Vancouver + snow = chaos

I woke up this morning to a frantic radio report about school closures and treacherous driving conditions due to an overnight snow storm that was wreaking havoc on Vancouver.

(I still get excited when I hear the words "snow storm" and "school closures.")

I jumped out of bed and ran over to the window, hoping to see a raging blizzard outside. I peeked between the blinds and saw . . . a light dusting of snow on the ground and a couple of flakes floating in the air.

Oh, Vancouver. Your hysteria over a few centimetres of snow makes me laugh.

The CBC had three different reporters tracking the storm. (Yes, they actually used the word "storm.")

There were stories about delayed flights, road closures, traffic jams, transit chaos, school closures, fender benders. The whole city was paralyzed -- all because of five centimetres of snow.

I took a few pictures of the "nasty conditions" on my way to work. It's almost as ridiculous as the time Toronto called in the army to help shovel snow.

Beautiful British Columbia

I've lived in Vancouver for almost seven years and the view of the snow-capped mountains on a clear day still takes my breath away.

Coming from Toronto where you have to suffer through hours of gridlock and miles of sprawl before escaping the city, it never fails to amaze me how easy it is to get out of Vancouver and into the mountains.

In the summer, I can hop on my bike and get from downtown Vancouver to the North Shore in less than 20 minutes. In the winter, I can catch a bus a few blocks from my apartment and be in Whistler in two hours.

And that's exactly what my friend Laura and I did on Saturday. We went to the brand new Whistler Olympic Park in the Callahan Valley for some cross-country skiing. Check out the size of the snow banks!


I will never whine about the lack of decent cross-country skiing near Vancouver ever again. The Callahan trails were incredible.


While there are a lot of things I don't like about Vancouver (the lack of eligible bachelors, for one), the scenery is something I will never complain about.

Fraud!

Remember how excited I was about acquiring my first piece of original art? Well, it turns out there’s nothing original about it at all.

It’s a fake. A fraud. A con. The 70-year-old woman who painted it isn’t a real artist. She’s a scam artist!

At least three different people emailed me to tell me my proud new painting was actually a copy of one of those cheesy email forwards that have been circulating for years.

Yes, that’s right. I am the owner of a painting that was inspired by an email forward.

Let’s review the embarrassing evidence. Here is my painting:


And here is the photograph it was modeled on:


I was shocked and appalled. For about a minute. And then the over-the-top ridiculousness of the situation hit me.

Think about it. Some elderly lady got this photo in her inbox. She thought it was funny. She liked it so much that she recreated it on canvas. She named it “Warrior Mouse.” And then she sold it to my unsuspecting dad for $50. Who does that?

I have to grudgingly admit that it makes me like the painting that much more. In a so-bad-it’s-good kind of way, of course.

Warrior Mouse

I've been looking to buy some original art for a few years now.

Actually, "looking" is probably too strong a word. I've mostly just been thinking about it. As in, I'll walk past a gallery and think, "I should buy some original art."

And that's about as far as I've gotten.

I did walk into a gallery in Gastown once. Or was it a studio? I'm not really sure. Maybe people who can't tell the difference between a gallery and a studio shouldn't be buying art in the first place.

Anyway, the gallery (or studio) owner asked me what kind of art I was looking for. I told him I didn't have anything specific in mind but that I'd know it when I saw it. Which, now that I think about it, is exactly the same way I've trying to find a boyfriend. Maybe it's no coincidence that I am both artless and loveless.

The gallery (or studio) owner didn't seem to mind that I was completely clueless. He disappeared into the back of the shop and returned with painting after painting for me to look at. Some of them were awful. Some of them were amazing. But none of them had that extra special something that made me think, "This is the one!"

I walked out of the shop feeling like I should just buy a canvas and paint something myself. I stopped thinking about buying art for a while.

And that's when it happened. A few months after I stopped looking for it, I found my first piece of original art. Although, technically, my dad found it for me. Which is funny because my dad and I don't share the same taste in art. At all.

