They Paved Hell and Put Up A Parking Lot

(Sorry, Joni Mitchell.) According to this article, downtown Winnipeg largely consists of over 150 surface parking lots. This is why:

"Local planners say the late 1960s and '70s saw a significant shift of residents and capital out of the downtown and into the suburbs -- a phenomenon common in many North American cities but particularly acute in Winnipeg. As building after building was abandoned, many of them historic and expensive to redevelop, owners demolished instead of renovating. Surface parking lots took their place, seen as a temporary way to make cash to cover maintenance and property taxes while the market improved enough to make building a condo tower or office building worthwhile. Problem is, thanks to a slow growth economy that still hasn't quite happened."

I don't expect this to ever change, and this is part of the reason Winnipeg is (in the words of a friend of mine) a "dying city." Here's an example. The Exchange District, which is the most beautiful part of the "downtown," has a high vacancy rate, and the mayor is not that interested in revitalizing it. Recently, this monstrosity (on the right) was built - a multi-story parkade. In New York, this would have been an opportunity for residential housing above, or shopping, or what-have-you. In Winnipeg, even the parkade is uninhabited - it's a ghost town of empty parking spaces, because most people don't come downtown.

Manitoba PR Office is Working Overtime

You can't put lipstick on a pig and call it Coco Chanel, but that's what the Winnipeg PR office must be trying to do. Recently, there was a glowing article in the New York Times about Winnipeg. One touts its "parka-clad diversity"(Winnipeg Free Press link) and "designer immigration." What the article neglects to mention is that when you have so many people trying to leave this hellhole, you have to try to recruit some poor suckers to move here. Immigrants to Winnipeg are largely unskilled refugees who are desperately trying to flee horrible political situations, so the last thing on their mind is a fear of ten-foot-long mosquitoes or -100 temperatures. (A much older article in the Times mentions the fact that Winnipeg has the largest population of unemployed aboriginals in Canada - not exactly cause for celebration.)

What I have to look forward to...

...when I get back to the tundra.

Out of morbid curiosity, I had been looking for the Farmer's Almanac online. Just how bad would this winter be? Instead, I found this site that predicts a year-long forecast. The news does not look good.

Winnipegosis

This sounds like a disease. And maybe it is, but it's also a town of 630 people (even smaller than Winnipeg) that is within driving distance of Winnipeg. Incidentally, both towns take their name from a Cree word that means "muddy water." Such a pleasant image...

Hooray

Tonight's low is 26 degrees Fahrenheit!

Farmers' Markets

The Union Square Greenmarket is one of my favorite places to be. It's kind of exotic to think of the "countryside" while hanging out in one of NYC's busiest areas.

Here in Winnipeg, the countryside is not so exotic. That farmer who grew that pumpkin probably lives less than a mile from you. A pervasive smell of manure seems to hang over the town.

Today, I went to the St. Norbert's farmers' market. Maybe it's because the temperature was 36 degrees with windchill factored in, but the experience left me a bit cold. It seemed that every other vegetable was a pumpkin. I wasn't quite taken in by all the pierogies and sausage. And this stand even made me nostalgic for all those brightly-colored Peruvian handknits.

Winnipeg's answer to brightly-colored Peruvian handknits:

Cowboys

New York has the Naked Cowboy. Winnipeg has this dude who hangs around the bathroom.

The Great Escape

No, I haven't made it yet. But here is the apparent alternative to "getting away" for Winnipeggers whose paychecks are too heavily taxed to leave much extra income for vacations.

Mariaggi's, a "downtown couple's resort," features themed rooms that include "refridgerators"(sic). You can "go" to "Exciting Mexico, Wild Africa, Sensual Morocco, Elegant Japan, Romantic Rome, Intriguing India, Passionate Hawaii."

All within Winnipeg!

Something Else I Don't Quite Understand About Canadian Tastes

A popular item at the Winnipeg Safeway ("The Grocery That Never Met a Trans-Fat It Didn't Like") is a Canadian line of - wait for it - flavored flaked canned tuna. There are seven lamentable varieties, including SPICY THAI CHILI TUNA! and SPICY PEANUT SATAY TUNA! The fourth ingredient in the "Thai" preparation is sugar. Just wrong. Wasn't poutine enough of a culinary affront?

