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October 28, 2004
Photos and Videos from the Red Sox Celebration at Kenmore Square
It's less than 24 hours since the Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years, and the helicopters continue to hover over our apartment near Fenway Park. I've never seen a city so happy: every is smiling, saying hello to each other, making eye contact -- almost unheard of in Boston!
To commemorate last night's big win, I've created a new website, Cursed No More: Celebrating the Boston Red Sox 2004 World Series Championship. The website includes my photos from last night's festivities by Fenway Park, as well as a bunch of video clips that capture the excitement felt throughout the evening. Hope you enjoy it!
Posted by acarvin at 09:37 AM
Red Sox Win!!!!!!
They did it! The curse is reversed, the ghost of Ruth nailed back in his coffin -- the Red Sox have won their first World Series in 86 years. I am truly overwhelmed.
It's just after 1am, and my neighborhood is rumbling: half a dozen helicopters hovering overhead, thousands of people carrying brooms and signs marching towards Kenmore Square.
Once again, Susanne and I watched the game at An Tua Nua, an Irish bar just a few blocks from Fenway Park. The bar was packed with probably 500 people, most of them college students covered in Soxware. For four hours, we parked ourselves in front of a giant projection screen, cheering and yelling and screaming and hooting with the mob. Up until the sixth or seventh inning, I tried to keep my reserve and not get my hopes up, even though everything seemed to be going our way. But as soon as several guys brought out their brooms and started to sweep the floor in unison, we all knew this would indeed be the night. A sweep to end all sweeps, a win to end nine decades of frustration and despair.
The crowd erupted with increasing enthusiasm with each successive out. When the game finally finished, the bar exploded: 500 people simultaneously jumping for joy, awash in beer and tears and hugs and cellphones. I have never seen so many frat boys sob with joy.
We stormed out of the bar and hit the streets. Hundreds of people were already outside the bar, streaming east towards Kenmore Square. We joined the throngs of ecstatic fans, following one tall redhead carrying a broom with pride. Reaching the square, we found ourselves with a bagpiper, playing Scottish jigs and Queen songs as the crowd cheered him on.
The hundreds turned to thousands; the thousands became tens of thousands. Susanne and I soon got split up in the crowd. Within moments there were 20,000 people between the two of us; there was no point in trying to find each other.
I looked up in the sky and was blinded by three, four, five, eight floodlights pouring down from the helicopters. People were climbing the fences along the overpass, yelling into their cell phones, high-fiving everyone who passed by. A young woman thrusts a cigar in my face; I take a puff and smile as it was yanked from me, vanishing into the crowd. Three guys jump from a lamp post on top of us, surfing the crowd until a cop gave one of them a polite warning jab in the thigh.
Cops were everywhere, lining the streets, blocking Yawkey Way and Brookline Ave. I was in a bottleneck, squeezed amongst thousands of cheering people. It was exhilarating, scary, thrilling, the most magical moment. I was in the center of the universe.
Knowing I couldn't go any further down Brookline Ave, I turned around and joined a chain of college students, locked arm in arm like an elephant parade, allowing the momentum of the mob suck them through the crowd. Everywhere else was deadlock, gridlock, a crush of humanity, but somehow I slid through the mass, ducking as a tall man fell from a signpost, having been swatted by another cop. To the left, I heard someone yell "Pepper spray!" and people lurched forward, trying to get out of the way. A young man fell to the ground, clutching his eyes.
Taking advantage of the sudden momentum, I moved towards the Uno's restaurant, which was boarded up with plywood. A group of cops in riot gear guarded the entrance, gingerly pushing the crowd whenever it lurched towards them.
"Thank you for doing your job," a group of students said to them; another group chanted, "Please don't shoot us! Please don't shoot us!"
There might have been 100,000 people in the square by 12:30am; thousands more continued to stream from Brookline. I'd been separated from Susanne for at least 30 minutes, and decided I better rendezvous at home, as had been our plan.
I made my way through the crowd in fits and starts; eventually the crowd thinned, and I was able to walk the three blocks back to our apartment.
Feeding the cats two hours past their dinner time, I watched in amazement as Fox Sports replayed the last moments of the game while showing a small-screen image of the crowds at Kenmore. The helicopters continue to hover overhead, Jimmy Fallon is having an ecstatic breakdown on live TV; Susanne has made her way home.
I can't believe I've been able to type this; my hands are still shaking with excitement. The Red Sox won the World Series. Hell has frozen over, and life is so, so sweet.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 01:38 AM
October 21, 2004
A Miracle in the Bronx
"Somebody needs to fire Johnny Damon," I remember saying to Susanne several days ago, after the Red Sox outfielder had whiffed another at-bat. "And Mark Bellhorn while they're at it."
Like so many lifelong Red Sox fans, I was frustrated. Damn Frustrated. Ever since watching that ball go through Buckner's legs nearly two decades ago, I'd questioned whether the Sox would ever get it right. Last year just exacerbated that sense of doubt. My faith had lapsed long ago.
So as the Red Sox fought their way back against the Yankees in game four, I felt very happy for them that they were regaining their dignity, but I refused to let myself believe they really stood a chance of capturing the pennant. The players said they'd take it one day at a time, which seemed like sound advice, but in my heart I knew that Beantown was setting itself up for another heartbreak.