My dad collects paintings of barns and lakes and canoes and trees. He also collects wooden ducks and plastic frogs. Which is all well and good for him but a little bit too lawyer's office for me.

Anyway, when I was back home in Toronto for Christmas, my dad announced he had bought some art from a 70-year-old client of his who had recently taken up painting. I cringed when he described her artwork as "whimsical."

Here we go again, I thought to myself. What had he bought this time? A painting of a cat curled up on a quilt?

"It’s called 'Warrior Mouse,'" he said, holding it up for us to see.

My sisters and I laughed. We agreed that Warrior Mouse was awesome.

And just like that, I had found my first piece of original art without even looking for it.

Fail-proof New Year's resolutions

I’m not a New Year’s resolutions kind of girl.

I’m all for setting goals in the name of self-improvement but I don’t like the completely unrealistic and wildly ambitious resolutions that are de rigueur this time of year.

Low expectations are a better strategy. Which is why I have decided to make two fail-proof resolutions for 2008: 1) cook more, and 2) bring lunch to work at least three times a week.

Now, I love to cook but I only put time and effort into it when I have friends over. It’s no fun to make a nice meal when you live alone.

The trick to cooking more often is to invite people over more often. Which is where my sister Anne comes in. She is the perfect guinea pig for my culinary experiments. First of all, she’s family so I can force her to come over every Sunday night for dinner. Second of all, she’s a student and no student alive would turn down a free, home-cooked meal.

So that’s the plan. Every Sunday night my sister will come over for dinner. I will cook massive quantities of food and then I’ll bring the leftovers to work for lunch. New Year’s resolutions resolved!

To help keep me motivated, I thought I’d post my Sunday Night Supper Club recipes on-line every week. (Warning: I tend to go heavy on the garlic, ginger and chili peppers. Feel free to adjust recipes to suit your own taste.)

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Sunday, January 6, 2008

No-frills spicy jerk chicken served with bean casserole and a green salad

SPICY JERK CHICKEN

3 pounds skinless chicken thighs
6 cloves garlic
1 cup vegetable stock
2 tablespoons Jamaican jerk seasoning (you can find jars of jerk seasoning at most supermarkets or google the ingredients to make your own)
1 tablespoon dried chili pepper flakes
Black pepper to taste

Mix the jerk seasoning with the vegetable stock to make a marinade. Place uncooked chicken thighs in a baking dish. Coat with jerk marinade. Thinly slice garlic. Stuff some garlic slices in chicken and let the rest stew in the marinade. Top with some ground pepper and chili flakes. Cover and marinate in fridge for at least an hour. When ready to cook, heat oven to 350 and bake (covered with aluminum foil) on middle rack for about 45 minutes.

HEARTY BEAN CASSEROLE

2 cans Heinz beans & tomato sauce
1 can (19 oz or 14 oz) mixed beans (drained and rinsed -- not marinated)
1 diced red pepper
2 green onions
1 tablespoon dried chili pepper flakes
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
All the garlic you can stomach

Combine all the ingredients in a baking dish and bake on the middle rack at 350 for half an hour. Cover with aluminum foil and uncover for the last 10 minutes. I put it in the oven at the same time as the chicken and cooked both dishes together for 45 minutes. Easy!


I served the meal with a bottle of Reed’s ginger brew and an organic green salad, topped with my famous “quick and dirty salad dressing” (two parts extra virgin olive oil, one part balsamic vinegar, one clove raw garlic minced, a pinch of sea salt, some ground black pepper).

THE VERDICT: Spicy, delicious and super easy! Leftovers lasted until Wednesday. Here's a picture of my sister giving it the thumbs up (she's not giving it the thumbs up with her hand or anything but I know she's giving it a mental thumbs up).

We love George

My entire family loves George Stroumboulopoulos. Even my mom has a crush on the guy. Talk about intergenerational sex appeal!

