Gone Globetrotting

I'll be in London for the weekend...blogging will resume on Monday.

Cheerio.

January 18: Vienna Day One

My trip to Vienna had an early start.

4:30 in the morning, to be precise. This was to catch the 5:20 train to Amsterdam, where I would then catch the 5:56 train to Brussels, where I would catch the 8:45 train to Brussels airport, where I could catch the 10:50 flight to Vienna.

And amazingly, everything ran on time and without a hitch. Unlike the last trip.


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Do you know what I love most about European airlines? When the drink cart comes around you can have complimentary beer. Air Canada, get on that, will ya? (On the 3 hour flight from Istanbul to Frankfurt, the cart came around multiple times; I was half-plastered by the time we landed).

We arrived in Vienna on schedule. Or, as the locals call it, Wien.

I don't know how I feel about the names of cities and countries varying from language to language. It can make things very confusing. When I told the kids here that I was going to Austria, they didn't know what I was talking about until Hans explained that I was going to "Osterreich". Lindsay made the suggestion that all places should be referred to by their native name, which makes sense to me. Write your local MP and cartographer and let's see if we can't change things for the better.

Of course, once in the airport I made a beeline for an essential pitstop, a pitstop which the Netherlands is sorely lacking.



(Tangent: should I say the Netherlands "is" lacking, or the Netherlands "are" lacking? Hmmm...)

After buying a Vienna Card, which gives us 72 hours of free transit and discounts on museums, we made our way towards the CAT (City-Airport Train) which would deliver us into the city center.

Did you know that Vienna has the ugliest, tackiest hallways of any city I've ever been in? It's uncanny, really. The walls and floors are painted with garrish neon hues and wall size posters are pasted everywhere. Every walkway looked like this.



The CAT, which takes us to...



...the subway, which would take us within a few blocks of our hotel.

Everytime I'm in a European city I think of how terrible the transit options are in North American ones.

Our station stop was "Rathaus", which is the first thing we saw when we emerged from underground.



Rathaus is the German name for the city hall. I think it's great that they keep their politicians in a building that sounds like Rat House. This is the rear of the Rathaus, and if you think it looks impressive from the back, just wait til you see the front.

First we had to find our accommodation. I had committed the narrow streets of the neighbourhood to memory, so I marched off with confidence towards the Zipser Hotel.




I bet you're thinking I'm going to get lost, aren't you?

So did Lindsay, which is why I smiled smugly when we ended up on the right doorstep with no problems.



After dealing with a coldly efficient hotel clerk (much different than the warm and friendly staff at the hotel in Istanbul), we headed off for our room. This is how the hall looked.



Apparently 3-star hotels here think it's classy when you tack up red plastic to yellow-painted walls. (??!?)

After getting settled in, we headed off exploring. First stop, Rathaus.





The building is only 130 years old. That's like a newborn for this continent.

In the picture above you can see a bunch of fencing. That's the skating park, which I was greatly looking forward to; it has two large outdoor rinks in front of the Rathaus and connects them by a long, winding ice path. It's tremendously popular with the Viennese, who come out in the evenings to skate under the city lights.

We also found out that it opens for the season 6 days after we leave. Sigh...

Next door to the Rathaus is a behemoth of a building with what looks to my untrained eye as Greek-inspired architecture. (Indeed; I find out later that the statue in front is Athena).

It's the Austrian parliament.






Notice the Rathaus tower rising in the background of the picture above. It's nice.

We set off down the road that circles the inner city center. As you walk along it's amazing how many huge buildings there are, such as the one two pictures down. I only found out what a fraction of them were built for.




Eventually you come to two gigantic buildings, which were orginally built as part of a palace complex and are now the Museums of National History and Modern Art, respectively. They are identical and sit directly across from each other, with a big statue in the middle.






Just behind those museums is the Museumsquartier, a collection of art museums. This is where our target for the afternoon, the Leopold Museum, was located.



After all that amazing architecture, this is how the Leopold looks.



I'm not even going to bother describing how mediocre and boring it was. It is exactly as interesting on the inside as it is on the outside.

Anyway, after grabbing a bite to eat we spent the rest of the evening wandering downtown Vienna, which is a great shopping district. Vienna is full of famous old coffee shops where figures such as Sigmund Freud and Leon Trotsky used to spend hours playing chess and discussing philosophy. We found one and spent an hour dicussing whether vegetarians are morally superior to the rest of us.

(I say no).

[Next Vienna Post]

Canal Skating

Actually before I get to Vienna, I've got an old photo post I should put up.

