Around Sopron

On Tuesday we spent a few hours  photographing the exhibit and ensuring all the work was labeled.

Claire’s trees and “forest carpets”, conference level, Pannonia Hotel, Sopron

We needed some extra mat board, so we took a stroll around Sopron and found an art supply store near the university. The owner was very friendly and has traveled around Europe and Latin America painting large murals. He introduced us to another artist who was visiting the shop in between teaching classes. It can’t be easy making a living from a small store in a small city like Sopron.

Art supply store, Sopron

We went to a grocery store and the staff tried to explain how to buy fresh vegetables: certain peppers require a sticker before weighing; other, apples and cucumbers were wonderful, and it turns out that the region is known for a heritage grape & wine called Kékfrancos, i.e. blue Frankish. There was nice Hungarian cheese, too, and bakeries every block or two. We felt ready for the conference!

Sopron neighbourhood

Downtown Sopron

Registration began before supper time and was followed by a social event on the hotel’s top floor patio. It was a beautiful evening to meet some of the 74 delegates from 25 countries, such as Larry Kirkendall from Bergen (formerly US) and his friend Torild Wardenær who is a Norwegian poet and playwright, and Frederick Schlyter from Sweden. Frederick is the thesis supervisor for a PhD student from Victoria, BC, who happened to visit our gallery in August after a Bowron lakes trip

For a summary of the interesting relationship between UBC in Vancouver and the University of Western Hungary in Sopron dating back to the Hungarian revolution in 1956, see http://tinyurl.com/3txm62t and http://tinyurl.com/3f8jr7c

Sopron Bark Beetle Conference: installation

We spent most of Monday hanging the art in the area outside of the conference meeting rooms at the Pannonia hotel. The portico-collonade has an open area that extends from the restaurant on the ground floor up two floors to the meeting rooms and another floor up to a balcony garden and skylight. I went up a service elevator with Janosz,who works in the hotel, and we climbed out on the balcony to attach support wires, then tying the paintings to the wires. It’s a long way down to the tile floor below; good place to be wearing a safety harness, except I don’t know what I would have clipped myself onto.

Bill & Janosz hang trees from above the conference level

We also strung wires above a series of columns so we could hang trees from the very tops. The preliminary conference on bark beetle genetics started, and we met some of the delegates who were attending for the whole week, such as Milosz from Prague. The hotel staff were all very helpful and curious and we finished around supper. Claire’s art looked beautiful in this space. Time to go down the street for some goulash, dumplings and Soproni!

part of installation, as seen from dining room below conference level

Sopron Bark Beetle Conference: Munich-Dachau-Sopron

Saturday was a very full day. We took a train and a bus to visit the Dachau memorial site just northwest of Munich along with a small group of workers from Bangalore, India who were also staying at the hostel. Franz, who lives in the town of Dachau, led us on a remarkable tour. He has been doing this twice a month for 15 years, and from a personal perspective, provides a historical context for the war and the Shoah, as well as linking the tour to the importance of human rights today.

Camp entrance, Dachau

 

When we asked what had changed over those 15 years, he said that at first mainly survivors and their families were coming; now the visitors are mainly international and students. We were so inspired by his integrity, honesty and courage; the tour left us feeling a lot of hope about the world.

After, we stopped at the main train station Hauptbahnhof to get our tickets to Sopron, then stopped at Mairenplatz. The ornate Rathaus city hall building is gorgeous and there were thousands of people in the plaza and pedestrian areas. We spent a long time downtown and in the market area and managed to resist most of the temptations apart from Italian ice cream before returning to the hostel.

bikes parked downtown Munich

On Sunday we caught a train to Vienna and after stashing all our gear, discovered that some seats are reserved But people were friendly and helpful; we ended up sitting with some Hungarians and Brazilians. At Vienna we caught a smaller train to Sopron, an hour away; altogether the trip from Munich took about 6 hours.

Sopron is a beautiful city whose history pre-dates the Romans. The hotel where the conference was taking place was a 15 minute walk away from the train station.

Pannonia Hotel, Sopron: site of IUFRO Conference

Ater checking in, we unrolled all the art in a large gymnasium, and went for a bite. They gave us a beautiful room with a small patio and allowed us to pay at the conference rate. But contrary to what our Lonely Planet Hungarian phrasebook said, Euros were not yet accepted everywhere and we needed to change some into Forints. The rate has been around 268 Fts/Euro. This means most prices are in the hundreds and thousands. No wonder most store clerks point to the final price; tourists like us struggle to count to 5 in Hungarian!

view of Sopron from our room at the Pannonia.