I went to a taping of The Hour last week with my mom and two of my sisters (that's us with the object of our shared affection in the photo).

I know I've said this before (okay, many, many, many times before) but it's worth repeating. George Stroumboulopoulos is one of the nicest guys around. He's charming, funny and one of the best interviewers in the business. Watching him work his on-screen magic in person is a treat.

Even though this was the second time I was part of The Hour's studio audience (in case you missed it, you can read about my humiliating first time here), I was still blown away by George's professionalism.

He seems genuinely interested in the people he's interviewing and he asks intelligent, well-researched questions. He also seems genuinely interested in the people who watch his show. He spent half an hour chatting with the audience before the show started.

After the show wrapped up, George stuck around for an hour, happily answering questions and posing for pictures. There were no handlers ushering him out the door. He didn't leave until everyone who wanted to meet him had met him.

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that we were there until the bitter end. We were the very last people in line. But George didn't seem annoyed or tired. He greeted me with a big bear hug and even remembered my name.

"Marchildon!" he boomed. "What's going on?"

I'm not sure how he remembered me. The last time I "saw" him was when I was in Montreal in 2005. One of his producers called me to get David Suzuki on the show. Because we were in Montreal and George was in Toronto, the interview had to be done by satellite. So David and I hopped into a cab and drove out to the CBC's Montreal office. They put David into a tiny studio, with barely enough room for a chair and a camera.

George was talking to David through his earpiece before the interview started. I asked David if I could say hi to George. But because the room was so small, there was no way I could get in front of the camera to wave hello unless I sat in David's lap. So I did what any professional, career-minded woman would do. I dove into David's lap and flirted outrageously with the camera (shameless, I know).

I must have made a big impression on George for him to remember me ("Oh, no! It's the crazy stalker who works for David Suzuki!").

Anyway, he joked around with us for a while. I have never seen my mom giggle so much before. It's kind of weird to have a crush on the same guy as your mother. We both swooned when George proposed to me.

"Move back and marry me," he said.

I'm 99.999 per cent certain that he was joking but on the .001 per cent chance that he wasn't, my answer is "Okay!" (mostly because I want to have the world's longest hyphenated last name. Sarah Marchildon-Stroumboulopoulos has a nice ring to it, don't you think?)

Anyway, I think I've hit my 2008 quota for gushing about George. I mean, you know you have a problem when your 20-year-old sister shakes her head at you and says you acted like a teenager around him.

Whatever. She's, like, totally jealous.

Happy New Year!

I think 2008 is going to be a fantastic year. I don't know why. I just have a good feeling about it, you know?

The first few hours of 2008 weren't very promising. It was 4:30 a.m. on January 1st and I was standing on Bloor Street waiting for a bus to take me home.

I had just left a New Year's Eve house party. It was a good party. There was music and dancing and food and lots of nice people (and more than a few eligible bachelors). But I left the party feeling somewhat deflated. I had no one to kiss when the clock struck 12.

It's not being single that bothers me. I'd rather be single than settle for someone who isn't right for me. What bothers me is that my life as a perpetual bachelorette seems to be stretching out into infinity.

So, there I was, standing at the bus stop at 4:30 in the morning, freezing my butt off and feeling sorry for myself when a man named Rudy (or Ruby, I'm not really sure) snapped me out of my pity party.

He was striding purposefully down the street wearing a green puffy jacket and a black toque. He joined me at the bus stop and struck up a conversation.

"Are you Italian?" he asked me.

"No," I said.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You look Italian."

And then he started telling me that he didn't like Chinese people but that Japanese people and Korean people were okay.

He ranted about Chinese people for a few more minutes and then asked me for my number.

There. I had met a man and he asked me out. Just like that. I didn't even have to say a single word, except to tell him I wasn't Italian.

I suddenly realized my problem isn't meeting men. I meet lots of men. My problem is that I have standards.

I'd rather be single than date a crazy, drunk, racist.

You know what? I like having standards.