Just before Christmas we got a cold snap (cold snap = weather below zero degrees celsius) for about 10 days, which means that the myriad of canals, lakes, and ponds that cover Holland's landscape froze over. This is a pretty big deal when it happens.

So one weekend we piled into the van and drove off to check out the ice. After about 20 minutes we were driving through a surprisingly sparsely populated countryside, and eventually we found a small lake with a bunch of cars parked along the edge of the road. The scene was Fargo-esque.




Looking into the fields, things were completely white. But that's not snow; I don't think it's snowed a single day since I've been here. It's just frost. This makes skating outdoors particularly nice as there's no snow to shovel!


At the bottom of the ditch beside the road was a huge fence. On the other side of the fence was bush, and through the bush was the lake.

As we made our way down to the fence we met an old guy coming back up. He was laughing as he talked to Hans, and I found out later he was saying that he had fallen through the ice in the middle of the lake. I did a doubletake, and then found out that the "lake" is only knee-deep at its deepest point.

Regardless, this sounded like it was going to be interesting.






Finally the boardwalk through the bush opened up onto the lake. It was amazing! So much room to skate!




Everybody in the Netherlands, and I mean everybody, is into speedskating. I've hardly seen anyone else with a pair of hockey skates. They all have skates with big long blades attached to ratty old small shoes, and they wear skintight clothing. I think they look like losers.

The lake turned out to be not THAT great to skate on because it was just barely frozen. You could actually hear and see the ice cracking underneath you as you skated over it. Only the brave ventured out to the middle of the water.



But it was still pretty fun. Unfortunately, after the above picture my camera crapped out and I still haven't gotten it working properly again. My warranty is only good for a shop in Canada. Sigh...

Both Lindsay and my host family have digital cameras for me to use, so I can still take plenty of photos, but I knew this was going to happen eventually.

Anyway, we did another few trips to various canals. It's really nice because there are so many people out skating, it's sort of a community thing.

But it would be a bit more enjoyable if I wasn't constantly feeling like I was about break through!

The Looming Storm

One more culture post: there are dark clouds gathering over the Netherlands.

Cabinet ministers and officials [...] have held a series of crisis meetings and ordered counter-terrorist services to draw up security plans. Dutch nationals overseas have been asked to register with their embassies and local mayors in the Netherlands have been put on standby.

Overseas as well:

Dutch media reported the government is preparing for a possible evacuation of its embassies and citizens from the Middle East. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Bart Rijs told AFP there were no special emergency measures in place at the moment.

"We always have scenarios for possible calamities at our embassies, consulates and other Dutch representations abroad. They are regularly updated," he said.

Why? Ask elected MP Geert Wilders.

Wilders, the head of the far-right Freedom Party, announced in November that he planned to release a 10-minute film this month that will show his view that Islam's holy book, the Koran, "is an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror".

Nobody knows for sure if the film project will ever see the light of day but the government here is bracing for the worst.

The film is likely to be shown either today or next week, on television if he can find a broadcaster, and if not then on the internet. It has sparked a fierce debate in the country.

The PM:

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told reporters yesterday his government is prepared for any possible fallout, AFP reported. The Dutch leader said he couldn't comment on Wilders' film, because he had not seen it, but he emphasized his government would not censor it.

"The Netherlands has a tradition of freedom of expression and freedom of religion but also a tradition of mutual respect, and provocations do not fit into that. I call on everybody to take their individual responsibility," he said, according to AFP.

The Foreign Minister:

In November Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen met with Wilders personally "to point out the risks in making such a movie for himself and his entourage, and for the Netherlands and the Dutch interests abroad," Verhagen's spokesman Bart Rijs said.

The Dutch Muslim Council:

The Dutch Muslim Council has warned the government: if the movie is broadcasted anywhere, riots are certain. “We fear for the worst,” stated the council. “The youths on the streets will have the last word. We can’t stop them.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

From her self-imposed exile in Washington, Hirsi Ali last week criticised the new film as 'provocation' and called on the major Dutch political parties to restart a debate on immigration that has split Dutch society in recent years, rather than leave the field to extremists.

Wilders is undeterred. The film will almost inevitably be shown.

Iran and Syria have also given their helpful contributions.

On Monday, a senior Iranian lawmaker warned the Netherlands not to allow the screening of Wilders' film, claiming it "reflects insulting views about the Holy Koran."

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, promised widespread protests and a review of Iran's relationship with the Netherlands if Wilders' work is shown.

[...]

On Wednesday the Netherlands got a taste of a possible reaction of the Muslim world when the Grand Mufti of Syria Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun told the European Parliament in Strasbourg that if Wilders burns or tears up the Koran in his film "this will mean he wants war and bloodshed".

