All Jew, All Day!

(Me and the 3D Night Watch)
Saturday was a mix. I needed a couple of exterior shots which put us in line to see a few sights I’d been hoping to catch.
We started with a shot of the boarding house where my grandfather lived when he first moved to Amsterdam from the town of Enschede, we think it’s were he met my grandmother. She lived in the boarding house as well.

Around the corner was the Hollandsche Schouwburg. A pre war theatre that was used as a staging camp for deporting jews to concentration camps. All that’s left now is the Facade.

(Dutch Jewish Star)

(Jewish War Children)

(Jews Forbidden)
Around the opposite corner was the Resistance Museum commemorating the Dutch WWII resistance movement and relative war events. It really gave a more personal feel to that time. The most amazing thing was a map they had up that showed the concentration of the Jewish population in Amsterdam.

(Nazi map of the Jewish population concentration)
Each black dot represented 10 Jews. Over the apartment block where my father was born and returned after the war, there was a single dot that probably included him, my uncle John, grandfather, and grandmother.

(My families dot, just left of the building marked "Concert-Geb")
As we worked our way west we stopped at Rembrandt’s house. He’s a favorite of mine and the last time I was in Amsterdam it was closed for renovations. I was so glad to finally get inside.

(The Rembrandt House)
It has some of his work but it’s mainly a reproduction of what the house was like when he lived there. How does this fit the days jewish theme? He lived on the Jodenbreestraat, or the “Jewish Broad Street,” the heart of Dutch Jewish life in Rembrandt’s era.

(Check the blue street sihn above the neon sign)
We sauntered through the flower market district and the area behind the palace as we made our way to the Anne Frank House. When we got there late in the afternoon the line was still around the block, as it often is. We decided not to wait and got a picture of a small Anne Frank monument instead. Maybe we would see it later.

(Anne Frank Memorial)
After a stop back at the apartment to clean up and rest we headed back out Chai’s house at the edge of the city, not far from where Joop and Johan both live. Chai is a cousin of my father and a brother to Bennie. He’s the youngest of three siblings in that family and the most Orthodox. Their had been much going back and forth about where we could be hosted for a seder (the ceremonial dinner had on the first 2 nights of Passover). The only big concern with Chai’s place was that as an orthodox jew he couldn’t start until about an hour after sundown (less religious folk tend to relax the timing rules) which meant that between the prayers and the meal it would be a very late night. But Dad and i are both night owls and were happy both to be invited and to get to see Chai and his family. It was especially nice because as the owner of one of the few kosher food store in town, it’s his busy season.
Actually Chai ran a pretty tight ship, although he didn’t skip any parts he kept things rolling and we were done by 2am, which may sound late but Dad and I had made an estimate of 4. So a cab ride later we were happy, full and getting enough sleep to prepare us for the nest day .... “The Grand Holland Tour Deluxe!”

Joop

(Dad making calls)
Between a wonderful late night in Utrecht and jet lag, wakefulness was in short supply come Sunday morning. Dad and I got up. had the hotel’s pricey breakfast buffet, ran some local errands, made some calls and then proceeded to fall asleep again for a notable chunk of the afternoon.
The main errand was a search for a camera adapter that I couldn’t find in my video bag after we arrived and that I really needed. The search was fruitless but of course a few days later, I found the stupid thing tangled up in a dark corner of my bag.
The calls were all to arrange meetings with my local relatives all of whom had been e-mailed explicitly about my film project and most have whom had committed to at least some kind of get together. Of course now that I was here it was quickly starting to become like herding cats. People were away, people were coming back, people were leaving soon. ... and I don’t mean leaving the house, leaving the country!
It’s easy as you get frustrated to start laying blame for this stuff on everyone else but one of the major problems was in good part my fault. Our visit crosses over the Jewish holiday of Passover. I had this romantic notion of a sort of Hebraic Norman Rockwell scene unfolding as my father returned to the old country to be welcomed with open arms, and I would film it all! ... but like any holiday from any background, everyone was very busy cooking and cleaning and arranging to see family and very short on time.
Two particular family members had a much bigger problem to face. My fathers cousin Joop (pronounced like YO with a “p” on the end) and his wife Bettina had found out recently that she has cancer. It sounds like the diagnosis is comparatively optimistic but she was to start treatment the next week. As well they are fairly Orthodox so once both treatment and passover start overlapping they were just going to be overwhelmed. But they still wanted to see us before things got crazy, so late Sunday afternoon Joop picked us up to take us to his home on the south end of Amsterdam for dinner.

(Joop comes to pick us up)
Along the way he stopped off at the first home where my father (Hans) was reunited with his parents after the war, a place dad didn’t even recall. Finally some filming!
The reason Joop knew the location so well, My grandfather also took in Joop because he was a nephew and had been orphaned by the holocaust. They all lived there together. Which is why I wanted so badly to interview him. Plus it seems Joop has a much stronger sense of recollection than my dad.