"Authentic Italian Cuisine"

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: Winnipeg has a mighty strange idea of what constitutes Italian food. People have a regrettable tendency to add pineapple to absolutely everything, from pizza (VitaHealth sells a locally made "pineapple feta banana pepper pizza") to pasta. I'm amazed that someone actually finds this "gambieri" (sic) dish appetizing (restaurant shall remain nameless).

Fortunately, there's a knife-sharpening business a couple doors down, in case the only way to forget this horribly offensive flavor is to kill yourself.










That is, if a vigilante tattoo artist hasn't yet done it for you. (Tattoo artistry seems to be one of the main industries in Winnipeg - that and substance abuse counseling.)

Another Reason Not To Have A Baby In Winnipeg

I'm so glad I got most of my prenatal care in New York. In Winnipeg, you are not usually granted the privilege of finding out the gender of your fetus. (One hospital stopped the practice after the ultrasound technician mistakenly told a couple that they were having a boy - and they sued because they would have aborted it. Another hospital refuses, citing "religious reasons.")

Something else to be deprived of!

Would I like to support Canadian mental health?

That was the question when I went to send a letter at the Shoppers Mart post office. I donated a "loonie," as did the gentleman behind me in line. (For those not in the know, a "loonie" is a dollar.) "Loonie" sounds awfully like "loony." Even the money is crazy here.

Scratch That

According to yet another Starbucks employee, plans for Starbucks breakfast sandwiches in Manitoba have now been scrapped. The reason: there is no local facility equipped to make and store the sandwiches, and the cost of importing from another province would be prohibitive. So - I guess Manitoba needs a new slogan instead of "Friendly Manitoba:" "Manitoba! The Only Province Without Starbucks Breakfast Sandwiches!"

Wasps

My son and I just landed in Winnipeg after a brief vacation, and we were warmly greeted by... wasps. It's wasp season, you see, and my orange stroller is an easy target. Today I had to duck into a health food store to protect my son. And I'm not often found in health food stores.

I was also greeted by someone posting "Welcome back!" on my Facebook wall, as if my return were a cause for celebration instead of mourning.

Stop The Presses

Among its other privations, Manitoba is the only Canadian province to lack - Starbucks breakfast sandwiches. Apparently, there's been a plan to bring them to this benighted land for four, count them, four years. According to local Starbucks baristas, the "infrastructure" just hasn't existed to produce these sandwiches to the strict Starbucks standards. Supposedly, this dire situation may be remedied by the end of 2010. If Winnipeggers and all other Manitobans are finally granted access to these sandwiches, it won't be a secret - there will be such a marketing campaign that everyone will know about it.


(They have breakfast sandwiches in Malaysia, for crying out loud...)

Winnipeg...

"Where the animals run free and the people are imprisoned." (courtesy of my aunt)

Do you get a "kick" out of Winnipeg?

The mayor of Winnipeg might get a kick out of you. (What a putz!)

Oh, That Nanny State

I'm not a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination, but one thing that really strikes me about living in Canada is the how the paternalistic tentacles of the Canadian government have a way of reaching into the farthest corners of your life. One thing that happened to me this year involved my Blackberry. As you have probably heard, one company practically has a monopoly over almost all Canadian cell phone service. I thought I would avoid this by keeping my American Blackberry with T-Mobile International E-mail service. Unfortunately, the Blackberry broke. To make a very long story short, I received a free, refurbished replacement Blackberry due to company error. End of story, or so I THOUGHT.

I soon received a barrage of phone calls about this Blackberry, implying that I owed the Canadian government $150 on this "purchase" from the United States. It took me a lot of calls and E-mails before I could convince them that I owed nothing, as the Blackberry was not a new purchase, but a free, refurbished replacement. How fun.

On a totally unrelated note, the lives of Canadian bodybuilders are also intimately affected by the all-seeing eye of the government - they are denied all supplements containing L-Carnitine (illegal in the country). Yet you can buy a joint on every corner of British Columbia!

