Category: Travel

Posted on

Trash Talk

In the beginning was the void. The void gave birth to stuff. Stuff gave birth to good stuff and trash. And we threw the trash into the void. Trash gave birth to General Waste, Compostable Waste and Recyclable Waste.

Recyclable gave birth to mixed paper and cardboard. (But not those envelopes with little transparent windows. Nor used pizza boxes.) And Recyclable gave birth to metal, glass and plastics. (But not light bulbs. And certainly not plastic bags, except in some places where you can bundle them all together and put them inside another plastic bag. And probably not margarine tubs. Or least not the lids of margarine tubs.)

Compostable Waste included vegetable peelings and tea bags. (But not paper coffee cups because they are plastic-coated except for those ones which are compostable.)

And even quite intelligent people became confused and decided it was all just Trash.

I’ve been curious for a long time about the different categorisations for wasted used in my hometown of Edinburgh. The City of Edinburgh Council has slightly different ways of dividing up waste depending on whether you are using individual kerbside collections or the large communal bins. (They also periodically revise what is included in each category.) The University of Edinburgh uses different categories from the Council for their in-building waste bins, namely Paper and Cardboard vs. Dry Recycling vs. Other.

This trip has opened my eyes to yet more possibilities.

Waste bins in SFO airport. Items seem to be distributed more or less randomly between the three bins.
Waste bins with illustrative icons in Vancouver International Airport. Stuff mostly ends up in the Trash category.
Waste bins with example items at CIRS, UBC, Vancouver
Waste bins at the Cardboard House Bakery, Hornby Island, BC. Rightmost bin is for pizza boxes.
Redemption centre for recycling in Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. Providing a cash incentive for different categories of trash probably works really well.
Posted on

Down-and-out downtown

We visited Vancouver downtown today. Managed to figure out where the buses ran, accumulated 2 x $2.85 CAD in change, and took the 30 min ride over Granville Bridge to Gastown, a popular tourist destination within the city.

Overall, probably fair to say that we were a little underwhelmed, although Gastown does boast some cool clothes boutiques, hipster bars and heavily used bike paths. Despite the fact that it won’t officially be legalised in Canada until October this year, marijuana was also much in evidence, and we passed a number of retail outlets for this recreational drug.

The most distressing aspect of the city was the number of homeless people on the streets. Some of them withdrawn into doorways, others gathering together on the sidewalk, but overall a palpable sense of distress and affliction. As in many places, lack of affordable housing seems to be a key driver in the steadily increasing number of citizens who are down and out on the streets.

Posted on

One day in New York

One day only. We are predictable and take train no. 7 (Express) to Manhattan.

Our destination is MoMA, an undisputed highlight. But MoMA doesn’t open until 10:30 and, being jetlagged, we’re early. That almost never happens.

To fill up the time, we take a stroll in Central Park. We’re struck by how well-cared for it is, and chat to a friendly, open-faced woman who is part of a group of volunteers busy trimming and tidying. After a while, we pause on a bench near the pond. We feel contented. All is well with the world.

The robed Buddhist monk who approaches us with a smile increases our sense of peace. He strikes up a conversation of a kind; his English is a basic but he does manage to tell us he is from Taiwan. We want to tell him about our own connection with Buddhism, but out of the blue, he takes hold of my arm, then Ewan’s, and slips a wooden-beaded bracelet on each of our wrists, muttering ‘gift, gift’.

We are perplexed; we are not in need of a bracelet (as we are trying to shed rather than acquire stuff). A little tussle ensues (‘no, no, thanks, thanks’ – ‘yes, yes’) which he wins, and as we surrender (remembering that loving kindness is one of the heavenly abodes), he shoves a lined page with names and amounts (ranging from $ 20 to $ 100) onto my lap. The message is clear: look what others give, you must do the same.

Our feeling of harmony has been replaced edgy sense of feeling manipulated – something we don’t respond well too. I feel a little dazed and confused as the smiling monk puts a pencil in my hand and gestures pointedly.

Our friendship with the monk is short and not very sweet, and all three of us know it. To put a stop to it, Ewan reluctantly digs up a $20 note, asking for $10 change. The monk hastily throws us five dollars and turns away. We watch him go, marveling at being such easy prey.

