. We will have to come back sometime in the future.

Professore Alberto Testa at the Teatro Nuovo, Spoleto, Sunday 10 July 2011

a beautiful evening in Rome

2011-07-03T09:42:00.001-04:00

One of the many things we love to do in Rome is to go to a musical event, either at the Opera of Rome (Teatro del'Opera di Roma) or to the Symphony at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in the Parco della Musica off Via Flaminia. In the summer time sitting inside a theatre is not ideal and since air conditioning is not popular with Italians because of fear of colds and chills, the art scene moves outside.

Our very first musical event in Rome when we arrived at the end of July 2007 was at the Baths of Caracalla, we saw Turandot under a full moon and the giant umbrella Pines of Rome.

Emperor Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus nicknamed Caracalla (208-217 AD) was the oldest son of Lucius Septimus Severus, who built this gigantic complex during his reign to serve the population of Rome, some 2500 bathers could use the facilities daily, with several hot and tepid water shallow pools, librairies, meeting rooms and gardens. The baths are located just steps away from the Circus Maximus and the Palatine hill at the Porta di Capena, today it is next door to the UN, FAO building. The ruins of this complex whose central room was larger than St-Peter's Basilica are impressive and in the summer time the opera of Rome moves to Caracalla.

From our house it is easy to get too by metro a direct line. The staff including the police officers are all the same, the opera moves simply to an outdoor location. We heard a program of music by composer Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) his famous trilogy, Roman Carnival (1928), the Fountains of Rome (1916) and the Pines of Rome (1924), with the orchestra of the opera of Rome under Charles Dutoit.
This concert was also a son et lumière using the ruins of the baths as a backdrop for dramatic light show and film. The first piece Roman Carnival was of Roman streets deserted but coming alive with people as shadows of past inhabitants of these ancient streets, what was nice for us is how many of these alleyways and streets we recognized. The sequence on the fountains of Rome used a projection of naked dancers as the statues of the fountains come alive with water cascading, dancing around them and over them. Another sequence was of the famous classical story of Daphné and Apollo, Daphné is pursued by Apollo in the woods and has he is about to catch her by the lake she is transformed into a laurel bush. In the piece the Pines of Rome, the dancers in shadow are transformed into hundreds of majestic umbrella pines of Rome, so symbolic of this city, marching down the Appia and since the Baths of Caracalla are are the beginning of the old Appian way it was a perfect setting. The piece ended with all the giant pines being illuminated around us, it was magical. What a perfect way to end our sojourn in Rome. Such moments will stay with me. Our little musical sorties were as always organized by Will and he certainly knows how to pick them and make them memorable.

This is a short exerpt of what we saw last night, this youtube film is under maestro George Pretre.
See www.operaroma.it

1534-1867-2011 Dominion of Canada Day

2011-06-30T17:15:00.004-04:00

On Friday 01 July Canada will be 477 years old making it one of the oldest countries in the world today. July 1 also marks our political union of 1867 some 144 years ago.

Canada is a federal state that is governed as a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as head of state and commander in chief. It is a bilingual nation with both English and French as official languages. One of the world's highly developed countries, Canada has a diversified economy. We are the USA first trading partner with trade worth 1.5 billion a day. We are also the number 1 supplier of oil, gas and electricity to the USA. Though most Americans are blissfully unaware of this fact.

We should also remember on this day our Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and our RCAF missions over Libya.

Canadian Grenadier Guard of the Governor General of Canada at Rideau Hall in Ottawa.

So this is our last Canada Day in Rome, we had a lovely party today in the Chancery Gardens of the Embassy on Via Salaria, quite a good turnout and the food was good. The weather also was pleasant and sunny with a light breeze under the umbrella Pines of Rome. In Ottawa under windy gray skies, Prince William and the duchess of Cambridge arrived for their first Royal tour across Canada. They expect to see about half a million people 1 July on Parliament Hill for the festivities of Canada Day, I can hardly imagine what that would look like.

Best Wishes to all on this Dominion of Canada Day.

Ravenna, Emilia Romagna, Italy

2011-06-28T08:14:00.001-04:00

Well in 30 days we will fly to Canada to resume our life in our home country, the four years in Italy were nothing short of wonderful, a very great opportunity. I was also fortunate to have Greece in my portfolio of responsibility, so I think this was a little like a double header in terms of the basis of Western Civilization, Rome and Athens.

