As you may or may not know, RW Social (my social media consulting company) is a media partner of Africa Travel Association. Last year, I went to Senegal, running ATA’s Twitter account and making other content. This year, Africa Travel Association’s World Congress is in Victoria Falls. Tomorrow, I take off on an Arik Air flight. I’m excited for multiple reasons:

1) Going Premier class for the NYC-Lagos flight and for the whole way back.

This means:

• Seat that becomes 180° bed.
• Stocked bar w/ social area (while I don’t drink, I’ve always loved the idea of a bar on a plane)
• Outlets at the seats
• “Sleeper suits and slippers for night flights” (I wanna fly in jammies)
• “Mattresses, duvets and large pillows for turndown service on night flights”

2) Over the course of this trip, I’ll be hitting Nigeria (to stop at the Arik Air facility), Johannesburg (w/ a night there on the way back), Zimbabwe (where the conference is) and Zambia (the other side of Victoria Falls).

3) I’ll be on a panel, wherein I’ll speak about social media. The attendees include Tourism Ministers, business professionals from large companies, people from major NGOs, etc. This is cool.

4) We’ll have a press trip to Zimbabwe after the fact, including:

• Hwange National Park, the largest Park in Zimbabwe.
• Bulawayo, the 2nd largest city in Zimbabwe, known as “The City of Kings”.
• Great Zimbabwe, a World Heritage site.
• Harare, the nation’s capital.

Have you been to Zimbabwe? Thoughts? Things I should know?

If not, you’ve missed 6 parts so far.

Recap!

• Albania, Andorra, Austria
• Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria
• Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic
• Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France
• Germany, Greece, Hungary
• Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo

Seventh set in my series of Europe pictures:

• Latvia
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg

Latvia

Riga, Latvia

Riga clams to be the home of the first Christmas tree, with 2010 being the 500th anniversary. As with a lot of similar claims, it’s disputed.

Riga ROL:

Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein could have been one of the first countries that I visited, but it turned out to be one of the last.

In 2004, I went to Buchs, Switzerland, a bridge away from Liechtenstein, to find a girl that I had met while working at a hotel in Seattle. I couldn’t find her and ended up taking a night train to Amsterdam. Had I known that at some point it was going to be a goal to see every European country, perhaps I would have structured that time differently.

Lithuania

Užupis, Vilnius, Lithuania

Vilnius has one of those weird little parts of the town that claims to be separate from the rest of the city/country. Užupis is its name. Vilnius is just weird, all around, though, with their Frank Zappa bust and just general vibe of weirdocity.

Luxembourg

Luxembourg, Luxembourg

It’s the only Grand Duchy in the world, meaning it is technically run by a Grand Duke. Their political situation is actually a lot more complex than that.

It’s also not as small as people think. At 2,586 square kilometers, it isn’t huge, but it’s substantially bigger than Liechtenstein (160 square km).

The funniest thing to me is their flag situation.

Here’s the flag of Luxembourg:

Here’s the flag of The Netherlands:

See how that might get confusing?

Next part:

Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro

And that brings us to the end of my Québec trip posts.

Here’s a recap on what was covered:

It started off with two overview posts, Thank You, Quebec City and Thank You, Montreal.

Then, people thought I was a dick for getting two massages in a day’s time, so I wrote Addressing Your Montreal Post Concerns.

Feeling suitably self-defended, I went back to regularly scheduled programming, with a post on the surreal Québec Ice Hotel (Hôtel de Glace), followed by a slew of posts on the Winter Carnival:

Québec Winter Carnival

Roni Rides the Rides at Québec Winter Carnival

Snow Sculpture Competition – Québec Winter Carnival

Québec Winter Carnival Night Parade

Québec Canoe Race

Then it was my post on eats in Montreal, aptly named, Roni Eats in Montreal.

It all ended with two posts on Nordic spas:

Nordic Spas

Nordic Spas, Part Two

That’s that. Moving on to other things, like the mainland Belize stuff that never got up.

Thanks again to all the people aforementionedly thanksed in the posts.

Montreal

My second Nordic spa experience was at Scandinave Les Bains Vieux-Montréal.

The city doesn’t allow for the expanses of a rural Nordic spa. And even though Montreal is an island, it’d be pretty awkward jumping into the water in the way that we did in the seclusion of the woods.

Being at a city Nordic spa provides a more confined experience, but with all of the heat, cold, rest intrinsic to the outing.

The two things that surpassed Sibéria Station Spa were: the modernity and the warm waterfall.

While a cool piece of tech, the wristband that opened the locker was much more comfortable than a metal key that heats up.

Free teas and swanky hotel lobby-aesthetic relaxation rooms were standard at Scandinave.

A full juice bar divided the water from the relaxation areas.

The wood sauna had big wooden spoons to pour the water to heat it up.