Then I watched game five, just down the street from Fenway at An Tua Nua. When they finally won after nearly six hours of play, we rushed into the streets and joined the throngs of people exiting the park. Like I wrote in my blog that night, it was like Paris for New Years 2000. Sheer joy, sheer revelry. (I even screamed "Bonne annŽe!" in the Red Sox parking lot.) Of course, the Sox had two games to play in the Bronx, so I decided to enjoy the moment and not worry about the potential let-down that lay ahead.
But as game six played itself out, with Curt Schilling pitching a masterful game as blood ran through his sock, I realized that while my faith had been shaken badly over the years, this team's faith had not. Stat for stat, they may not have been the better of the two teams -- I still am in awe by the Yankee's lineup -- but the Sox had a fighting spirit that burned in their souls. It was a spirit that seemed sorely lacking whenever you watched Jeter, A-Rod or Matsui at bat. They may be great players, but their hearts didn't seem in the game. And as Schilling left the mound for the last time, I felt that ray of hope. Is this really the year?
Last night's game was sheer anxiety. It didn't matter they spanked the Yankees from every conceivable angle; even until the bottom of the ninth I wondered exactly what the Yanks would do to pull it off. In retrospect the anxiety made no sense, but 86 years of history tugged at my rationality. I had to spend the rest of the inning standing; I just couldn't sit down knowing what was about to happen. The Red Sox were really going to beat the Yankees and go to the World Series.
My mom called me at midnight from her hospital room in Florida, in the final commercial break before the game ended. She was recovering from surgery and had a bit of a fever, but she sounded on top of the world. The game wasn't over, but for all intents and purposes, we knew it really was.
"Your grandfather is smiling right now," she said. He was a star high school pitcher in Worcester back in the 1930s, and even tried out for the Boston Braves, just before he got drafted - by the army. The Red Sox last won the Series when he was six years old, and he spent the remaining 72 years of his life wondering if they'd ever do it again.
They haven't done it yet, Grandpa. But they beat the Yankees in seven, and that's one hell of a start.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 09:40 AM
October 20, 2004
More Robots!
A new report from the UN suggests that the number of robots will increase sevenfold by 2007. I better start saving up for six more Roombas, then... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 09:41 AM
October 19, 2004
My New URL: www.andycarvin.com
Some of you may have noticed a slight change to my blog. A few weeks ago, I bought the domain name www.andycarvin.com so I could start using it as a new shortcut to my blog. The original address, www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog, still works, but it was always a little hard for people to remember. There's no need to update your bookmarks or anything since both addresses will work, but hopefully www.andycarvin.com will make it easier for people to figure it out. Same bat content, same bat channel; just a different bat URL... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 09:42 AM
October 18, 2004
Fenway Chaos!
It's just before midnight on Monday night and Susanne and I just returned from Fenway Park. No, we didn't have tickets to the Red Sox game, but as soon as we realized the game was going into extra innings, we bolted from our apartment and sprinted the four blocks to the Irish pub An Tua Nua. Located as close as you can get to the Fenway parking lot, the bar was a wild mix of Red Sox fanatics and a troupe of black-leather goths, all united in Bostonian team spirit.
Of course, we had no idea the game would go on for another five innings, giving us plenty of time to curse Derek Jeter and agonize over David Ortiz getting robbed twice. So it was poetic justice that Ortiz batted in Johnny Damon to wrap up the game after nearly six hours of play.
The bar erupted into joyous pandemonium; we reveled in the moment for a while before grabbing our coats and sprinting yet again for the Fenway parking lot. As soon as we got outside you could here the roar of tens of thousands of people exiting the game; within a matter of moments we were in the thick of the crowd, celebrating like it was Paris for New Years 2000. (Quite seriously, I haven't seen anything like it since that very moment.)
We joined the crowd and followed it down Brookline Ave, enjoying the hordes of fans all the way back to our apartment, about a mile to the west. Along the way I took photos and video clips which I'm uploading at this very moment; so by the time you read this you should be able to click that link and see some of the footage I captured.
Wish I could get some sleep, but I'm still too pumped to relax... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 11:43 PM
Battle and Hum
For those of you watching the Red Sox battle the Yankees on TV, have you noticed the industrial hum while listening to the game? It kinda sounds like the background hum of the ship on Star Trek: The Next Generation. If you don't hear it, listen to the game carefully and wait for a commercial break, and you'll notice its absence as soon as they go to a commercial break.
Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that my entire apartment sounds like that at the moment -- and it's not because I'm watching the game. It's coming from outside.
You see, we live less than a mile away from Fenway, and the entire neigborhood sounds like we're all hording electrical generators in our backyards. At first I thought it was just coming from the TV, but then I turned down the volume and noticed that I could hear the same hum in every room of our apartment.
What's causing it, you might ask? I'm not positive, but if I ventured a guess (and I will, since that's what blogging's all about), it's the numerous blimps and helicopters hovering over the neighborhood. The last time I looked outside, there were two blimps and at least one helicopter hovering over Fenway. Since they have to travel in wide arcs over the sky, they're constantly coming into the airspace over our apartment: hence the perpetual hum. I'd noticed a similar phenomenon during previous Sox games, but with the attention of the entire sports universe focused on Fenway, there's more air traffic than usual over Kenmore Square and eastern Brookline.
