Berries Galore

My order of preference for berries is: 1. Raspberries 2. Strawberries 3. Blueberries and 4. Blackberries.

Raspberries, along with my spaghetti, are my favourite food. If I were to be confined to a desert island and was only allowed one food to bring, I’d choose raspberries without missing a beat. I love spaghetti too but on a hot desert island I think raspberries are a more practical choice. My favourite way to eat raspberries is on their own, something I do pretty much every single morning of the year. This past May, there were lots of specials on raspberries at my grocery store (2 for $5, and once 3 for $6) and I bought the special every time. It was great because I then had a few days where I could eat the entire package of raspberries. Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favourite writers but a few years ago I was reading a book of her essays - Small Wonder - and I came across this passage where she was talking about the importance of eating local and in season fruits and vegetables. She told this anecdote about being invited to a friend's house in New York in the month of January and how the friend was excitedly telling Barbara on the phone about the amazing raspberry dessert she had planned for her. Barbara's response (which I hope/think she kept to herself) was: "Fresh raspberries? in January?" I know eating local and in season is better but raspberries are one thing I won't stop eating... even in January! Plus, what I more took away from that story was how the friend was just trying to make Barbara a nice dessert and she had to use it as an example of how shocked she was that her friend wanted raspberries out of season.

I also like raspberries with chocolate cake or other chocolate desserts. Café Figaro in Montreal has an amazing raspberry mousse cake – so good! A good friend of mine (who was actually my student when I taught English in Paris and then we became friends) F. and her husband S. live outside Paris in this nice little town called Perreux-sur-Marne, right on the Marne river. F. invited me and our other friend G. (also an English student/turned friend) to her house a few times and cooked us an amazing lunch. Prior to eating, we sat around and S. served us raspberry kir royales (a classic kir royale is champagne with creme de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) but you can substitute the creme de cassis for raspberry or blackberry or peach liqueur; a classic kir is white wine instead of champagne) using S.'s mom's own creme de framboise. It was delicious and they knew I liked it so much that the next summer when I saw them again they gave me a bottle of it to take back to Toronto. After our kir royales and our lunch, we went for a long walk along the Marne, which is a really pretty greeney colour. Those two times we went for lunch at her house are among my favourite memories from France.

Strawberries not only taste delicious but are also my favourite berry to have in non-edible forms. For example, I have little dessert plates that I bought in Tokyo that have strawberries around the edges, I have a hand knit strawberry pot/kettle holder, and some strawberry stationery. I also want to eventually get a poster with strawberries on it to hang on my wall. I always love going to N.'s house in Toronto because he has the best, most lovely and most comforting and calming kitchen in the world. During the summer, N. and his family often go strawberry picking, and if I'm lucky enough to go over soon after they came back, we get to sit around in his kitchen and eat the freshly picked strawberries. N. puts the leftovers in his freezer and when he opened it to show me, it was nice to see a freezer filled to the brim with bright red strawberries. I have vague (but fun) memories of going strawberry picking as a kid and I really should make more of an effort to go in the summers.

Once a long time ago, E. told me she smiled whenever she ate blueberries. When I reminded her of this a few years ago, she denied ever saying that. Whether I got her mixed up with someone else, or she has since changed her mind doesn't matter, because now whenever I eat blueberries I think about someone smiling, which in turn causes me to smile. I like blueberries on their own; however, I particularly like to eat blueberries in baked goods. Of all the berries, I think blueberries are best for baking. I love to bake blueberry cobbler (see picture below) -delicious on its own or with vanilla ice cream- and blueberry muffins. I've never baked but like to eat blueberry pie, and blueberry buns. When I was a kid my dad and I used to go get bagels at this place near our house on Sunday mornings and in addition to bagels, this place made these really good blueberry buns. I looked forward all week to eating them. In addition to blueberry baked desserts, I adore chocolate covered blueberries. Unfortunately, Peet's Coffee and Tea (a coffee shop originally started in California, but also located in some other states) - home to the most amazing chocolate covered blueberries on the planet (I think their secret is that the chocolate is dark blue and is blueberry flavoured, as opposed to just dark chocolate) - does not have any locations in Toronto/Montreal or all of Canada for that matter. Well actually, I should amend that to "fortunately" because whenever I am in California and am able to go to Peet's, I go through a package in 2 days. So it is good I do not have unlimited access to them. L. worked at Peet's for a while in 2006 and got me hooked on them, and five years later I am still obsessed.

