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Globalization has brought upon us several unpleasant consequences. Quite certainly, the advantages are greater. Finding the right balance between a global liberal economy and a fair social stand, a fair opportunity for development, is the challenge of a new century, and although it is easy to be pessimistic, considering the terrible statistics that flood our information society, statistics are in fact just numbers – cold, albeit effective.

To understand the new paths open to the world, some idealistic optimism is required. A naïve, simple-minded observation of what the world has to offer. An observation of human kindness, cultural exchange or peaceful locations that make you wonder when did the world get it wrong Never is there a better chance to wish for peace than a fresh year: thus, here is a celebration of friendship and peace, an open arms welcome to 2006, a plea for more contact, more understanding, more happy moments and less human tragedy. An innocent premise, perhaps, but could it happen if we all wished enough? Imagine all the people wishing the same. John Lennon‘s words reverberate today and many of us want to believe. Having completed one year of age on the exact day this song first played on the airwaves, I feel as if it greeted my life through rough times in the world. Nearly 30 years of profound change have gone by, ever more fast paced, ever more brutal. Yet, stand at the arrivals terminal of an airport. All you see is love all around. There is hope.

December 2004: Flying to Boston and back to Toronto. Christmas spirit all over the place. Family all over the place. Blizzard all over the place. Eight hours stuck in Logan Airport. Arrive to the coldest night of the year in Canada (-35 with wind chill). No taxis at the airport, but I still love taxi drivers (not). Shock hits me (and everyone) when a tsunami washes half of Asia away. Days of sadness and acts of bravery swarm the news. Not being religious at all, I plea with all gods for mercy and aid. New Year’s Eve is another cold night, so I stay at home, eat my twelve raisins by the window and wash them away with Veuve Clicquot. Had twelve good wishes for the year ahead, including world peace, goes without saying.

January 2005: Young Thai boy is found in the aftermath of the tsunami, wearing the number 10 jersey of the Portuguese football team – the father is alive and recognizes the t-shirt on television. Even tragedy proves that the Lusitanian soccer team is the best thing that ever happened to the world. I am leaving behind Canadian snow. A flight to Brussels Airport leads me into the middle of a strike. Stuck at the terminal for hours. They have good beer in Belgium, so I drink Hoegaarden and terrible coffee until my replacement flight can take off. Lyon, France: 10^th anniversary of environmental organization. The chair of the Rhônes-Alpes region hosts the event and refuses to speak in English to a crowd that does not understand French. As she later pays for dinner in a very fancy chateau, everyone is cool with it. Norwegian, Turkish and Moroccan table neighbours, heated discussion on the roots and consequences of colonialism. Later that week, I venture with a French family high in snowy Pays du Büech on a quest for the perfect cheese for raclette. We find it in a road-side fromagerie, and it really stinks (as it should). Then higher to a crumbling chateau inhabited by a gentle giant who tends for ducks, geese, peacocks, chicken and horses. We buy a rooster and drive the 2000 metres back down. With the stomach swollen by far too much raclette, I climb Montagne de Ceüze with a Fransaskois friend at midnight. It’s full moon, the snow glares with light, and my creepy shadow stretches over the valley. I lick a pole at the summit and my tongue freezes. Auch. The beauty of the moment promises great things for 2005. Paris: one week talking to well-dressed locals, scouting the Marais, rambling Île Saint-Louis. I later set off with three German expatriates to experience Dieppe, 60 years after the end of the war. French road signs get us lost just outside Rouen, and we find ourselves driving to Normandy instead. We end up in the Canadian Sector of the D-Day beaches. Calvados in Honfleur, Ricard in Caen, wine evening in Étretat. World War II bunkers are close by, and so are the lights of Le Havre.

February: High-profile meetings in the City of London. Exhibits. Interviews. Raindrops are falling on my head. Sneak with friends into a Greek pub with an early happy hour in Southwark and down four Mai Tais to warm up to substandard (read: wet) London weather. Laugh it off over Bombay Sapphire with tonic in the Soho, later that day. Dine at a fancy Italian one evening, at a Chinese joint the following – raw chicken is served and I fear for bird flu. Celebrate Chinese New Year in Trafalgar Square, near London’s Chinatown. Meet up with English, Irish, Brazilian and Kiwi friends in a Vietnamese restaurant that serves Thai food. Everyone laughs at my attempts to eat soup with chopsticks. I proudly leave the bowl full, instead of using a spoon. In Spitalfields, bump on Gilbert and George outside their home on Fournier Street. Lunch in Banglatown, literary saloon with old-fascist-basher-cum-writer-and-essayist (whose name I forgot). Amsterdam: boring shopping spree, Dutch seem to be an endangered species in the city. Düsseldorf: teach German to Korean travellers that insist they are not Chinese (duh!).

March: Pagan appeal. Germany flourishes, birds sing, fresias swarm the riverside. Spring makes me smile. Inland incursions to explore small dorfs and the whole spiel. Visit the Kestner Gesellschaft for a new exhibit, and bump on Gilbert and George again. The strangest things always happen to me.

April: Back to Canada for a second spring celebration. After two weeks, it does not feel any warmer. Retreat back to France and mingle with the locals again, glad that I am not an American in Paris. Spring is full on in the city of love. Watch The Downfall and like it, even though half of Germany seems to think it’s a piece of s**t.