It's strangely comforting hearing that hum outside; after going to bed last night around 11:30pm I certainly didn't expect a repeat of it. If I were an optimist, I'd say I'd hope to hear it again some time next week. But that would betray the whole ethos of being a Red Sox fan, right? -andy
Posted by acarvin at 08:44 PM
October 17, 2004
Tissa Hami and the Ramadan Song
The BBC website has an article about a group of Muslim stand-up comics who recently staged a show in South Carolina. The trio of comics brought the house down with their unique humor, a combination of religious inside jokes ("So there was this guy praying next to me at the Mosque...") and witty critiques of the post-September 11 landscape.
The most interesting comic of the bunch is an Iranian-American woman named Tissa Hami, who hits the stage sporting a full-length black hijab (though she breaks the ice with the audience by saying she sometimes sports a slightly shorter hijab when she's feeling kind of "slutty"). Hami has even penned a take-off of Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song," appropriately titled "The Ramadan Song." Here's a taste of it:
When you feel like the only kid in town without a menorah or treeHere’s a list of people who are Muslim just like you and me
Mohammad Ali prays toward Mecca
So does Aladdin, and my sister’s best friend Becca
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gives praise to Allah
So does much of Africa but not Nelson Mandela
When you’re down on your knees, tired of praying on the floor
Remember you were once joined by Tupac Shakur
Who needs the Dreidel Song or Winter Wonderland?
When you can sing along with the American Taliban (he converted)
Put your turban on, it’s time for Ramadan
Jerry Lewis has a telethon, it’s time to celebrate Ramadan
Martha Stewart, not a Muslim
If she wore a burka, it would really really puzzle’em...
It turns out that Tissa Hami is based here in Boston, and is about to start a stint as the comic-in-residence at The Comedy Studio in Cambridge. I may have to check her out while she's performing there; it's not often you get to see a new cultural thread get woven into the fabric of American comedy.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 09:45 AM
October 15, 2004
EdWeb and My Blog Turn 10 This Week!
Hi everyone,
This week marks the 10-year anniversary of my educational website, EdWeb: Exploring Technology and School Reform, and my personal website/blog, Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth.
For those of you who weren't online then, in the summer of '94 I was on Northwestern's Annenberg-Washington fellowship at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), where I was encouraged to find a research project and self-publish. I decided to look at the confluence of education technology, school reform, attempts to overhaul telecom policy and the birth of the "information highway."
Over the course of that summer, I spent a lot of time emailing people on various listservs and researching gopher servers to collect my data. A handful of very kind people -- Bonnie Bracey of the NII Advisory Council, Patsy Wang-Iverson of Research for Better Schools, Larry Irving at NTIA, Jamie Wilkerson at Kidlink, Larry Anderson at Mississippi State -- all took the time to reply to my questions and help me think through these issues, which as a lowly grad student were still quite new to me.
Based on all the information I collected, I wrote a series of essays about education, telecom reform, this new "World Wide Web" and what it would mean for schools, etc, then broke them down into small blocks of information that would be hyperlinked together, modeling them on "Engines for Education," a hypertext book written by a former Northwestern professor of mine, Roger Schank.
Since CPB didn't have a web server at the time, I learned HTML and converted my rickety old Mac into a server. Along with the collection of essays, I created Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidh, a personal web page to update friends and family about what I was doing at any given time. Every now and then I'd update it with a new blurb: a link to an essay I'd written, a travelogue, conference updates, etc. (After many years I got sick of hand-coding the page, so I converted it to a blog so posting would be more automated.)
Both EdWeb and Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth went online the week of October 12, 1994. I announced it on several education listservs, including edtech and lm_net. A copy of my original announcement can be found in my October 1994 blog archive.
Little did I know it at the time, but EdWeb set me off on a new career path. The response to the site was overwhelming. It was the first website reviewed by Harvard Education Review, and was plugged by Esther Dyson in her writings about the Internet. I began to get so many emails from people wanting to talk about the role of the Web in education, I created an email discussion list, WWWEDU, which will celebrate its 10th anniversry this December 1st.
Soon my fellowship at CPB turned into a full-time job as a program officer developing grant programs to promote constructivist edtech initiatives and community networking grants to fund the development of locally relevant content. That work later led to my five years at the Benton Foundation, before moving up to Boston with Benton's Digital Divide Network to launch the EDC Center for Media & Community last February. Who knew that a crudely designed website would lead me this way... :-)
Over the years, EdWeb and my Waste of Bandwidth moved from a server at CPB, to CNIDR in North Carolina, to Global Schoolhouse in southern California, and finally back to North Carolina as part of the UNC Sunsite/Ibiblio.org project. Ibiblio still hosts all of my content for free, as did the others, and I'm grateful for their assistance over the years.
With all the other projects I do now, EdWeb is largely a snapshot in time, a look at the issue of education technology as it was being examined during the early years of the Internet. Meanwhile, I still use my EdWeb domain to host my blog and a collection of other websites, including travelogues and my history of the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge, From Sideshow to Genocide. I've recently set up andycarvin.com as a shortcut to my blog, but it's still hosted at EdWeb as well.
So if you haven't visited in a while, please come to http://www.edwebproject.org and take a walk through my small contribution to edtech. And if you get a chance, post a comment on my blog and say hello when you get a chance... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 09:46 AM
October 14, 2004
Spokes4Votes.com Kicks Into High Gear
My buddies at the Omidyar Network never cease to amaze me. About 24 hours ago, I reported that several forum members were discussing a strategy to mobilize biking enthusiasts to help get out the vote on election day. It seemed like a great idea -- if it only had a cool name and a website to get the campaign going.