Blackberries are too tart for me to eat them on their own. Instead, I like to eat blackberries in two ways. First, by adding two to a glass of champagne. It is very good and the blackberries add just the right little something. Second, I enjoy eating blackberry lemon cake. Back in Austin, I used to sometimes get a piece of delicious blackberry lemon cake at Wholefoods. I've found a recipe online and plan to make it sometime.

Berries are wonderful! In addition to everything I wrote above, I love how berries are very good for you. Overall, they are a winning food!

Where Lovely Mermaids Flow

A few years ago, I read an article about this place in Florida called Weeki Wachee Springs State Park (it's on the Gulf Coast side, not too far north of Tampa) which has a mermaid water park. (Here's the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/fashion/06mermaids.html) I thought it sounded really cool. (The pictures above are of Weeki Wachee mermaids.) The sweetest part of the article for me was that kids who come to the Mermaid park really believe that the mermaids who work there are real. One mermaid said kids often ask her what she eats for lunch and sometimes she answers "seaweed sandwiches." Then just a few weeks ago, I came across a post of a woman who attended mermaid camp for adults at Weeki Wachee: http://thehairpin.com/2011/06/last-weekend-i-went-to-mermaid-camp#more (If interested, you should also check out the same woman's post on five ways to become a mermaid: http://thehairpin.com/2011/03/five-ways-to-become-a-mermaid) The camp sounded like a lot of fun! I doubt I would ever attend it, but I suppose if the opportunity ever presented itself (which is unlikely, but you never know...) I would take it. The fact that both the mermaid theme park and the mermaid camp exist is what makes me happy. If I'm ever in Tampa, or the Gulf coast of Florida (which I would like to visit one day) I will definitely go to Weeki Wachee and watch a mermaid show.

The mermaid water park's location seems perfect given that I've always associated mermaids with warm water, and the Gulf is (at least during the summer) as warm as bathwater. Maybe because all the Caribbean islands are in the Atlantic, but I associate mermaids with the Atlantic, and not the Pacific, ocean. Although I suppose the Pacific is warm in parts of Southern California, Mexico, and Hawaii. However, I still think mermaids go better with the Atlantic ocean. My warm water theory also finds opposition in the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen (see picture below), which I hope to see in person one day, because I imagine the water must be cold there. I wonder if Hans Christian Andersen was imagining a warmer sea than around Denmark when he wrote the Little Mermaid. Or maybe he thought mermaids are just fine in cooler waters too.

I remember as a kid both seeing (and really liking) Disney's The Little Mermaid, but also reading (and liking) Hans Christian Andersen's much darker story. My favourite part, which I still remembered all these years later (but googled to check I was right), is how mermaids turn into sea foam when they die. It makes sense to me because then mermaids will always be a part of the sea. I've heard of people who have had their ashes dropped into the sea after they died, and it just seems an extension of the mermaids turning into sea foam thing. I think the idea of mermaids wanting to be human - central to both the Disney and HCA versions - is just an example of the grass is always greener. Or simply makes for a good story that some humans would like. (The kind of humans who think we're the best species ever and of course everyone would want to be like us if they had the chance.) My guess is that most mermaids love being mermaids and would want to remain mermaids for their entire lives. The ocean would be a lovely place to live, and swimming around all day would be fun. Plus, mermaids can come up to the surface when they want, can talk below and above the water, can be friends with fish (like Flounder!) and dolphins, and could go for trips through all the oceans of the world. I think if I were a mermaid, I'd want swim through the Panama Canal and then go explore the Pacific Ocean.

When I went to Playa del Carmen on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula in July 2004, I saw a lot of souvenirs (like matchboxes, purses, t-shirts) with Mexican loteria images. Later, back in California, I found postcards with the same images at Avant Card and bought a whole bunch of them. There are so many cool ones (like La Luna) but La Sirena (see picture below) is one of my favourites. I love her red tail, and how she's half in the ocean/half out. And, I like how she looks very different from Ariel. It'd be interesting to see representations of mermaids from all over the world as I'm sure different countries must see them differently.