A small illusion poorer, we head for MoMA, which restores our spirits within minutes.

Posted on

Elmhurst

We took the heroic route from Newark Liberty International Airport to our Airbnb apartment in Queens. Eschewing Uber and disregarding Google’s recommendation of taking an express coach, we waited patiently for an NJ Transit train that would take us to Penn Station. Once in Manhattan, we faffed around for a while trying to figure out whether the 7 was a bus or a subway, and were rescued by a helpful native who pointed us to the subway station around the block. (No, not where Google said it was. Bad Google.) Followed by lots more faffing while we tried to rack our brains and memories about how subway tickets worked, and why the Metrocard machine wouldn’t take our bank cards. After some more mishaps in finding the right platform, we were eventually aboard the 7 Flushing subway line. (NYC subway lines have their own Wikipedia entries. Who knew?) Turned out to be the 7 Flushing Express, rather than the 7 Flushing Local. So we overshot our station, and then immediately took incoming Local train one stop back towards Manhattan.

Apart from that initial total disorientation that descends when you exit a station for the first time and have no idea which point of the compass you are facing (thanks again, Google. Not.), we eventually found our way to the apartment block that contained the apartment that contained our “Spacious, Peaceful” Airbnb room. There we were greeted by monolingual Spanish Agustina, large dog and two cats. We did our best to make friends with all four.

Feeling frazzled from a long day’s travel, we ventured out at 4-ish looking for a small bite. Vietnamese sandwich sounded good, but the place we had identified didn’t feel right. So we backtracked a few stores to the Lao Bei Fang Dumpling House, which somehow called to us. Cheap, cheerful, and pretty full with Asian customers, despite the early hour. We both had enormous bowls of spicy noodle soup, chockfull with vegetables, some familiar, some like lotus root, not so much.

Replenished, we walked a big circuit that took us back towards, Roosevelt Avenue, the bustling commercial centre of Elmhurst. It’s narrow, it’s crowded, it’s full of life and colourful lights. Above it runs the 7 Flushing viaduct. Every two minutes, a train rushes through in one direction or the other, almost drowning out every other sound. But the locals seem to be impervious.

Spiritual Advice

Why we liked Elmhurst? Just consider the demographics: 44% Asian, 48% Latino, 6% Anglo.

Posted on

Routine bites the dust

Zen garden at Green Gulch

Routine started to disintegrate at dawn today with more phone calls from the UK — a small family crisis for Ewan. We did manage to paint a mandala each, although (like breakfast) this was about two hours later than planned. Finally left the house noon-ish and headed north to Marin county, turning left at the Arco petrol station where the worst of California (urban wasteland) abruptly transforms itself into the best (fragrant hills hovering dreamily between earth and sea). 

W e disembarked at Green Gulch Farm, a Zen Buddhist center where we naturally fell quiet as we waited for the office to open. What did we want to know? We were not sure; we’d missed the most recent tea gathering (chado) and are still too steeped in family life to volunteer. We browsed the bookshop instead (actually somewhat tortuous since I have pledged not to buy anything I cannot leave behind) and strolled around under the peace of tall trees. We did not even see the inside the meditation hall (it felt wrong to view it in a touristy way) but left feeling somehow more serene.

High windy Highway 1 — with ‘rough road’ warnings — took us to Stinson Beach, where we had a very late lunch in an all-American place that looked so gloomy and greasy it made us a bit hysterical; and then we did do the tourist thing: Ewan slept on the beach, I walked along the ocean edge, and Maaike read (Gossip Girl, more American fare). And we didn’t even get stuck in the traffic on the way back. 

So not a bad day, particularly given that Gov Schwarzenegger and the Democrats have cut a historic deal on greenhouse gas emissions. 

Posted on

Routine strikes

Iconicfigure on Telegraph Avenue

Somewhat scattered start today with phone calls to UK over Klein family issues; and email; and some travel arrangements up in the air. When we finally got out of the house we had a serious meeting in front of Peet’s Coffee on Solano about the need for routine. We were all three awake in the night, and restless; Maaike had a nightmare. We will remedy it all with rhythm and routine.

