Ecuador Rocks

In Ecuador trees have now rights too. Ecuadorians rewrote their constitution in 2008 and included a chapter on rights for nature.

Article 1 reads: Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.
....

and Art. 5. The persons, people, communities and nationalities will have the right to benefit from the environment and form natural wealth that will allow wellbeing.

Read more here.

Photo: Flickr

I bet this Ecuadorian stick grasshopper is happy about the new constitution too!

January 20 2009

Glasspiel

What's your walk score?

- Check out this website: http://www.walkscore.com

- Type in your address, and find out, how your neighbourhood scores in walkability.

In case you decide to move someplace else, this might be a good decision tool!

In my perfect life, walking would be part of my lifestyle. I would LOVE to be able to walk to work, walk to the grocery store, walk to the coffee house etc. But lately - many degrees Celsius, snow, darkness, distance to work, etc. have kept me from walking, cycling, really doing anything outside during the week (and I am pretty good at making up excuses...).

Photo Credit: Flickr

Off to go for a walk on a beautiful, sunny, warm Saturday!

Chris Jordan

I discovered photographer Chris Jordan's website a few days ago. These photos are from his exhibition "An American Self Portrait -Running the Numbers". His stunning art portrays American culture through the lens of statistics.

- 28,000 42-gallon barrels, the amount of of oil consumed in the United States every two minutes (equal to the flow of a medium-sized river).

Light Bulbs; A zoom in towards the 320 000 Light Bulbs, which equals residential electricity wasted (due to bad wiring, electronics in sleeping mode).

Plastic Bottles - two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes. Designed for a useful life of a few years, if that. Made from a material that stays around for hundreds of years (unless it gets incinerated whereby it releases toxins). That doesn't sound like the smartest product design to me.

A detail from "Prison Uniforms". 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005. The U.S. has the largest prison population of any country in the world. And some of the prisons are private, for-profit businesses.

You can check out more of his photos here. Enjoy!

Miracle

There are two ways to live your life - one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.

Merino

Sheep like this guy in the picture are my dear friends this time of the year. This morning the thermometer displayed chilly -29 degrees Celsius.

My survival tip? Merino Wool from head to toe. It keeps me warm and dry on chilly days like this:

Icebreaker Socks
Patagonia Wool Top
MEC Merino Light Weight Long John's

You can go to Patagonia's footprint chronicles to see what it takes to produce their merino wool top (select Wool 2 Crew). Its journey starts with Merino sheep in New Zealand, the fabric is then made in Japan before the product hits stores in North America. I appreciate Patagonia's effort to bring some transparency into their supply chain and to report the sucess stories as well as the areas that can be improved. I wish more companies would do that.

Stay warm...

Amazon

One of my goals at work this year is to write a paper on "Certified Wood" - shedding some light on what the Forest Stewardship Council is all about. So I have been reading lots about forests, causes for deforestation, I found out that logging is just one small part of the problem. Forests converted into agricultural uses, to produce for example soy and palm oil for food production and biofuel and cattle ranching are even bigger threats to the Amazon and Indonesian forests (the 2 deforestation hotspots globally) than logging.



I have also learned that civil rights violations go hand in hand with deforestation. Millions of tribal people call the forests their home, so when the forest gets destroyed, so goes their home and their life style. Check out the video below for a visual refresher of our rights. And please send me some focus energy, so that I finish the paper soon.

kANNAda Day

Here are a few pictures from yesterday's Citizenship celebration. Now I am officially a dual citizen. One step closer to becoming a global citizen :)

Jamie and Jen in the first picture, Kurt and Deanna above showing their support by sharing a smile. The judge also commented on sharing smiles: it appears to be one of the traits that are expected from good Canadian citizens...

Nervous Annie - a few minutes before the big moment.

The Officials

Vik - wearing the traditional Maple Leaf Bindi and Malynne

Karen, Brit and Rebecca. More pictures on Vik's blog including a bonus video and check out flickr! By the way, all the Canadians in these pictures got an "honorary mention" of the judge for their good cheering performance!