Back when I was 19 and first growing my hair long, my goal was to have my hair be long enough to cover my breasts like a mermaid. I can't actually remember if it ever got that long but I do know that if I were a real mermaid I'm sure I would have just above the shoulders hair as I don't think I'd be able to deal with all the seaweed which I know would get tangled into longer hair. Plus, I also like mermaids' sea shell bikini tops, and shorter hair would let me show mine off. :)

Let's go on pretending that the light is never ending...

I first heard the song the title of this post comes from ("All the Years" by the band Beach House) back in March (thanks to the shuffle function on my itunes) and I immediately thought of the solstice and long summer nights. Something about the line just really struck me as the period from the end of May until June 21st, the whole lead up to the summer solstice, is my favourite time of year. And even though it stays light out all July, and much of August and even a bit into September too, I always feel a tiny bit sad on the morning of June 22nd knowing that the solstice has passed and sooner, rather than later, the days are going to start getting shorter again. It's a nice thought to think I could pretend that the long days will last forever, but I don't think I'd be able to keep up the pretenses for long, probably because I know I wouldn't appreciate the long days as much if winter and dark nights didn't exist.

I have had some really fun summer solstices. On the solstice just before I moved out of my Hilgard apt at the end of June, 2006 I invited a few people over for dinner. Then after we ate we went up on the fabulous roof of my building (see pictures (one above, one below) taken from my roof another night, but you get the idea of what a view it was!) and drank wine, ate raspberries, ate alfajores that L. made, enjoyed the sunset over the Bay, and luxiariated (is that even a word?) in how long the light hung around after the sun dipped out of view.

The summer solstice is a big event in Paris. Every year on June 21st, they have Fete de la Musique and there are events and free live music all over Paris. (I wonder if they do anything similar for the winter solstice?) The sun sets around 10 pm in June in Paris, and it doesn't get fully dark until after 11 pm. On the solstice in 2007, I went with S. and C. to this cafe/bar on the Canal St Martin (the same canal that Amelie visits in the movie!) that we went to sometimes during the daytime too. I liked it because you could take your beverage and drink it sitting on the edge of the canal. It was super crowded on the solstice, and oddly enough we were inside for most of the night as they had set up the bands in there. But it was a lot of fun.

The next year, I happily found myself in Paris again, this time with C. who was visiting me/travelling around Europe. We had a very relaxed but still so fun solstice. We walked down my street - rue des Batignolles - a bit where they had lots of music going on. And then we walked over to Place St Georges (see picture below) around 10:30 pm, which is one of my favourite little spots in Paris. I like it because it's small and quiet but so pretty. I also discovered it by accident, which I liked. I had a friend who had a friend who lived near it, but I'd never seen it. Then one night I was walking home and decided to take a different route and somehow ended up in it and thought it was really charming. It's also in the 9th arrondissement which is totally underrated in my opinion. The 9th has lots of cool cafes and streets but it doesn't get as many visitors as some of the other parts of Paris. C. and I just sat in Place St Georges for a long time that solstice talking and talking, while people walked by and music played in the background, and the light slowly entirely faded. I have a few pictures of us that we (of course) took ourselves that night and I actually put them away and rarely look at them because while they make me a bit happy, they make me more sad. Happy because that was a really great night and our conversation was really wonderful, and sad because a lot of the things we talked about that night played out in ways we maybe suspected deep down they would but really hoped wouldn't.