We could not leave Italy without a visit to Ravenna which is located North East of Bologna, easy to get to by regional train, a bit of a milk run but the countryside is spectacular. Ravenna is heavy with history and a city of the Arts. Often bypassed by the hordes of tourists who descend on Firenze,Verona or Venice, it is not well known, but has so much to offer which is unique and is in many ways a key piece of the puzzle which is our western heritage. Ravenna makes a first entry into history with Julius Ceasar who will stop and assemble his army before crossing the Rubicon river to march on Rome. Under his nephew Octavian Augustus, Ravenna will become an important seaport as the seat of the Western Imperial Roman Navy. Ravenna back then was built on stilts and surrounded by water, a style immitated by Venice many centuries later. In the fourth century after Emperor Constantine abandons pagan Rome to establish a new imperial Capital with his new Christian religion, in his new city Constantinople, Ravenna will become the new Capital of the western part of the Roman Empire.

The Ravenna Festival brochure

Theodoric the king of the Ostrogoths (454-526 AD), has a young boy had been sent by his father to the Imperial Court in Constantinople and was educated there. He was what the Romans called a Romanized Barbarian. He ruled on behalf of the Emperor in this part of the Italian peninsula, Theodoric will launch a program of grandiose constructions, palaces and churches and great public buildings. The Bysantine style is present everywhere, as we see it today in Christian Orthodox churches, so different from the Roman Catholic style which copies Pagan Rome.

A wealth of opulence in rich mosaics decorating every wall telling Biblical stories mixed with ornate inlaid marble and mosaic floors. Even the windows are of alabaster panes giving the interior a majestic golden aura. One can imagine the religious services heavy with incense and music, conveying the feeling of Divine mystery. It is also interesting to note that Ravenna was also the scene of the evolution of the Christian Faith from early times. Theodoric and his Court where followers of Arius and his doctrine known as Arianism, their beliefs were one of many Christians beliefs of the early Church around the fourth and fifth Centuries. Different Christians groups had different experiences and understandings, such as in Egypt with the Copts or in Antioch or Jerusalem or in Constantinople or in this case Ravenna. For the Arians Christ has a human nature and his divinity is revealed only upon his baptism in the Jordan River. He walks from the West to the East. He is represented as a youth (no beard) and naked, just a young man, a bit pudgy almost a mama's boy.

in this mosaic we see Christ, St-John the Baptist and on the left the figure of the Jordan River in an old man.

The Emperor in Constantinople, needed to solidify political power through religion. This representation was not part of his official political program, Christ had to have a majestic aura as ruler of the world and the Arian beliefs was too humanistic, it clashed with what was to become official doctrine after the violent suppression of the Arian Cult. It is also interesting to note in the period before 700 AD it is the Emperor who is the head of the Christian religion and not the Bishop of Rome, who for many centuries will remain a bishop amongst many, again not the version the Holy See likes to spread around.

The three wise men, coming from the West and dressed like Barbarian chieftains bringing gifts to the baby Jesus and his mother. Mosaic church of St-Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna.

We also saw a very rare Easter Calendar indicating the days on which Easter would fall between 582 and 626 AD. I learned that Christian Easter was celebrated at the same time as the Jewish Passover until the Church at the Council of Nicea, some 325 years after Christ, decided that this could not be. It was important for political and religious orthodoxy within the young Christian Church to differentiate itself if it was to survive as a separate religion.

Not a painting but 5th century intricate mosaics decorate the cathedral of St-Vitale, Ravenna.

In Ravenna you also see that the so called barbarians are in fact trying very hard to integrate themselves into the easy life of the late Roman civilization. The barbarian chieftains wish to give their own people an easier life, a more settled life, with clean drinking water and easy access to food and other conveniences found in city life. The clash comes when the Romans refuse to allow them to migrate through their settlements or into their cities. The Roman legions are stretched and it is difficult to defend if not impossible to stop this human wave of migrants who descend upon the Italian peninsula. Eventually the Romans will have no choice but to accommodate the newcomers. This can be referred to as the fall of the western Roman Empire.

