Granville Island, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Alas.. my last international trip of the summer, and my sabbatical, is now complete.  

I Made a VERY quick road trip up to Vancouver, BC this weekend.

Drove up (from Portland, OR) to Vancouver on Friday, spent one beautiful day milling about Granville Island and a bit of city, and then drove back down to Portland earlier today. 

The reason for this insane road trip- to see a good friend's AMAZING one man play at the Vancouver Fringe Festival.  Zeb's "Innocent When You Dream" was absolutely fantastic!!  Heartfelt, sweet, entertaining, and funny as hell!! 

Even through we were not supposed to take any photos.. I sorta snuck a couple in during the performance....

The lineup waiting to get in to his opening show

Walking in we all grabbed our seats and were greeted to Zeb, already on the stage...

And then the performance began...

I was able to snap two before getting shut down :) but it was sooooo worth it!!

Yeah!  we found one of his show's posters as we meandered about Granville Island after the show.

The Festival was held at Granville Island.. if you are ever in Vancouver, BC I HIGHLY recommend walking around this adorable little spot- the land is owned by the Canadian government and is required to be mixed use.  There is a cement factory, an art & design school, tons of retail/ work spaces for artists and very, very creative businesses, and an amazing public market that was PACKED with local farm-stands, butchers, fish mongers and even a few yummy gelato spots.  

Global Vipassana Pagoda

Another post about India lingering in my drafts folder..

This was our adventure the last weekend before leaving, I think on Sat, 3 August.
Not a lot to write about on this one but some cool photos to share.  This Pagoda is actually a relatively new structure meant to provide a place for meditation and hosts a school for Vipassana style meditation, so there's not a huge historical significance to the location, but it was a really tranquil environment and it was a nice hour of just walking about and taking things in.

For context- this was another typical day in Mumbai... slightly overcast, humid, hot hot hot, and muuugy.
We drove out to the northern part of the city and then caught a ferry to a new Buddhist center- the Global Vipassana Pagoda and just walked around, listened to the Buddhist chanting, and admired the beautiful structures, carvings and landscapes.

Enjoy!

On the ferry, approaching the Pagoda..

I absolutely love the contrast between the gold, turquoise and red..

This wall was gorgeous- huge, beautifully carved and impressive.  So bit it was impossible to get a photo of the entire thing in one shot.

Details from the door panels:

there were sets of doors all around the pagoda.  while not as large as the one main set pictured above, they were still very intricate and beautiful..

Love this.. (there were Buddhist sayings all along the exterior of the building)

This little guy was hanging out near the ferry as we left.

A very, very smelly fish market set up along the ferry dock.  Walking through it back to the driver after our little boat ride was a very fragrant experience... 

A Cabral Family Quest

Just before I left for India my paternal Grandmother (aka Nana) reminded me that her Grandparents, aka my great-great Grandparents, were buried in Mumbai.  They were colonial British, he was a cotton trader, and they lived in the very posh Malabar Hills section of Bombay.  I am pretty sure my great Grandmother, whom I remember meeting as a child, Granny Hayhoe, was born in Mumbai as well.

My Nana gave me a few pieces of information about them and I decided to take on a quest to find their graves.  As a starting point, I had their names- Janet (Kidd) Cabral and Edward Gregory Cabral - and an approximate timeframe for when Nana believed her Grandmother passed- February 1910.  Nana also mentioned the name of the church they attended, and that she remembered her mother mentioning something about a Scottish section of a cemetery.  In a city of 20 million and centuries of Colonial British living and dying in the area I felt a bit like I was searching for a needle in a haystack, but it was looking to be a good challenge.  I was prepared to spend hours combing the archives, researching in the state library and scouring cemeteries to find them.  It was a bit of a disappointment at how easy it was to actually find them!

To start- I did a few google searches on both of their names and was able to find an archived Times of India reference to his obituary.  Turns out he passed away on 28 February 1910.  I wasn't able to find any specific references or mention of my great-great Grandmother, but this date was the piece of information that ultimately led me to finding them- more on that in a minute.