Some suggestions for future improvements to the ceremony, such as adding guys dressed up in beaver suits to the event, came up over breakfast, but overall the ceremony was well received by us.

Sculpture in Downtown Calgary - honoring the Dinosaurs, I believe. We are grateful for all the lovely fossil fuel Calgary thrives off.

And as gifts are appropriate for a once in a lifetime situation as this one, I couldn't resist treating myself to a Patagonia Down Jacket. Super toasty and super light weight - perfect winter jacket for "climatically challenging" Canada - as the Judge called it. I chose their new color "Espresso", which according to my recent color consultation is a good color for me (I am not surprised - with that name - it must be a good color for me).

A bientot!

Spoonfed

Last weekend I went to Leona's Do Be Clean Open House, where we were also spoiled with soup.

Carmen served her home made soups, which she also delivers in glass jars around the city. Served with yummie dill crackers. If you are Calgarian and feel like handing over your soup power to Carmen, check out her website here.

I have learned...

I have learned so much with you all, I have learned that everybody wants
to live on top of the mountain, without knowing that true happiness is
obtained in the journey taken & the form used to reach the top of the hill.

I have learned that when a newborn baby holds, with its little hand, his
father's finger, it has trapped him for the rest of his life.

I have learned that a man has the right and obligation to look down at
another man, only when that man needs help to get up from the ground.

from Gabriel Garcia Marquez says goodbye*

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, famous writer from Colombia , and Nobel Peace
prize winner for literature, has retired from public life for reasons of
health. He has a form of cancer which is terminal. He has sent a
farewell letter to his friends.

It's Official

On December 5th I am going to turn into a Canadian. I am going to take the oath of citizenship and swear to be faithful to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second. I know, it sounds far fetched, so far away, across the ocean. But she is the Queen of Canada. Mmm...does that turn me into a Brit then too?

Canada has been good to me. Not many countries allow you to become one of them so "easily" . I say that now that that my memory is fading, forgotten are the stacks of form, that I had to fill out, medical exams, and the fingerprints, I had to get in both Canada and Austria years ago. And believe me, the Austrian authorities were testing my patience. Sending me up and down the stairs 5 x, charging me 70 Euro and then telling me: "Too bad that you are not a criminal: then you would have gotten the fingerprints for free. " Of course, they send me up and down the stairs again to pay the 70 Euro.

But still, at least it IS possible to become and feel like a Canadian. It wouldn't be that easy to become an Austrian. In fact, in Austria I'd be/ feel like a foreigner, if I moved to the other side of the country (In Tyrol, you are Tyrolian first, then Austrian, I hear). They would hear my Eastern Austrian accent, and treat me as such.

Here in the New World, I feel accepted, even with my Austro-Canadian accent. Arnie, the Styrian Oak, might have plowed the way for me. Although I think I am pretty good at saying "about" ::abAOUt:: :) And who knows, maybe the friendly Canadians do talk funny behind my back.

So thank you, all of you warm hearted Canadians out there in chilly winter wonderland, for accepting me as one of yours!

Yours forever,

Immigrant-Annie (aka Newcomer-Annie for my politically sensitive friends :)

Geocaching

I was happy to run into Gerald on the train in Austria. Yes, I know, this post is about a month late - I don't know, what happened, I was sucked into this black hole without computers over the last few weeks...

We made plans to meet to pursue Gerald's "bizarre hobby" - as he described it himself: Geocaching. Gerald aka Fetzo is a master geocacher, with over 200 geocaches discovered.

We met in Fetzo's home, where he gave us the intro to his hobby on http://www.geocaching.com/.

In a nutshell: some other geocacher hides a little tupperware container somewhere, preferably at a somewhat exciting location. Then registers it on the Geocaching website, including coordinates and some hints, so that people can go on a "scavenger hunt" with a GPS. Sometimes there could be little presents in the tupperware container, as a "souvenir" from the trip. In return, you leave another little present - pour les prochaines - they want to find something too.