Well, I went to bed, woke up this morning and quickly discovered that the idea had quickly evolved into Spokes4Votes.com.
Operating under the slogan, "Get on your bike and ride the streets like Paul Revere," Spokes4Votes wants to encourage as many people as possible to hop on their bikes on election day, ride around to cafes and other hangouts, encouraging people to vote, while swinging by the local bicycle shops to rope in other volunteers. For people who want to do their part but haven't gotten involved in a campaign, it's a great way to promote civic participation -- and get some exercise in the process.
So come November 2, do your civic duty and vote. Then get on your bike and earn some political karma by getting others to do the same -- then ride like the wind, baby.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 09:46 AM
October 13, 2004
Winston's Revenge
An important lesson learned when it comes to cat ownership: shower your cats with affection, but for the love of God, don't smother them with it.
A case in point. Be sure to watch the video until the very end - otherwise you'll miss the punchline.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 09:47 AM
Election Day Bike Activism
Yesterday on the Omidyar Network, Mickki Langston posted an idea about how to get out the vote on election day. She called her post Election Day Bike Activism. The idea, essentially, is to mobilize young voters by reaching out to coffee houses and bike shops: throughout election day, volunteers would ride around from cafe to cafe and bike shop to bike shop with flyers containing info on local polling places and the need to go out and vote. It sounds like a great low-budget way to mobilize community members -- both the latte crowd and the outdoor enthusiast crowd -- to do their civic duty, particularly in swing states like Florida, Colorado and Arizona, where chances are decent that biking weather might apply in early November. Check out Mickki's discussion thread for the full scoop on the idea.... -ac
Posted by acarvin at 08:48 AM
October 12, 2004
Hometown Boys Not Off to a Good Start
The Ghost of Ruth hangs heavily over the Bronx as the Yankees take a 2-0 lead over the Red Sox in the first inning of the first game of the ALCS. Last year at this time, I managed to avoid the horror of the Red Sox playoff collapse by hunkering down at a meeting in Dubai. Maybe I should have stayed in Quebec this week as well; let's hope I'm wrong.
And for those of you wondering why I'm talking sports on this blog, don't worry, I promise I won't do it often. (Andy? Sports? What? Someone musta snatched my blog admin password, right?) I'll probably bite my tongue and keep quiet -- unless things get interesting.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 09:49 AM
A Second Round of Jibjab, Anyone?
In case you haven't seen it yet, the fine animators at Jibjab.com have come out with a parody of I Wish I was in Dixie as their second gift to the U.S. presidential campaign. Following the wildfire success of their previous parody of This Land Was Made for You and Me, expectations were certainly high for this latest release, It's Good to Be in DC. How does it hold up? It's funny, but not as funny as the This Land parody.
Part of it is simply measuring up to the expectations game -- you they know they can do something really witty, you expect their sophomore effort to be just as good. The tit-for-tat mocking of Bush and Kerry in "This Land" was priceless stuff, whereas the yuks in this one tend to focus on insinuating that various politicians are gay (or bi, in the case of a smoking jacket-sporting John McCain). Not exactly highbrow political wit, but there's something oddly satisfying about seeing John Ashcroft come out to his Beltway colleagues. The whole thing might have been a bit more effective if they tied the jokes more directly to actual politics, but hey, that's probably asking too much from a pair of guys who like to animate pictures of Bill Clinton getting slapped by Hillary -- three times, no less if you count the two new slaps in the latest cartoon.
At least this time around, the JibJab team seems to have picked a song with no copyright strings attached. As I reported not so long ago, the animators dodged a lawsuit from the publishers who owned the rights to This Land. They eventually resolved the dispute, and got a lot of free publicity out of it. But much of their previous success had to do with the fact that the cartoon was actually hilarious in its own right, publicity or not. This one, well, is just funny. Not sidesplittingly funny, but certainly worth a couple of rim shots... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 09:40 AM
Introducing the RoombaCam
Susanne and I returned home from Montreal around 8am this morning. Since our cats didn't know how to operate our Roomba robot vacuum during our absence, we needed to send our friendly vacbot for a tour of duty.
While the Roomba was making its rounds, I unpacked a few things from our trip, including my digital camera. I noticed our cats taking a greater interest in the Roomba than they usually do, so I decided to put my digital camera on top of the Roomba to see if I could make a little Web video from the Roomba's point of view. The first two attempts didn't work too well, as the bumper-car manouvers of the Roomba shook it loose very quickly. But a few strips of masking tape later, I managed to turn my little robovac into an cinematographer.
The video file is large - about 20 megs - but it's worth a look if you're curious about the Roomba, particularly in terms of how well it plays with cats, furniture, feet, and other things that get in its way....
Posted by acarvin at 08:30 AM
October 08, 2004
Sunshine on the Chateau Boardwalk
After a pleasant Thursday night at the Hotel Acadia, Susanne and I woke up and had breakfast down the street at L'Omelette, a diner-esque cafe with bottomless coffee and excellent muffins. The weather was supposed to improve: hopefully we'd have the chance to abandon our jackets some time in the afternoon. For now, though, a chill lingered in the damp air; I just wondered how long it would last.