While I was able to find evidence that they were in Mumbai there was no reference to where they were buried.  Google to the rescue. I was able to find references to a few Christian cemeteries in the area, one of which stood out as the most likely location for them to have been buried- the Sewri Cemetery in southern Mumbai.  It was established as a Christian cemetery, specifically for British expats in the mid 1860s.

So, off I went into the Mumbai traffic on a Monday morning to try my luck at the Sewri Cemetery.  After a couple hours of battling traffic we finally arrived!

I was met by the cemetery administrator who offered to help me find my great-great Grandparents.  The thing you need to know about India, especially anything related to the government or general social service, is that everything is manual and on paper.  loads and loads of paper.  Thankfully I had the day my great-great grandfather passed as that is how they were able to find his information.  

The first question they asked was for their names, and then for the dates they died.  I was so very thankful to have the specific date because without that we wouldn't have found them (or it would have taken a hell of a lot longer than it did :).  When I told them February, 1910 they pulled down this ginormous, very old and very fragile book and started flipping through pages, very, very gently.....

... and then when he got to a certain page he started looking at line items... 

.. and then we found my great-great grandfather's name, cause of death, who was handling the arrangements and the date.  

After getting a number off the book with his name, they cross referenced another book, confirmed that he was buried with his wife, Janet, and he said they knew where we could find his gravesite.  Have to admit, I was both excited and nervous when he told me they were two minutes away...

So, everything in India is an adventure, and you see things you're not expecting.. even in cemeteries..

A really quick walk to a very old and somewhat overgrown area of the cemetery and they pointed out their gravesite. 

A quick round of weed pulling and clean up and they left me for a few minutes to just be there and take it all in.  I promised Nana that I'd take a handful of photos if I found them... and here they are: 

 

I've always know that my family is from all over the place... Malta and Great Britain mostly, with a bit of Texas, Portugal and yes, even India.  I know that who I am has been greatly impacted by my family's history, accents and even cooking styles :).  Having said that, knowing about extended family history is one thing.. seeing your great-great Grandparent's 100+ year old grave site in a completely foreign country, half way around the world was a bit different.

All in all, a very cool experience.  Looking forward to having tea toast with Nana sometime soon so we can talk about it in person :) 

Evil Uno

16 July (pm)

Spreading the evil UNO love to countries far and wide.  

I taught Katrin's bastardized version of UNO to a few of the other volunteers tonight.  I am happy to report that I have helped create more evil UNO monsters that will take the game back to their home countries (France, Russia, Canada, the US midwest and India). 

Katrin: India can now be added to the list if countries you are both revered and feared in. You're welcome ;) 

Dolce Far Niente

Currently in Portland, OR.

Going to be in Vancouver, BC, Canada next weekend.

Four days ago I was in San Francisco.

A week ago I was in Carlsbad, CA,

Two weeks ago: Paris, 

Three weeks ago: London

Four weeks ago: Mumbai

Five weeks ago: Goa

Six weeks ago: Kerala

To say the last couple months have been whirlwind would be an understatement, so I'm not really going to beat myself up for having a few blog posts that have been lingering (or festering if you will) in my drafts folder.  To be honest, since leaving India (with the exception of my few days adventuring around in France) I have really done a lot of hanging out, relaxing, catching up with friends, and doing a lot of nothing.  Dolce Far Niente. 

Now that I have had a few weeks to transition back into the western world and really think about my travels in India with a bit of perspective, I feel like I am able to talk about it as a holistic experience and, I guess, wrap it up and start to move on to my normal life.... whatever that looks like.