We decided to go to Wilhelmsburg, about 20min south of STP. A cache was hidden on a hill by "gallows" from 1800 - you know, where they hung people.

The GPS is our friend. And off we go. I love walking - once I am out there. But without a reason, I find it hard to get myself motivated to go for a walk. I need a friend, a dog, or a destination to get me going. Geocaching is good this way. It speaks to the ancient hunter/explorer/discoverer in us :)


It turned out to be a rather short walk. To spice the walk up we added some excitement - well, we jumped over the ditch.

We are getting closer. On the way, we pass this old, beautiful oak tree. This mighty oak is definitely at an age to have witnessed the hanging of the crooks, murderers, and hopefully not too many innocent people, that have occurred some 200 years ago.

Group Photo: Judith, Matthias, Gerald, Anna and the Oak

And here is our destination: the gallows. Built in 1800, the emperor gave the jurisdiction to some monks that lived close by. So, the monks made the decision whether a person was to get hung or not. What can I say. I am happy to live in the 21st century.

Judith is our star. She discovers the treasure. And it was not easy: the hint that was given said: it's under some shrubs close to the gallows. Well the shrubs were gone, but nevertheless: Judith found the treasure under a rock.

Unfortunately not a chest of gold, but tupperware in a plastic bag, which took away some of the excitement. We forgot to bring little presents for the cache, so we decided just to sign the log book, and not to take any of the presents in the cache. But I must say none of the presents rocked my world anyways - neither the scruffy stuffed animal nor the hair elastic.

Thanks Gerald for the photos!

Amsterdam

Amsterdam did not dissappoint me. The city is lovely. Almost every time, when i was on my way to exploring the city, I managed to get lost within 2 minutes, and found myself in a fairy tale.

Everyone rides old, mostly black bicycles around the city of grachten. Mothers with kids, young people talking on cellphone and girls looking for something in their purses while riding. I even saw guys on bikes carrying big things like a string bass or a ladder. They must have a sixth sense, the do-not-crash-at-the-uncontrolled-intersection sense. Because these uncontrolled intersections are plenty. But for some reason, they manage to handle these intersections without problem.

Vondelpark - where the wild parrots hang out. I wasn't dreaming, someone else saw them too, as the youtube clip below shows.

Weekly Digest

Highwood Meadows

Not much time for blogging, therefore a brief summary of this week's highlights in Anna's life:

• Saw two grizzly bears on Sunday!!!
• Was very grateful that I was hiking with a big group, because the two beauties surprised us close up!
• Wrote my citizenship test this morning. The Canadian Dream is manifesting... (in case you want to know, what the questions are like click here and find out, if you can get the perfect score!)
  
• Calgary weather is magnificent: this week has been the yellowest, most beautiful autumn week of my Canadian era so far!
• Mercury is retrograding - therefore I am not even going to try to start something new. I am just hoping that next week's flights are going to be on time...
  

Painted Faces II

I know, the face painter at yesterday's wedding at the Zoo was primarily meant to be entertainment for the kids, but I lined up to get my face painted too. A little more subtle than the design of Neko, the butterfly girl, but she was the one who inspired me.

...et moi...

Painted Faces I

Neko - the Butterfly Girl

It's most definitely...

...autumn in Calgary

Pepper

May I introduce you? The brown and white guy, I am hugging in the picture is Pepper from the Eagle Feather Ranch. The Eagle Feather Riders ride without saddle and bridle, which is quite different from my riding experience.

Not sure, if Pepper is as much into hugging as I am. He looks a little hostile...

Amsterdam - here I come!

by Arlette

Finally. I have been wanting to visit Amsterdam for years, and this October it will finally become reality. Half business, half fun. In fact the business part should be fun too: it's a course about environmental life cycle analysis. I am very excited.

I will even have a personal tour guide. My friend Judith, an Amsterdam expert, will join me for a few days. I like it when things fall into place - I can't wait to explore the city of Grachten!

And of course, I will visit the motherland as well. Look forward to seeing you, Austrians (just in time for Heurigen season)!