Tricotomania and more

We have just returned from our trip to Vimy and Ypres. We learned lots. It was very moving. In Flanders Fields Museum is well worth it. It is very well organized with lots of detail and depth for those who want it and a good variety of information (battles, behind the lines, causes of war, etc.). The most moving thing was this poem, in a section with a display of gas masks. It was both printed on the wall and part of an audio loop that included the (perhaps more famous) McCrae poem and something else that doesn’t stick in my mind. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this but we are heading to Amsterdam tomorrow and I need to pack.

Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep.  Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod.  All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS!  Gas!  Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Or, in 21st century vernacular "War Sucks".

I wasn’t supposed to be here tonight. We had plans for a little trip to look at WWI sites, museums, monuments … These aren’t near the train lines so we thought we’d hire a car. There is no phone in the apartment so no phone book. No worries, thinks Mat, go online, find a few places, phone, book, etc.

Do car hire companies have phone numbers on their websites. No. They have online booking forms. So he books a car for Saturday morning from somewhere saying it is in downtown Brussels (there was even a link to a map). this morning he gets up, has breakfast and walks down there. Closed. And apparently not supposed to be there but out near Waterloo. WTF? He has a helpful chat with a couple of taxi drivers and goes to a Hertz place nearby. No cars. And they figure no one else in the city centre will have cars either though there might be some out at the airport.

By this time a trip out to the airport would put a significant dent in the planned schedule. The Hertz guy did say that Tuesday/Wednesday would work if we wanted to do that and game Mat his card. So we rescheduled. We’ve booked a car (by phone). They know we are going into France and approximately how far we are going. We phoned the B&B and rebooked that. So Tuesday morning, we set out for the Vimy memorial. There is a visitor centre and a trench and subway that you can visit. We plan to spend the better part of a day before heading to Ypres.

In Ypres, there is the In Flanders Fields Museum which looks very interesting. (Ypres was where McCrae wrote the poem, the text of which is on the museum site.) There is also the Menin Gate. And we figure the view on the drive might be worthwhile. On the way home we might try to go past the St. Julien Memorial, too.

We have read the books I found in August (about paragraph 5 of that linked post, after the WWII stuff). The combination is good. The one specifically on Vimy has a lot of battle strategy information, though well balanced with good information about the general horror (including quotes from soldier’s letters and diaries). The three books together give a good balance of pride in accomplishment with recognition of the horrible waste. And we talked a bit about why Vimy is historically significant (which really doesn’t have much to do with the war, but the broader question of Canadian nationhood).

So today, we went back to the Centre Belge de Bandes Dessinées, because Mat wanted to see it. Tigger and I looked at the Space exhibit which was excellent. She read all of the panels (which were mostly real history of the space race with some examples of comics of or about the period) by herself and was fascinated. I had to fill in some historical context about the Cold War, which I did pretty sketchily. The one problem with Gombrich’s "Little History" is that he wrote it in 1936. We need to have a bit of an overview of the post-WWII period, I think.

Then she and I went down to the library reading room and sat on cushions reading comic books while Mat did what he was doing in the bit we saw the other day. He really enjoyed it and even bought comics for himself in the bookshop. We spent more money, I’m afraid. Our comics spending is higher than expected.

I think tomorrow might involve a walk and some Art Nouveau buildings.

Today, Tigger and I took the train to Brugge. We had some tips from Debbie about what to see and spent an enjoyable day. Brugge is basically one of those towns that is all about wandering around looking at buildings, and little alleyways, and canals and stuff. It has more than its fair share of souvenir shops (including standard, mainly lace, and chocolate). But it is a nice place to wander around looking at buildings, etc. especially when the sun comes out as it did today.

Historically, Brugge was a Hanseatic city, like Lubeck, and important in the wool trade. It was also an important centre of lace production. There is a group trying to keep the traditional bobbin lace techniques alive and they run a museum along with classes and workshops which are open to the rest of us to watch. The demonstrations (actually workshops for folks doing lace) are in the afternoon so we organized our selves to get there then. Wednesdays there is also a young people’s workshop so we say both older women (some of them must be over 80, and I noticed at least one "in memoriam" notice on the table where they all sign in) and a group of girls about 8 - 13 years old. Everyone was working and chatting. Some of the older women were doing fiendishly complicated things involving an awful lot of bobbins at a good pace. One was doing something very tiny and intricate that required a magnifying glass to see properly.

