postcards from jody

I want to be where the sun warms the sky
When it’s time for siesta you can watch them go by
Beautiful faces, no cares in this world
Where a girl loves a boy and a boy loves a girl
– Madonna, La Isla Bonita

I arrived in Belize in the late afternoon of February 6, in the lull between day and night.

In the seaside town of San Pedro, dive shops closed up on the long, wooden piers and the last few boats zipped back to shore. High schoolers ended their soccer game on the beach, where frayed rope marked the goalposts. The orange sunset lit up sandy streets and wooden buildings painted in shades of pink, yellow and turquoise.

As beautiful as it was, this isn’t what sticks out in my mind when I think of Belize.

Since I returned home on Sunday, many people have asked about my favourite parts of Belize. I haven’t really had an answer. The scuba diving, caving and jungle trekking were all amazing experiences. Two weeks went by way too fast.

But, tonight, I decided on my favourite moment. Advance warning: this is about to get really corny.

I had my Eat, Pray, Love moment in San Pedro (…though beach bumming took place of praying).

That first night, I had a pier to myself in the fringes of San Pedro.

A full moon hung low in the cloudless sky. The moonlight bounced off soft waves, causing the Caribbean Sea to glimmer furiously.

It didn’t seem real. The moonlight, the saltwater breeze, the stillness of the beach – it was like a perfectly staged movie set.

That night, I tweeted:

[tweet http://twitter.com/#!/tweetsfromjody/status/166693249229131776]
I’ve only mentioned this to a few people: I ended my long-term relationship with KC in November. I didn’t feel like myself after that. It’s one reason why this blog went silent. I didn’t want to write about Germany because I was there with him.

That night in San Pedro, away from my real life, alone in the moonlight, I felt happy for the first time in months.

So, it’s as simple as that. My favourite part of Belize was sitting on a pier and feeling happy.

It’s a damn powerful feeling.

In the sky between Toronto and Boston.

But, this photo looks like it could have been taken anywhere. Open sky. Endless possibilities. That’s why this is on my iPhone wallpaper this week.

As the Boeing 747 descended into Frankfurt, the grey nothingness around us suddenly changed. Intense, red light sliced through the windows, painting neon blocks against the top of the cabin.

I looked at the horizon for a split second before I shut my eyes against the glare. I could still see the red through my eyelids.

Maybe it was the location, or the timing, or both. Maybe that’s just how sunrises are in Frankfurt. Red.

Sunset over Frankfurt am Main, from the Main Tower observation deck

(I know this is more orange than red, and it’s sunset instead of sunrise, but you get the point. I wasn’t able to get a moment of the same brilliant red as that first morning.)

When I first read about Floralis Genérica – a giant flower sculpture that opens and closes with the sun – it sounded kinda cool. It made my list of things to see in Buenos Aires, but only if I had time. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did.

Located in the mostly flat and mostly empty Plaza Naciones Unidas, it wasn’t hard to spot. But, I didn’t realize the scale of the thing until I was right underneath with the petals towering overhead, way out of reach.

Floralis Genérica, Eduardo Catalano, 2002

A solar-powered system closes the petals at night and reopens them in the morning. In the day, though, subtle changes in the scene create motion in the sculpture. The blue and green reflections in the metal, the glinting sun, the ripples in the reflecting pool – Floralis Genérica is never quite the same if you pay attention to the details.

If you go, pack a picnic and head over around sunset to watch the flower close. For me, seeing the first twitch was the best part.

For more information: Buenos Aires Tourism

At the bottom of Argentina, a pretty town called Ushuaia markets itself as el fin del mundo (the end of the world) and the southernmost city in the world. The latter distinction depends on how you define “city”; Puerto Williams in Chile lies farther south by 45 km but lacks in population and in tourism.

In any case, Ushuaia is the launching point for the majority of Antarctic cruises, and tens of thousands of tourists pass through during the cruise season every November to March.

Bordered by the Beagle Channel in the south and the Martial Mountains in the north, and dotted with wooden buildings reminiscent of ski chalets, Ushuaia’s unassuming beauty is impossible to miss.

The touristy kitsch is also hard to miss. On Avenida San Martin, the main street, dozens of souvenir shops cash in on the city’s split personality; they sell “fin del mundo” T-shirts alongside Antarctica postcards, stuffed penguins and plaques honouring Ernest Shackleton and other polar explorers.

In the cafés, ice cream shops and restaurants, travellers share stories of where they’ve been and where they’re headed. Trekkers kick back after descending from the Patagonian Andes. Eager cruisers compare notes on ships, itineraries and the animals they hope to encounter.

There’s a distinct vibe – a hovering buzz in the otherwise laid-back atmosphere – that pulls me in to the touristy things that “real travellers” are supposed to scoff at, like sending Antarctica postcards and getting a “southernmost city” stamp in my passport.