Ravenna, today is landlocked with a canal giving it access to the Adriatic, the great marsh lands were drained about 600 years ago and turned into rich agricultural land. But we could not be in Ravenna without visiting the tomb of the great Italian poet Dante and attending the opera. The summer festival in Ravenna offers many wonderful things, it is held jointly with other music festivals like Whitsun Festival in Salzburg and Madrid. We saw the opera I due Figaro by Saverio Mercadante a sequel to the Marriage of Figaro, the story picks up some 20 years later. It was presented at the Teatro Alighieri, under the direction of Riccardo Muti and the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini with the choir of the Vienna Philarmonic.

The Teatro Alighieri

We also had some very good meals, it is difficult to eat badly in Italy, we found a little place called Bistrot just around the corner from our Hotel, see www.bistrotravenna.it. A very nice place, good food and good service, they catered to people suffering from Gluten intolerance, as many restaurants do in Italy. Our hotel the San Andrea was ideally located within walking distance of all the sights in Ravenna. See www.santandreahotel.com

Antipasto dish at Bistrot.

Am glad we went it was well worth the trip to see this beautiful ancient city.

Ottawa on the Rideau

2011-06-11T12:16:00.001-04:00

Well this past week went by quickly and got a lot of stuff accomplished for our return to Ottawa later this summer. The best thing was the find of this beautiful apartment, totally unexpected. After seeing many substandard apartments advertised in what can only be called as misleading statements and photos, I found a great place for us in an area of town known as the Golden Triangle by the Rideau canal. We had a great agent Eric helping us and he did a very good job answering our questions and getting the information I needed. It pays to visit properties and not go on info solely provided on paper or on the internet.

Ottawa has changed a lot, the city has matured in the last 7 years and it is much different than when I left.
It is still a very clean city, lots of beautiful parks, very green and quiet. Met with old friends, went out to dinner. Looked for and compared prices on food etc... this gives me a better idea of what it will be like on our return in 8 weeks. Dining out in Ottawa is still expensive, more so may I had than in Rome or Vienna, if you look at the 13% tax and then the obligatory 15% service charge added to the final bill, not to mention the price of wines and liquor in restaurants which can easily be 500% of the retail cost at the liquor store. So we will not be doing much dining out. I also found that a lot of foods served in restaurants does not appeal to me. Too many flavors, every chef wants to be trendy, any given menu item has a long description of what the dish is about, to the point of incomprehension. It seems that food has to be trendy, as if that would equate with good taste or savoir-faire in the kitchen in the hope of attracting the monied crowd. At the moment you have a lot of cranberry sauce with balsamic vinegar and chipotle onions. Last night per example I had duck breast for dinner it came with what was described as duck confit, it was not, wrapped in rice paper to make it look Vietnamese with wild rice and vegetables and again this sweet and sour combination sauce, this was not an Asian restaurant but a trendy neigborhood one. Not very pleasing at all. The only fish on most restaurant menus is salmon steak, do we not have other fish to serve, it appears not. The desserts also tend to be very heavy, Ottawa is still stuck in the Cheese cake era and in hot weather a total turn off. So we will eat at home probably replicating what we had in Rome. A good friend of mine described Canadians as people with damaged palates with over stimulated taste buds.

Groceries stores are interesting, you have the superstores and then the local specialty ones, some offer all natural, organic, biological, fair trade, grown in the shade (whatever that means), gluten free, free of dairy products, no eggs, peanut free, products. The variety is impressive, expensive and sometimes a tad funny, you wonder if we need all these choices, but it seems to reflect a certain affluent hypocondriac mentality preoccupied with lifestyle and correctness.

Ottawa also has horrendous rush hour traffic problems now as people try to leave the city centre by the main roads out towards the suburbs, it starts around 3pm until 7pm and on some streets like Bronson it is an all day and late into the night traffic jam. The Queensway, the only major east west highway in Ottawa is a parking lot in both directions at rush hour. This is why I can happily say that I can actually walk to work in 20 minutes and do not need a car from our new home, I am very happy about that. The walk will also be very pleasant mostly through beautiful park land smack in the city centre. This is one of the very nice features of Ottawa.

Today its back to Rome for the pack up in 16 days the countdown is on. We have movers but we will need to make decisions on what we will take with us and what will be sent with the sea shipment.

