Another city, another blog

Hello everyone!

As promised, I'll keep doing this blog thing to update you, my wonderful loved ones, on my travels and adventures. Since it didn't seem appropriate to be called 'Liz in Geneva' anymore, you can now find me at www.liztakeslondon.blogspot.com

For anyone in the lower mainland / Vancouver, this weekend, there's a big rally on climate change happening at the Art Gallery. Think of it as a pre-Earth Day event - fun!

Join us to call for real action on Climate Change

Saturday April 13 th 11 am -- 2 pm Vancouver Art Gallery

dance to the music • listen to speakers • send a message to Ottawa • learn about solutions • get inspired to take action

go to stepitup2007.ca for more information

Gettin' Political

For the past couple of weeks in Ottawa, I've been having way too much fun playing with friends, MPs, and fantastic people in the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. Some highlights include:

Making a giant invoice for the government of Canada for the cost of inaction on climate change, since it wasn't addressed in the new federal budget. (Sir Nicholas Stern estimates that this cost will be around $71,900,000 per year for Canadians - yep, that's almost 72 billions bucks.)

Look - even Stephen Harper showed up to present us with a cheque.


Attending Clean Air Committee hearings in Parliament all last week to see how this special committee would re-work the government's proposed environmental legislation. Even though they mostly spent time saying things like "I think section 1(a)4 should be replaced with subject 1(b) 5.2" , the politicians also got some real zingers in at each other. They also got a ton of work done - all the opposition parties joined together to force some strong amendments on meeting Kyoto Protocol targets, penalties for businesses that emit too much carbon, and the creation of climate change "hot spots" which will be targeted for protection.

We were also on hand to share tasty fortune cookies with MPs, minions and other assorted politicos attending the Committee hearings.

I mean, who doesn't need a little encouragement cleverly disguised inside baked goods?

This past weekend, I went to a great teach-in held by the Council of Canadians on the proposed US-Canada Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) called Integrate This! It was really educational and also, to be honest, a little bit frightening. I'd encourage you all to educate yourself on this issue because it could have a huge impact on our sovereignty over natural resources (including oil and water), health care, military, transportation regulation, environmental policy and lots of other really key areas.

My friends Rosa & Ben were invited to speak about climate change & the SPP - and they were totally amazing. They reminded me of how articulate, heartfelt & plain old damn smart young people often are, even in front of 600 people, about 5 TV cameras, Avi Lewis and a few heckling members of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition (we only heckle out of love).


Lastly, we made sure to let our leaders know that young people in Canada are proud of the work they've been doing, and that we hope they can keeping on working together to make the (newly re-named) Clean Air & Climate Change Act happen! Sadly, the conservative government is threatening to block the bill by refusing to put it to a vote in the House of Commons, but hopefully they'll come around. Maybe they just need more fortune cookies?

On a non-political note, it's finally getting to be spring in Ottawa. Here's a picture of a partially-melted Rideau Canal and a blue blue spring sky:


I hope it's warm where you're at too!

Canadiana

Here are some pictures from my internship debriefing in Winnipeg. We got to spend a night at a very cosy cabin in the middle of a nature reserve just outside Winnipeg. We weathered a snowstorm, went showshoeing & drank copious amounts of Hungarian liqueur. The perfect cultural re-integration, really.

Our cabin - on the edge of a frozen lake and very close to a herd of buffalo (or is it bison? I never figured that out...)

I think I was having a bit of Swiss chocolate withdrawal.

And here we are showshoeing. I, of course, fell not once, but twice. Brilliant.

And here are some pix from my recent visit to Toronto to re-connect with my nearest & dearest friends from McGill.

Stef, Corinda and I out at dinner.

St. Paddy's day - at the beginning of the night...

Kicking it old school with a good game of quarters

Me & Corinda slightly later in the evening....


And me & Kat at the end of the night. The glazed eyes mean that it was a good St. Paddy's day all around.

I'm still in Ottawa, working part-time with the Sierra Youth Coalition, tying up some loose ends, getting my UK work permit sorted out & enjoying spending time with friends.

