Editor’s Note: This post was originally written for InsideVancouver.ca.

When it come to pizza, Vancouver might not have the storied past of a New York – with its signature big slices – or a Chicago – with its deep dish bragging rights. But that doesn’t mean the city is a pizza wasteland.

In fact, owing to Vancouver’s sizable Italian population (plus some unique contributions from its Greek community) good pizza is available all over the city, from mom ‘n’ pop joints on Commercial Drive to erstwhile souvlaki houses on Broadway and fancy Italian bistros downtown. But what I want to know is where to get great pizza in Vancouver. Not just a good slice but a phenomenal one.

I’d like to put in my own nomination for Vancouver’s best pizza: Bella, which has locations in Yaletown and the West End, plus a few branches in the ‘burbs. Now I know that any talk of pizza supremacy is bound to stir up controversy. Some people like thin crusts. Others like thick, doughy crusts. There’s the issue of toppings – from pepperoni to arugula and everything in between – which can make or break an otherwise decent pie. Not to mention the whole murky terrain of pizzas without cheese and pizzas without sauce and low-carb pizzas that don’t have any crusts at all.

Click here to read the full article on InsideVancouver.ca.

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• A New Saudi Presence in Vancouver
• Baseball in Hockey Land? The Vancouver Canadians
• Trading for Gold: Vancouver’s Olympic Pin Traders

Next-door neighbor to both Iraq and Iran, Kuwait is in a volatile part of the world.  But in the decades since Iraq’s invasion, Kuwait has prospered off of a steady stream of oil revenue.  Today, the country is something of a contradiction:  A conservative Muslim state where Sharia law prevails and a consumer-oriented society where lavish wealth has encouraged lots and lots of shopping.  I visited Kuwait recently and spent some time in the country’s largest mall.  I wrote about my experiences for National Geographic Traveler.

Million-Dollar Shopping Zone

By Remy Scalza; Special to National Geographic Traveler

Just beyond the gleaming new subdivisions built in the desert, it rises – glorious and shimmering – in the Kuwaiti heat.

With 250 stores covering 2.5 million square feet, The Avenues is neither mosque nor desert palace but Kuwait’s largest shopping mall, a temple to the cult of consumerism.  I’ve come to be initiated.

Read more . . . .

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• In Search of Real Pizza in Vancouver
• A New Saudi Presence in Vancouver
• Baseball in Hockey Land? The Vancouver Canadians

Photo: Vancouver Saudi Club

Editor’s Note: This post was originally written for InsideVancouver.ca.

Vancouver is a great city for challenging stereotypes. The city’s population is not only incredibly diverse but also mixed. Walk down any downtown street and you’re likely to hear a blend of English, Mandarin, Chinese, Farsi, French and at least a half-dozen other languages. With so much interaction, it’s hard to hold onto simple preconceived ideas about groups of people.

I was reminded of this recently when, on a Saturday night, I saw a group of young guys from Saudi Arabia partying it up on Granville Street. Perhaps no region in recent years has been the victim of as much stereotyping as the Middle East. More often than not, Saudi Arabia is talked about in the context of violence and extremism. In the absence of any real contact with Saudis, that’s all many people know.

But on Saturday night, I saw something entirely different. A small crowd had gathered outside near the corner of Granville and Robson Streets, where Arabic music was being pumped out of a speaker. In the middle of the circle stood about a dozen Saudis, all guys in their teens and twenties. Except for the fact that they were speaking Arabic, it could have been any group of guys. They had managed to plug an iPod into a street busker’s amplifier – the kind of random stuff that happens late at night on Granville Street – and had cranked up a popular Saudi tune.

Click here to read the full post on InsideVancouver.ca.

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• In Search of Real Pizza in Vancouver
• Baseball in Hockey Land? The Vancouver Canadians
• Trading for Gold: Vancouver’s Olympic Pin Traders

Photo: The Province

Editor’s Note: This post was originally written for InsideVancouver.ca.

Vancouver is rightly known as a hockey town, and from October through April (and well beyond that on good years) the Canucks are the hottest ticket in town. During the summer, however, other sports take the spotlight. There’s football with the B.C. Lions, soccer with the Whitecaps and – believe it or not – professional baseball.

Although the squad doesn’t get a lot of attention from local press, the Vancouver Canadians is the city’s very own minor league baseball team. The Canadians are a farm club for the Oakland Athletics and play in the little known Pacific Northwest League from June to September. In the past, the Canadians were a prime source of Major League talent, with Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi and other big superstars spending time with the club.

In 2000, however, the team moved from the AAA to A division and now features mainly untested rookies still a long way from playing in the big leagues. But that doesn’t mean that a trip to the Canadian’s ballpark isn’t a thrilling experience. The team plays at Nat Bailey Stadium, a 5,100-seat field built in 1951 and located in the suburban neighborhood of Mt. Pleasant.