I didn’t take any photos of the women at work, but I did take one of the beautiful wooden statue of a lacemaker in the courtyard outside the museum. It is a bit hard to see (click to make bigger) but she is working on bobbin lace. There are some bobbins hanging down in front of her hands there.

In the morning, we took the Live and Let Learn family advice and went to watch them make hard candy at Zucchero. I know that website is in Flemish but click through and look at the photos. Do you see those little words written inside the candy? that candy is maybe 1 cm across. And we watched them make something very similar. With little words. It took about an hour but it was very very cool. Not to mention tasty. The shop is well organized, with a nice big corner window through which you can see the action and plexi-glass inside (like the have along the boards at the hockey rink) so you can ogle without danger of contaminating the candy.

Those two stops plus a bit of wandering around looking at buildings, alleyways and canals filled the day. We got the train back to Brussels to find dinner almost ready.

Today we went to the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessiné. The Belgians are very into comics and have been for a long time. While Tin Tin is probably the best known, there are a lot of other comics and have been since the 1930s. The museum presents a good overview.

To begin, there is a brief overview of all of the people involved in producing a comic and some information about the various stages. This includes some displays of comics in interim stages which is quite interesting.

The main exhibition is divided into two parts. On one floor there is an overview of Belgian comics and comic artists from the 1930s to the 1960s. The displays are mainly organized by artist, with examples of their work and a brief biography. But there is also information about how comics were published. Tin Tin apparently started out as a strip in a magazine for catholic catechists (is that the right word? Children preparing for confirmation anyway.). These were monthly if I recall and the other catholic magazines then published work from other artists. Later the daily newspapers picked up comics and then specific magazines for children were launched, including Spirou, a magazine still in production today. (That page has lots of Flash.)

The second floor covers the period from 1960 to 1990 and the major shifts that occured in that period. It begins with a magazine called Pilote, which started out as a magazine for slightly older kids who had grown out of Spirou but then grew with its audience to address an adult audience. It closed in 1989 but seemed very important for many artists. The exhibition then covered some of the main shifts that occured during this period — artistic styles, content, etc. All in all very interesting with a good range of samples demonstrating the variety of work out there.

In addition, there was a temporary exhibition about space which combined some of the history of space exploration with how the topic has been treated in comic books. We didn’t really look at that particular exhibition but it looked well done (and had funding from the European Space Agency).

The centre also has a research library, the use of which is included in the price of admission or can be paid for separately. And a bookstore. Although it has some material in English (and Spanish), this is very limited (almost entirely Tin Tin and Asterix in the English section). The main stock is in French and Flemish. It is organized by publisher which is a bit difficult for those of us new to the genre but probably works well for those already familiar with comics. Certainly one of the shops we went to in Paris was similarly organized. There is a separate section for "La Jeunesse" though Tigger found some suitable material on a different shelf. (I have found that staff are happy to guide you to suitable material.) The publishers seem to have imprints for young people (Jeunesse usually appears)
and Dupuis Jeunesse even has some with distinctive binding, in red for age 6+ and in
green for age 3+.

One thing I did see on the English shelf was a series by Michel Plessix (translated into English) of The Wind in the Willows (The link is to the French edition, but it gives you an idea.). The art in this is absolutely gorgeous and it would make a wonderful addition to anyone’s library. I am very tempted by another series of his, inspired by that project, called Le Vent dans les Sables. It didn’t seem to be translated. (There is an interview with Plessix here. It is in French but there are snippets of the artwork, too.)

I haven’t purchased that (yet) though because there is also a lot of other stuff we want. We are trying to be frugal, not least because books are heavy and take up space. And we are hoping that with a bit more information about what we want, we should be able to get things from our local French bookshop at home (even if we have to have them order it). We have bought several Melusine, one at a time because Tigger likes them and keeps wanting another to read right away. Another of those came home today.