Another thing I love about this time of year is how early it gets bright in the morning. I don't think I was actually cognizant of the fact that June means longer brighter mornings (and not just evenings) until last early June when I got back from Japan and had the worst jet lag I've ever had. I would wake up around 2:30 am (after going to sleep around 10) and be unable to get back to sleep until around 6:30 or 7 am. From about 2:30 to 3:15 I would try to get back to sleep (I read an article on the Huffington Post that recommended counting backwards from a 1000 in 3s, so I tried that... but didn't have much success); then at 3:30 am I'd accept sleep wasn't coming and would just turn my light on and read for a while. Although one night I woke up craving chocolate chip banana bread so at 3:20 in the morning I found myself baking. Around 4:30 it would start to get light out and then the birds would start chirping and it was really nice. I would eventually get back to sleep when it was already bright out. Interesting side note: Japan doesn't have daylight savings time so during the summer the sun rises there at 4:30 am, meaning it gets bright even before 4. When trying to adjust to their time zone when I first got there, I woke up around 4:15 unable to sleep anymore. I went to the window and looked out to see the sun rising. It was a big orange ball in the center of the sky which made the Japanese flag, and Japan being known as "the land of the rising sun", make a lot of sense.

The lyrics right after the title of this post go "so we still have the summers, let's be good to one another..." On that note, I wish all of you a happy solstice, and a lovely light filled summer! (And I really recommend Beach House!)

Café Culture Part Two

A. suggested after my previous post on cafes that I write another one discussing cafes in Berkeley and Toronto. I do have lots to say about the cafes in those places, so this entry will be all about them. I think I had a different favourite cafe every year of my four years in Berkeley. First year it was all about Cafe Strada, partly because it was so close to the dorms and partly because it had good pastries and desserts and a really nice patio, which in Berkeley you could use year round. I have lots of good memories of sitting on their patio first year; I remember particularly one nice evening near the end of the spring semester when N. and I went and she bought us pastries. And I realized happily that we had become good friends. I still kept going there all the other years, but pretty infrequently as I moved to another part of Berkeley and found other places I liked more. Although every year around Thanksgiving I'd go with S. for their pumpkin cheesecake which was amazing. Strada was particularly nice on bright sunny days when the patio was packed and people were in good moods.

Starting second year and going right until the end, I loved and frequently went to the Free Speech Movement Cafe (see picture below) in Moffitt, the undergraduate library. I still studied at Moffitt freshman year but would often stop at Strada on the way to or on the way back from the library so I didn't have as much need for FSM. But that soon changed. It had a good outdoor part, was always busy (although less so on the weekends), and had good chocolate croissants. It also sold bananas and apples, which was smart, because sometimes I really craved fruit. It was the perfect place to go for a break when studying, and I have lots of good memories of the many very good conversations L. and I had there as well.

Second year I started going more often to Cafe Milano which was down the street from Strada. It had a great upstairs area, and really good sandwiches. During the month of June when I was taking a summer course (and the library was annoyingly closed on the weekends!), I would go to Milano for hours to study. I would sit at a table on the upstairs part, occasionally take breaks to go outside and talk on the phone or to order a sandwich, and then come back to my table to continue to make notes upon notes on the history of South Africa. Unfortunately, during the fall of my fourth year, my purse got stolen off the back of my chair on the upstairs part of Milano while I was having coffee with someone, and after that, I never felt the same about Milano, and rarely went there. But I do still fondly remember that June I spent so much time there.

S. first told me about Brewed Awakening, which was on Northside, so fairly far from our Southside dorm, during the spring of our first year because she took a class over near there. I went there a few times with her that spring and discovered that they had really good smoothies. During second year, L. moved to Cloyne, a 5 minute (if even) walk from Brewed Awakening, and we began going there multiple times a week. We had class together from 10-11 in North Gate Hall, 2 mins from Brewed Awakening, and so would often go there after class. This continued throughout the spring semester too. Brewed Awakening had these two great wooden benches outside which were fun to sit on because if you sat there long enough (and usually long enough wasn't really that long at all) you saw someone you knew. But it was the fall 0f 2004 that was the height of my Brewed Awakening infatuation. I was now also living a 3 minute walk from Brewed Awakening and would go there alone, or with L. (and sometimes S.) all the time. L. would always go there in the mornings alone to study and she later told me she'd always see me walking past it on my way to campus in the mornings. I was very happy that fall, with my friendships, with school, with guys, with the Bancroft library, with life (cheesy, but true) and at Brewed Awakening I would talk with L. regularly about all the things going on in my life. Then that semester ended and I bid Berkeley, and all my friends, and Brewed Awakening, goodbye and went to Santiago.