150, Festa della Repubblica Italiana (1861-2011) Festa degli Italiani

2011-06-02T06:47:00.010-04:00

June 2 marks the birth in 1946 of the modern Italian Republic in this year of the 150th Anniversary of the creation of one united country, Italy. The President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano went first to the Vittoriano, the great white marble monument on Piazza Venezia this morning to lay a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier in front of the statue of the Goddess Roma. Then he was driven in his elegant and beautiful convertible official car a 1961 Lancia Flaminia 3035 around the Roman Forum and returned via the Circus Maximus and the Porta di Capena to the avenue which leads to the great Arch of Constantine below the Palatine Hill, considered in Antiquity the official entrance to Rome. This is were Marcus Tullius Cicero entered Rome when he returned from exile shortly before the assassination of Julius Caesar. The Presidential car like all things designed in Italy is a mixture of elegance, style, sportiness and relaxed comfort and beauty. You admire the car for its colour a medium level blue, it's a convertible and can seat 4 persons in the back and 2 in the front. It is not like a lot of other State cars anonymous and bulky, it is also not bullet proof or bomb proof. Usually the President on the right of the car and his wife or in this case the Minister of Defence on the left, on the jump seat the Chief of the Defence Staff and Head of the Carabinieri. On the front seat the driver wearing white cotton gloves and next to him the Head of the Personal bodyguard of the President, in his grand Gala Uniform.

Lancia Flaminia 1957-1970

There he received the salute of the Italian Armed Forces as leaders of the world gathered on the official dais on Via Dei Fori Imperiali. I learned today that the blue colour is the official colour of Italy, I always wondered why, it turns out it is the colour of the Royal Family of Italy, the House of Savoy. Italy despite being a Republic since 1946 has kept the colour blue as the National colour.

All European countries sent either their Head of State or Head of Government to the ceremonies today. Many other countries sent delegations.
Beautiful sunny day today 20 C. The parade down Via dei Fori Imperiali is largely an historical pageant this year of the Armed Forces of Italy for the last 150 years, in keeping with the events being celebrated. Very well done and high in colour. Every Army, Air Force, Navy and Police regiment is represented. Also delegations of the historical 3 capitals of Italy, Torino, Firenze, Roma. NATO sent a delegation, many countries also sent military detachments. The Italian Navy has a horse regiment, probably the only one in the world to have such a thing and the Army has a railroad regiment.

Interesting note is the seating plan on the Dais, sitting on the left of the President is the president of the Parliament and on the far right two seats down is the Prime Minister Berlusconi, he seemed to have been pushed to the side. Last year he was sitting immediately to the left of the President. President Karzai of Afghanistan was seated between the President of Kosovo and Joe Biden the USA Vice-President who did not appear to have much to say to Karzai. Though he talked up the President of Kosovo who was wearing a classic Chanel outfit.

The parade concluded with all the horse regiments coming down the avenue and the two pass by of the Italian Air Force over Rome and our house since we live in the centre. You can hear them coming for at least 10 seconds before they actually appear in the sky. This evening the President of the Republic is hosting a grand State Dinner at his residence at the Quirinale Palace.

ROME Euro Pride

2011-05-27T12:02:00.000-04:00

EUROPRIDE ROMA 2011.

Roma, capitale dell’orgoglio GLBT europeo.

Europride è il più grande evento internazionale GLBT, ospitato da una città europea diversa ogni anno. Il 2011 è l’anno di Roma, la città eterna. Per 15 giorni, si svolgono eventi artistici e culturali in tutta la città ospitante. Europride culmina con la tradizionale parata dell’orgoglio, concerti, feste spettacolo a carattere sociale e party con club internazionali.

see www.europrideroma.com

Breakfast Italian style

2011-05-26T17:20:00.001-04:00

For many years now, I think at least since 1998 we have made all our hotel bookings with Booking.com, we really like their site and how it is structured. We usually chose an hotel based on the comments left by other people who have stayed at the same hotel and rated it on various grounds, in terms of service, cleanliness, staff, location, etc.

Some comments leave me laughing or seriously wondering if some people should travel at all, let alone leave their house.

In Italy the way meals are structured is very different from elsewhere in Northern Europe or North America. There is no culture or idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day for kids or adults, that concept does not exist, it is unknown. Usually in the morning people will have a cappuccino or an espresso with a croissant, either plain or filled with honey or jam, you may also have a juice or a fruit cup or a yogurt, that is breakfast.

