Jailbreak to Canada

Every year Cambridge Rag organises a fundraising event called Jailbreak. Participants have 36 hours to get as far away from Cambridge as possible without using any of their own money. Teams of two have to get sponsors beforehand who pledge to give a certain amount per kilometer travelled, borders crossed, strangers kissed, whaetever comes to a donor's mind...

My friend Julia and me took part in this year's Jailbreak, ending up in Calgary, Canada. We travelled 6960 km overall, topping off the adventure with a week of hiking, skiing, feeble attempts at hitchhiking the amazing experience that friends-of-friends are the best friends. This is our story:

Friday morning, just before 9 a.m. in Cambridge. 150 teams had come together for the Jailbreak. Costumes varied widely, a couple of bananas, other teams wearing sombreros and our favourite: butterfly and butterfly-catcher. We decided to go "somewhere warm" - Mexico or Hawaii were our ideal destinations (hence the costumes) but we agreed to settle for anything far away. Our consisted of a change of underwear, a towel and swimming things. How wrong that choice of clothes would turn out ... When the siren went off we ran into Cambridge town and collected about £70 within an hour. Satisfied with our initial experience we took the train to London. We didn't really have a plan but thought that the area around Liverpool Street was a good bet.

Around 2 p.m. we had collected about £200 and took a break. Spitafield's Market and the pubs around Liverpool St. were good, the large offices a disappointment. When we went through the revolving doors at RBS five security guards literally jumped towards the door, making gestures for us to not even bother entering the building. Our costumes probably didn't help but the polite-aggressiveness surprised us. Meanwhile, we called a couple of businesses in hope for corporate sponsorship. Unfortunately, this didn't really get us anywhere but the day was still young.

By about 5 p.m. we had collected around £350. Our buckets were getting heavy with 50p and £1 coins and we decided to cash-in before the banks closed. As we were counting we got a call from a friend: he had found two one-way tickets to Calgary within our budget. We were overwhelmed, Canada hadn't been on our map at all and decided to have a bite before making any decision.

After realising the phenomenal money-for-distance ratio we eventualy booked the flights and immediately fell into a strange mixture of excitement, tiredness and disbelief. We were exhausted and cold, so we made our way to a friend's place to spend the night there.

Saturday morning at Gatwick airport. After getting some warm clothes from our friends we felt better prepared but still slightly worried. Wikipedia mentioned an average temperature of -9 degrees during January for Calgary. Optimists that we are we nevertheless took our swimming gear with us.

We still couldn't believe what was happening. Every couple of minutes one of us broke into what we later called the "Canada giggles". Our fellow passengers politely ignored us.

One of the best experiences of the whole trip happenned that Friday night. After booking our tickets we began to ask around if anyone had relations in or around Calgary. Within a couple of hours we got five contacts via Facebook, all friends-of-friends whom we had never met before. Eventually it turned out that my friend Ross's schoolmate Ali lives about an hour away from Calgary, has a spare couch and is willing to accommmodate us for a couple of days. His email spoke of incredible hospitality and spontaneity and read something like this: "This my address ... I won't be back before Sunday night but my flatmate will be around ... If no one is at home just let yourselves in, in Canada we don't lock our doors".

Half an hour before the deadline we landed in Calgary. This picture was taken shortly afterwards just outside the airport as a proof that we've made it. First impressions of Canadians were good. Ladies wearing cowboy hats walked around the airport telling everyone they were welcome to Canada. Immigration singled us out because of our virtually nonexistent luggage and inappropriate clothes. The officer didn't seem too impressed by the jailbreak idea and asked us if we took drugs. Evetually we were let into the country. We hadn't slept much in the past 36 hours but excitement and Canada giggles kept us awake. We took a bus into town and started investigating how to get to Ali's place.

Downtown Calgary. I haven't mentioned Max so far. After we booked our flights in an internet cafe around Liverpool St. Julia and I sent around text messages about the latest development. Max, an old friend from uni in London, checked the prices, realised he had not too much to do next week and booked a one-way ticket to Calgary for himself. Someone had indeed managed to exceed our coolness!

Calgary is a strange place. It is the "Houston of Canada" as a well-travelled friend called it, advising us to leave it ASAP. An oil-boom in the 1970s led to mushrooming concrete and glass towers without any heart or soul. The city is organised along a grid, most streets have no names but numbers. Everything seems designed for cars and not very inviting to people like us. It may have been because of the temperatures or the day of the week but when we were there the city looked pretty dead. We were glad to move on soon.

After an unsucessfull attempt at hitching a ride from Calgary to Canmore we took an overpriced Greyhound bus. Public transport really doesn't seem to be a strength of Canada. Shattered we managed to find Ali's house where we were greated by his flatmate Neuf. Neuf's real name has been forgotten by most people, replaced by a nickname depicting his origin in Canada: Neufundland.