Surrounded by quaint residential streets and equipped with bleachers and wooden fences, Nat Bailey feels like an old-time ballpark. Plus, with general admission seats in the grandstand starting at $12.50, tickets are among the cheapest in town.

Click here to read the full post on InsideVancouver.ca.

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• In Search of Real Pizza in Vancouver
• A New Saudi Presence in Vancouver
• Trading for Gold: Vancouver’s Olympic Pin Traders

Editor’s Note: This post was originally written for HGTV.ca.

It was probably the biggest open house Canada has ever seen.  12,000 people toured Vancouver’s Olympic Village over the weekend, taking a peek inside the maze of gleaming new high-rises that housed 2,800 athletes and officials during the Winter Games.  By the time it was all said and done, 36 condos had been snatched up by eager buyers, ranging from a $445,000 one-bedroom to a pimped-out $4.75 million waterfront condo (If you’re in the market, don’t worry:  There are still about 450 units up for grabs).

I checked things out on Saturday, the big opening day, when a mix of buyers, curious onlookers and a few dozen protesters thronged the new neighborhood to witness VANOC (Vancouver’s Olympic committee) officially hand over the keys to the village to the city.  The excitement was understandable.  From the beginning, Olympic Village – which spans seven city blocks and consists of 16 separate buildings – has been shrouded in mystery and dogged by controversy.

Photo: Remy Scalza

When Olympic Village’s private developers were hit hard by the recession last year, the city of Vancouver ponied up $760 million in low interest loans to keep the project going, raising objections from local taxpayers.  Plans to include social housing units in the village have been successively cut back, raising the ire of housing advocates.  On top of that, Vancouverites weren’t even allowed near the village during the Olympics, when access to the area was restricted to athletes and officials.

So what did Vancouver’s newest and most anticipated neighborhood feel like?

Click here to read the full post on HGTV.ca.

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• In Search of Real Pizza in Vancouver
• Million-Dollar Shopping Zone
• A New Saudi Presence in Vancouver

Photo: Remy Scalza

The Okanagan wine country in western Canada is an amazing success story.  Twenty-five years ago, nobody had heard of the place and the only wine being made there was barely drinkable plonk.  Today, it’s one of North America’s most promising wine regions, lauded by The New York Times as the “Napa of the North.”  But behind the beautiful countryside and increasingly impressive wines is a big problem: lack of water.  Much of the South Okanagan is desert, and the demands of agriculture and a new wave of wine tourism have stretched limited water resources nearly to the breaking point.  I wrote about the region’s water problems and growing pains in a recent article for BCBusiness, a magazine based in Vancouver.

Tourism Threatens Water Security in the Okanagan

By Remy Scalza for BCBusiness Magazine

In the bone-dry southern tip of the Okanagan Valley, just outside the town of Osoyoos, a network of footpaths winds through thickets of sage and antelope brush. Braving the midday sun, a few hardy hikers – red-faced and sweating – push down the trail, leaving faint footprints in the sand and keeping an eye out for the rattlesnakes that make their home here, in Canada’s only desert.

What awaits around the final turn in the trail must first seem illusion, a trick played on the eyes by the shimmering South Okanagan heat. Abruptly, brush gives way. Neat rows of vines rise from the desert floor, leaves interlacing into a vast and improbable tapestry of green.

Here the path dead ends, sparse foot traffic giving way to the steady pulse of people and cars in the parking lot of Spirit Ridge Vineyard and Resort, one of a wave of new wineries and resorts to open in the South Okanagan in the last five years. In shorts and visors, visitors by the mini-busload spill into the wine shop, restaurant and wellness spa. Out back small children throng an oasis of pools, while duffers hack away on the Technicolor greens of a nine-hole course edged by sand and sagebrush just beyond. Surrounding it all, running right up to the 226 desert suites and vineyard villas at the sprawling resort, are grape vines: Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Merlot, ripening in the summer sun.

Click here to read the full article on BCBusinessOnline.ca.

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• Uncool, Overlooked Montevideo
• In Search of Real Pizza in Vancouver
• Million-Dollar Shopping Zone

Pretty much everyone knows that Brazil is home to the Amazon jungle: one of the wildest and most biodiverse places on the planet.  But Brazil also has another jungle: the mata or Atlantic rain forest.  And, in contrast to the Amazon – which is hard to get to and tends to attract mainly hardcore adventure types – the mata is right next door to some of Brazil’s biggest cities – Rio and Sao Paulo.  For travelers who might not have the budget or inclination to see the Amazon, the mata offers a unique glimpse of real jungle – howler monkeys, toucans, isolated and unsettled beaches, dense old growth forest.   Plus, you’re never far from a clean bed, a nice restaurant and a cold caiparinha.  I wrote about some recent experiences in the mata for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• In Search of Real Pizza in Vancouver
• Million-Dollar Shopping Zone
• A New Saudi Presence in Vancouver

A fishing boat sits in the delta waters off of Montevideo.