Then by 10 am you will have another coffee and maybe a tramensino, which is a sandwich of white bread with a filling like tomato and tuna or ham and cheese, usually warmed up. But again most people will just have an espresso.

No one is having ham and eggs or sausages and bacon or oatmeal or French toast, steak and beans, waffles and whatever else is eaten elsewhere in Northern climes. So I am usually surprise to hear people comment that while they stayed in an hotel in Italy the breakfast was poor or the selection limited. In fact what you are served is an Italian breakfast, what 60 million Italians eat each day.

If you wish to explain to those 60 million people how wrong they are and how you are here to enlightened them, go ahead, you will probably get strange looks. Since you are on vacation just relax and enjoy, you may shed a few unwanted pounds.

Of course if you wish to have such foods for breakfast any 3 star hotel and up will be happy to prepare such items for you, all you have to do is asked. This is the way it is done in Italy.

Today’s tourism

2011-05-23T09:40:00.001-04:00

Tourism has always been about seeing things you heard about or wanting something exotic as a break from everyday routine. There was a time only the privilege and wealthy could travel, modern tourism apparently appeared around 1850 when Britain had firmly established its garrisons abroad allowing people to travel to far away lands and be assured that military protection or Law and Order was at hand from the restless native. I think of places like Egypt and the Holy Land or India or even further away like the Far East. Such trips required months of free time to travel, money and hiring local staff and bringing your own personal attendants just to handle all your luggage and what not. This was not necessarily the best form of tourism since it often conveyed the worst racist attitudes towards people living in those far away countries.

In the 1960’s traveling was still an adventure, today with mass tourism and ease of travel, you can go almost anywhere and meet crowds of people brought there by charter airlines. The magic of certain far off destination is pretty much gone, all the same food, same shops, same souvenirs, same hotel chains and same music playing in restaurants, shopping malls or hotel lobbies. There is not much danger that you will be challenged in what you know or expect at most you will be amused at worst bored and wonder why it can’t be just like it is back home. I was recently reading the book of Durrell on the Greek Islands when he first visited in the 1930's and compared it to what I saw last October, things have changed and not for the better.

One of my pet peeves has to do with the lack of respect people have in general when visiting a different country.

I always wonder why the natural reserve or barrier you would feel at home to behaving outlandishly is suddenly gone. Is it because you think that I will never be back so it does not matter what I do or say or is it a sense of entitlement because this vacation is costing a lot, so they owe me for the money I am spending in their country.

In Catania I witnessed some truly awful behaviour, it seems to occur either in Museums or in Churches, groups come in with a guide and proceed to march around as if they own the place, shoving aside other people not in their group or blocking areas completely or speaking loudly about this and that or simply run around to take pictures of anything that attract their fancy or of themselves, using flash when told not too. In Syracuse we visited one church with a famous painting by Caravaggio, it clearly says NO photography, luckily in this case the guards pounce on anyone who tries to take a picture. One lady of a certain age who should have known better nonetheless pleaded like a 5 year old with the guard who politely but firmly told her NO. In Catania in the Cathedral a group of school kids around 14-15 years of age where visiting with their teachers, the group was about 25 strong. They ran around the church playing tag, spoke loudly, this was an outing for them. Even in the chapel where the sacrament is exposed and reserved for prayers, there they were pushing and showing each other to the dismay of people trying to pray. I realize that visiting old churches nowadays is no different than going to the mall or an amusement park. But is it so difficult to be respectful of others? In another church a Dutch tourist walks in and does not take his hat off as is customary in any Christian church, his wife came in with her dog on a leash. The excuse we are Protestants this is a Roman Catholic Church we don’t believe in this stuff. It is not a matter of what you believe but a matter of respect. I witnessed the same thing in Cairo and in Istanbul in the great mosques when non-Muslims wish to visit, women and men appear to fail to understand that modest dress is required, meaning no shorts and no sleeveless T-shirts or blouse. In Rome the Vatican enforces a dress code, no one objects but elsewhere it seems that lack of sensitivity and lack of respect is the rule.

Unfortunately when you have mass tourism and a general lack of awareness this appears bound to happen.