Maybe it was because I missed my cafe in Santiago and didn't really want to betray it by finding a Berkeley replacement (not that it would have been a betrayal), but my senior year of college I didn't go to coffee shops that much (with the exception of FSM) at all. I did occasionally go to Nefeli (across the street and a little bit down from Brewed Awakening). I liked it - it was tiny and so European (looked like it belonged in Rome) and made the best chai latte I've ever had. But I never loved it, or felt totally content there, not like I'd felt at Brewed Awakening. But even though it was just across the street, I couldn't go to Brewed Awakening anymore because all the things it reminded me of were gone. And so it didn't make me happy anymore, just sad. I tried going there as soon as I got back but I missed L. (who was still in Santiago) and I was no longer involved with either B. or S. who had both been important to me (at different times) the year and a half I'd gone to Brewed Awakening nearly every day, and I guess because I'd had so many conversations about them (especially B.) there, Brewed Awakening made me miss them too. And mostly, I think I missed who I had been that fall of 2004. But even though I may have let it down a bit my last year, Brewed Awakening will always be my favourite Berkeley cafe.

As for Toronto, A. is the person I most go for coffee with there and we almost always just go to boring Starbucks because it's conveniently only a few blocks from my house. But my favourite cafes in Toronto are either the (relatively new) cafe (I think it's called B Espresso Bar, they have another one right downtown which I went to once and which is nice) in the newly (2 years ago?) redone Royal Conservatory of Music. N. first took me there and I went back several times afterwards. Its walls are the back of the old building (see picture below) and there's lots of natural light. It's also fun to sit there and people watch (so many cute little kids carrying violin cases). I also really like some of the cafes in Leslieville. Lady Marmalade (I love the name!) is more of a breakfast/lunch place than a "sit here for hours with your coffee place" but I did spend over 2 hours just hanging out there last year with C. when she came to visit and it felt very cafe-life. If I lived closer to Lady Marmalade I'd probably go at least once a week. I also went to Leslieville with N. once and we went to this cool cafe (called Tango Palace Coffee) that reminded me of an old fashioned parlour in someone's home back in the early 1900s, because it was quite dark and there were lots of tables and leather furniture. I miss these places, and will have to go when I'm home over the summer.

Last thing: I am happy to report that I have managed to go to Figaro (here in Montreal) a few times this month, and to another cafe. I haven't been able to go as much as I ideally would like to, but I was at Figaro one night quite late (for me anyway!) and it seemed even cooler late at night. The lights had this cool glow I'd never noticed before and the atmosphere was calmer as there were less people. So I have decided to try to go late-ish one night a week once I'm back in the fall.

Interview with a ...

About a month ago, on a Sunday, I got this great email from J. describing her Sunday morning ritual in Buenos Aires. After getting up and making coffee, J. goes to this bakery around the corner from her place and comes back with a selection of delicious pastries for her roommates and for herself. Then she eats them while reading the New York times and the BBC online. Sounds so relaxing... (Also, on a related note: I am happy to say my Sunday blues ended last December. Ever since January my Sundays have been much better. Probably mostly because I felt (feel) more comfortable/used to things here and I wasn't dreading the beginning of the week the same way I did for most of the fall.) J.'s email read to me like one of my favourite columns in the Sunday New York Times which I discovered about a year and a half ago and have read consistently every Sunday since called "Sunday Routine". The column features a different well-known New Yorker (occasionally they live in other parts of NY state but most usually live in New York City) describing their typical Sunday routine. Here are links to three of my favourite ones: Moby's: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/nyregion/28routine.html; some person I'd never heard of but I like what he said, I think mostly because he sounds different from me, and cool, interesting & fun: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/nyregion/05routine.html?ref=sundayroutine; the last one is Ruth Reichl's - the food writer and former editor of Gourmet http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/nyregion/22routine.html?ref=sundayroutine I especially liked all of these ones because their Sundays sound great, and I like how they work in stories about other people in their lives. I would love to be featured in one of these but my Sundays are usually pretty boring. This whole past year they've mostly consisted of doing homework, going on the internet, sometimes talking on the phone, and sometimes going for a run. Even last year when I wasn't in school, and thus had the potential for more interesting Sundays, I'd usually leave some of my planning for Monday's classes until Sunday and so would spend part of the day working. Hopefully at some point in the future my Sundays will be more fun and interesting, and more worthy of a Sunday routine article.