What (Else) I'm Missing While I'm In New York

The mosquitoes are out with a vengeance this summer in Winnipeg. Unfortunately, a few protesters ensure that buffer zones are enforced against the removal of the bugs. Gotta love Canada! Although at this point I have to return to Winnipeg sometime in September, I hope this year is my last so as to avoid a hellish summer of cankerworms and skeeters. Why on earth do people live in Winnipeg? (Not to mention, apparently Saskatchewan and Manitoba are the only two Canadian provinces that will not have access to the new iPhone - because there's no 3G. Winnipeg: the most progressive, cutting-edge town around... if you lived in 1880!)

Something you'll never find in Winnipeg...

As I wrote before, it's almost impossible for a pregnant woman to get an ultrasound in Winnipeg. There are no doctor's offices that do the procedure, and there's only one hospital that will do it. Also, ultrasounds are usually rationed to one per woman per pregnancy. Gotta love that Canadian healthcare system!

(By the way, this picture was taken in NYC, obviously.)

If It's Not Mosquitoes, It's Cankerworms

Here's what I'm missing in Winnipeg while I'm away for the summer in NYC. Apparently these worms are so numerous that the ground appears to be moving for a few weeks every year.

You Can't Do This In Winnipeg...

I've just posted about my attempt to make my Winnipeg-born baby into a sophisticated man-about-Manhattan.

Another Difference Between NYC and Winnipeg

NYC actively creates media content. Winnipeg tries to repel it. (In fact, so does most of Canada; it's a wonder that there's HBO and an Amazon.com fulfillment center here. There was a lot of opposition to their being in Canada.)

Overheard in Winnipeg

A mother was walking with her four young girls near The Forks (Winnipeg's tourist area). The children had to all be six or younger. All of a sudden I heard the six-year-old scolding the toddler. "Mercy! Stop that!" I looked over to see what was going on. "Stop... dancing! Mom, she's DANCING!!!!"

If this bewilders you, let me offer an explanation; in Winnipeg, there is a large percentage of Mennonites, for whom dancing is forbidden. (What a way to live! Then again, maybe they have something in common with Bloomberg, who likes to do away with dancing at NYC venues.)

More Fun Facts Aboot Winnipeg

• April comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.

• If you want to forward your mail to an address in the United States, it will cost you $96.00. If you want to put your mail on hold for 4 months (the amount of time I will be spending in the United States this summer), it will cost you a whopping $160.00. (Is this part of why people seem to get stuck here and never leave? I'm reminded of the $25.00 "departure tax" I was once charged before flying home from Japan. Maybe they really wanted me to stay...)

• This one's pretty scary... if you plan to get pregnant in the province of Manitoba (or even if you don't), you are allotted one (count them, ONE) ultrasound during the duration of your entire pregnancy. Personally, I know of a couple labor/delivery horror stories in Winnipeg... one woman ended up in a coma after having a C-section. Should ultrasounds be rationed as a matter of course?
  

American Citizenship for a New Winnipegger - A Difficult Process

I'm trying to find out how to secure American citizenship for my Winnipeg-born baby. I'd been under the impression that the process would cost $460, but now I think I'm mistaken. It's just that it's so difficult to navigate the byzantine websites of the U.S. State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Some of the 1-800 numbers only work in the United States, which is obviously no help when you're 62 miles north of the border. (Yes, it's only 62 miles, but it's a different world!)

All of this mess could have been avoided had there been a working U.S. consulate in Winnipeg. But according to a local I talked to, Winnipeggers actually chased the U.S. consulate out with a series of protests. So, in order to file a consular report of a birth abroad, I would actually have to fly with the baby to Calgary or some other less benighted Canadian city. (Americans really do not belong in Winnipeg!)

One is supposed to report a birth abroad as soon as possible, but it's not advisable to fly with a newborn until he is at least 8 weeks old. Now that we finally have a Canadian passport for our baby, we will fly to the United States and try to address the issue there.

You Know You're In Winnipeg When...

...you are carrying a tray of drinks and an old woman says to you, "Nice day for a Slurpee, eh?"

(I wouldn't be caught dead drinking one of those artificially colored chemical stews. I was holding an iced tea and a mango banana smoothie.)

What's Holding You Up From Moving to Winnipeg?

Is it the holdups?

The Biggest Relief...

...would be a one-way plane ticket out of Winnipeg, and here is one more reason! Apparently, that hot chick (or chap) you picked up at the King's Head Inn gave you a reason to PEE IN A CUP.

Hotel Canada, Part Two

So, I finally got my baby's passport in the mail.