We had bought a couple of one off publications yesterday. Rebecca by Gotting and Matje turned out to be a Canadian one. We also enjoyed Je suis pas petite!!! by Bruno Duhamel. Today, Tigger found a couple of different ones featuring foxes. Very different styles but both look interesting. We also got one edition of a series of detective novels with a girl heroine, Marion Duval, that look very interesting. And we got something for her cousin for Christmas. A few weeks ago, when we first discovered Melusine, we also bought Fennec by Lewis Trondheim and Joann. Joann’s illustrations are marvelous watercolours. And the story is funny. Trondheim seems to be very active and has a couple of bandes dessinés about bandes dessinés that are tempting, too.

All in all, we have been very pleased with what is on offer. Although there is much less available for children than for adults, the selection is good, and the balance is probably about the same as it is for regular books. There is also quite a bit of variety of style. Yes, there was some stuff clearly aimed at young girls that is too… pink and girly and not the sort of thing I think we need more of. But there was a reasonable choice of other stuff.

This doesn’t help many of my readers, most of whom don’t read French. I am actually quite happy that the selection in French is so good as this is one area where we haven’t been doing as much as I would like. Tigger speaks very good French and when she is with francophone children she is fine. But mostly she refuses to speak to us in French (even here, which is frustrating because it encourages folks to speak to us in English, which is not at all necessary) and hasn’t read anything in French in a while. But she is really enjoying the comics. And has even picked up a couple of novels. She and I have talked about it and she agrees that she should keep reading in French when we return home.

The other thing is that most of the comics we have bought are not particularly cheap. They are usually hard cover and printed in colour. The production quality is excellent. We had been reading Bone before we left homem which Tigger also really likes, and it is also a good quality publication that is priced as a book. If there is going to be a market for comics suitable for children in English, then parents have to be prepared to pay a reasonable price for them. But I’ll leave my thoughts on the comics market for a separate post.

In the comments to my last post, Mel suggested that we walk up to Montmartre. Cate seconded. I put it to the vote and two out of three people thought it was a good idea. The one with the shortest legs initially complained that it was too far, but then she had way more energy (including deciding to take out her skipping rope when we reached the square opposite the Palais de Justice on our way back just because it was a good place to skip) and changed her mind once we got going.

It was a beautiful sunny day and we had a great walk. The view is very nice, though it was a bit hazy over the city. We went into Sacre Coeur and it is beautiful. Lots of very nice mosaics. And then we had a nice lunch and walked back through Montmartre a bit. We even came across a brick church (not very common, brick, at least not in Paris) which I took some photos of (too tired to put them in here right now).

We went to Shakespeare and Co. on the way home which Tigger also loved (and bought a book). But given her general attitude to bookshops, that isn’t much of a surprise.

So thanks, Mel and Cate, for the recommendation. Tomorrow we head to Brussels. When we checked this morning, the Paris to Brussels trains were more or less okay. The plan is to head out a bit earlier than originally planned to make sure we get on something. It isn’t a long journey so if we don’t get seats that isn’t a big deal.

Tigger want to see the Eiffel Tower. She even wanted to go (at least part way) up it to get a nice view of Paris. We walked over there today. It is a beautiful day — clear, sunny, if a bit cold. We got there and the line up for the elevator was kind of long. Long enough that neither of us wanted to stand in it. We did think that the view of the tower from directly underneath is pretty cool. And we went and bought a couple of postcards. And then we walked back (a different way).

We aren’t going to Versailles, either. Mostly because it would be pretty hard to get there given the strike. But also because it just wasn’t a high enough priority for any of us. We’ve talked about a few castles on this trip but haven’t visited one yet. We’ve looked at lots from the train window. And we like the view. But the kind of thing that gets displayed inside castles is just not quite our thing.

So we’ve done the Impressionist art. The Musée d’Orsay was fully open on Thursday and we got to see what we wanted to see. And we looked at the stuff Mat saw and we missed; and showed him some of the connections we’d discovered. But really we have hardlly ‘"seen" Paris. We’ve crossed the river only to go to church and to go to the Orangerie. Neither is very far over the river. We could blame the strike, but really, I just make a terrible tourist.