May: Photograph the Masala Weltbeat Festival in Hannover. Performers from all over the tropical world make Germans dance as they know best: not-so-good. Everyone is happy anyway. Drink lots of Paulaner and eat loads of Bratwurst because the Chancellor likes it. Susana Baca, Chico César and Terezinha Araújo rock the city. Later in the month, as Latin Americans invade Hannover’s fair to do business, I bring Argentinians together with Italian, Uruguayan together with Portuguese, Chilean together with English and Brazilian together with Swedish. Make a few valuable acquaintances in the process and make my first genuine (and rare) Costa Rican friend.

June: Move back and forth in the German countryside, dive in the North Sea, bike along a canal halfway to Holland. Attend an Orishas concert in Germany, and the Cuban stars have the crowd hopping. Hop my way to an Angolan friend that I had lost track of five years ago, in a different latitude. Small world, indeed. We eat the best pretzels on Earth together. Fly to Toronto via Frankfurt, to find out that I could buy a swiss army knife, take it on board the 747, and no one would ever know. Security sucks. Really! Attend my very first Ukrainian Catholic ceremony of the Byzantine Rite. It’s less boring than Roman Catholic, but still slow, as I don’t understand Ukrainian. The father walks his share and opens/closes gates on the altar over and over again.

July: Danish friends return from six-month Asia and Pacific big overseas adventure. They are tanned and tired. Meet South-African-friend-who-plays-the-piano for breakfast at Tiffany’s. Head for Chicago and face 20 armed US custom officers in the Windsor-Detroit border. Hate the US at that moment and promise not to go back while GWB is in the White House. Have a blast in Chicago and my principles go down the drain: must go back soon. Return to a moist European summer.

August: A Ukrainian-Canadian friend tells me she wants to quit her job in gun-clad Kosovo, where an iffy African administrator honours local murkiness. She moves to less problematic Georgia, falls in love with Norwegian lawyer who works in Moldova. She announces the world sucks; I, instead, believe the dodgy areas of Europe are all about love and finding your karma in a weird kind of way. Brazilian friend visits from Holland, only to find Hannover sieged by 1000 police officers and not many punks on the 10^th anniversary of the Days of Chaos. Fly to London later in the month to sip some more gin and tonic and enjoy the Barbican. Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans and brings my hopes of seeing the home of jazz and blues to shatters. Television shows the best and the worse of human nature. The feeling of helplessness is painful.

September: Kiwi friend announces he’s off to Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay, then sends cards from Syria and Lebanon. I am confused about geography. I set off for a short cruise in a warm and summerly North Sea to buy tax-free perfume in Helgoland. Later, in Hannover, attend Serbian-Orthodox ceremony with singing children. The small chapel is the cutest I have ever seen, and that explains why the Greek with the big stony church across the road were annoyed. Still don’t understand a word, but there is a groove to it. Photographed for the Montréal Conference on Climate Change with a poster message for George W. Bush. A friend from London comes by and we hit the night, ending up in a Jamie Gray concert, the hottest star in town. Dine fine Burgundy food cooked by chef born in proletary Linden quarter. Later in the month travel long hours to northern Denmark to spend some days in the sun. Eat Viking food, brush up on my Danish, enjoy a smorgasbord, matjes herring and Aquavit in a cottage in Helganæs and lounge in rural Jutland. Denmark comes across as the quietest and cleverest country on earth – yet again. Later in the month, swap short German days for Portuguese sun. Eat lavishly for two weeks, travel to the Transmontan mountains and find out Spain is right on the horizon. Later in the month, pack up my books and send them to Canada, fly to Toronto, via Montréal. Germany is in the rear window.

October: Guinean friend weds handsome Swedish man. Brazilian friend leaves to East Timor, the up-and-coming new capital of rural-chic. He joins a plethora of others that make it very inviting. Business with Korea and China have me awake at odd hours of the night.

November: Still out of sleep. Wake up at 5 am to call Israel. Go to bed at 2 am to talk to China. Wake up at 6 am to call Spain, only to find out everyone is in their siesta. Cross the border to mysterious Pennsylvania. US Customs officers in Niagara Falls interrogate candid Amish girl, and act weirdly when I claim I want to sightsee, because apparently all the leaves were gone in Pennsylvania – what sights could I want to see? Visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and decide I need a similar piece of property. On the way back, a deluge is extinguished in the border, proving that at least one God must not like America too much, but Canada yes.

December: Cross the border yet again. Enjoy exciting Buffalo and (not) thriving Derby, in Western New York. Find out that a lake side mansion on Lake Erie will cost less than a bungalow in Toronto. Hang out at a stylish coffee house in Rochester and end up in an early Christmas party with international piano students from the Eastman School of Music. Travel further up back to Canada and cross the border at Thousand Islands. On the way, buy a New York State lottery ticket. The saleswoman tells me that, if she wins the 33 million, she’ll travel: there are at least four American states she has not yet seen. Drive up to Ottawa to meet an Irish architect at the Canadian War Museum, and then drive across the river for dinner in Québec, strange accents and different driving rules. The fact that everyone speaks Québecquois makes me uneasy, and I feel the urge to seek refuge back in cosy Ontario. The highways of the province soon vanish under a snow storm and I drive using only instinct and panic. Invite friends for more Danish matjes, Japanese tuna steak, Italian carpaccio and Australian cheese. Sir Elton John gets married and has not invited me. I will complain next time I’m in town. Ice skating on New Year’s Eve, practicing for a January attempt at London’s Somerset House. Pack my rucksack for Africa. Drink Baileys at Christmas and make a toast to the world. It’s not all bad, after all.