And, as mentioned, the warm waterfall was the pièce de résistance, with its massaging pressure that you would love to have replicated in your shower.

In the midst of my spa-ing, I got a Lomi-atsu massage from Stéphane, a first in two ways: first time with Lomi-atsu and the first time I had a massage from a masseur.

Lomi-atsu is a cross between the Hawaiian Lomi-lomi style and Shiatsu. While it isn’t light, it doesn’t feel like a deep tissue massage, instead, ending up as a relaxing pressure. In this case, I felt the massage added a lot to the experience, providing a different form of relaxation than heat/cold/relax. It was hard to tell if the added pressure was due to the forearms that the style requires or by having a masseur. While I’ve heard that it sometimes makes sense to have a masseur instead of a masseuse due to the natural strength differential, I think I’d need to have had the same style done by a masseuse to be able to say for sure that there was a strong difference.

Having gone to this spa alone, the massage was my only real interaction with someone other than entering or leaving the spa. It can be a bit jarring going to a place like this yourself. Even if you aren’t supposed to speak to keep the environment calm, being at Siberian Station Spa with people I somewhat knew was a bit comforting. Lacking that, it was additionally helpful having someone focus on trying to alleviate my stress through massage.

Given a choice, I find it tough to beat having a spa experience in nature. I think there are city dwellers who do not necessarily have the ability to get out to the boonies so often, so if you’re not able to go out into the woods for your Nordic spa, it’s worth it to do so in-town. Heat. Cold. Relax. Good night.

The experience was arranged by Tourisme Montreal and Scandinave.

Berlin

Helping run Travel Talk on Twitter, a worldwide Twitter chat, has made me acutely aware of the vagrancies of time zones.

It’s amusing to me that the Grammar Nazis of the world don’t see fit to jump on the abuse of PST/EST. Perhaps it’s just because of an elitist anti-Daylight Savings mentality.

Right now, it’s Daylight Savings in North America. That means, if you’re scheduling an appointment with me at 8 AM, Los Angeles time, you’re scheduling it for 8 AM PDT. Not 8 AM PST. The ‘S’ stands for ‘standard’. The ‘D’ is ‘daylight’. When we’re springing forward, falling back and all that jazz, don’t just change your clock, change what you’re typing.

And if you really want to avoid all of it, just write 8 AM PT or 8 AM ET, etc. (Pacific time, Eastern time)

Here’s a bit of info/trivia to leave you with:

• The first time zone in the world was established on December 1, 1847, by railroad companies in the UK.
• GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) doesn’t change. When the UK moves their clocks forward, they are no longer on GMT, but rather BST (British Summer Time).
• Technically, there is a difference between GMT and UTC (Coordinated Universal Time).
• UTC does not correspond to its English acronym to allow for it to be non-language specific.

• France and its territories have more time zones than the United States and its territories (11 vs. 10).
• Since the Communist Revolution, all of China is one time zone. Before 1949, it had 5 time zones.
• Some places are increments of x.5 hrs off of UTC. Afghanistan is UTC+04:30, India and Sri Lanka are UTC+05:30. Nepal is UTC+05:45. The Chatham Islands are UTC+12:45.

My favorite site for time zone problems, meeting planning, etc. is timeanddate.com. I’ve used it many a time to figure out when to call people overseas and to make sure that I’m not totally off. Also, if you type in something like “time in NYC” into Google Search, it’ll pop up right away in Search without needing to go to another site.

My Québec press trip allowed me my first crack at Nordic spas. While I was concerned that I would be bored silly, I ended up really enjoying them. My first experience was at Sibéria Station Spa (website is in French). My second (covered in the next post) was at Scandinave Les Bains Vieux-Montréal.

Going into Sibéria Station Spa, I thought I would be able to take an hour or two of spa-ing. I am, after all, someone who loves his technology and frequently complains of an inability to relax/sit still. While I would stop in the locker room to check my phone here and there, I didn’t find myself wanting to leave. I was there with two other travel journalists: Ken Aiken and Janis Turk. We weren’t together for most of the time, but it was nice knowing there were familiar faces around (and have someone to have lunch with), as you’re supposed to stay silent out in the baths, saunas and relaxation rooms.

The concept of Nordic spas is: heat (15-20 minutes), cold (short, no more 2-5 minutes (wherein a few seconds seemed pretty good for most, inc. me)), rest (until you want to get back to the heat). The amount of different types of each available made it so I was constantly concocting new heat/cold/rest orders, never really allowing for boredom. I felt like I was actively working on relaxing, which may sound like it defeated the purpose, but ended up doing the trick for me.

Their heat options: Steam room, Finnish sauna (wood sauna), infrared sauna, hot tubs.

Infrared sauna

The cold options: Baths, man-made waterfalls and an actual river. (And, to be fair, just staying outside, to an extent, as it’s Québec in Winter).