(That would also account for the woeful lack of photos. I did take a couple today. But most of the time the camera doesn’t even make it into my bag.)

We are in Paris. Believe it or not, we have been looking at art. I think I might have mentioned, sometime long ago, that Tigger is interested in art. Since buying those books (in the linked post), we have become quite familiar with many of the paintings of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. And the galleries in which they may be found are indicated on the cards, so we have been hunting some of them down. Of course in Paris, it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel but we are enjoying what we are finding.

First up, a visit to the Orangerie on Monday. (For some reason, the Orangerie and the Louvre buck what seems to be a global trend to open on Mondays. They close on Tuesdays to compensate.) Monet gave his huge water lily paintings to the state on the condition that they be exhibited appropriately in this gallery. It has been recently renovated (I’m not sure why only now) and they are hung in a most amazing space. Lots of natural light. And the rooms are elliptical so you are surrounded with the paintings. Stunning. (There is a "visite virtuelle" on that linked site which gives you a sense of what you are missing.)

The Orangerie also has a small collection of some other Impressionists (Renoir, Cezanne) and a few other later artists (including some Picasso) that we appreciated. Tigger quite likes Renoir though her dad finds him sentimental. The online catalogue is thorough. If I recall, it navigates through the artists alphabetically.

Tuesday we took the Metro out to Auteuil to the Musée Marmottan, a small museum that Monet’s son bequeathed with his entire personal collection (including works by some of Monet’s friends). Berthe Morisot’s grandaughter also donated a collection of Morisot paintings and pastels to the collection. We spent quite a while looking at the paintings and thinking about the relationship between the water lily works here and the large canvases in the Orangerie (some of them look like they might be studies of specific aspects of the overal scene), the changes in Monet’s style over time, and some of the amazing light effects that he paints. The man really likes to paint fog, too, and does a marvelous job of what must be a really difficult task. If you ever get to see some of these try standing farther back (as far as you can get) because sometimes the light is just amazing from some distance. Unfortunately the pillars in the room sometimes got in the way of really appreciating things from a distance.

This museum also has some other collections that seem quite odd in relation to the Impressionist stuff. But it did begin as a private collection. There is an interesting collection of manuscript Illuminations that we looked at briefly. Overall we were so impressed with the collection that we spent rather more than we might have planned in the bookshop. Our purchases included a biography of Monet containing lots of colour plates of the paintings that Tigger is now reading. And I have taken the view that having seen these extraordinary exhibitions, it would be a good idea to have the catalogues on the bookshelf for later study.

Today we went to the Musée d’Orsay, which is not far from our apartment and thus a good choice during a transit strike. Or so we thought. Although easy for us to get to, not all of the staff were so lucky. The museum dealt with the understaffing issue by closing off substantial portions of the collection, including the upper level where the impressionist and post-impressionist work is displayed. But sometimes these little disappointments push us to look at things that we would not otherwise spend time on. So we looked at the earlier work of some of the Impressionists, displayed on the ground floor.

This included some early Monet, whose later work was now familiar enough to enable some detailed comparisons. We also looked at early Degas — mostly portraits of family members though also a couple of large paintings in the historical style; and Manet, including some that are in our card game. While investigating some pastels, we decided that Millet might be worth closer examination and went off to look at that, too, stopping on the way to read some educational leaflets on Realism and painting in plein-air.

As it happens, Mat had gone, too, after his work was done but we hadn’t run into each other. Apparently we missed some Pissaro and Sisley so maybe we’ll have to check that out tomorrow. Because it was only partially open, entrance was free. We had a conversation with a staff-member to see if there was a plan for rotating which part of the museum was open. He didn’t have a firm sense of a plan but thought that other parts might be open later in the week. We live close enough that we can stop by daily on the off chance.

BTW, the website for the Musée d’Orsay has a lot of useful information. If you follow the "Collections" link, you can get an online catalogue with thumbnails. The "Works in Focus" link takes you to a subset that have commentary. I haven’t checked the English site but the French (Oevres commentées) is good. Sometimes the set that has been translated into English is smaller.

