Category: Travel

Canada Slim and the Unremarkable Town

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 1 December 2017 Soon, thoughts of expatriates will turn to thoughts of home as Christmas draws ever closer. My American friends will wish to fly back to California and Florida, Boston and Philadelphia. My Canadian friend will wish to fly to Nova Scotia to proudly show off her new daughter, while my Indian… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Unremarkable Town

Canada Slim and the Calculated Cathedral

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 29 November 2017 It is a season of grey days and black, almost eternal, nights. As much as I comprehend why Canadians celebrate their Thanksgiving in October rather than November because the growing seasons are shorter up there, I occasionally wonder if the Americans might not be onto something by celebrating life at… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Calculated Cathedral

Canada Slim and the Thundering Hollows

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 26 November 2017 Where is the line between insanity and sanity? What does it actually mean to be sane? Sanity involves wholeness, whereas insanity implies brokenness? One theory suggests that sanity is tied to how we fit with what is actually going on in the world. Psychologist Erich Fromm proposed that, not just… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Thundering Hollows

Canada Slim and the Voyageur´s Album

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 22 November 2017 I have just returned home from the dentist (one more tooth less) and I find that listening to Franz Liszt´s Hungarian Rhapsodies seems to keep pace with the throbbing pain experienced inside my mouth, as if each tooth is an ivory piano key pressed upon in tempo with the music being produced by… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Voyageur´s Album

Canada Slim and the Wonders on the Wall

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 21 November 2017 I just had my first viewing of a DVD I had never seen before last evening: The Lady in the Van, starring Dame Maggie Smith as “The Lady in the Van Miss Mary “Margaret ” Theresa Shepherd” and Alex Jennings as “Alan Bennett” upon whose memoirs the story is taken. This is a… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Wonders on the Wall

Canada Slim and the Wild Child of Toggenburg

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 20 November 2017 Last week ago I began to tell a story. (See Canada Slim and the Road to Reformation of this blog.) A story of how a religion and a continent tore itself apart over questions of how to worship a God who cannot be proven to exist. Ah, the folly of man! My… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Wild Child of Toggenburg

Canada Slim and the Holiday Chronicles

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 16 November 2017 I hate November: shorter days (dawn still incomplete after 6 am, dusk already started at 1600), grey clouds ever threatening rain, blocking the sun by day and the stars by night. November with its month flower, the chrysanthemum, a symbol of adversity, grief and death. And I miss seeing the Lake under blue skies… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Holiday Chronicles

Canada Slim and the Outcast

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 13 November 2017 Maybe it´s the endless days of grey skies outside or being restless with being confined indoors by illness that has got me feeling morbid of late. Perhaps my ghastly mood has been affected by the topics I have written about recently: ghosts and corpses on the London Tube (Canada Slim Underground) and the… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Outcast

Canada Slim and the Borders

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 11 November 2017 As one travels around the world a person discovers that there are arbitrary lines drawn across landscapes and charts and maps that define what is Here and what is to be considered There, and there are arbitrary lines drawn between classes and positions in our everyday societies. Mankind has done… Continue reading Canada Slim and the Borders