I think the main reason I like "Sunday Routine" so much is because I love reading about other people's lives. For that same reason, I also really like interviews. I rarely watch talk shows but the few times I've watched Oprah I have been really impressed with her questioning skills. (Obviously not surprising given she is super successful for a reason...) A few years after his infamous couch jumping on her show, Oprah interviewed Tom Cruise at his house in Colorado (see picture below). Although I can't remember any of Oprah's specific questions or Tom Cruise's specific answers, I do remember thinking her line and method of questioning was phenomenal. I hope to be able to emulate her one day, and hopefully getting to interview clients will be a large component of all of my future jobs. I very much enjoyed all the interviews of Chilean exiles I did for my undergrad thesis. I tape recorded all of them, and then I'd get up very early and sit in my little kitchen in my Hilgard apt playing back all the tapes and trying to write my thesis. It was interesting to me to hear myself on those tapes because other than when I asked the questions, I could regularly hear myself saying little things like "yeah", "of course", and "that must have been awful" etc. while my interviewee spoke. I was glad I had done that because it made it seem more like a conversation and less like a formal interview. And also because I think it's important for the interviewer to react to what the person answering the questions is saying.

As much as I love asking questions, I like answering them too. Back when I was 20 and more vain (haha) I used to think it would be really cool to be the star of a Vogue photo shoot. I imagined myself wearing fancy haute couture dresses and lots of make up, kind of like Kate Moss in the pictures below. Now, however, 7 years older and much less vain, I'd choose to be the subject of something like Sunday Routine or interviewed on "This American Life." Here's to hoping that maybe one day my interview wish will come true.

Postal Systems of the World

There's a leap of faith involved for me every time I put a letter in a mailbox or hand a package over to a post office clerk. I love mailing things but I get way too stressed out worrying that it's never going to arrive at its destination. There's so much potential - so many different places along the way - that my letter could get lost. Even though the track record for my mail arriving is very good (the only notable exception being the package I sent to S. in Salt Lake City during my time in Paris, which included a very long letter I spent a long time writing and thinking about, which never arrived; I was (and remain to this day actually) so disappointed it got lost) I never feel completely confident it is going to arrive.

But clearly stressing out over whether my mail is going to arrive doesn't stop me from writing and sending letters/cards/packages, etc. I love post offices. Once I move to a new city, the post office is one of the very first places I find. I don't like post offices as much in Montreal or Toronto though (not sure what they're like in the rest of Canada)because most of them are in Shoppers Drug Marts or card stores. All of the other stuff - especially shampoo, Advil etc. - getting in the way just doesn't feel right; I want them to be purely about the mail.

In the US and France, I'm pretty sure post offices are always only ever post offices and can't be in drug stores. The post office in Berkeley near the campus was always packed - average wait time to get served was probably 30 mins - and I could not go in there without hearing the post office staff yell at at least one of the customers. Finally in my last year living on Hilgard, I clued in to the fact that the North Berkeley post office was way closer to my apt, way less busy, and that the staff did not yell. I lived about a 10 minute walk from a pretty nice post office in Austin. It was often fairly crowded too, but the staff there managed to keep things moving pretty quickly, and never yelled. There was one employee in particular I especially liked, a man with tattoos all over his arms and a gruff - but still nice - manner. He looked more like he belonged in a motor cycle gang than working at the post office, which made me like him even more.

As with cafes, I loved going to post offices all over Paris. There is a 24 hour post office near the Louvre (see picture below). I only ever went there on Sunday afternoons (when all other Paris post offices were closed) but it was nice to know that if I ever desperately needed to mail something at 4 am, I could. (Side note: I wish Toronto had a really big old post office downtown (or even a modern, new post office anywhere in the city) that was open 24 hours. I think a 24 hour post office is a very practical thing to have.)