Sopron Bark Beetle Conference: Wells-Vancouver-Munich

Leaving town always takes so much time! Leaving for an exhibition takes even more. In this case, we selected work which was already covered by the Carnet temporary export document that we used in Spain, and figured out how to edit the list according to protocols. This took a few days! Once we had this organized, we edited our screen presentation, reinforced our suitcases with coroplast kindly donated by Sign Stop in Quesnel and packed up our clothes plus some gifts to have for a variety of situations.

With Mary Wallace filling in for us at Amazing Space, and Margaret Inoue staying on in our place, we were free to hit the road, even though we were 12 hours late getting out of Wells Margaret and Chelsea helped us load the car, including an order of framed prints for West Fraser Mills that Laurie Landry had helped us assemble. After dropping them with Suzanne and Dennis in Quesnel, we carried on south to Vancouver.

We hadn’t done an all night drive for a few years, and being out of practise, needed a 2 hour nap at a rest stop south of Cache Creek to stay clear. Then a couple of hours snooze at Ann Kujundzic’s suite below Andy Kujundzic’s place in East Vancouver. Quick rendezvous with Alan Zisman and Linda Reid to borrow a netbook and off we went to the airport.

Our friends and readers may remember that our last experience with Canadian customs was rather negative. This time, we were greeted by a customs agent who apologized for what happened on our return from Spain, shook our hands and processed our Carnet documents with good cheer. Very nice

We spent much of the long flight to Munich alternating between reading Andrew Nikiforuk’s new book “Empire of the Beetle” and a little Berlitz German language book from which I had transferred the audio tracks to iPod. I can’t say we made a lot of progress, but at least we had a few basic phrases.

When we arrived at Munich airport and saw a baggage carousel through the very first window we could see, I thought, wow, this is efficient. Then, around the corner, we found ourselves in a massive throng of passengers trying to get through two revolving doors into just two lines for passport clearance. The doors would turn to allow more people through, then occasionally spin backwards and start squishing people, including me. It was amazing no one panicked.

After getting our passports stamped, I saw a nice clear red customs sign where I figured we would get the Carnet document stamped for the temporary importation of Claire’s paintings into the EU. The sign said it was open 24 hours. But after 45 minutes waiting for someone to show up, and a passport agent saying she’d phone someone, we asked someone who might actually know what to do, i.e. the janitorial staff or an airport greeter of supposedly low rank. They said to go through the exit doors from which one may not return and go 100 m down the hall. Sure enough, there was another customs office, this time with live agents. The officer who dealt with us did not seem very familiar with Carnets, but stamped the documents and sent us on. Not losing any art or luggage was a real treat!

Off we went with our suitcases in tow and the Munich transit map I had printed in Wells.

One of the hazards of Munich's transit system: bakeries!

The S8 train and U3 subway took us to the Thalkirken station, a 10 minute walk from the International Youth Hostel. As we emerged at street level, a man asked us if we were looking for the hostel, and pointed us in the right direction. He was retrieving his bike after shopping, and when we asked if he ever locks it, he said we were in one of the safest neighbourhoods of Munich. And just ahead of us were a hundred or more bikes parked, with just a few of them locked. Very impressive.

Bikes parked at Thalkirken underground station, Munich

The South Park hostel is new, spacious and very clean. Lots of families, a bistro, and WiFi in the lobby; a nice cafeteria-style breakfast is included in the price. Many of the rooms are named after martyrs of the anti-Nazi White Rose movement that was based at the University of Munich; our room had a plaque honouring student Christoph Probst.

We spent most of our first day walking around the nearby park across the river to unkink our bodies after the long drive and flights. Plus dealing with a prescription: I had left my eyedrops in Vancouver, and needed to replace them. Our friendly Quesnel pharmacist and telemark ski wizard Glenn Boudreau kindly emailed me a prescription that a neighbourhood apothecary recognized and filled.

Claire & cargo at Munich hostel

On Friday evening Kathi Röser, her sister Francesca and her parents Harald and Irene picked us up at the hostel. We met Kathi and her friend Alina last summer when they were WOOFing at Chris Harris and Rita Giesbrecht’s place, and they visited Amazing Space before leaving BC. They took us for a classic Bavarian dinner at the Hofbräu Keller in downtown in Munich and it was fantastic. I didn’t really need much food for a couple of days after this! They were all very kind and we had a lovely time together.