Grabbing our cameras back at the hotel, we started to make our way to Basilique Notre Dame, Quebec's grand cathedral. About halfway to the basilica we stopped at a nunnery chapel with a small museum, but the posted operating hours were wrong, and we weren't able to go inside. Soon, we reached the cathedral, which fortunately was open for visitors. The interior was quite ornate, with some of the artwork dating from the 1700s. The cathedral itself, however, had burnt down on more than one occasion, so the structure itself dated from the early 20th century. The most impressive sight within the cathedral was the stone baldachin soaring like a gold-leafed canopy over the altar. The baldachin was unusual because it wasn't supported by columns; instead, golden caryatids arched from the church walls, supporting the baldachin like so many Atlases suspending the earth in mid-air. There was also a pretty replica Rome's St. Peters Basilica behind the altar.
Exiting the cathedral, we stopped in a museum shop across the street to see if we could find a public restroom. A woman there directed us to a shopping arcade across the square. After making our necessary pit stop, we explored the arcade briefly before entering an enormous Christmas shop next door. A veritable smorgasbord of Christmas ornaments and artificial Christmas trees, the store catered to every taste imaginable. Along with ornate ornaments and statuaries from Russia and Poland, they sold a wide array of Christmas kitsch, including Elvis ornaments (Young Elvis and Comeback Tour Elvis), Simpsons ornaments, I Love Lucy ornaments and troll ornaments. And let's not forget their Santa Claus collection: Santa golfing, Santa on his Harley, Santa playing piano for tips, karaoke Santa, Santa riding his lawn mower.
Heading to the Lower Town, we walked down the Break-Neck Staircase and found ourselves in yet another horde of tourists. The giant cruise ship that had been docked in the port yesterday was long gone, but that didn't mean the crowds had thinned out. Two groups of tourists, one Japanese and one German, filled Place Royale until the place looked like an impromptu block party. It was too crowded for our sensibilities, so Susanne and I went looking for Cafe du Monde, one of the better known cafes in the neighborhood. After several minutes of confusion, walking in circles while glancing down at my map, I soon realized that my Quebec for Dummies book had neglected to place the cafe in the right location. The book mentioned that the cafe had moved into new digs recently, but they didn't update their map. Rather than hunt around for it, we decided to walk northeast to Rue St. Paul to explore some of the local antique shops.
Rue St. Paul was quite charming and decidedly less crowded than the area around Place Royal. Locals walked their dogs while a handful of tourists ambled from shop to shop. We split our time indoors and outdoors, now that the sun was beginning to shine brightly outside. Several of the antique shops were quite impressive, with fine collections of early 20th century furniture, model ships, kitchen knick knacks and other curios.
We strolled along Rue St. Paul until lunchtime, at which point we decided to try out one of the creperies recommended in the Dummies book. We followed the book's map , walking counterclockwise along the city walls, until we reached the upper left corner of the map. According to the book, several creperies were just off the map -- a little arrow on the map told us we should keep going. We walked for another 15 minutes, towards the train station, until we became rather suspicious that we were being led on a wild goose chase. Susanne wasn't feeling particularly well at this point, so we decided to give up the chase, walking uphill through the city walls. Then, we noticed a sign pointing in the direction we were going for Rue St. Jean, which turned out to be the name of the street on which the creperies could be found. Puzzled, I doublechecked the book -- yep, the map was insisting that we were headed the wrong way. No longer trusting the book, we walked another two minutes until we indeed found Rue St. Paul -- in the heart of the Old City, just five minutes' walk north of our hotel.
Profoundly irritated by the book's error, we took solace in the fact that Casse Crepe Breton -- one of the best creperies in the city -- was just a few doorsteps to the right. We joined the small queue outside the restaurant and waited for around 10 minutes before being seated. The menu at the creperie was rather straightforward: pick the number of toppings you'd like inside your crepe, and list them out when the waitress arrives. Susanne and I both went for the max: five toppings. Our crepes were more salad than pancake, filled to the point of eruption with asparagus, spinach, peppers and onions, with a bit of cheese to bind it all together. The crepe itself was crisp and flaky on the outside, soft and steaming on the inside. Gallic comfort food at its best.
After lunch, we walked for a while along Rue St. Jean until Susanne decided she wanted to take a brief nap. I walked her back to the hotel -- a short, but steep uphill walk from St. Jean -- then returned downhill with my laptop in tow. Back on Rue St. Jean, I found a hip little coffee shop that roasted its own beans -- you could practically smell the place from two blocks away. With a rich cup of Yemeni moka java by my side, I pounded away the previous day's events for about 90 minutes so I could post them on my blog.
The coffee shop didn't have free wireless Internet access, so I decided to go for a walk to see if I could find public Wi-Fi access somewhere or another. The day had turned gorgeous -- sunny and in the mid 60s -- so I soaked up some rays while walking through the upper town, checking my laptop every block or so to see if it could pick up a signal. Past cafes and pubs, parks and public buildings, there wasn't a Wi-Fi signal to be found. Eventually, not far from the hotel, I stumbled upon a school. I opened my laptop and quickly found a strong signal. Leaning against a tree, supporting my laptop with on hand while Web browsing with the other, I logged onto my blog and posted my journal. The connection was painfully slow -- it took about five minutes to post it -- but eventually I managed to get it online.