I always enjoy my walks to the post office, wherever I'm living. Despite my apprehension about the letter getting lost, it feels good to send it off and complete the process I started when I actually wrote the letter/card etc. One of my favourite memories of Santiago is every Sunday writing letters in my favourite cafe, and then every Monday walking to the post office to mail them. The Chilean post was pretty solid but not amazing. One time, I mailed a letter to A. in Berkeley at the same time as a letter to S. in Bordeaux. Unable to find regular scotch tape, I ended up having to buy this weird tape that was sticky on both sides. I used that tape to make sure S.'s letter was sealed properly, and then somehow A.'s letter must have gotten stuck to it either by me when I was paying for the postage, or by the post office worker. In any event, A.'s letter ended up travelling from Santiago to Bordeaux, where S. received both her letter and A.'s. Thankfully, she stuck a French stamp on it and put it in the mail and it eventually reached A. in Berkeley, but it took a very circuitous route! And is a cool story of a letter almost lost...but then not!

Out of all the postal systems I've used, I think England's Royal Mail is the best; it is definitely the fastest. When I was in London once visiting a friend, I sent a little package to my mom and it arrived in 4 days, which is amazing given it often takes 4 days for a letter to get from Montreal to Toronto. La Poste is pretty good too, and I like how in Paris the mailboxes have different slots for Paris, and then the rest of the world, confirming Paris's position as the most important place in the world :) I'm not that impressed with Canada Post. The stamp prices are always going up, it costs A LOT to send packages to the US or France, and its mail delivery is very slow. Plus, I wish they delivered on Saturdays like they do in the States. The US Postal Service is definitely faster, and way cheaper for packages, although stamp prices rise regularly there too. Since it's cheaper to mail packages there (especially since the packages I'm mailing are usually to friends in the States) whenever I go to the States I try to send my packages from a post office there. The last two late falls (December of 2009 in New York City, and late November of 2010 in DC) I've dragged L. to long lined, stressful and tense post offices just so I could mail my packages for cheaper. Our visits in both cities definitely confirmed to me that the post office in Austin is by far the most laid back of all the ones I've been to in the US.

Sometimes I wish that just for a week (I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want it to be my permanent job) I could work in a post office sorting the mail. I'd love to see all the letters and postcards - where they're coming from, where they're going... It would be so fun. But alas, instead I have to content myself with just making sure that I always visit a post office in whatever new country or city I visit.

The very much alive art of letter writing!

My friend J. suggested recently I write a post on the art of letter writing, and wouldn't he know it but I had already been planning on writing a post about stationery and writing letters! Both posts this month will deal with mail: this one on the actual writing of letters and postcards, and the next one about post offices and postal systems.

First, I don't really think letter writing is an art. Or rather, maybe it is but at least it's an art that everyone can do and everyone can appreciate. I love getting postcards/cards/mail from anyone - whether they just write a few lines or they fill the entire card and write really small. In other words, everyone can be good at it and you don't need any special talent to do it!

It annoys me that some people constantly bemoan the lost art of real mail and think no one (particularly some ones aged 30 and younger) writes anymore. I've read too many articles or blog posts joking about whether people actually still know what a mail box is, where to find envelopes and stamps etc etc. It irritates me because it is not all that realistic in my experience - I write and receive letters/cards regularly and every time I go to post offices, they are usually crowded! And while I'm all for and love the internet and email, I still think there's room for both real and email and I don't like the idea that the internet has to replace all forms of hard copy communication.

If you're reading this, you have probably received a letter or a postcard or both (and hopefully more than one!) from me over the time we've known each other. Writing letters and postcards is one of my very favourite things to do! I am content to sit and write my letters and postcards anywhere, but I do particularly love writing in cafes (like in the picture below). I have to admit I sometimes find sending postcards slightly stressful as on some trips I've had to stay up late at night frantically trying to get them all written. It's worth it though because I love putting down on paper what I've been up to, what I think about the place I'm visiting, etc. I also love filling all the space on the postcard - there's always lots to say and I could probably easily write 2 postcards to every person I send one to!