The plan for tomorrow has changed somewhat. We will now hit the Orsay in the morning to see what is open and may take the guided tour of the masterpieces at 11:30 (especially if it seems like the only way to see some of them). Otherwise (or maybe, in addition), we will head on over to the Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris (not to be confused with the national one in the Pompidou centre). We saw a sketch of a large Raoul Dufy when we were in Lund and the finished work is now displayed here. Admission to the permanent collections is free so we’ll see how much of the rest of it we want to look at.

Of course who knows what impact the strike is having on that museum. We are choosing not to think about what this means about our ability to travel to Brussels on Sunday. We are taking the view that there is no point in worrying about that today. I suspect we will start worrying on Saturday when the actual situation is clearer. For my part it doesn’t much matter if we are in Paris a bit longer, but Mat has interviews lined up in Brussels for next week. Some of those he had lined up here have fallen through because of the strike though he is still getting a lot done.

While we have been on this trip, we have been reading some interesting things. I have already told you about After Hamelin by Bill Richardson. Well, once we had finished that, we moved on to Heidi by Johanna Spyri. We had picked up a copy in a bookstore in Bonn (it had a small English language section) and thought it suitable for our journey to Switzerland. We weren’t really going to the same part of Switzerland but it was close enough.

I had never read Heidi and I must say that I had the impression that it was kind of twee. But Christina Hardyment suggested that the original story (if not all the sequels and adaptations) was actually about a strong girl character and well worth a read. I must say that I agree. In general the characters are well drawn and some are quite funny. Or maybe that’s just my reading of Miss Rotenmeyer (pronounced with a thick German accent of course). The emotional landscape of a masculinity that scorns the expression of emotion (other than, perhaps, anger) is also well represented in different ways in Grandpa/Uncle Alp and Peter.

I was also surprised as the very clearly Christian message of the story. It is not at all subtle in this respect but well done, all the same. The parable of the prodigal son gets a thorough treatment, in particular. I’m not sure if that is a reason for secular homeschoolers to avoid the book. Although we aren’t specifically "Christian homeschoolers", Tigger is a Christian and thus discussing those stories in the context of a book like this is wholly appropriate. Certainly those who have an explicit religious element to your approach might give this story serious consideration. On the whole, we enjoyed it.

After that we moved away from our site-specific reading list to read a Deborah Ellis book we had brought with us. The Breadwinner is the first in a trilogy about Afghanistan written for readers about Tigger’s age (middle-school?). The central character is a young girl and the story is set during the reign of the Taliban. While it clearly deals with some difficult issues (including arbitrary arrests and some violence), it does so in a sensitive way. A very good book to read together so that you can address anything that upsets your particular child as it comes up. We did read it as a bed-time story, but others might prefer it to be a day-time read-aloud. I certainly plan to get the other two books in the trilogy when we return home.

Then we went back to our geographically appropriate theme, reading another Deborah Ellis. The Company of Fools is set in a monastery near Paris in the Middle Ages. The main story is about the relationship between two very different boys. But this relationship unfolds at a time when the Plague is threatened and then arrives, making for some interesting events. Again, there are some parts that deal with disturbing issues, but these are dealt with appropriately for the age group and can be discussed more fully if you are reading the book together. The author does say, in an introductory passage on the inside front cover of my edition, that one of the things that interests her is how we deal with fear. And the Plague did create a lot of fear.

This book led to some interesting discussions and you could use it as a way into a variety of topics. Tigger and I had some very good discussions about what people believed caused the Plague and how they reacted. That led into some discussions about scientific ways of thinking about questions and non-scientific ways of thinking about questions. You could also link it in to discussions of what was going on in the Church in that historical period. It is very clear that the Bishop is a nobleman, and that some other senior priests are corrupt. The religious characters are portrayed sympathetically, with probably a realistic range of piety and corruption along with other traits represented. There is some material that could lead into a discussion of forms of education (the main characters are choirboys and receiving an education at the monastery), choral singing, folk songs, calligraphy and illuminated manuscripts, and other aspects of the lives described.