Back at the hotel, Susanne was up and around, ready to hit the streets again. I told her to leave her jacket behind -- totally pointless on this Indian summer day -- and we followed our usual path along Rue St. Louis to Chateau Frontenac. I'd recalled that there was a patisserie on one corner of the building, and it seemed like a fine afternoon to sit outside and contemplate a rich, overflowing eclair. We walked through the inner courtyard of the chateau and exited the back side, at which point we found ourselves within a swarm of lady bugs -- hundreds of them, fluttering around like cute little blobs of paint that don't make a stain when they land on you. I still had one or two of them left on my shoulder when we reached the patisserie, only to find the shop closed, with no operating hours posted.
Since we were already there, we decided to sit awhile on one of the many benches scattered along to boardwalk just east of the chateau. Hundreds of tourists strolled the boardwalk, many of them lapping at ice cream cones. Along with the buzz of many languages being spoken, we were treated to three concerts at once: a Quebecois woman playing folk tunes on a harp; a man playing Chinese songs on a violin; and an elderly couple seeing mellow jazz standards, the wife taking the lead while the husband sang harmony and played saxophone. As far as cacophony goes, this was as relaxing as it could be.
Still feeling the need for a snack, we left the chateau and walked downhill to the north, just past the cathedral towards the far eastern end of Rue St. Jean. About three-quarters of the way there we found Le Cafe Depot, a small coffee joint with a nice selection of starchy offerings. We got a couple of drinks, an oatmeal cookie and a small piece of carrot cake -- not the eclair I was lusting after, but beggars can't be choosers. As luck would have it, though, we soon discovered a patisserie about 50 feet downhill from the coffee shop. A delectable caricature of an eclair stared at me from a large sign. Maybe next time, I guess.
Susanne and I spent the next hour or so strolling along Rue St. Jean, visiting one little shop after another. An adorable little candy store was overflowing with Thanksgiving and Halloween treats, while a music store proudly displayed the new Tom Waits album. The sun was now low in the western sky, and we had to cross the street to avoid being blinded by it as we followed the street uphill. Eventually we left the shopping district and found ourselves adjacent to Artillery Park, a lovely green space marking the northeastern corner of the walled city. We found a stairway leading over the giant stone gate, which offered us a beautiful view of the shops along Rue St. Jean. Following the wall further south, we reached a hilly section of the park in which several groups of black-clad Goths picnicked with their dogs. It was a fine spot to watch the sun set over the Old City, as one of the dogs darted up and down the hill in pursuit of its favorite tennis ball.
We slowly made our way back to the hotel, where Susanne checked email why I took a quick shower. We caught the 6pm news on CNN, during which Lou Dobbs displayed a grimacing picture of Tom DeLay with the words ãEthically Challengedä slapped below his mug. The image appeared no less than three times during the show -- looks like Lou wasn't happy about DeLay not returning the show's phone calls.
For dinner, we walked not far from the hotel to Primavera Pizzeria, a charming little eatery with a beautiful brick stove set into the corner. We split a vegetarian pizza surrounded by a small, but international group of diners -- a Hungarian couple, a party of Italians and a large family of Indians, all united by good brick-oven pizza. Rather than linger for dessert, we went in search of another cafe for our final round of food. We walked Rue St. Louis to Chateau Frontenac, enjoying the warm breeze and the trotting of horse carriages up and down the street. One of the churches near Place D'Armes was ringing its bells as we found ourselves walking behind a trio of nuns. Such a wonderfully European moment.
After a while, we ended up at L'Omelette, where we'd had breakfast 12 hours earlier. Not much ambiance compared to many of the other local cafes, but for whatever reason this particular dinner had the biggest selection of deserts. We each enjoyed a slice of maple pie -- kind of like pecan pie but without the pecans -- and a cup of herbal tea, as a Quebecois family next to us was caught in a feedback loop of hysterical laughter. The teenage son was so overwhelmed with laughter he had a coughing fit, and eventually had to excuse himself to the restroom. He came back 10 minutes later, still laughing uncontrollably, tears running down his eyes. If we only knew what the punch line had been·.
Posted by acarvin at 07:51 PM
Your Quebec Weather Forecast
We just finished breakfast and are heading out for a couple of hours to enjoy the nice weather that descended on Quebec yesterday. Today at 1pm we have a three-hour train that will take us to Montreal, which supposedly will reach the high 70s this afternoon. Definitely an evening for lounging at outdoor cafes. Unfortunately a cold front is coming through tomorrow afternoon, bringing rain then cooler temps for the rest of the holiday weekend. But with 27 kilometers of underground shopping, not to mention some killer art museums, Montreal will keep us busy no matter how the weather turns out for us.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 09:52 AM
October 07, 2004
Quebec Froid
The taxi stand was deserted. A raw drizzle blew across the parking lot to where we were standing along the curb, as we wondered why there wasn't a single taxi at Quebec's airport. We certainly weren't alone in our puzzlement; several businessmen who accompanied us on our morning flight from Montreal waited impatiently with their briefcases, clearly irked by the lack of transportation.
It wasn't the most auspicious start to our short Canadian vacation, but we didn't want it to get us down. After 15 minutes or so, we managed to find our own taxi; a large, middle-aged gentleman who spoke English with a heavy French accent. He didn't seem to know exactly where our hotel was, so he flipped through his street map as we waited at each stop light, until he gained the confidence to guide us safely to our accommodations.