And that is the kind of positive attitude I'm going to carry with me for the rest of 2008. Happy New Year!

Merry Dysfunctional Christmas

There are only two shopping days left until Christmas and I haven’t bought a single present yet.

I haven’t left my shopping until the last minute because I’m lazy. No, the reason I haven’t bought anything is because I was under the mistaken impression that my family had agreed to a gift-free Christmas this year.

Turns out my family abandoned its goal to de-commercialize Christmas and forgot to mention it to me. So now we’re having a typical Christmas with presents under the tree and I have two days left to fall in line.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My sister Hilary sent out an email back in October suggesting that we take the money we would have spent on each other at Christmas and donate it to charity instead.

I thought it was a great idea and so did everyone else (I have four sisters, one brother and two parents and getting us to agree on anything is a pretty major accomplishment).

A gift-free Christmas was a no-brainer for me. I’d rather spend my time in Toronto bonding with friends and family than rushing through crowded stores buying crap that no one really wants or needs. Forgoing mindless consumerism in favour of giving to the less-fortunate seemed richer in meaning and closer to the true spirit of the season.

I should have known Buy Nothing Christmas was too good to be true. Things started to unravel in November. The first dissenter was my brother.

“I’m expecting gifts from you guys,” he wrote. “Forget this secular far-left nonsense.”

My sister Jane was the next one to crack.

“I like to give gifts at Christmas,” she wrote. “I am planning to give everyone gifts. There will be presents from me under the tree. Do as you like . . .”

I tried to get everyone back on board, sending out emails saying that this isolationist behaviour undermined the spirit of a gift-free Christmas. My mom and three of my sisters were with me. But my dad, my brother and my sister Jane were sticking to their guns and buying presents whether we wanted them or not.

The family was split. But at least four of us were still willing to forgo a traditional Christmas. Or so I thought.

I arrived in Toronto this weekend only to discover that everyone had caved and bought presents. My sister Hilary and I were the only ones who stuck to the original plan. Neither of us bought anything and now we don’t know what to do.

We don’t want to look like Scrooges but we don’t want to buy a lot of useless junk either. We’ve only got two days left to figure out how to make everyone happy on Christmas morning without resorting to store-bought gifts.

A small glimpse of paradise

The problem with traveling for work is that you have to work.

There’s not a lot of time to explore the exotic location you’ve logged dozens of hours to get to. You’re not there for a vacation. You’re there to work.

Anyone who thinks traveling for work is glamourous and exciting obviously hasn’t flown economy class across the ocean sitting beside a screaming baby the entire way.

The only advantage to being on the road is that someone else makes your bed, cooks your food and cleans your bathroom.

Having spent two and a half weeks in Bali for work, I can tell you absolutely nothing about this pretty Indonesian island. Well, almost nothing. I could write the Lonely Planet guide to the Bali International Convention Centre (now that would be a riveting read).

Still, it would have been impossible not to absorb a little bit of the local culture. Like the way Bali smells, for example.

There’s a delicious fragrance that hangs in the air thanks to the flowering trees that dominate the landscape.


I wish I could describe how amazing these flowers smell. They’re not overpowering or sickly sweet. They just smell tropical and lush and clean.

The smell of burning incense adds to the olfactory orgasm. There are tiny shrines and offerings to the gods in every nook and cranny. Almost every offering has fresh flowers, bits of food and a stick of incense. Each one is a work of art.


The people are, for the most part, absolutely lovely. I got lots of smiles and hellos everywhere I went. The cab drivers went out of their way to chat with me and were especially interested in my non-existent love life.


Coming back to the hotel late at night meant I got to see lots of cute little geckos and frogs running around outside. (Although, I wasn’t quite as enamored with the cat-sized lizard waiting for me on the wall outside my hotel room.)

I was lucky enough to have three days of vacation after the conference ended and I spent most of my time with a couple of Canadian journalists who were also sticking around for a few days.