One thing that has made me happy since I moved to Montreal is that A. and I have been sending each other cards and letters on a regular basis. It's been fabulous to get regular mail and to be able to send it so much too. When I was thinking about writing this post, I realized happily that writing letters has been a part of my life since I was a kid. The summer I was 12 I went to overnight camp for 2 weeks at this camp called Celtic on the Bruce Peninsula. It wasn't right on Lake Huron but it was very close and they used to take us there to go swimming almost every day. Even though I haven't been back to Lake Huron since, it is definitely my second favourite Great Lake (after Lake Ontario of course!) Anyway, instead of just letting you pick up your mail yourself or giving it to you in a quiet way, they made this big deal about announcing mail after lunch. Everyone was in the dining hall and they'd call you up for each individual piece of mail. So if you got 3 letters one day, you had to walk up to the front three times. Practically everyone I knew in elementary school (this was the summer after grade six) went to overnight camp and every summer we would write letters. And that summer we wrote a lot... and so I got mail every day. At the time it was cool but looking back now, I imagine some kids who never got mail must have felt pretty left out and maybe the camp shouldn't have made such a big deal about it. I did feel pretty popular and pretty great about mail though :)

The next summer, when I was 13, A. and I had just become best friends and we spent almost the entire month of July together. We had sleep overs or hung out all the time, we talked on the phone every night, we emailed or chatted online regularly (and those were still the early days of the internet) and we wrote long letters to each other too. (There's something special about sending mail to someone in the same city you live in, I think.) I still, to this day, think it's a sign that I'm truly good friends with someone if, in addition to seeing them in person, we also occasionally talk on the phone (in general I talk on the phone less now than I did in high school), send emails, and write real mail.

The main (perhaps only?) downside I see to real letters is that unlike with email, you can't go back and check what you wrote. But I'm sure there are some who would argue that part of the charm in letters lies with their being lost to us forever as soon as we've written them. Maybe the writing and then sending it knowing you won't ever get to read it again makes it more meaningful? That's not to say that email can't be meaningful too. I've printed out some particularly important ones (and I know others who have done the same) but I think the printing out ties in to what makes real mail extra special - there's something about the tangibleness of real cards, and actually holding in your hands what the other person held in theirs, that is significant.

In closing, I'll write about stationery. It is has become, over the last several years, somewhat of an obsession of mine! It used to be that I couldn't stop buying tote bags, but now that's been replaced with stationery. (It also doesn't help that I now bring my knapsack to school every day since my laptop and all my course materials are too heavy for one shoulder only.) I adore going to paper stores! Avant Card in Berkeley is one of my favourites - I used to go in there all the time, and would, without fail, even when I didn't intend to, buy something. I miss that store a lot! I've found a place I really like in Toronto, which is great, the Paper Place. However, my best experiences with buying stationery have been in Paris and Tokyo. Postcards are readily available in most big cities, especially super visited ones like Paris. But the quality of postcards in Paris kiosks is really astounding. Sure there are the run of the mill Eiffel Tower postcards but there are also really cool, interesting, unique Eiffel Tower ones for sale (see below). And many more interesting more stationery (non-Paris related) postcards too. In fact, those abound everywhere. Walking down the street in most busy areas of Paris you'll pass multiple cool postcard filled kiosks. There is one particular store, near Place St Michel that has rack after rack after rack of lovely postcards. I went a little crazy the last time I was there two summers ago and ended up spending almost $40 on postcards. But it was worth it!

As amazing as Paris' postcards are, I think Tokyo/Japan wins for best stationary in the world! I went to the biggest stationery store in the world (at least according to me) in Tokyo - five floors! And every department store has an awesome stationery section too. One day I want to go back to Tokyo and spend an entire day just looking at and buying stationery. I bought a ton and I thought I was buying too much when I was there last year, but now that it's already running out (A. is the lucky recipient of many Tokyo bought cards) I'm regretting not buying more! Things I like about Japanese stationery: 1. They love putting words/phrases in English or French (and sometimes they don't make that much sense). 2. They have their own versions of "our" (maybe it was really theirs first?) fairy tales. For example, I bought some stationery with a cool Japanese version of Little Red Riding Hood on it, and some Japanese version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs stickers. 3. They love strawberry stationery (see below). 4. There is so much of it!!

I hope this post has convinced you (if you needed convincing and hopefully you didn't) that letter writing is very much alive! I'm already looking forward to part two on letters to follow later this month!