The worst offenders are not children but mature adults, the older it seems the ruder. I have seen some truly foul mouth rude people in there 70’s and 80’s; you wonder how can this be. Is this an effect of popular culture today or is it that people are fed up with the change they see around them and this is a form of protest. All this to say that the veneer of civilized behaviour is pretty thin.

Catania to Napoli

2011-05-23T09:33:00.000-04:00

We left Sicily at 19:40 on the good ship Partenone, not many many people on board, but the ship is a lot cleaner than the one we took coming down to Sicily, in fact it even smells clean. The company TTT lines has 2 ships and they simply do the route Napoli, Catania and back.

Sailing out of Catania into the Ionian Sea and turning left to sail up to the straits of Messina

Lots of tourists, mostly Germans and a few Italians, and some truck drivers. Dinner was a very simple affair, 2 pastas, 2 mystery meats, some salad, bread and water, good but simple. It also seems that in Italy, on ferries dinner is served early and ends early, usually by 20:45 it is all done. Then everyone goes to the lounge for coffee and a drink.

Catania with Mount Etna in the background barely visible hidden by clouds, only the slope is visible.

As we left the port of Catania we made a sharp left turn into the wind, we are having squalls tonight up the coast of Sicily and the boat is experiencing some rolling, despite the fact that it weighs 7000 tons. We were also able to get a dramatic view of Mount Etna though is was partilly hidden by low clouds it still occupies a good part of the immediate horizon, that is how big it is and how it dwarfs the city of Catania. We are not far off the coast, you can see clearly the lights of each little town as we go up to Messina and in fact you can also see the cars on the highway. Messina is the narrowest point with the toe of the Italian boot, to cross to Reggio Calabria is only 20 minutes at that point. After Messina we are back into open sea all the way up to Napoli. Hopefully the sea will be calmer after that point.

In all the trip takes 12 hours. On arrival in Napoli we will take the highway up to Rome and should be in Rome in under 3 hours time tops.

Vesuvius in the early morning as we enter the port of Napoli.

Katane, Catania, eastern Sicily

2011-05-23T09:16:00.000-04:00

We drove today from Siracusa to Catania, an easy 60 Km on the highway. As you approach Catania there in front of you it looms large, very large, it looks like any other mountain, lost in the clouds. This is no ordinary mountain this is Mount Etna, the most active volcano in Europe and a deadly one at that, in its known history it has probably killed one hundred thousand people and destroyed numerous towns and villages, provoked great earthquakes and enormous tidal waves (tsunamis). At the moment it looks peaceful but like any monster it can wake-up and wreak havoc. Catania spreads at its feet, and Etna has destroyed Catania and killed its inhabitants about 8 times so far in recorded history, but they hung on and rebuilt.

Catania has several great churches, a Royal Chapel Santa Maria of the Alms blessed by Pope Eugene IV so that the Royal Bourbon Family of Spain who ruled Sicily for nearly 500 years would have a place to go and pray when they came to town. Several great princely families had palaces rebuilt after the earthquake of 1693 called Earthquake Baroque out of black lava rock and limestone giving the town sort of a Mexico City look. The most famous avenue is Via Aetna which crosses the city and ends on the slopes of the volcano. The cathedral is dedicated to Santa Agatha who is the patron saint of the city. She was a pretty local virgin who refused the advances of a powerful Roman official on the grounds that good girls don’t do things like that, early Christian morality which did not hold water with the old Roman morality and values of the time.

Her punishment was to be raped, have her breast cut off and rolled in hot sizzling charcoal for good measure, ouch!

In the cathedral you can also see the body of Blessed Cardinal Dusmet, he died a long time ago, but his body is on display in fine Cardinal red robes, it is quite obvious that under the robes is nothing but a skeleton, the skin of the hands are paper thin and black and his cardinal ring hangs loosely from the dried up fingers. This is something about Catholicism I find very disturbing, why do they have to expose corpses to pray too? The same thing is about to happen to the late Pope Jean-Paul II who is going to be placed in Saint Sebastian Chapel next to the Pieta in the basilica of St-Peter in Rome.

The local musical celebrity who is also buried in the Cathedral in a beautiful mausoleum is Vincenzo Bellini who was born in Catania. In his short life, he died at 34 he wrote 10 operas like Norma and I Puritani. The opera house in Catania one of the largest in Europe and also in need of a major restoration is named after him.