My favourite new Ottawa sport is going to Parliament to watch question period. I went the day after the new federal budget came out and, let me tell you, it's so much fun! They heckle, catcall, deal low blows to each other and it's all okay. I feel like they should have spitballs and paper airplanes too. The security guys let me sit in the press box, so I had one of the best seats in the house. Next time, I'm totally bringing popcorn.

And....I booked my flight home to Vancouver! I'm officially coming back to the lovin' arms of my home province on April 11, and I'll be around until the end of the month. So for all my lovelies in BC - your presence is officially requested for some quality time in April.

Love,
Liz

Look out England, I'm a'comin!

So it's official - I'm moving to London to start a new job on May 16. I'll be spearheading a new organization called the Otesha Project UK, which is based on an amazing Canadian organization, the Otesha Project (www.otesha.ca). I'll be building a program of peer-to-peer sustainability education for youth, focusing on the choices we can make in our daily lives to create positive change, both environmentally and socially. Members of the original Otesha Project have travelled thousands of kilometres by bike to convey their messages to young people all over Canada and, even better, they do this through theatre. So, as you can see, I'm combining lots of my passions into one fantastic project AND I get to live in London!

On a side note, I don't know if I'm going to be able to change the name of this blog, so it might have to stay "Liz in Geneva" for the foreseeable future.....

Wien ist fantastisch, ya?

In the end of February, I found myself with only a few weeks left of work and about 7 vacation days to burn. (Side note: I loooove the 6 weeks per year UN vacation system.) So, with my last remaining days as a European, I decided to take myself to Vienna and for one last adventure. Here are some pictures from my trip:

Vienna was completely and unequivocally built to be an imperial power. I've never come across a city with so many castles, palaces, grandiose churches, war monuments and other imposing buildings before. It also has a huge number of museums. In fact, there is a whole museums quarter downtown.

Here is the museum of modern art (MUMOK Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien), which has a full-sized upside down house balanced precariously on the top. The permanent collection of the museum itself is......interesting. It's definitely important to keep in mind the distinction between "modern" and "contemporary" art. I enjoyed some of what I saw, but other exhibits were definitely more disturbing than I was prepared for.

Here is a big Ferris wheel which sits in the huge Prater park near the Danube river. Apparently it's over 100 years old, and is one of the modern landmarks of Vienna. It was interesting making the trek to the Prater, since the Danube is actually nowhere near the centre of the city. It's actually quite incidental to the downtown core.

Another highlight of my adventuring included getting up really early on Sunday morning to go see the Vienna Boys' Choir at the Hofburg chapel. They've been singing mass there every Sunday since 1498 and, even though I accidentally went to the wrong mass first and didn't notice for about half an hour (so much Latin!), once I finally found the right church it was completely worthwhile.

I also got to spend some time with really wonderful people who happened to be in town at the same time.

My friend Sandi, who's studying in a small town about an hour outside of Vienna, was in town with friends to celebrate her birthday. Here's Sandi's Argentinian friend Lola, me, and the birthday girl herself partying it up at a club called the Volksgarten.

My friend Angeline, another IISD intern who spent her six months in Hungary, had the brilliant idea to buy tickets to go see the Decemberists', who performed on our last day in Vienna.

Angeline brought along her Hungarian friends, Avi and Roly, who gave me a firsthand taste of why Hungarian is one of the world's most difficult languages to learn. In 3 days together, I think I managed to learn about 2 words. Thank god they spoke English!

And then we went to see the Decemberists, which was a really great (if super short) show, followed by an excellent dub show which lasted until the wee hours. Since I, of course, am someone who is somewhat lacking in restraint and temperance when there's fun to be had, I elected to stay out dancing with Angeline until oh, about 4am, and then drag my tired, pounding-head self onto a bus back to Geneva at 5:30am. It was, all in all, a very appropriate end to the weekend.

Spring is here!

Although, I guess it would be more correct to say spring was here (this picture was taken in Vienna two weeks ago).

In Ottawa, my temporary home for the next week, spring is most definitely not here. Instead, there are big fat snowflakes falling from the sky.