From left to right: Neuf, me, Max and Ali. Neuf and Ali were fantastic hosts. They took us out for humongous beers ("schooners") and introduced us to their colleagues/gang. Did I mention their work entails patrolling the slopes of a ski-resort, using explosives to set-off avalanches, abseiling people from broken-down cablecars and general bad-assness?

Our days were pretty much dominated by the outdoors. We went on a couple of hikes (in Canada you don't go for a walk, you hike!) frolicking in snow and ice. Just behind Neuf and Ali's house was a huge frozen river. After we established that the ice was at least half a meter thick we left the track and started general shenaniganry on the ice.

Julia looking pretty.

Peter looking pretty.

We spent about two hours dancing on the frozen river ...

Max letting his inner bear out.

More frozen river. The landscape was simply stunning!

Another hike we did, this time a bit further out of Canmore. We followed "Cougar Creek" for a while, walking on the ice until it got too thin. When you stood without moving you could hear the water running underneath the ice, a beautiful sound!

We eventually left the riverbed and followed a trail up the mountain. I'll never ever make fun again of "Rocky Mountains" being unimaginative!

Our more than inadequate equipment meant that we couldn't reach the summit, after a while we just couldnt move upwards anymore and started slipping and falling instead. We took a rest at this beautiful viewpoint overlooking Canmore and made our way back down. Sitting down and using your body as a sledge turned out the best and safest option...

WOW!

Green and white were clearly the dominant colours of the area.

Living with two mountaineers-extraordinaire had the distinct advantage of getting a discount for skiing. We spent two days at Sunshine Village, the resort Neuff and Ali work at.

Sometimes we would run into people we knew, here Ali en route to some dangerous spot that mortal people should rather not enter. As one of his colleagues told us: "Don't ski where he skies!"

Given our mission this picture simply had to be posted.

After a brilliant five days in Canmore we had to return back to Calgary and eventually the UK. Uni was calling. We arrived in the morning in Calgary and had a couple of hours to kill, so we decided to take a walk around and give the place another chance.

While not much more lively than during our first visist the bright and warm day let us appreciate the city's own asthetics a bit more. We still weren't convinced until ...

... WE FOUND THE PUBLIC ICERINK IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN!

Topping this off: Streetfood Canada style: Hotdogs and burgers cheaper, better and faster than any international chain would have been. Calgary had clearly won our affection!

Petra

In Petra. The entry fee of 55 JD = 55€ jenseits von Gut und Böse (a beautiful German expression, totally absurd fits it more or less) but worth it. I had known about the place since watching Indiana Jones 3 and was mesmerised by its out-of-this-world beauty ever since. The town seems to be in the middle of nowhere, in fact the whole town of Wadi Musa with all its restaurants, hostels and fallafel places seems to have evolved only very recently, since tourists have discovered the place. Having been in Jordan for just about 24 hours I can't say much about it, the roads are good, the prices steep and the shishas better than any I had in Egypt.

The ruins of Petra spread over a massive area, we covered only about a third of it in one day. What I like about it is that while there is a main path to follow to all the key attractions, you can easily leave it and explore yourself.

Right at the entrance. Lazier people rent horses, donkeys or horse carriages to go around. Tough people like me walk everywhere and feel dead tired when coming home.Most things in Petra are carved in the walls of the valley. Great light and amazing shadows to play with if you've got a camera.
Down the Siq, a narrow gorge to the most well-known building of Petra ...
... the Treasury. In fact it is (like most ruins here) a tomb. The Nabataeans who lived here and built the buildings more than 2000 years ago were nomads and lived in tents and structures that did not survive the centuries since their downfall through the Romans. The structures left are burrial and sacrificial places.
Waiting for the tourists to come.
It's hard to describe how vast the area is. What you see here is just a small portion of what you can explore. Here I just followed up a dustry trek to take this picture of this valley. The little black holes you see in the distance are entrances to caves, made millenia ago.
The entrances in the left hand corner from the former picture, closer up.
And here inside a cave. Somehow the sandstone has formed these incredible patterns of red, white, beige and black. Probably the most fascinating thing about Petra is that it is sometimes hard to tell who made what you are looking at ...
... like here, looking out of a "window" in one of the caves. Was this originally a solid wall, broken down by labourers 2000 years ago, did the floods that must have flown through Jordan and create the gorge grind down the stone or is this simply the result of the ravages of time?
Some tombs are in extraordinarily good condition. Hanna - my travel buddy for this journey - bringing some life to these dead stones.
And me just chilling with the desert behind me.