Flying home & welcome back to Canada

The first two flights were just enough on time for us to make the connection from one terminal to another at Heathrow. After a long, long day, we finally arrived in Vancouver. But once again, British Air and Iberia had left the black tube of paintings behind. It hadn’t gone past Madrid

We asked a customs agent how to deal with this for the final signing off of our ATA Carnet document (cf our first posting here). He asked his superior, then came back and checked off the paintings that did arrive. Then Ann Kujundzic kindly picked us up and drove us back to her place.

It took two days for the missing artwork to arrive, and when it did come in, the tube was badly dinged and one end cap was almost entirely ripped off. Maybe putting a “Fragile” sticker on it had been an invitation for abuse!

the fate of special baggage marked FRAGILE on British Air & Iberia

When we presented the recovered artwork at Canada Border Services Agency at the Vancouver Airport, the officer angrily shoved the paperwork back at us and scolded us for “doing it wrong”, even though it was one of her colleagues who had made the error, and she was the principal trainer for Carnet processing there.

By contrast, every Spanish customs official had treated us with respect and good humour. They were interested in the IUFRO conference, did everything correctly, and shook our hands when we left.

In the end, the Canadian officer grudgingly signed and stamped our documents, and fortunately, there was little damage to the paintings.  Whew.

It’s bad enough that the Canadian government cancelled the Promart program that used to assist Canadian artists exhibiting abroad. And it’s frustrating that neither Canada Council nor the BC Arts Council would contribute any travel funds for Claire’s exhibition in Spain. The generosity of our friends and family, plus our own savings, enabled us to go. So when we were chewed out for someone else’s mistake by a cranky customs agent packing a gun and wearing a flak jacket, we wondered, Does our government want to discourage Canadian artists from exhibiting internationally or what? Aargh.

It was time to drive back north to Wells, unpack, set up the gallery reopen on June 11, and install Claire’s solo exhibition at the Island Mountain Arts Gallery for an opening June 17. Get over jet lag. And remember fondly our time in Spain and the fine people we met.

map © Bill Horne

Our dear friend and summer housemate, Margaret Inoue, welcomed us back to Wells, and with Dave & Cheryl we were able to check out the gifts of the wooden botas and try out the Gonqui elixir we had been given…

Farewells, south to Palencia, north to Bilbao

We were up until after two o’clock Saturday morning taking down paintings and preparing to repack the artwork, and during one of our midnight shuttles through the labyrinth of the monastery we encountered a couple of bats flying around the hallway. Bigger than the little brown bats found in the Wells, BC area.

Claire & Cristina roll up canvases

After our last monastery breakfast and an exchange of gifts with Carlos and others on staff, we finished packing up. Cristina from the organizing committee helped us layer and roll canvases so we could slide them into the big tube container. Then Carmen and Pablo hauled it out to one of the vehicles returning to the University of Valladolid in Palencia.

Following many tearful farewells with delegates and committee members, we said good-bye to Montesclaros. Leticia kindly gave us a ride to Palencia where Julio had arranged accomodation for us. Hotel Monclús is a lovely, older hotel on the edge of the downtown pedestrian zone. Right next door is a nice bar+restaurant with friendly people and good food at reasonable prices.

the stuffed peppers next door to Monclús

In the evening, Julio and his wife Maria took us out to a couple of places within walking distance. Julio did the ordering and we had the pleasure of sampling some wonderful tapas, including snails in a chorizo sauce. Wow.

Claire, Julio, Maria & Bill dowtown Palencia

It was lovely to get to spend time with Julio and Maria free of the many responsibilities of the conference, and very nice of them to treat us.

part of the pedestrian zone, downtown Palencia

We spent our last couple of days packing, strolling around Palencia, and figuring out the logistics of our return home. Originally we had been booked to fly from Bilbao to Madrid, then Heathrow and Vancouver. But since it was easier to get from the conference to Palencia than Bilbao with the artwork, we figured it would be simpler to just fly from Madrid.

On a hunch I emailed TD Travel Rewards, from whom we had bought the tickets. Eighteen hours later I received a terse message warning me that if we did this, the airlines would regard us as no-shows for every leg back to Canada, and that we MUST fly out of Bilbao. Sheesh. We thought the airline could resell our Bilbao-Madrid seats, and that this ought to be pretty easy for a computer-based ticketing system. Apparently not.

Claire & Bill with cargo at RENFE station, Palencia

Julio waves good-bye

So we changed our plans accordingly. Julio drove us to the station with all our gear and saw us off on the afternoon train to Bilbao. It was hard to say good-bye to this new friend whose vision made it possible for us to go to Spain!