By 10:30am, the taxi drove through St. Louis Gate, our entryway into the walled city of Quebec. In the distance we could just make out the roof of Chateau Frontenac, Quebec's most famous landmark. Before the view of the grand hotel improved, though, we veered left on Rue St. Ursule, where we found Hotel Acadia, our home for the next two nights.
The rain had stopped by the time we exited the taxi, which was good news, since we wouldn't have much of an opportunity to lounge at the hotel. Check-in wasn't until 3pm, still more than four hours away, so after we stowed our bags in a luggage closet, we found ourselves back outside, wondering exactly what we should do next.
Susanne and I were both quite hungry; we'd left our apartment in Brookline just after 5am without a proper breakfast, and received only light snacks on our flights to Montreal and Quebec. I suggested we walk towards Place D'Armes, in the heart of Old Quebec's Upper Town, to see if we could find a cozy breakfast cafeto warm our bones and fill our stomachs. We followed Rue St. Louis towards Chateau Frontenac, passing several French bistros and Italian restaurants, all of which might serve as candidates for dinner tonight.
In less than 10 minutes, we were standing along the southern edge of Place D'Armes, a tree-lined square with a large water fountain in its center. Just to our right, Chateau Frontenac loomed high above us, casting a giant shadow over the square. The square sloped at a sharp angle, leading downhill to a row of shops and cafes. We quickly found a cute restaurant with a rather diner-like interior, including green booths and middle-aged waitresses. It was the perfect place for an omelette and cafe au lait.
Having finished brunch, we walked west along Rue St. Anne for just a few yards until reaching a sloping alley packed with artist stalls. They were hawking watercolors and engravings of featuring Chateau Frontenac from all conceivable angles, weather conditions and seasons. The collections were also peppered with cute pictures of smiling cows, mischievous cats, and nautical scenes. One of the artists complimented Susanne on her long white knit cap, saying she should might try knitting one like it herself.
The artists' alleyway exited on Rue Buade, which we followed east for a couple of blocks until we reached Parc Montmorency, a leafy space that also served as part of city walls. We walked through the park, admiring the canons and the view of the St. Lawrence River, not to mention Chateau Frontenac, which dominated the skyline behind us. After taking a few pictures of the chateau, we hiked down a steep, winding road until reaching the top of the Break-Neck Staircase, which has served to connect Old Quebec's Upper Town and Lower Town for more than 300 years. The staircase was less steep than I would have imagined, given its melodramatic name, but the damp conditions made me grip its rail tightly nonetheless.
From the staircase, Susanne and I reached Rue du Petit Champlain, one of the most charming streets in all of Quebec. Lined with boutique shops and cafes, the cobblestone lane also happened to be the oldest street in the city. We strolled down the street, watching the sun break through the clouds for a few minutes at a time. From what I could tell, the weather was doing its best to improve for us, but the chances of this day becoming no-jacket weather seemed extraordinarily slim. If we were lucky, perhaps we'd be able to keep our umbrellas sheathed for the rest of the day.
The boutique shops provided a brief respite from the outside chill; the kitchenware shop was particularly charming, with a fine collection of French crockery in blue, white and yellow, with checkered tablecloths to match. Back outside, the street was getting crowded with tourists; despite the undesirable weather, visitors from the US and Japan managed to make the street feel downright claustrophobic after a while. Eventually, we backtracked a few blocks then veered to the right until we reached Place Royal, the cobblestone square that marks the spot where Champlain founded Quebec just shy of 400 years ago.
On the southern side of the square, we entered Notre Dame Des Victoires church, the oldest church in Quebec. Rather modest in its design, the church was a peaceful place to wander for a few minutes. Hanging high above the church pews was an 18th century model ship that had managed to survive at least one major fire. It was a remarkable model; I would have loved to have seen it from any angle besides the whale's eye view that we had from the pews below.
Walking a few blocks northeast of the square, we soon reached Musee de la Civilisation. One of the most popular museums in Quebec, it featured a range of temporary exhibits, as well as a permanent collection on Quebec's history and the First Peoples -- or Native Americans -- of the province. Since it appeared the day wouldn't get any warmer than the current chill, Susanne and I bought a pair of tickets and went exploring. The first exhibit was about the history of the Roman Empire, told from the perspective of Gallic comic hero Asterix. The exhibit was really intended for kids, so the history we learned from the displays was rather limited. The most interesting part of the exhibit was a small theatre showing Asterix cartoons. We managed to catch a cartoon short in which Asterix and his buddies managed to find themselves in ancient North America -- how or why I don't quite understand -- and encountered an evil, dastardly Native American medicine man who threatened to torture one of them unless they gave up their secret magic motion. Given the fact that part of the museum was dedicated to the cultural diversity of Quebec's indigenous First Peoples, we were shocked by the racist nature of the cartoon. It reminded me of the anti-Japanese Bugs Bunny cartoons that you rarely see any more. But this was like showing those cartoons while an exhibit about Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in the gallery upstairs.
Thoroughly baffled by the exhibit, we moved on to a grand retrospective on the history of sand. Yep, sand. Actually, it was more interesting than it sounds: they had a laboratory set up with stereoscopic microscopes so you could examine samples of beautiful sand samples from all over the globe. There was also a strange performance art exhibit in which beach deck chairs were set up in front of a giant cloth screen, showing fuzzy, crudely animated videos of beaches from around the world while painfully minimalist jazz played over a PA system. Amazingly, we laid down on the deck chairs and watched this for at least 20 minutes, part hypnotized and part hysterical from the oddity of it.