However, I invalidated it inadvertently. In the United States, the parent is supposed to sign his child's passport. But in Canada, the parent is not allowed to. My hasty signature has necessitated that the whole application process be started again - and I have to send in the old passport.

High School Teacher Hijinks

Well, here is a similarity between Winnipeg and NYC; some of the high school teachers should find a new profession. In Winnipeg, a couple of them simulated a highly evocative lapdance at a pep rally, and in NYC, a janitor found two teachers naked in a classroom.

Hotel Canada

If you have a baby, you can check out of Canada anytime you like, but you can never leave. Let's say you want to take the baby to visit your mother in the States, but your husband is working and can't come. In order for you to be able to leave the country without him, he must write a letter giving you permission, and it must be notarized. (The letter is only good for that particular trip.)

If you give birth in Canada, things are even more complicated. Obviously, you have to get your baby a passport, and there are all kinds of rules for this process. As I wrote in a previous post, passport photos are subject to all kinds of specifications. Also, you need to have known a Canadian for two years or more, and this Canadian must sign your child's passport application. (It used to be that the guarantor had to be a member of an approved profession.) But what happens if you are visiting Canada for the first time and give birth? Do you have to stay in the country with your baby for two years?

Last week, my husband and I had passport photos taken for our new baby. "We do them in black and white," explained the photographer, "because sometimes they are rejected if the person's coloring is different, like, if they have a sunburn or something." (There is no danger of our baby getting a sunburn in the middle of a Winnipeg winter, but whatever.) We then went over to the passport office. We produced the application and photos, and I lifted the baby out of the Bjorn so that the clerk could see him and ascertain that he was the baby in the photo.

No dice. Apparently, the Canadian who signed our passport application also was required to write "I certify this to be a true likeness of (name)" on one of the passport photos (as well as sign and date it). It wasn't enough that we had the baby with us, who was obviously the subject of the photos.

Club Fantasy

This place was voted one of the top five strip clubs in Winnipeg, because it had a shower in the middle of the room. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view), it is now closed (like many places in Winnipeg, including Gluttons, which many considered the best restaurant).

What I'm wondering is, did they reenact fantasies of, say, permanently escaping Winnipeg? How much would that cost?

Male Strippers Wanted

It's not just single male oenophiles that Winnipeg lacks; apparently, the city also could use some more male strippers.

That "blizzard" NYC is having...

...is just every winter day in Winnipeg!

A Food Post

There are hundreds of NYC-based food blogs, but I've only managed to find three based in Winnipeg: Winnipeg Eats, Savour Winnipeg, and Karen Food. To be honest, I haven't found that much food worth blogging about in Winnipeg, but I'll write at least one post about it.

• Food Delivery. In NYC, the local food delivery service is SeamlessWeb. Many offices use it to order lunch. In Winnipeg, there is Mobile Maitre'D. I was hungry for lunch the other day, so I called the service - and got a recording saying that if you want to order lunch, you have to do it 24 hours in advance.

• The Grocery. Mayor Bloomberg has been banning trans fats from NYC groceries, and he's also been on an anti-salt crusade. In Winnipeg, you'll find trans fats in everything from pie crusts to, probably, donuts (someone should call Tim Horton's to ask about that), and foods processed for Canadians apparently have a higher sodium content than for Americans, even when they are produced by the same companies. (So if I don't have a heart attack falling on the ice, that frozen dinner is gonna get me. Speaking of which - why doesn't Winnipeg shovel off its snow-covered sidewalks? Only the roads get shoveled.)
  

• Local Specialties. It's hard to say what the local specialty is in NYC, because there's such great food of all kinds. Winnipeg has a large Ukrainian population, so you can find pierogies everywhere.
  

I got in a rather interesting discussion about foods Canadians like that you can't find in the U.S. I'm not sure these are any great loss, but here they are: 1) "Ketchup Chips"; and 2) "Keel." "What is keel?" I asked a Winnipegger. "Well in the U.S., when you order a bucket of fried chicken, they don't even put in the keel. But in Canada it's the most expensive part. It's the part of the chicken closest to the ass." I knew there was something very wrong about this answer, so I Googled, and the Winnipegger was wrong... the keel is the cartilagey bit between the breasts of the chicken. Still sounds pretty damn unappetizing.