The three of us rented a car and got out into the beautiful, green countryside for a day.


Of course, I also saw the not-so-beautiful side of Bali. The conference centre was close to Kuta Beach, which is one of the ugliest, most congested, crowded, noisy hellholes I’ve ever seen. (Kuta was the site of the 2002 terrorist bombings.)

The place caters to cheap, boozing hordes of tourists. The streets are lined with sleazy nightclubs, fast food chains and car traffic so heavy it barely moves. The beach is packed with wall-to-wall tourists and aggressive touts looking to make a quick buck.

I felt like a walking dollar sign in Kuta. It was impossible to move two feet without someone offering their services for a massage or personal transport. Or without someone calling you over to buy cheap, mass-produced crap.

The southern part of Bali is not pedestrian friendly. The roads are heavily congested and the driving conditions are harrowing. Going for a walk means taking your life in your hands. The sidewalks (if there are sidewalks at all) are rarely wider than two feet across. Walking also means you have to contend with packs of hungry, barking dogs.

And if the traffic isn’t enough to drive you crazy, the mosquitoes surely will. There are lots and lots of mosquitoes in Bali (I am actually typing this with one hand and scratching with the other).

Anyway, this isn’t meant to encompass the island as a whole. I only saw a small part of Bali and I was there for work, not fun.

I could have stayed in Bali for a few weeks after the conference ended. But I cut my holidays short so that I could spend Christmas in Toronto. Yes, snow and slush won out over surf and sand.

Anatomy of a sunset

Having spent most of my time in Bali working, the one thing I wanted to do before I left was take in a proper sunset.

So on my last night in Bali, I staked out a spot on the beach and waited for the show to begin.

It started off slowly. As the sun began to set, the sky got a little darker. Kind of like the way the house lights dim before the curtain goes up.


Suddenly, the sky brightened and the clouds turned a dreamy, cotton-candy shade of pink. Everything took on a soft edge.




The pink slowly faded into a yellowy shade of orange before becoming more intense.




I felt like I had just watched a carefully orchestrated fireworks show. It was amazing. My photos don't do it justice.

Breakthrough in Bali

After long delays and all-night negotiations, political leaders at the UN climate conference in Bali finally hammered out a deal that will launch negotiations to put the world on a path towards deeper emission cuts after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

It was a long, exhausting process that went 24 hours into overtime. But in the end, Canada and the U.S. bowed to pressure and agreed to stop blocking progress.

The final hours of the negotiations were extremely dramatic and often emotional. During one stalemate, a clearly frustrated and disappointed Yvo de Boer, the UN’s climate chief, broke down in tears and left the stage.

Talks were on the brink of falling apart after the U.S. stood firm in its position that a Bali road map must include a special exemption for weaker U.S. targets.

But a few hours later, after intense international pressure, the U.S. caved and agreed to move forward with the rest of the world. Everything was changing from one minute to the next.

Later in the afternoon, Canada stood alone with Russia in supporting an option for the Bali road map that ignored strong science. Country after country spoke out in favour of including the strong scientific language in the deal. Canada eventually backed down and changed its position so as not to block the overwhelming consensus.

Anyway, a deal was reached and the negotiations are over. That's really all that you need to know.

As for me, I've been up 40 hours straight and can barely think straight.

I think a celebratory drink at the beach-front bar in order. After that, I'm going to get a good night's sleep and enjoy three days of vacation in Bali. No email, no blogging and absolutely no climate change talk!

Deadlocked

Right now, at this very moment, I am sitting in the middle of stalled negotiations at the UN climate conference in Bali.

It’s noon on Saturday. The negotiations were supposed to have wrapped up yesterday. I should have been relaxing on the beach by now. Instead, I’m holed up inside a conference room watching countries bicker over the fine print of a draft agreement.

The talks have been extended indefinitely. No one knows for sure when they will end. It could be over in a couple of hours. It could be over tomorrow. Or talks could break down completely and we’ll leave Bali without an agreement altogether.