(Dad's first post war home)
Funnily when I pulled the camera out to film the house, Joop moved the car to a new parking spot. He was nervous that his car would be targeted by thieves if they saw me pulling out expensive equipment. We thought he was being a bit over zealous but Dad and I just rolled with it.

(Bettina)
After that it was a very pleasant dinner with Joop and Bettina. I had brought my video camera hoping we could squeeze in a quick interview that night, figuring it would be my only chance. I found myself in the tough position of trying to balance sensitivity for a tough situation and trying to do what it takes to do the job right.
Interestingly I found a strong ally in Bettina. It wasn’t going to happen Sunday night because they had plans after dinner but she made Joop agree to do it Wednesday. It made a kind of sense to me. Bettina had the treatment, it gave her something to do but all Joop can do is wait and fret. I think she wanted to give him the distraction.
So after tea and some proper Dutch apple pie, Joop put us on a tram back to the hotel and I finally felt like the engine of this project was starting to pick up some speed.

(Joop)

Rok'n Utrecht

I have to admit when I chose the dates for this trip I had a second motive. By leaving Toronto a few days early I could see a band I’d always wanted to see live in concert, The Presidents of the United States of America.
For some reason I keep missing opportunities to see them in North America, so why not see them in Utrecht? It’s just a half hour south of Amsterdam by train.

Dad was good enough to humor me. We spent the day in Utrecht together and saw the local tourist sights.

This mainly consists of walking along the Ouderacht canal, visiting the Dick Bruna Huis (a museum dedicated to a children’s book author and illustrator) and climbing the Domtoren which is the tallest church tower in the Netherlands. Although it’s no longer connected to any actual church.


After all that Dad headed off to catch the train back to Amsterdam while I went to a bar called De Reunie, where a group of fans were meeting before the show and I was so glad I did.

In a mere hour or so, I went from some poor shlub going to see a band all by his lonesome to part of a group enjoying a show together.


And the show was great! I love my hometown but I do forget how reserved Toronto audiences can be. The whole club (The Tivoli) was immediately whipped up and dancing as soon as the band hit the stage. I may have come the farthest but amongst the people I shared drinks with their were attendees from Belgium, Denmark and Germany.

The Best Thing ... EVER!!!

Two hours north of Christchurch, in the town of Kaikoura I got to do one of the things I had been most looking forward to since I started planning my trip. Maybe something I could say I've wanted to do since I was a child. I swam with dolphins.

(Rema's in the middle getting ready to jump back in)
Kaikoura is a coastal town situated at the feeding banks for all kinds of sea life. It wasn't actually included on my bus pass but my driver for the past few days had enough room to do me the great favour of letting me hop on for free. This saved me the hassle and cost of buying a partial leg from the bus company's head office. As we cruised along the coastal highway Stuart the driver told us to keep an eye out for seals and dolphins. We saw a few frolicking seals, which although adorable were no surprise by this point, but no dolphins. Instead I happened to be the first to spot something far more rare in those waters; Killer Whales. A pod of three or four with sleek black fins gliding in and out of the waves. They seemed to be following us up the coast and into the heart of town.

The dolphin swim was arranged through magic bus who had a group deal and I'm lucky they did because I tried booking ahead on my own and there was nothing available for at least two weeks. Thanks again to Stuart. We dropped our gear at the Dusky Lodge hostel and were dropped off ourselves at the Encounter Kaikoura tour company.
I've always liked dolphins. I still have a somewhat beat up book on dolphins with excellent photos that my uncle Gerard got for me through the book business he used to run. My parents took me to sea world a few times where I one got to feed one during a performance and pet a different one in a tank, but this was a whole different experience.

The Dolphins I met this day were not trained, they were not caged, and they were not being lured with food. They were totally wild. Keeping this in mind we were instructed not to touch them and to not think of them as our entertainment but instead to think of ourselves as their entertainment. We were encouraged to make noise and to dive down a bit in hopes of engaging their interest.

(A Dusky nearly brushing up against me)
The tour works like this, two boats get loaded up with ten swimmers and groups of other people who are just going to watch from the deck. Meanwhile spotters locate the pod of dolphins as they are heading to the feeding grounds. The boat pulls up ahead of the pod and then they just drop the swimmers in the water. The Dusky Dolphins, which is the local species don't find us threatening so the just swim right around us. Hopefully you get a few to check you out before they all pass by. Once they move on we get back in the boat and repeat the process a few times.

The first few moments as we confronted the pod were stunning. As boat came to a stop we were sitting on the back launch pad and we could really see the size of the pod for the first time. When I think of a pod of dolphins or other sea mammals I tend to think of not much more than ten. This single pod consists of over one hundred Duskys. The effect of seeing that many large animals stampeding straight at you is indescribable. Then we jumped in.

(a fellow swimmer getting back in the boat)
I flattened out my body and dipped my besnorkeled head in. Instantly I saw a Dusky less than three feet below me passing in parallel. Below him were two more moving in layers. I forgot myself and said "wow" taking in a mouthful of sea water. I think I wasn't the only one to make that mistake.