So we will see. Clearly, Wilders is a bit of a wingnut and I'm sure his film is a celebration of simplistic, reactionary, ignorant opinions on the Koran and Islam. But blasphemy is not just protected by free speech--it's a central tenet of it. Nobody has a monopoly on declaring what's sacred, especially not illiterate fanatical mullahs in Iran.

As much as I think Wilders is an idiot, I have a hard time arguing that he shouldn't broadcast the film out of fear of violence. This will be interesting to keep an eye on.

Turkey Revamping Speech Laws

I'm going to start putting up new photo posts this weekend, but first one more update: The New York Times reports on the good news that Turkey is taking steps to weaken speech laws that make it illegal to criticize Ataturk and the formation of the modern nation. This is one of the biggest obstacles towards its joining the EU.

When Atilla Yayla, a maverick political science professor, offered a mild criticism of Turkey’s first years as a country, his remarks unleashed a torrent of abuse.

“Traitor!” a newspaper headline shouted. His college dismissed him. State prosecutors in this western city, where he spoke, opened a criminal case against him. His crime? Violating an obscure law against insulting the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s founder.

“I need thoughts to counter my ideas,” Mr. Yayla said. “Instead they attacked me.”

Turkey’s government has taken on the issue of free speech and is expected as early as Friday to announce a weakening of a law against insulting Turkishness, an amendment that is considered a key measure of the democratic maturity of this Muslim country as it tries to gain acceptance to the European Union.

But while that law, called Article 301, is known to many in the West — Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist, was prosecuted under 301 — it is just one of many laws that limit freedom of expression for intellectuals in Turkey. The law under which Mr. Yayla was prosecuted, for example, dates from 1951 and is not even part of the penal code.

[...]

Mr. Yayla, for his part, said he was simply trying to provoke a thoughtful discussion on the monopoly of political symbols.

“Of course we need to have Ataturk statues, but there are other people in Turkish history, and they deserve statues, too,” he said by telephone.

On Fireworks

I just got back from Vienna, and so will spend the next few days putting together some fun and exciting dispatches. Apologies for the lack of posting in the past month; many of you must be suffering from Brian-In-Europe withdrawal.

Pursuant to my last post, I did notice this interesting tidbit in a press review from last week:

Fireworks under fire
De Telegraaf reports on an appeal by Dutch Public Prosecutor Gustaaf Biezeveld for a European-wide ban on the sale of fireworks. The public prosecutor argues that the problem is more serious in the Netherlands than in other European countries.

De Telegraaf uses statistics to back up the argument: "During the recent New Year's celebrations around 1,100 people were injured, most of them by illegal fireworks. There were millions of euros in damage to public property, many cars were destroyed and 22 schools were burned down." [Brian's note: twenty-two schools?!! That can't be right...]

Dutch law does not ban the sale of fireworks to individuals. The public prosecutor wants to change this so that it may only be sold for public events. He says the European Union should make a deal with China to end the practice. "The United States already has made this kind of deal and it works perfectly."

Dec 31: Shock And Awe

Well, it's a little easier for me to imagine what a war zone feels like after spending New Years Eve in Holland.

The previous day I went down with the family to a temporary store that was opened up inside a warehouse. The line to get in stretched all the way out through the parking lot. Above the door was a large sign that displayed the Dutch word for 'Fireworks'. As we stood in a line a guy came buy handing out a thick catalogue that showed all the different products we could blow up, some costing as much as 150 euros.

For the previous week I had heard random fireworks going off all over the city as young hooligans set them off from parks and such, and I thought this obssession was a little strange. But nothing quite prepared me for stepping outside just after midnight on New Year's eve.

Just to make this clear: not a single one of these fireworks are part of a civic display--they're all being set off by Dutch citizens standing in the streets.



At certain times, because there are big trees all over the town, someone would set up without checking above them and the firecrackers would bounch of tree branches into cars, houses, and front yards. I'm not exaggerating.

I saw one guy set up a tube, and then after he lit the fuse it fell over and launched the fireworks sideways, directly into his own yard. He started laughing.



By the way, most of the people setting this off have spent the night drinking beer and champagne. The next morning there are always a smattering of garbage cans and mail boxes that were blown up by a prankster. A few shops downtown who forget to tape them up have fireworks shot through the mail slots in the door.





Every year the newspapers have editorials decrying the danger and the amount of money spent and the damage to the environment that this little festive display engenders, but no politician has successfully bought in legislation to control it.

The Dutch love their fireworks.