We briefly skated through a couple other exhibits before leaving the museum for a cellar bar whose name was something like Mon Oncle Antoine. The interior was dark, dank, smoky and cozy -- the perfect place for a pint and a bowl of vegetable soup. The only downside to the bar was that everyone there seemed to be from the USA. Come to think of it, practically everyone we'd encountered exploring Old Quebec appeared to be from south of the border. Hopefully we'd be able to stumble upon some hole-in-the-wall joint in which everyone else was speaking French and chainsmoking, for a complete 360 Quebecois experience.
Before we knew it, I realized it was almost 3pm, which meant we could finally check into our room. Susanne hadn't slept well the previous night and was eager to nap for a while, so we decided to take the steep funicular elevator back to Upper Town rather than snaking our way up the steep staircases. The funicular was packed with American and Chinese tourists; one of the Chinese women mysteriously told me, ãDo not touch glass,ä despite the fact that I was standing there with my hands in my pockets. Susanne later commented that maybe she was just afraid of heights or elevators and was trying to make some nervous conversation.
Before heading back to the hotel, we made a quick stop at Chateau Frontenac. The interior was beautiful, with dark wood and marble in every direction. We asked about whether they had high tea during the afternoons, in case we wanted to come by tomorrow, but soon discovered that they only offered it during the summer.
Leaving the chateau, Susanne and I walked west on Rue St. Louis, checking out some of the restaurants for dinner later that night. One Italian restaurant, Conti Caffe, had a nice menu, but I offered to scout around while she napped back at the hotel. Returning to the Acadia, Susanne promptly went to sleep for 90 minutes, giving me time to check email and explore the neighborhood. I'd hoped to find a quite cafe to get a cup of coffee, perhaps doing some journal writing on my laptop. But as luck would have it, I managed to walk a 45-minute circuit around the one part of Quebec's Upper Town that seemed to lack any cafes or bars -- or at least ones that were open late in the afternoon. I did, however, stumble upon the Inuit Art Gallery, which my mom had recommended highly. I spent a while exploring its incredible collection of Inuit statues: polar bears, eagles, walruses and an assortment of other animals in poses both fanciful and mystical. In one corner of the gallery, I overheard a couple haggling over a trio of pint-sized statues; the gallery wanted $2000 for them while the couple pushed for $1800. I guess I wasn't going to be making any purchases that day.
Eventually, I returned to the hotel and jumped in the shower to warm up as best as possible. Susanne, in the meantime, woke up and was wondering what I had in mind for dinner. It was still rather early by Gallic eating standards -- well before 7pm -- but the restaurants were filling up with Americans, and we didn't have any reservations anywhere. Fortunately, we managed to get one of the last unreserved tables over at Conti Caffe. The food there was delicious -- French onion soup followed by grilled halibut in a sweet salsa with purple mashed potatoes. The fish portions weren't huge, but the soup had done a fine job priming us for the main course, so by the time dessert came around, we were barely capable of finishing a small cr_me caramel shared between us.
We left the cafe and strolled back to the hotel. It wasn't particularly late but we were both exhausted from having to wake up at 4:30am this morning. So we settled in to watch the Simpsons in French and a few other US programs, falling asleep before Sam Waterston was able to convict the bad guy.
Posted by acarvin at 10:53 PM
October 06, 2004
And About My Photoblog...
Almost forgot: I have my camera phone with me so I will upload some pics as we explore Quebec. Just visit my blog homepage and look at the column of photos on the left side of the page. Right now you can see a yummy cup of cafe au lait; more to come soon... -ac
Posted by acarvin at 09:58 PM
Chilly, Charming Quebec
Susanne and I arrived in Quebec around 10am this morning, and have spent the day doing our best to stay warm and dry. Despite the winter-like weather, it seems like a beautiful city. Our hotel is in the upper part of the old city, serving as a perfect base for strolling and cafe-hopping.
I am using a hotel computer for the moment until I can find a place with wireless access. Then I can type up something more substantial about our first impressions of Quebec.... -ac
Posted by acarvin at 07:59 PM
October 05, 2004
Oh Canada!
This Wednesday, Susanne and I will be heading up to Canada for a long weekend in Quebec and Montreal. I don't plan to be checking email too much, but in case I end up bringing my laptop or get really proficient on my phone's thumb keyboard, I may try to post some travel updates here on my blog. So check back in periodically to get a feel for the copious amounts of maple syrup we're consuming, not to mention those late-night curling matches..... -ac
Posted by acarvin at 10:01 AM
October 04, 2004
2004 TOP Grants Announced, E-Rate Gets Bushwhacked
The U.S. Department of Commerce's NTIA has just announced the 27 winners of the 2004 TOP grants. TOP, the Technology Opportunities Program, is one of the last remaining federal government initiatives supporting community-based efforts to bridge the digital divide and use information and communications technologies for local development.
It's good news to see the list of the new winners, particularly on a day when the New York Times reported that the FCC has suspended the E-Rate program that funds schools and libraries so they may connect to the Internet. The program has suffered from a few cases of fraud that've consequently received some really bad press. So the FCC's performing surgery with a bureaucratic chainsaw, putting a moratorium on subsidies to all schools and libraries. Zero tolerance indeed.
One step forward, two steps back.... -ac
Posted by acarvin at 10:01 AM