Bath/man-made waterfall

Actual river

Actual river

Relaxation areas: Varied rooms to chill out in, a yurt (a round structure traditionally used in Central Asia, my first time in one) and outdoor fireplaces.

Outdoor fireplaces

Having been to many health clubs with traditional/Finnish saunas and steam rooms, I didn’t expect much from the experience. Coming out of it, I can say that going to a spa that is surrounded by nature is nothing like hitting up your local gym. It’s an experience designed for relaxing and experiencing temperature in a variety of ways. I feel fuller having been to one and remain interested in seeing how nature spa experiences differ from region-to-region, climate-to-climate.

Quick tip: Over on TripAdvisor, where the spa is in the Top 20 attractions of Québec City, many people recommend bringing your own robe and sandals to avoid the rental cost.

Sibéria Station Spa experience arranged by Tourisme Québec.

Montreal

Let’s throw two meals (and one snack) together: the UK-authentic chip shop of fried-almost-everything, the vegan, raw food restaurant and one of the bagel prides of Montreal.

Brit & Chips

I’ve never been to a place that has so many options for fish & chips. Ivar’s, back home, offers halibut or cod. Brit & Chips has 4 different regular fish and a seasonal one, all with their own batter.

While very fish & chipsy, I was into how the salmon made for a lighter feel. The cod was wonderful quality, on par with any of the best fish & chips I’ve had.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the chips. After seeing the variety of food they had, I was surprised to find the chips be in this middle ground between hard and soft. Not unbearable, but certainly not as delightful as either of the fish.

The shrimp tandoori was a nice side dish, not the overly fried taste common to a lot of fried shrimp, with the curry sauce really changing the flavor.

The mushy peas, well, they’re mushy peas. The owner seemed particularly proud of them, but I have never found anyone who has really revolutionized mushy peas.

"Deep Fried Whatever"

I also got a chance at the “deep fried whatever” (in this case, ‘whatever’ was an Oh Henry! bar, but they change it up). I was surprised to not feel like I was ingesting my death, but rather that it seemed on par with other normal desserts (ice cream sundae, crepes) in terms of richness. Tasty.

crudessence

My biggest concern with going to a vegan, raw food restaurant was that I would leave hungry. Not a problem. My next worry was that it would be boring food. Couldn’t have been further from the truth. The Walnut Stuffed Mushrooms was one of the most complicated foods that I’ve had. It was difficult-to-impossible for me to figure out the different elements of the dish.

The menu item I would most like to have again is the blueberry uncheesecake. I usually find cheesecake to be too rich and the uncheesecake was a really nice departure from that.

St. Viateur Bagel Shop

There is a bagel war that has been going on for years in Montreal. I was taken to one side of the field. While I was surprised that the bagels actually were different from New York bagels, I didn’t find it interesting enough that I’d say that it’s worth going out of the way for. If you like bagels, go and get one and tell me if you can better describe the difference (in the video, I say the Montreal version “tastes more like bread”). If it’s out of your way, I don’t think you’re losing much by not going.

Disclaimer: Brit & Chips meal arranged by the owner, crudessence and St. Viateur Bagel Shop covered by Tourisme Montréal. Opinions are my own.

After falling into Lake Washington with my mother and brother immediately after setting off in a canoe, I’ve never considered them the most sea-worthy of crafts. The last time I was in a canoe was in Belize, going from one resort to another. My exhaustion after (and during) was thorough.

Belize

All of this made watching a canoe race on half-frozen water all the more impressive. I’ve always thought of canoeing as a summer camp/vacation sort of activity, but for a lot of these people, it’s a lifestyle. They train year-round within their teams, watching each other’s weight, going through rigors that I would never see fit to do.

This year’s mild winter allowed for a comparatively easy course, with not as much ice to go upon. As you can imagine, rowing is much faster.

This was the last thing that I saw during my time in Québec. I did not expect to witness so many activities that I would have never considered doing. From skijoring to canoe racing, I’ve gotta say: they just live differently up North.

More info on the race here on the Winter Carnival’s official site. 

More pictures on my Flickr.

There’s a reason most parades happen during the day. They can be downright scary when they’re at night.

Here are some pictures from the Québec Winter Carnival Night Parade to illustrate my point (no captions, as I don’t know what I was looking at):

And, of course, nothing instills pants-shitting fear in quite the same way as Bonhomme.

Sweet dreams!

As you can see in the above video, I was really surprised at the speeds I got up to on the ice/snow rides.

Below are two things I didn’t get to do.

The top picture is apparently called ‘skijoring‘. Yes, that’s a child on skis being pulled by a person on a horse.

The bottom picture is a “sleigh ride”. A ‘sleigh‘, according to Wikipedia is the same thing in Britain as a sled or sledge. They just won’t quit bastardizing this language, will they?