Press button – receive bacon?

While we were touring around I noticed that a lot of the local names (endonyms) for places were not very difficult to pronounce, and certainly not more difficult than the English (exonym) translations. I found myself referring to Venice as “Venizia” in conversation, Florence was really “Firenze” (but once was Florentina), Cologne is simpler as “Koln“, and “Roma” has a catchy name that sounds like it belongs in a Lady Gaga song.

If you’ve done any surfing around outside of North America in Google Maps you’ll notice that they’ve gone ahead and included endonyms for a lot of places on their map (making some slavic countries into serious tongue-twisters).

Yeah right, Hungary. Magyarorszag?

Even before the trip, I’d started seeing local names being used all over in media outlets like the CBC and our local newspapers (some common ones like Mumbai/Bombay, Praha/Prague and Kyiv/Kiev), so I’m wondering what the accepted convention is on using local names in articles? Part 1 of the EU Commission for Translation Style Guide leaves it a big mess – a somewhat arbitrary hodgepodge of “use the native name if it’s popular… or don’t” and then a bunch of peculiar specifics about lakes in Geneva and arbitrary mountain ranges that do and do not translate.

Wikipedia adds a few interesting historical notes about renamings during the crusades and goes on to describe initiatives to endorse endonyms. Wikipedia also keeps a neat list of local names for countries and capitals, in case you’re curious.

Also – very nice piano score.

Edit: I’ve been duped, sortof. The Washington Post reports that this is in fact a stealth commercial for a student travel company. The fact that it’s a commercial (or at least commercially sponsored) doesn’t detract from it’s appreciable artistic qualities, but does cast a sheen of artifice over the whole thing, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

I create art all day for money, but I don’t try to sneakily pass that work off as an independently conceived project. There’s something subtle in the distinction that matters to me.

I shouldn’t poke too much fun, because I love weird ceremonies, and my grandfather was a member of the royal guard in Ottawa. But when they marched the goat out at the beginning of the changing of the guard, Natasha and I looked at eachother with raised eyebrows, and re-checked the tourist guide to be sure we were in the right place.

Really? A goat?

(There’s two conflicting sources naming the goat – Vandoos.com claims it’s Baptiste- meaning Baptist, La Citadelle’s website claims it’s Bâtisse – meaning ‘fortress’. The first mascot goat was given to the Vandoos by the queen in 1955, subsequent goats, including Baptiste X, are direct descendants.)

The display is incredible, amazing, spectacular. Once you get over the initial heebie-jeebies of looking at dead people, there’s so much to learn. Organs are so small and neatly packed into your torso. The circulatory system is incredibly intricate. Muscles and bones all fit together so perfectly.

No photos were allowed in the exhibit (the one above’s been stolen from the interwebs) but one image will stay with me forever – they had somehow managed to extract someone’s entire nervous system, in one piece, and lay it out on a table. A little brain and eyes looking up, connected by the base to the spinal cord, a taproot of little yellow nerves that branched all the way down into finer and finer hairs. That was  it – all of your thinking parts (the you part of you) laid out like a pound and a half of corn silk. It blew my mind!

Do you remember the Chemical Brothers “Hey Boy, Hey Girl” video where the girl sees the skeleton and then breaks her arm – and everyone she sees later looks like skeletons? Totally the same effect when you come out – all weekend I couldn’t shake the thought that I was talking to people made of meat.

The tour took us past a few familiar buildings on Elgin – allegedly the Fridays restaurant, crazy drooling fish fountain in Confederation Park, and Teacher’s college are all visited by strange apparitions. The real nexus of paranormal doom is – the dreaded Lisgar High School. It is said that the attic is home to the creepy spirit of a maintenance worker who met his end falling off the roof.

I wasn’t prepared to believe any of it, but when I developed my photos, I saw something crazy I hadn’t seen before!

Our guide (the living one, in the black cape) was great, her speeches were a bit rehearsed, but she was clear and easy to keep up with. It was good to get out for a walk downtown, so I’d recommend it. At $13 it’s about the price of a scary movie, but you get some exercise thrown in. And you might see something ghastly!

The falls themselves were beautiful and incredible, but the surrounding tourist traps were an eyesore. I feel bad for people who’s first impression of Canada are the falls and then the wax serial killer museum.  My favourite monstrosity of all was this unbelievable Dutch/Indonesian/Chinese restaurant/internet cafe/jacuzzi motel/wedding chapel.

$17 for an adult buys you brunch and a stick covered in snow-hardened Maple Taffy. Breakfast was pretty good, all-you-can-eat pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausages, ham, bacon (crispy french style), beans, pea soup, juice and coffee. It wasn’t exactly five-star eggs florentine, but drenching everything in syrup was encouraged, it tasted good and we came away so full we didn’t need to eat again until 8pm.

The sugar-shack was a bit of a disappointment – the taffy was delicious (and generously portioned), but we were kindof herded into the boiling shed and weren’t able to see any of the sap collection, which I’d been hoping we could do. I understand why syrup is so expensive – it takes an incredible amount of energy to boil gallons and gallons of sap down into a teaspoon of syrup. They had a full bathtub-worth of sap boiling away, and I watched them make wood runs in their little 4wheeler constantly.

It was a fun weekend activity. I don’t think I’d make a yearly habit out of it, but I’d definitely take special visitors up there in the spring because it’s a pretty unique experience.

I’m feeling a little physically run-down lately. I think Natasha and I had a weak head cold last week and we’re coming off of it. Waking up lately is a real drag! Especially now that it’s cold out and we have the heavy blankets on… crawling out of cozy bed onto the cold hardwood and freezing bathroom tiles is a pretty lame proposition. But that hasn’t stopped me from:

Biking into work all fall! It’s been great to pedal through the crispy leaves and the bright colours. I don’t know how long I’ll keep this up for, but in the cooler weather I’ve definitely learned that it pays to be prepared. If I forget my toque under my helmet I get to work with frozen eyebrows, but if I take the time to prepare I stay nice and warm along the entire ride. Last year I put the bike away as soon as the first snowflake hit the ground, but my route is pretty safe and I think I could handle a bit of white dust this year before it’s not worth the safety risk.

I picked up a new sketchbook in Montreal, drew on the first page on the train ride home, and now I just stare at it. It’s intimidating me. I’ve picked it up a few times and had nothing come out when I went digging for ideas. I think it’s the head cold.

I’m happy to be in Ottawa, but it feels really strange. Driving my car through the streets of Aylmer this evening felt like someone had juxtaposed two pictures from my life – really weird. And yet here I am.

Off to see the apartment we rented for the first time tomorrow – I hope it’s awesome.