(Gliding)
They were everywhere. This was one of the two big reasons I had bought a diving shell for my camera. I didn't want to get so preoccupied taking pictures that I missed the moment itself so I just fired away and hope for the best. Soon enough they had passed us by so we got called back onto the boat and we took off trying to get ahead of the pod again.
(I feel so pretty in this outfit)
We repeated this process four times and I think we spent 45 minutes in the water all together. Between swims we got to ride sitting on the rear step of the boat.

(just a portion of the pod, look closely at the top end)
On our fourth run I managed to finally get enough interest from a Dusky that he circled me a couple of times before moving on, which is considered a real coup.

(baby seal)

After that we caught our breath for a bit while we watched from the deck. On the way back into shore we passed the seals we'd seen from the coast highway.


(our twin tour boat)
I was riding high after that so I enjoyed a stroll through town back to the hostel with Rema and Chris, two people I met on the bus into town. There was a park lined with archways made of sperm whale jaw bones (left over from Kaikoura's now illegal whaling days) and we stopped in a local greasy spoon for a much needed late lunch after all that swimming in high waves.
(Sperm Whale jaw bones lining the park path ... ok, it's weird)
There also seemed to be a strange conflagration of events going on in Kaikoura that day. Firstly I ran into Dermot Canterbury as I checked in for my Dolphin swim. He had been the kayaking partner that I had gone into the drink with in Cathedral Cove at the start of my trip. After that it seemed to be Canadian day in Kaikoura with a special concentration on Ontario. Most of my time here I had been a minority surrounded by European tourists. The few Canadian I had met were mainly from the west coast. This day however the girl that checked me in for the Dolphin tour had gone to U of T for school. one of the guides on the boat was born in Windsor and had done some primary school in Scarborough. Rema and another guy on my bus Brian were both Torontonians, although Rema was living out west now. Back at the hostel we bumped into Trish from Alberta and Keith a Torontonian living in Sydney. Finally we had all the others nationalities surrounded!

(Barry Sanders, abusing art around the world)
This made for a tremendous night. The Hostel had a huge pool and fantastic Thai restaurant out back where we congregated for a dinner. Franci who I had hiked the base of Franz Josef with was also there. We had been traveling in parallel on and off since then and I was glad to be seeing her one last time. She was right up there amongst my favorite travel companions. We picked up an Irish guy named Dermot (not the one from kayaking) and we ended the night in the town pub.

(THE CANADIANS: Brian, Keith, Rema, Trish and Me)
Maybe it was just the high from the Dolphin swim but of all the little towns I had seen in New Zealand, Kaioura had been my favorite. I wished I could spend an extra night because it was a beautiful place and despite having a couple more days in Christchurch ahead of me, I had already been through there. I felt like Kaikoura was the final chapter of my Journey through New Zealand ... and it was perfect.

The Antarctic Centre

Christchurch sits on the South Island's upper east coast. Beside the airport, along the city's outer rim you'll find The Antarctic Centre. An educational/entertainment attraction based on the fact the Christchurch Airport acts as the launch point for missions to the frozen continent.

One of the airport landing strips points straight south and there is literally nothing but ocean between the end of the runway and the Antarctic coast. Flights to the research stations have to get constant weather updates because fuel limits create a point of no return.

The United States Antarctic Program uses a Hercules heavy cargo plane. A plane of such gross tonnage that once it lands it is on a strict 8 hour turnaround clock. If it doesn't take off again by then it will sink to deeply into the ice to get it rolling again.

We stopped in on our way into the city and I figured while I was there I would due the full package. So I bought the admission that included aHagglund ride as well as entrance to the indoor exhibits. A Hagglund is the vehicle they use to get around in the South Pole. It looks like two lunch boxes on tank treads connected by a rail car joint. It's not an impressive sight, nor is the gravel track out back where the ride it around. Your first impression is that this pretty much is a kiddie ride. But then they put theHagglund through it's paces and you know why this is the machine they use in the harshest climate on earth.

A Hagglund can be immersed 3/4 into water, can be tipped more than 30º backward, forward or sideways without rolling over or losing it's grip on shifting materials like loose snow, ice or gravel, and it can cross a gap of about 3 feet. The ride is a little rough but a lot of fun.

Inside there were many informative displays very reminiscent of Toronto's own Science Centre dealing with the flora, fauna, ecosystems and conditions of the Antarctic. This included a habitat of Blue Penguins, the smallest species of penguin. Even though most of them were adults they all looked and moved like adorable little babies.


There was also an indoor snowstorm where you could get a taste of the South Pole's wind conditions. I quite liked the emergency storm stop button. I want one for home.

On the way out there are plaques for all the signatories to the Antarctic Treaty. The treaty that preserves the antarctic as a shared resource for research and prevents and one country from claiming it. Canada joined when I was in high school.

Afterwards we got headed into the city centre. In three days I would be leaving for Australia from Christchurch but before I did I had to make a side trip to Kaikoura. There was one more thing I had to see.