I don’t think I’d wanted to visit the future even if I could because some things are just better off not knowing. I’d much rather visit the past to meet people like Isabelle Eberhardt or Frida Khalo or Nina Simone and see how history really took place. Today I wish I could time travel to Bergen back in 1890s to meet Amalie Skram and talk about Haugtussa with Arne Garborg . Why am I suddenly so into year 1890? Some days ago Kjell Ivar Johansen posted a link on Norwegian Mountain Forum regarding the old photostreams from The Library of Congress. I went to that link and found a photo of Bergen taken around 1890 from Fjellveien.  Amazing.

Bergen, 1890

 Bergen, 2007

This photo of Goran was taken on Fløibanen in Summer 2007 at his first visit to Bergen. If you look carefully at both pictures you will see that Bergen didn’t change drastically. Bergen Fish Market is still there. I have to admit that I am not so suddenly into time travelling and the year 1890, but that I actually just miss City of Rain . 

“Wendy Booker will be the first person with multiple sclerosis to summit Everest”, was the news on Kraig’s blog some days ago. And I was thinking: “What a beautiful and inspiring story, but I am really tired of ‘first what ever’ to summit Everest”. I was thinking same last year when American Erik Weihenmayer climbed highest point of all 7 continents, Seven Summits. According to all media Erik was really extra special because he was blind, and not because he was one of 100 people who have done this or because he was was Connecticut’s second-ranked wrestler in his weight class or just because he was great mountain climber who was striving and achieving:

In the 1920s when asked, “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” and George Mallory asserted, “Because it is there,” he was only stating the less important half of the equation. The unspoken half is that we are here. Striving and achieving is part of our nature, built into our genetic makeup. — from Touch the Top of the World, by Erik Weihenmayer

Anyways, this post is not about ‘first what ever’ to summit Everest, but about something that Erik’s climbing partner calls “Positivie Pessimisms”. I didn’t understand what he meant by that at first.  But once I read several pages on his website, I couldn’t stop laughing.  Erik was for instance writing that in the middle of some difficult passage on the mountain, his friend would say something like: “Erik, you might be out of shape, but at least you’re slow”  or  “he may be fat, but at least he is old”. In other words, all statements are positively pessimistic, and they make my brain kind of to exercise optimism. So let me practice right away: “We’re not getting any respons to our applications, but at least our sponsors are saying no.” LOL.

PS: I would love to see this documentary just to prove to myself that I am right regarding my tiredness’ issue, namely ’first what ever’ to summit Everest.

I went to Chinatown yesterday to see how everything was after Chinese New Year’s celebration, and at the same time to buy dragon fruit and persimmons because I wanted to make fruit salad dessert. Since I am begining to be hooked to a staycation these days, I wanted to make an excursion and explore culture through food like hungry cyclist has been doing for some years now. While I was trying to find the most perfect dragon fruit and persimmon for my salad, I saw that they were selling a kind of really expressive apples. All of the apples namely had natural writing on their skin, and they called them lucky or fortune apples. It reminded me of fortune cookies with less words. I didn’t have enough money to buy some. Too bad I didn’t take my camera with me, but you can find similar photos in this post posted by Diana Kuan. Anyways, here is a picture of the most perfect dragon fruit they had: 

While ago I heard the word ’staycation’ which was a vacation minus the vacating part. In other words, you are going away on vacation at home.  In that case you become a staycationer taking time away from your everyday life trying to figure out how to be a tourist in your own town. January is usually the best month to try staycation, so two days ago Gorida decided to be a tourist in Vancouver. We hiked up the BCMC, went to Altitudes Bistro to drink our Greek mountain tea, rented skates and skated for a while. I was skating for the first time in my life, and after ten minutes I felt like I was figure skater and actress Sonja Henie until I fell.  But I enjoyed skating as much as I enjoyed to be a staycationer in Vancouver for one day. Staycation ruleZ!

Me skating:

Goran skating and asking questions: “Aida, do you remember Elvis Stojko?”