Dahab, Egypt

It's my last day in Dahab before heading to Nuweiba and then by ferry to Jordan. Christmas here was great, Dahab is some kind of aspiring backpacker hangout, while there are many (young) people on a budget it is also one of the best windsurfing and diving places in the world I was told. But there is also a number of older tourists, often with children, some planning to stay for a week but ending up living there. Egyptian visa regulations don't seem to be too strict ... The town is arranged around a bay, with numerous cafes, bars and restaurants right on the sea, when it's windy it's full with windsurfers, otherwise you see scores of snorkles and the faint images of divers deep down in the sea. The Egyptians I've met here were incredibly friendly and welcoming, of course there is money to be made but it doesn't seem the main interest for many, who just want to have a good time. Understandable, it's one of the closest places to paradise I've seen. (Only to be beaten by the Andamans)

One bit of the shore, lined with restaurants. That's a stormy day, often it's much quieter.
Could be out of a catalogue I feel. One of the more upmarket restaurants right next to where I'm staying.
The view from my bamboo hut. The faint lights on the other side are in Saudi Arabia, which is just across the Red Sea. I like the tranquility of this picture, ocean and sky seem to blend into one!
While the town is not too busy at the moment people seem to speculate on more and more tourists coming. In the foreground you see some kind of play-castle for children, with soldiers overlooking the construction site for huge hotels in the background.
No comment needed ;-)
A bit further down the beach, just out of town. Apparently the coast was full with palm trees until a few years ago, now many have been uprooted and removed to make room for new hotels and beach cafes...

Demo against education cuts

Today I attended the national demonstration against education cuts. It was organised by the NUS and some other unions (teachers and others involved in education in some way or another) and was very well attended. The official number seems to be 50.000 - an incredible increase from the few that came to Downing Street some weeks ago (I think it was around 500 but I can't find the figures now).

From all around the country, students and others involved in education, came to London for today, the guardian has posted an map that shows this impressively:

(from the guardian)

The demo showed groups from different universities, students' unions and employees' unions. What I enjoyed was how many had made their own signs, some serious, others with an ironic twist. Some of my favourites of the latter category:

"What would Beethoven say? Nein!" - KCL, London Music Department

"Education Cuts Never Heal"

"Ancient Norse is not a luxury"

"A plague on both your houses" - Central School of Speech and Drama, London

"To the Winter Palace!"

"Maybe social sciences are a waste of time.
David Cameron: PPE, Oxford
Nick Clegg, Social Anthropology, Cambridge"

"Fuck this, I'm going to Hogwarts!"
(There were a few signs relating to Hogwarts. A debate has started between my friends about tuition fees at Hogwarts. There doesn't seem to be a watertight proof about it, anyone ideas, ideally with source?)

"I wish my boyfriend was as dirty as your policy"

"Over 9000"

(again borrowed from the guardian, I did not take my camera, carrying my own sign was enough)

In the media, the coverage is dominated by a few hundred demonstrants storming the Tory's (the ruling party) headquarters at 30 Millbank, setting protest signs on fire, eventually smashing a front window and occupying the lobby. The security personell there seems rather overwhelmed, look out for the female receptionist. The guardian's leading article online is announced as "Student protest errupts into violence" and entitled: "Student fees protests: 'This is just the beginning'". While the second part of the article focuses on the predominantly peaceful protest, the video, in my opinion, is overdramatic, in line with the heading. A much better piece for the mainstream media is by CNN, maybe because of it's American audience it explains the arguments better.

Now there is a big debate, at home, via text mesages, various videos to be found online and over facebook. The questions could be reduced to:

- What does smashing windows, occupying a government building, laying fire in the building's courtyard, throwing things from the building on the police and others mean, what is its impact?
- Does peaceful protest (i.e. marching with signs) have a smaller impact than violent protest (which could be defined in this case as burning signs, smashing windows and occupying the government party's headquarters, and of course everything after that...)?
- Will violent protest change politicians' and the media's response at all or does it rather harden the positions and thus make a solution more difficult in the long run?

Here a bit of a conversation I happened to be present at:

A: "Name me a violent political movement that has brought positive change."
B: "The Bolcheshevists ... initially"
A: "And then lead to ... what ... Stalin?"

C: "Going to a protest doesn't make you a protester, just as standing in a garrage doesn't make you a car."

X: "I went to a peaceful protest and it didn't work for me. I didn't see anything happening. [Speaking aboout the Anti Iraq War Demonstrations] So I thought I'd try something else."

I've been thinking about them a lot and think I still need time to form my opinion, especially to see how Cameron and Clagg, as well as the national (and probably international?) media representative react. But my gut feeling tells me that burning signs is contradictory to spreading a message and that the voices of 50.000 shouldn't be overpowered by few hundreds. But somehow I feel the frustration while I was not part of that crowd and probably wouldn't join them in the future.

What do you think? I'd be interested to hear from you, email prefered but if I got some interesting ideas I might use them later, anonymously of course.