Catania is a port city and of all the cities I have seen in Sicily so far on this trip, I cannot say that it is appealing.

Since 2002 an effort has been made by the authorities to clean up and restore monuments but much remains to be done and I have to say that I found it all a bit sad looking. The black lava stone used in construction of so many buildings with the downtrodden aspect of the city does not help in the overall aesthetics. Let’s hope the authorities continue to improve the city and services and clean up its monuments, much has been done so far. The business people are friendly, the locals less so, it is a port city, you hear many foreign languages, French, German, Turk and Russian.

The one monument I really liked is in the Piazza del Duomo and it is the smiling statue of the Elephant Leotru, it is made of black lava rock. The story goes that he belonged to a famous magician in the 8^th century A.D. Leotru is the symbol of Catania found on the Coat of Arms of the City. We also took the little train around town, a 30 minute tour of the most famous sites. Like many such tours it is not made for accuracy in details but to show off what the city has to offer. The comments are a rattle of statistics and names of places as you go down the streets. Most of it is entertaining and gives you a good idea of the layout of the city. The city is known for its fish and seafood restaurants. We did find good restaurants Antica Sicilia near the Piazza del’universita was one and the other was Metro an enoteca with very good food at reasonable prices, friendly and knowledgeable waiters.

We sail from Catania Sunday on our 12 hour ride up the coast of Italy to Naples.

Noto, City of the Hermit Saint Corrado, Sicilia

2011-05-21T09:44:00.000-04:00

Lovely Noto just a few minutes away from Siracusa, a new town really, reborn after the terrible earthquake on the evening of 11 January 1693 as Mount Etna was erupting devastating all of South East Sicily and destroying numerous towns and villages. Ancient Noto lays in ruin to this day, abandoned some 10 Km away from the new city. No one wanted to live there after the destruction and death of so many people.

The cathedral of Noto rebuilt in 2007.

Noto today is a city built a new with baroque churches and palaces, well laid out. It can be visited in a few hours, museums and churches are open in the morning, usually from 8:30 to 12:30 and then close for lunch time.

If you start at the Porta Real and go down the main avenue you will see all the important buildings including the newly re-built cathedral (2007). The original cathedral’s dome collapsed in 1995 after one of the columns supporting it gave way suddenly, the church was severely damaged, it was however rebuilt identical to the original. The drum of the dome has a new fresco showing the nearly naked apostles dancing around with the Mary Magdalene and they point to the Holy Ghost hovering above them, symbol of Pentecost. This representation of the apostles is somewhat startling, they are usually shown as old and serious, dressed as Roman Senators. Here it is the opposite, they could pass for devotees of Dionysius.

Noto also has several other beautiful palaces like the one of Prince Nicolace di Villadorata, one of the first palace to be built in new Noto around 1698. On the street it has these figures supporting balconies, ferocious lions, galloping horses, round face putis, bearded men, etc.

The inside gives you a glimpse of what life was like in the age of Princes.

Noto also has several good restaurants and one good gelateria Costanzo Dolceria behind the Ducezio Palace in the centre of town. There is a funny fresco in this Dolceria, Costanzo who is now dead, stands behind Christ at the last supper and Christ is having a nice glass of red wine while giving the thumbs up, the wine of Salvation or in Vino Veritas. Some might think this sacrilegious but in Sicily it is not, the meaning here is more on the joyful aspects of Faith and Salvation, Sicilians like in the celebration of Easter and of their Patron Saints love to sing and dance and be joyful for the triumph of Good over Evil. Sicily is a place of agriculture and of wine making, the soil is very rich and fertile, people work the earth and produce some of the best fruits, vegetables and wines in all of Italy, not to mention some excellent cheeses. So these activities influences the way they see the world or their world.

God the father blessing all from Heaven

You can get easily to Noto by train from Siracusa, a regional train comes by every 2 hours. Though be warned that the Noto Station is closed like most small train stations and no services are provided, you can only board or leave the train. An automatic voice announcement warns you of the imminent arrival of the train. If you do not have a return ticket you can purchase one at a Travel Agency on the main street in Noto.

We were going to skip the visit in Noto but now we are glad we went, it is only a few minutes away from Siracusa and it is so lovely.