So Ewan worked and visited a contact at UC Berkeley, and Maaike and I went up Indian Rock and down Shattuck, to Shambhala, which occupies part of a floor in a huge and pretty austere 50ies building. I made a note of meditation times. Pema Chodron teaches every second Tuesday of the month, which is the day we set off for Fiji.

Back home we immersed ourselves in Maaike’s first home schooling tutorial, on the US of A and its history. We need an atlas; there is a lot to learn. The civil war for instance, and how slavery got abolished. Not to mention contemporary race relations. 

Maaike cooked. Stuffed artichokes with delicious dips, and jazzy tofu, seriously. All worth the wait. Life feels more settled tonight. 

Posted on

Bad Hair Day for Maaike

Maaike set off optimistically for her course today; sailing in the morning, but alas, the day was exceptionally misty-moisty and refused to clear. Having booked Maaike on the course to have some time to myself I ended up feeling quite bereft without her. 

The course was not a success. Just a handful of other kids (school has started again this week), and they seem to have ganged up against Maaike, the British latecomer, in a bit of a mean way. Maaike declares she is no way going back. W e regrouped at the Farmer’s market, where we sampled white peaches and crosses of apricot and plum (pluots), all organic. Organic farming is big here — apparently the California soil is like chocolate. The chocolate on the other hand is 87% cacao, which is quite something.

We ended the day all three sprawled in front of one of the four TVs in this house (the house also has four cars attached) watching a pretty pointless Cosby Show spinoff, the best on offer out of umpteen channels, and somehow we enjoyed it anyway. 

Posted on

Slump

Exhaustion day. W e stayed at home all day. Maaike was awake in the night and couldn’t be woken up in the morning. I sat in the garden reading an Alexander McCall Smith novel I found in the house: Friends, Lovers, Chocolate,with a photo of Peckham’s on the cover. A strange choice for day five in Cal. 

Posted on

Back in Berkeley

I am finally properly jet-lagged, wide awake from 4 am onwards, and crabbily drinking too much tea until we head downtown Berkeley to meet up with Line Mikkelsen: old friend, CogSci student and another precious ex-babysitter.

Customers on sidewalk of Cafe du Monde.

Spirits lift as we have beignets and cafe au lait to celebrate the 35th birthday of Chez Panisse, and lift again as we get a guided tour of the Berkeley campus. We end up shopping on Telegraph Avenue; Maaike buys two pairs of shorts for her Discovery Course tomorrow, and a very pink dress!

Later in the afternoon Maaike and I have popcorn in the tiny local cinema, where we watch Trust the Man.

Posted on

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz! Home of our year-long sabbatical in 1995, when we hung out on beaches and playgrounds with two-year-old Maaike and lived next door to the most beautiful campus we know. That moment of excitement when the urban sprawl south of San Francisco turns into Highway 17, and everything becomes greener and clearer. We reminisce about how we did this in a Limo when we first arrived in January 1995 and Maaike threw up at every curve of the highway.

We went to New Leaf grocery store first, off 41st, for a sunrise smoothie, the illusion of virtuous consumerism, and memories. Then off to see our old friends the Lax-Garcia family. Lena was five last time we saw her, and Rose a day old; now Lena is about to turn 13, and Rose seven and-a-half. It almost makes me cry, they are both so beautiful. Lena and Maaike, best friends at age one-and-a-half, embrace awkwardly but are soon off to look at something on the computer and essentially don’t stop talking for the rest of the day. And here is June, who used to be Maaike’s child-minder and adopted granny, still looking just the same age 86.

We laugh, we talk, we walk to the place where Maaike fell into the blackberries in ’95 and had to be disentangled, along the beach (where Maaike was scooped up by a wave and lost her first left shoe) to 26th Avenue (where we lived for a few months and Maaike fell down the porch and got that scar in her eyebrow). We are almost in a bit of a time warp: everything is the same, and different too. We eat at La Palomar on the harbour at 3:30 and finally stroll downtown, on Pacific Avenue, which in 1995 still bore traces of the 1989 earthquake but has now been fully rebuilt, pretty glam actually, and end up in Bookshop Santa Cruz, where else, discovering that Natalie Goldberg has a new book, on failure. Where does the day go? It passes on a high of happiness, and when we finally take Highway 17 north again, Maaike cries most of the way home.