You can thank Canada and the U.S. for the stalemate. They worked hard to water down the agreement and countries will now have to vote on whether or not they will accept a weaker deal (I’ve written about the negotiations on my Bali Blog so I won’t repeat myself here).

Things have been going from bad to worse. The talks keep starting and stopping. Twice this morning, the negotiations started only to be suspended moments later. Right now, absolutely nothing is happening.

The glacial pace of these UN negotiations is unbearably frustrating.

Anyway, I just wanted to vent since there’s not much else I can do right now.

Embarrassed to be Canadian

Almost every country at the UN climate conference in Bali is working hard to tackle climate change. As for Canada? Well, Canada is working hard to weasel out of taking action.

It’s embarrassing.

Let me give you a small example of Canada’s belligerent behaviour at these negotiations.

Last night, the federal government hosted an event to explain its climate change plan.

I decided to go because I was genuinely interested in hearing Environment Minister John Baird speak about Canada’s position (also, there was free food).

I sat down at the back of the room where Baird was hanging out.

At the front of the room, there were three industry representatives up on stage promoting their “clean” technologies. I felt like I had wandered onto the set of an infomercial.

This is strange, I thought to myself. What does this have to do with Canada’s position on climate change?

But I gave Baird the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was waiting for the last minute to take his seat up on stage. But a few minutes after the event started, Baird disappeared and never returned.

An hour later, the moderator announced that Baird wouldn’t be speaking at the event because he “had to go back to the negotiating group.”

At this point, most of the people sitting in the room stood up and left. I was one of them. I was annoyed that the federal government had wasted my time. It was a classic “bait and switch” scheme and I had been duped.

Canada’s bad behaviour isn’t going unnoticed. I had lunch with an Australian journalist today who said the event was a “complete con” and “totally outrageous.”

A Nigerian delegate joined our table. Upon learning I was Canadian, he said, “Aren’t you ashamed to show your face here?”

He started berating me until I waved my pass in his face and told him I was here with an environmental organization, not the federal government.

His tone softened.

“You’re okay,” he said. “But Canada isn’t.”

A typical day at the UN climate conference

You may be wondering what it’s like to be an observer at the UN climate conference in Bali. I’m here to tell you that it’s not all sunshine, beachside blogging and pina coladas at the swim-up bar.

Nope. It’s mostly just meetings, meetings and more meetings. It never fails to amaze me how something so critically important can also be so tediously boring.

But then there are moments when it’s so fast-paced and exciting that you find yourself thinking how amazing it is, and how privileged you are, to have a front-row seat to history.

Let me take you through a typical day.

An early wake-up call is in order as my hotel is a 40-minute drive away from the conference venue in Nusa Dua. For those of you unfamiliar with Bali, Nusa Dua is a gated compound filled with massive five-star resorts. It’s kind of like Las Vegas without the lights.

It’s also exorbitantly expensive so I’m staying outside the Nusa Dua enclave where rates are much more reasonable. It’s a hassle being so far away but at least the UN has provided a fleet of shuttle buses to get us from the hotel to the conference centre every morning.

My favourite part of the commute is watching the hordes of motorcycles weave in and out of traffic. I watch with a mixture of horror and awe as women zip along the congested streets with one hand cradling a baby and the other hand holding the motorcycle’s handle bar.

After fighting through heavy traffic, and gawking at the daredevil antics of the motorcyclists, we arrive in Nusa Dua 40 minutes later. All cars entering the conference area must pass through a security checkpoint. Cameras scan the underbody of each vehicle while police officers search the trunks.

The bus drops us off outside the conference centre, which is patrolled by hundreds of police officers armed with machine guns. The big guns are intimidating but I’ve never met a friendlier and more laidback bunch of police officers. They’re always smiling and waving hello. They also spend a lot of time napping on the beach.

At the next security checkpoint, our bags are searched by hand and then put through an X-ray machine. UN officials scan the ID passes around our necks and make sure the face that pops up on the computer screen matches the face of the person standing in front of them.