It’s also this buzz that gives life and truth to Ushuaia’s motto: “fin del mundo, principio de todo” – end of the world, beginning of everything.

The postcard I sent myself
It took 11 weeks to get from Ushuaia to Toronto.

Sunrise in Ushuaia
The most beautiful sunsets and sunrises I have ever seen.

The commercial port
The red ship is the M/S Expedition, the one I took to Antarctica.

More photos from Ushuaia

If you follow my Flickr account, you’ll see that photos from Argentina and Antarctica are being posted sloooowly.

In 29 days, I snapped 1,054 photos and filmed 41 video clips.

848 pictures are from the Antarctic expedition. That’s really not a lot – I know people who took 3,000+ photos in those two weeks – but it’s enough that I’ve been lazy to sort through everything.

Anyway, here are two videos I posted over the weekend.

Young fur seals playing on the beach at Half Moon Island
So energetic and playful. I watched this group of fur seals for at least 30 minutes and they didn’t cease to entertain. No one knows how that boat got there, but it’s thought to be from the 1930s.

[flickr video=5697118998 show_info=no]

Gentoo penguins at Neko Harbour
Penguins doing what they do: waddling, hopping, squawking and there’s even one taking a poop.

[flickr video=5696515215 show_info=no]

On March 6, heading north from the Antarctic Peninsula to Ushuaia, the M/S Expedition ran into turbulent waters on the Drake Passage.

The Drake is notoriously rough, due to a large volume of water pushing through a relatively small space, but you know you’re encountering some serious shit when the crew members grab their cameras as well.

In addition to the usual rocking and rolling, there was a storm at sea. Oddly, it was a bright, sunshiny day – and it seemed way nicer than all the grey, rainy days we’d had in the Antarctic.

At the peak of the storm, waves reached over 10 metres high and hurricane-force winds blew at over 70 knots.

Chairs fell over, books tumbled from the library shelves, and the same plastic water jug crashed onto the floor at least three times, scattering ice cubes across the main lounge.

In the dining room and kitchen, dishes and cookware banged together loudly. Instead of the usual buffet lunch, the staff prepared simple plates – things that didn’t require cutting or cooking like deli meats, bread buns and apples – and delivered them to the passenger cabins.

In the lounge, the bolted swivel chairs turned into Tilt-A-Whirl rides without safety bars or stop buttons. In one second, you’d be reclining and staring up at the clear, sunny sky. In the next, you’d be lurching towards the foamy, sapphire waves.

At the bathroom sink, I lost my balance and slammed backwards into a wall. My left butt cheek landed on a stupidly-placed towel knob that left a very painful bruise. There was a lot of swearing at that moment. The bruise faded quickly but two small scars remain on my left forearm, from a scrape against the library’s metal doorframe.

To give you some idea of what the waves were like, here’s some video I filmed from the ship’s dining room (deck five, forward). These scenes are pretty tame; we had much rockier moments.

[flickr video= 5634815191 show_info=no]

With all the fuss over London and the Royal Wedding, I feel like I should write about London too. After all, look at how official this event is – it’s been deemed worthy of a capital R and capital W! So, here’s my one of my favourite (but beer-clouded) memories.

I visited London in February 2010, overlapping with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. My friend Dan was living there at the time, finishing his final year of law school, and I bought him a pair of the Olympic red mittens as a reminder of home.

On the night of the men’s gold medal hockey game, we had plans to watch the game with his roommate at The Maple Leaf, a Canadian pub in the Covent Garden district akin to the Hoser Hut on How I Met Your Mother. What a perfect opportunity to wear the mitts!

In the Tube, the mitts caught the attention of two Canadian girls from Mississauga. One of them was also wearing the mitts, and they were heading to The Maple Leaf too.

When we arrived, the place was fire-hazard packed. People were hanging out of the open windows and crowding around the open door just to catch overhead glimpses of the TV.

Hockey plus Canadians… we should have known there was no way we were getting inside.

As we debated what to do instead, another girl ran by and screamed, “Who wants to go to temple?!”

This is perhaps the most random thing I’ve heard someone scream.

After some laughing and chatting, we found out she was referring to a nearby district called Temple, where the Walkabout pub was showing the game. So, we piled into black cabs and zoomed off to Temple.

That’s how a bunch of Canadians in London wound up in an Australian bar, watching the most anticipated event of the Vancouver Games.

By the end of the night, our little group of three had quadrupled – and we caused quite a ruckus at this otherwise lonely bar.

When Sidney Crosby scored, winning the hockey gold medal for Canada, we cheered so hard I lost my voice. I’m pretty sure we sang O Canada when it played during the medal ceremony, but my memory gets pretty fuzzy at this point.

Anyway, it was one of those very random, very fun, had-to-be-there sort of nights – and a reminder that sometimes the best moments are unplanned.

London Eye in London, England

London photo album on Flickr