Applying For Your Canadian Passport

As you might know, I have a new son. His arrival has necessitated that I fill out all sorts of forms - a birth registration, an application for a Social Insurance Number (this can only be done by mail if I enclose his original birth certificate - doesn't sound like a great idea), an application for a Manitoba Health card, and a passport. (I plan to bring him to the States this summer and intend to apply for the U.S. version of all these documents - excluding the health card, as health care won't come to the U.S. until pigs fly.)

While checking out the requirements for a Canadian passport, I came across this amusing list of examples of "unacceptable passport photos." (Look at the schlub in the last picture.) Fortunately (doesn't this sound ludicrous), "Passport Canada recognizes the difficulty in obtaining a neutral expression of a newborn and will allow for some tolerance in this regard." Some tolerance?

Sophisticated Single Men Sought in Winnipeg

The cosmopolitan NYC man knows he can meet his female counterpart at one of the many wine tastings around the city. But in Winnipeg, most men are off swilling Molson Canadian Beer while they cheer on the Blue Bombers or get suspended from university because of their participation in fight clubs.

So if you are a suave male wine appreciator, you might be accosted by female admirers at Winnipeg's Mona Lisa Restaurant. (Hey, it's worth a shot. Or maybe "shot" isn't the right word.)

Winnipeg - If You Can't Be Number One, Be Number Twenty-Two

Article here.

New York is to Mace as Winnipeg is to...

...bear spray. Who knew that this innocuous product had such insidious urban uses.

To Improve Winnipeg, Hire a New Yorker

It seems that there are two kinds of cities; those with vibrant downtowns (New York) and those with crumbling ones (Winnipeg), where residents flee to the suburbs every day at 5 p.m. The Winnipeggers I've spoken to say that the current mayor, Sam Katz, is quite pro-suburbanization, as most of his constituents live in outlying areas and do not appreciate the benefits of a lively, diverse downtown. Still, the city of Winnipeg paid a New York consultant to do a 109-page study about how to improve the downtown area. (Unfortunately, although he tried to put a hopeful spin on things - he had to, for being paid $30,000 - the consultant found that prospects for downtown are... not the brightest.)

Baby Nurses in Winnipeg

Winnipeg is a very family-focused town. Not many people use baby nurses, but the service does exist; you just have to look for it. And search I did. At first, I made the mistake of hiring a "post-partum doula service" - soon, we had unkempt, earth-motherish types bringing over fenugreek pills and books about post-partum depression, and offering me a pedicure so I could "feel like a woman again." Then, we thankfully found a couple services which were more along the lines of what we were looking for. Last night, I asked an aide from one of these services if she had any horror stories of being on the job in Winnipeg.

She told me that one night, she was called to an apartment on Corydon Avenue (for some reason, this street is known as the "Little Italy" of Winnipeg, although there aren't many Italian businesses on it, and the gelato is overrated and artificially colored). The client, a young woman in a long black skirt, let her in, showed her the baby's room, and then left for the night.

Six hours turned to seven, and then eight. The client never came back. The aide was stuck with the baby, and she had to leave. She looked around for a phone and couldn't find one. She decided there was no choice but to knock on the neighbor's door. A sleepy-headed woman poked her head out.

"Can I please use your phone to call my office?" she pleaded. The woman asked her to wait. The aide waited patiently outside for five minutes while the woman got herself together. Finally she was let in to call the office. The office manager said that Child Protective Services would be called if the client did not show up within the hour.

Somehow, the client's parents were located and contacted. Within thirty minutes, the client returned to pay the aide. She had a lot of cash on her, because she was a hooker who had fallen asleep in her john's room.

At least she had the presence of mind to call a baby nurse!

Giving Birth, Winnipeg-Style

Two weeks ago, my son was born at the same hospital where the infamous Winnipeg Toilet Baby was treated: Health Sciences Centre (a.k.a. Hell Sciences). I won't go into the gory details of the extremely complicated labor and delivery (suffice it to say that the whole freaking hospital employs ONE, count him, ONE anesthesiologist), but I will mention an interesting detail. According to one of the nurses, one can often smell weed in the labor and delivery areas ("but not in the nice private rooms").

Happy New Year

I spent New Year's Eve watching the ball come down in Times Square... on CNN.