Well our trip to Sicily is coming to an end, tomorrow we go to Catania about 45 minutes driving time from Siracusa, where we will take the ferry to Naples and then on to home in Rome to our puppies Nicky and Nora. We really miss them and the babysitter says that Nicky has behaved himself this time. Some of the cases of wine have also arrived in Rome. This trip was a good deal in terms of gathering excellent Sicilian wines.

The boys from Siracusa and Santa Lucia

2011-05-21T09:27:00.001-04:00

You probably all know the Broadway musical ‘’The boys from Siracuse’’ by Rogers and Hart set in antiquity in old Siracusa under the Greeks in Sicily. Today Siracusa has a lot to show for itself including the only ancient Greek language theatre school outside of Athens. There is a Classical Greek theatre Season in Siracuse in May and June, many of the more famous Greek drama plays were first performed here in Siracuse before being seen in Athens.

The ancient Greek theatre with the set of Andromacus by Euripides. SOLD OUT!

Poster for this season's Greek tragedies in Siracuse

Siracuse is a lovely city by the sea and the island of Ortigia is connected to the mainland part of the city by two short bridges, this was and remains an important city of about 120,000 people. The numerous ancient and more contemporary buildings attest to its greatness, Santa Lucia Patron Saint of the City lived and died here, she is also the patron Saint of Eye doctors.

Inside the Cathedral of Siracuse formely the Temple of the Goddess Athena, look at those beautiful Doric columns.

We visited the archaeological park which has a large antique theatre with a capacity of 60,000 seats. The largest sacrificial Altar to Zeus in the ancient world can also be seen, it is quite amazing in size, it was built by King Hiero 2700 years ago in marble, it is the size of a football field. White bulls where brought there and 100 of them would be sacrificed each day during a 30 day period in the summer, prayers and a strict religious ritual had to be observed. Because the bulls throat was slit you can imagine there was a lot of blood and this is why priests wore red leather shoes, this tradition comes down to us today with the Pope wearing red shoes. The entrails were offered to Zeus and burnt and the rest of the meat was roasted and given to worshippers, somewhat like a giant bar-b-q.

The cave known as the Ear of Dionysius.

The other site to be seen is the quarry, today this is a lovely park full of lemon and orange trees and beautiful flowers everywhere, in Antiquity though it was a concentration camp were prisoners of the Siracusans went to work to quarry the stone for all public buildings. Those who survived were then sold off into slavery. The most amazing place in this quarry is called the ear of Dionysius, not the God but an infamous ruled of Siracuse. This enormous cave with a height of 25 meters and a depth of 65 meters, looks like a human ear canal, Caravaggio named it that after seeing it. It was use to house the inmate-workers and the ruler of Siracuse could spy on them by listening to their conversations at night. The acoustics are so good that even a whisper can clearly be heard.

The other sites are in Siracuse itself, Piazza del Duomo where the Cathedral is housed in what was obviously the Temple of the Goddess Athena, I say obviously because from the outside you clearly see the Doric columns and inside you can see the Chapel that once was the main body of the Temple, the Altar is the same as the one used when it was the Temple to Athena. So you see it is very simple, Athena is the Virgin Mary, Zeus is God the Father, Jesus is Apollo.

We also went to see the famous Piccolo Teatro dei Pupi (puppet theatre) it is quite famous in Italy and the family Mauceri operates the facilities, gives the performances, makes the puppets, etc. The shows last only about 40 minutes but are highly entertaining. The story is based on the Chanson de Roland or Orlando Furioso or Jerusalem Liberata, from the times of the Crusades, its about the cruel Tartars, the bad Saracens, the Noble if a little daft Knights saving a Princess in distress and about some giant or Cyclops or dragon. Great fun and a beautiful show for children but also for adults. In fact there were about 30 adults attending and only 6 kids, the piccolo theatre was full, you can see their website at www.pupari.com. The show is in Italian but the story is very simple to follow, everyone knows what a Princess is distress looks like and about the knight on his white steed. We also visited the atelier where they make the puppets it was fascinating. We had seen the puppet theatre in Bangkok where 3 people are required to articulate the puppets, here 2 people are required.

The fountain of Diana

Siracuse has many wonderful sights, the wonderful restaurants, the great Enotecas. It is well worth spending 3 days here to simply walk in the old streets, enjoy its beaches or rent a boat. The people are friendly and welcoming.