We have now gone of the geographically specific again, to take up a book that Tigger’s Nana brought for us. Watership Down is another classic that I have missed in my own education. Not too long ago, it came onto my radar when Melissa blogged about it. I’m glad Nana brought it. We are very much enjoying it. And it’s going to take us a while to get through it, which is a good then when you are already lugging around more books than are probably advisable.

In addition to our bedtime reads, we have also read all of Gombrich’s A Little History of the World. We thoroughly enjoyed this. I suspect we might read it again sometime. It certainly confirms my view that Becky’s advice is worth at least listening to.

We are now reading Archimedes and the Door of Science, the Arrow selection for November. That is fitting in well with some of the other activities. Tigger, her dad and grandpa went to the Museum of the History of Science in Geneva where they picked up a history of physics (in comic book form). We also picked up a Histoire des Science (another comic book) in France. (I love French comic books.) So there has been a lot of history of science happening around here, if a bit haphazardly.

Tigger’s solitary reading has included Grimm’s Fairy Tales, several of the Murderous Maths series, and a French novel that she got me to buy for her in Geneva. The latter is taking a bit of encouragement. Despite the fact that she asked me to buy it, I think she is finding reading in French a bit more difficult than reading in English. I’m having to remind her that it is okay if she doesn’t understand every word; that she used to do that in English, too, and reread things and got something out of it. It might also just be the transition into doing something different.

In the next couple of days I might get around to posting about some of the art we are seeing in Paris (and Switzerland).

It seems that I forgot to do something before I left. It might be inaccurate to say "forgot" since it never really occurred to me that I might need to do it. But it turns out that, in addition to making sure someone is looking after your house, your cats and your mail, it is important to inform your credit card company if you plan to travel. Seems odd, I know, given that many of us have credit cards precisely for the convenience they offer when we are away from home (and buying things in another currency).

Mat tried to use the credit card to buy groceries the other day and the card was denied. We also tried to book an apartment in Amsterdam online with similar problems. We have had some glitches in the past few weeks but these seem to be temporary. But today, I phoned the credit card company (they will accept collect calls from overseas so it’s not like there is a big financial penalty). It turns out that all the transactions in various European countries have alerted the fraud detection folks who put a stop on our card. I think they phoned us (at home) to check though obviously that wasn’t going to work.

So I had a longish conversation with a nice man at the call centre today and everything is now fine. (I have used the card to buy stuff at the bookshop of L’Orangerie.) I still find it disturbing that I have to tell this business that provides me with a service what my plans are, though. I understand that their systems are designed to protect me (and them) from fraudulent use of the card and in one sense it is nice to know that if someone stole my credit card and bought a ticket to Europe and went on a spending spree, they wouldn’t get far. But given that both of the cards on the account were being used in similar places and that when you phone our home number you get a message saying that we are out of the country, it seems a bit odd that they would treat that as suspicious.

At the very least, it would be helpful if credit card companies told us, up front, that it is a good idea to inform them of our travel plans before we leave. You have been warned.

Just a quick check-in to let you know that I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. Since Germany my internet access has been even more difficult. We met up with Mat’s parents and stayed with them in a gite in France not too far from Geneva for about 10 days. Although we found some free wi-fi in Annecy, we’d gone on a Monday and most things (like the library, with free wi-fi) were closed. And then there were mountains to climb and so on.

In Geneva, where we’ve been for the past few days, there were cafés with free wi-fi but Tigger and I found other things to do. Like an amazing Marc Chagall exhibition. While we were in Martigny, we also learned about St. Bernard dogs and the Great St. Bernard pass at a rather well organized museum. There were Roman ruins around, too, including an amphitheatre that the town still uses for concerts, and a bit of a Roman road that had been exposed.

Today we travelled to Paris on the TGV and are now installed in a very nice flat with wi-fi. This might result in more blog posts about our exploits. There is some art to see in this town, apparently. Though the public transit workers are due to go on strike on Tuesday evening for heaven knows how long. Good thing we like to walk.