We enjoyed the beautiful trip back north to Basque Country. We didn’t know exactly where the RENFE train station came into Bilbao, but we knew we had to be ready to get off with all our luggage and the artwork. It was going pretty well until we tried to get out of the elevator in the station and got completely piled up on our suitcases and the big black tube of paintings. Very funny!

stained glass at RENFE station, Bilbao

A taxi stand was not far away where we found a driver who had enough room to squeeze us in and take us to the airport. It’s a smaller airport than Madrid’s, and we were feeling pleased to be flying out of Bilbao after all. The customs people were as friendly as before and signed off all the artwork. Off we went to the Iberia counter to check in the big suitcase and big tube of paintings so we could take a bus back downtown to have supper and find a cheap place to crash before the flight early next morning.

Unfortunately, we found out that they won’t check any baggage until a couple of hours before a flight, because of terrorism risks. Paradoxically, it would be ok for us to sleep in the same airport with the same luggage on a bench on the mezzanine floor. Sigh. Time for another taxi, this time to a Holiday Inn 1 km from the airport. So much for sampling pinxtos downtown!

IUFRO Conference: Friday, May 27

On our final field trip, during a coffee break at a small bar off the highway, we saw TV footage of police clubbing peaceful protestors and dragging them out of the Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona, much to the distress of those of us looking on, especially the PhD students among us. One official reason given was a need to clear the streets before the footbal game between Manchester United and Barça the next day. Protestors, primarily young adults, had been camping out in Barcelona as they had been in Madrid’s Plaza del Sol. Hard to find any coverage of these nationwide protests in any Canadian media. But I did find a clip on BBC.

Between visits to stands of Maritime Pine in decline and an area where there is Gremmeniella abietina affecting Aleppo Pines, we had the pleasure of touring the Real Sitio de Ventosilla winery. It’s an impressive operation located in the heart of Ribera del Duero in the province of Burgos.

delegates touring the Real Sitio de Ventosilla winery

While tasting some of their white, rosé and red wines, we learned that the Spanish people have a much better term for “legs”, i.e. the glycerin content. They call them “lagrimas” – tears. The winery also produces its own incredible olive oil, which we sampled with crusty bread in between tastings.

Hatice Tuğba Doğmuş-Lehtijarvi of the Suleyman Demirel University in Isparta, Turkey, with Thomas Kirisits from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna at Real Sitio de Ventosilla’s sampling room.

Bill hoping for a fill-up

For lunch we stopped in Reinosa de Cerrato at La Playa restaurant where several large paellas were waiting for us. Wow. Another wonderful meal.

One of the beautiful pans of paella brought out to much applause & cheering

At the stand of pines with Gremmeniella, Thomas Kirisits gave me a boost up into an infected tree to cut a sample branch. Then Mike Wingfield said maybe we ought to be looking at the roots

Masum, Laszlo, Leticia & other delegates check out the gremeniella

When we got back to the bus, there was a picnic thougtfully set up under the trees for us with crusty bread, Manchego cheese, serrano jam, cold beer, pop and wine. By now it was almost evening, with a warm breeze flowing over us. After a presentation to Gaston Laflamme from Québec City, who has played a pivotal role in IUFRO, Mike Wingfield made a few final remarks to summarize the week. Then he asked me to lead a wrap-up that we had chatted about briefly earlier.

Since there were so many non-English speakers who had worked so hard all week to present their work or to listen to others in English, I thought it would be appropriate to hear all the languages represented at the conference. So I asked everyone to take a turn to share a highlight or insight from the week in their own language – we wouldn’t translate anything into English for this round. I invited Keiko Kuroda to go first, since she had come the farthest. Everyone participated, and I felt very moved to hear the music in each person’s voice as we went around the circle. There was a brief interlude for a group song that a few delegates had improvised in the smaller tour bus. Then we carried on. Another moment to cherish from an amazing week.

A IUFRO song is born: Cristina, Jorge, Gulden, Leticia, Judith, Mike & Thomas

It was dark by the time we got back to the monastery for our last supper together. A few delegates had to leave before dawn, with various PhD students from the organizing committee getting up early to drive them to Palencia, etc., so the farewells began. Some took the opportunity to do a final email check – not always easy to pick up a wireless signal in a stone building, so a small group was clustered at the entrance near the router!

Delegates' email fiesta at the monastery entrance WiFi zone