Having made it past security, my first order of business is a morning meeting with representatives from several Canadian environmental groups. But it’s a 20-minute walk from the conference centre to the hotel where the non-governmental meeting rooms are located.

You can’t walk two feet outside the conference centre without being honked at by an enterprising taxi driver calling out “Transport? Transport?”

It’s blazing hot in Bali and most delegates are happy to jump into an air-conditioned cab but I prefer to walk, even if it means arriving at a meeting drenched in sweat (15-hour workdays leave little time for exercise).

There are free bikes for delegates to use but I haven’t taken one for a spin yet. I haven’t quite mastered the art of riding a bike while wearing a skirt.

At our morning meeting, we discuss the previous day’s events, new developments, media coverage from Canada and what’s on the agenda for the day. We brainstorm about the best way to get our message out that day. Should we write a press release? Or just drop by the media tent to chat with the journalists?

Once the morning meeting is over, it’s time to hike back to the conference centre to take in a press conference or two. Today there were 21 different press conferences to choose from. I'm less interested in the content of the press conference and more interested in the questions the journalists are asking. It's a good way to find out what's generating a buzz in Bali.

Then it’s time to check email, scan the media stories and sit in on the negotiations. My cell phone rings incessantly. Journalists call to set up interviews or look for a scoop. My colleagues call to go over the draft of a news release or to discuss something contentious on (or off) the agenda.

My stomach growls, and I realize I’ve forgotten to eat lunch. I quickly grab a bite to eat from one of the food stalls set up around the conference centre. The food isn’t very good but there aren’t many options. There’s no time to go into town and not enough money to eat at any of the nearby resorts (five-star hotels also have five-star prices).

So I settle for a sandwich inside the conference centre. There’s no local food on the menu but there are chocolate croissants and lattes.

After wolfing down lunch, it’s time to run out for a meeting with about 200 people from non-governmental organizations from around the world. We meet every afternoon to report back on the key issues and developments at the negotiations.

Two of my Suzuki Foundation coworkers, Mark Lutes and Dale Marshall, are also here in Bali. Mark and Dale are the brains of the operation and are able to follow the often confusing and extremely technical negotiations with a level of detail that goes right over my head.

They tell me what’s going on and I try to figure out what’s newsworthy and what’s not. I try to write about the negotiations in a way that’s clear, compelling and understandable (it’s not as easy as it sounds).

In the evening, there are a variety of side events to choose from. Today is the 10th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol so there are a few poolside parties planned. I’ll probably stop by the UN party for a glass of wine and some free food. But I can’t stay long.

At 8 p.m. tonight, the federal government will host an event to talk about its climate change plan. It should be interesting. Environment Minister John Baird is expected to be the star of the show (and I don’t mean that in a good way).

If I’m lucky, my workday will finish by 10 p.m. I’ll crash into bed completely exhausted only to wake up a few hours later and do it all over again.

And there you have it. Just a typical day at the UN climate conference.

Greetings from Bali

You may be wondering what it’s like to be an observer at the UN climate conference in Bali. I’m here to tell you that it’s not all sunshine, beachside blogging and pina coladas at the swim-up bar.

Nope. It’s mostly just meetings, meetings and more meetings. It never fails to amaze me how something so critically important can also be so tediously boring.

The thing about negotiators is that they like to negotiate. Which explains why the agenda is filled with items like “Implications of the establishment of new hydrochlorofluorocarbon-22 (HCFC-22) facilities seeking to obtain certified emission reductions for the destruction of hydrofluorocarbon-23 (HFC-23).”

Huh?

Anyway, all of this leaves me without a lot of time to update this blog, let alone go for a quick dip in the ocean (I've been here for a week and I haven't been in the water once!).

But if you're interested in what's going on at the climate talks in Bali, feel free to check out the Bali Blog I'm writing for the David Suzuki Foundation.