I'll be back

'Time flies when you are heaving fun', is an ancient and well known saying. It seems only a couple of months  ago that I boarded a big blue bird, not Pino, at Schiphol airport, bound for Canada. And here I am back in the Netherlands spat out by a similar blue bird, writing this last blog. Yep, cause I cannot write about 'Howiddiz in  Canada' when I am not actually there. Journalist do it all the time, I know, but I am not a journalist. What better thing to do than ponder how my stay in the Fraser Valley has been? Nope, cannot come up with one myself either.

I have been asked numerous times whether I was going to stay in Canada? This often prompted the question what advantages Canada has over the Netherlands? As with many things there are 'pros and cons. From a philosophical point of view, it all depends on what you want from life. Are you in to nature, then Canada is a great place to be. No traffic jams when hiking, cycling or driving through national parks. And there are real wild animals, that can kill you. Compare that to encountering a fox or badger. Plenty of space to lose yourself in a variety of outdoor sports as well. Undeniably, from this point of view Canada is the way to go.

On the other hand, for those among us that do not have rich parents from whom a lot of money can be inherited, won the lottery or had a windfall of another kind, it still means that work has to be done to get bread on the table, preferably with a spread as well. Sitting behind my desk in my apartment in Surrey was no different from doing the same in the Netherlands. And like in the Netherlands, you have to fight your way through traffic to get to work as well. No need to go to Canada for that. 

Canada is not particularly cheap either. Paying the bill after filling my basket at Superstore, often made me wonder what I actually had gotten for the amount paid. Petrol on the other hand is dirt cheap. How on earth is it possible that Rutte still has not gotten his finances in order when he is raking in a huge amount of money via petrol the Dutchies put in their cars. Canadians only pay € 0,70 per liter. Nope, no typo. And the myth that Canadians travel huge distances is not entirely correct either. Most of the people living in or around Vancouver, more or less stay there. Only in the summer, when campers are wheeled out of storage, do the distances traveled increase. Much like the Dutchies that tow their caravan to the Riviera in southern France. The trip that miss P. and I took last year to Fort St. John, 1300 km north of the Fraser Valley, is not taken by many Vancouver residents. Mind you, most of them have never been out of the valley in their entire life. 

Having said all this, I felt quite at home in British Columbia. Also because my family living there felt the urge to feed me every now and then to save me from starvation. Hospitality is written with a capital 'H' over there, something many Dutchies can take as an example. 

It is therefore that I can say wholeheartedly, 'I'll be back'...

Ps.
I hope you have enjoyed the glimpses of the Fraser Valley given via this blog as much as I have, writing them. All the best in 2015. Do the things you want, not what people want you to do.

Home trainer

Propelling myself on a bicycle through busy traffic is not the first thing that springs in mind when I have to choose a means of transport. Although downtown Vancouver has the odd cycle lane painted on asphalt, this is not a common sight in Surrey or Richmond. And where the council has made the effort to create cycle lanes, it is not always clear to the intended user what to do with them. 

  

Not that you are safe in a cycle lane. Other road users, in articular drivers of full size pick up trucks with side mirrors sticking out half a car width, do not take much notice of cyclists, and rush uncomfortably close past the unnerved cyclist. It would not be the first time that a cyclist, totally unaware of the pick up truck intending to overtake him, got whacked out of his toe-clips by the right door mirror. 

Being a cyclist in British Columbia, and when venturing out onto the asphalt ribbons, places you pretty close to being outlawed and having to fend for yourself I figured out. 

But not to worry I thought, because Canada has an abundance of space, filled with nature. Heaven on earth for cyclist who want to do a bit of off roading. Mountain biking seems to me the solution to avoid the dangers of pick up truck infested asphalt. On top of that, it brings you closer to nature as well. As has been demonstrated before, you can overdo it a bit and find yourself with the handlebars of your mountain-bike deeply buried in the fur of a grizzly-bear. Too close for comfort I would say. But nevertheless, an unforgettable experience.

Not that bears are the only thing mountain-bikers should worry about I found on the Vancouver Sun website:

'Woman allegedly ‘caught in the act’ of dragging debris onto trails'

Neither to be blamed on immature behavior, as the lady in question happened to be 64 years old, nor on a game of 'giant Mikado', as there were no giants spotted in the vicinity of late. 

There you have it. When it is not safe to ride ones bicycle on the street nor in the woods, there is only one solution left for the persevering cyclist. It is safe, dry, tiring, but also very, very boring. 

A home trainer...

Blissful

Having been in Canada for more than 5 months I thought I had a fair idea of the extent of the English language. Well, as it seems there still are words that I have not heard of before. 'Noseblind' is one of the words I came across, while being bombarded by TV-commercials. Not that it is easy to avoid. Not at all. Unlike in the Netherlands where commercials have a far smaller share than the actual program one is watching, they are more on an even foot over here. After 8 minutes, more or less, of watching the actual program, 4 minutes of commercials are poured out over the viewers. And it gets even worse during prime-time. Pretty annoying. It would be a bit more bearable when commercials would be about stuff that would potentially enrich ones life, or at least would arouse the interest of the viewer. Or when the commercial itself would create a smile on ones face, irrespective of the product advertised. It does not. No difference with the Netherlands here. As it seemed, being 'noseblind' is something that has to be avoided at all cost according to the advertisement. And of course, the advertiser did have the product to counter any negative outcomes of being 'nose blind'. I almost fell over by the sheer ingenuity of the marketing boys and girls. Convincing someone that there is a problem whereas the person in question does not have the slightest idea of the existence of the problem sec. Brilliant. And I immediately saw the potential of this marketing strategy.  

What about bombarding the public with the suggestion that they will have a huge problem because their shoe-laces are not tied properly. Imagine yourself stumbling over them and falling head first into oncoming traffic. Not nice at all. However, I would be there to come to the rescue with the ultimate solution to this all consuming problem. The Versatile Loafer, or LV, as I would label my product would immediately annihilate the problem. A textbook example of a 'win-win' situation.

But seriously, to parrot the title of one of Phil Collins' records, how daft does one have to get to fall for the nonsense of marketeers? From Thomas Gray's poem 'Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College' we have learned that 'ignorance is bliss'. No need to worry about something you do not know is the main message. 

There you have it. Rather than trying to talk people into something they do not have, and subsequently do not need a cure for, marketeers should focus on how to get people in a state of being dumbstruck, stupefied, dumbfounded, astounded, astonished, startled, jolted, amazed, blown away, flabbergasted, stunned or rendered speechless. Hence, a state of being totally ignorant. 

 

How blissful would that be?...