I think I caveated early on that this blog is mostly for me to document my experiences and share with family and friends... the next handful of posts are mostly for me to try and capture a handful of conversations I have had about my experience in India as a whole.. as well as capture and document some of the conversations I have had with people as I have returned.. oh, and actually publish a few posts that I thought were already up.  Hope they are coherent, but again, I'm not promising anything :)

Parisian Walkabout (Paris part 2)

Wednesday, 14 August

So, my original intent was to just hang out in Paris, enjoy an Americano along the Champs- Elysees, and soak up as much of the city as I possibly could.  While I'm not going to say I totally failed in this quest, I will admit to altering it slightly.  :) 

I stayed in the 20th arrondissement in a spare room I found on Air BnB Tuesday night..  The hostesses- Melissa et Sara- were very cool and had a great extra room, complete with a little balcony reserved for plants and their visitors to perch on and look outside.  After a small breakfast and packing up my stuff, I took off to just meander about the city for the day.  I decided that I did want to go see << Montmartre and Sacre Coeur as I have never been there, and seriously.. it's Paris.. I *needed* to see Le Tour Eiffel in person again. 

Sacre Couer was beautiful- not only the actual church, but the view of the city from the hill was stunning.  The only issue was that it was literally swamped with tourists.. as was most of Paris.  Having said that, I know that a lot of Parisians were out of town as August is their month to go on holiday, so I guess it could have been a hell of a lot worse!

There was the most adorable carousel as you walked up the hill, between the tourist shops and the actual church.  It was in beautiful condition... and just so.. Parisian in its color and painting style..

The view from the hill..

this guy was setting the mood with a little bit of the "Titanic" soundtrack on the Harp.  Seriously.  

In keeping true to my goal of exploring I meandered about this area for an hour or so.  After a bit of trinket shopping and a coffee, I popped on the metro and made my way to the 5th arrondissement, Ste Michelle, and decided to just have a bit of a walkabout and see where I ended up (it was so stunningly sunny and beautiful I could not justify sitting down for more than 10 minutes at a time).  I had about six hours before I needed to pop back to the apartment, grab my bag and then make my way to the airport so I picked up a baguette, got my camera out, and just started walking.  And walking.  And walking.  While I *occasionally* stopped to take a photo, or sat on a bench and just people watched, enjoyed another crepe (mmmmmmmmmmm Nutella and bananas), mostly I walked.  Did I mention I walked? Across Paris?  To the point where every muscle in my legs hurt, I had blisters on my heels, and I had pretty much ruined my adorable little dress because I was effing sweating so much because it was sooo lovely and warm?  (who said I couldn't be charming :) 

And if I am being totally honest.. it was soooo totally worth it.

At the end of the day I walked about 8 miles. 

I *may* have gone a bit overboard with the photos...  I took at least 200+ pictures throughout the day... 16 gig memory cards and digital SLRs for the win :)

Not much to say about these other than I LOVE PARIS!!  I keep using the word picturesque about the different parts of France, and even I am getting sick of saying it but seriously.. it is SO TRUE... especially in Paris!  The city has so much history, culture and personality that it makes me want to live there for six months just so I can spend a couple weeks in each arrondissement, and days in each of the museums and parks, all at my own pace.  So, enough typing.. here are a handful of my favorite shots..

Meandering along the Blvd Saint Germaine...

    

The Muse D'Orsay is one of my favorite places in Paris- it is a beautifully restored train station whose architecture offers as much to admire as the stunning works of art it houses.  While I didn't have enough time to go in this trip, I was able to admire it from the outside for a bit.

Again.... picturesque.

The details below the bridges are often times as interesting as the sculptures above..

Seriously.. not sure what this guy was all about, but, um, yeah.. 

I can spend hours walking about the city and examining the details of pretty much every building, sculpture or lamp post and not get bored.. 

Meandering about the Jardin des Tuileries was awesome.. truly awe inspiring.. 

As I was walking around the Louvre I realized the time (holy crap.. it's 3:30!!) so I booked it to the Isle de la Cite so I could walk about the lovely Notre Dame and then head out.. Again, Awe Inspiring detail and beauty in an over the top way that only the Catholics can deliver...

 

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.. GORGEOUS!  

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Again, I was crazy for only allowing myself 24 hours in the city, but in a way it was actually perfect- a little side trip from London, and enough of a visit to remind me of how much I love it and to provide a good kick in the ass to plan another trip there sometime next year.  While a six month visit is probably not in the cards, seven or 10 days could be.........