Most people couldn’t find Uruguay on a map.  The country doesn’t have a Lonely Planet guidebook.  There isn’t a single Hard Rock Cafe in any of its cities.  No American university has opened up a satellite campus there.  And for all of those reasons, Uruguay and its capital Montevideo are precious, rare and beautiful.  I had an opportunity to spend a year living and writing in Montevideo, a city that marches to the beat of its own drummer and really can’t be compared to anywhere else in Latin America.  This story for the Canadian magazine BCBusiness was an effort to sum up my feelings.

Sister Act: Travelling to Montevideo, Uruguay

Remy Scalza; Special to BCBusiness

A little sibling rivalry would seem inevitable in Montevideo. The diminutive Uruguayan capital lies just a hundred or so miles across the muddy shallows of the Rio de la Plata from big sister Buenos Aires. The family resemblance is unmistakable. Both cities tango. Both share the same predilection for big steaks and bold wines. Both feel more southern European than South American. But while Buenos Aires has long basked in the international limelight, Montevideo has quietly carried on in the shadows – the quiet, bespectacled sister who, in her own way, is irresistible.

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• Water into Wine: Drought in Canada’s Wine Country
• In Search of Real Pizza in Vancouver
• Million-Dollar Shopping Zone

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on the blog Inside Vancouver, as part of special coverage of the 2010 Olympic Games.

Olympic pins are serious business at the Coca-Cola trading centre in the Bay.

Inside the Olympic superstore at the Bay this afternoon, it was pure pin-demonium. The Bay is one of three official Coca-Cola pin trading sites in the city of Vancouver. The collecting and trading of Olympic pins dates all the way back to the first modern Olympics in 1896. It’s since grown into a cult hobby, whose enthusiasts are just as fanatical as hardcore baseball card or comic book collectors. And for the last two weeks or so, Vancouver has been their headquarters.

Gladys Wallack from Cypress River, Manitoba, shows off her collection of Olympic hockey pins.

Inside the Coca-Cola trading centre at the Bay, I meet Gladys Wallack from Cypress River, Manitoba. Today, she booked a three-hour trading block at one of the official trading tables. Laid out in front of her are hundreds of different pins from the Vancouver Games, from smiling mascots to First Nations symbols to pins given out by corporate sponsors. Over the last 25 years, Gladys has traded at 11 different Olympic Games. It’s a labor of love, an excuse to take vacations and a great way to meet people, she says. But it’s also a serious pursuit. Hard to find pins garner big bucks: A shiny USA hockey jersey pin that sold in stores for $10 a week ago just went for $107 on eBay, Gladys says. A loose set of protocol governs trading at the Games. If you’re brandishing multiple pins on your scarf or lapels, it’s a signal to other traders that you’re in the market. Anything you wear is technically up for grabs, although the terms of the deal are entirely up to you. To interrupt a trade in progress is considered the height of rudeness. And, of course, money is never supposed to change hands (Well . . . that’s the idea, at least).

Fans from around the world have left behind pins to mark their native cities.

Back at Gladys’ table, I get to witness a transaction take place. A sweet-looking girl – volunteer at Canada House, according to her badge – walks up and points to a shiny silver pin on her scarf. “Do you have this one?” she asks. Gladys nods – It’s a common pin, but she might be interested anyway. The sweet volunteer peruses Gladys’ stash for a suitable trade, finally pointing to a First Nations pin. But the Aboriginal stuff is hard to come by: Gladys declines. The tension mounts. While the deal is hammered out, I explore the rest of the pin trading centre. On one wall, hundreds of different brand-new pins are on sale for $10, ranging from tiny Team Canada hockey jerseys to iconic Vancouver landmarks. On the opposite side of the room is a giant world map festooned with pins left by visitors from different countries. There’s even a special station where for $12 you can get your picture taken with a replica torch and affixed onto a pin of your own.

Hundreds of different brand-new pins are for sale.

Back at the pin table, a trade has been brokered. In the end, Gladys reluctantly parted with a cute Miga, one of the hard-to-find mascot pins in short supply at the Games (Other red-hot items include anything to do with Canada hockey and pins featuring the Games’ iconic red mittens). But Gladys doesn’t look worried. She slides back one tray of pins to reveal another one glittering beneath with dozens of Canada hockey pins. “This is my powerhouse,” she says. The atmosphere in the pin trading centres represents a unique bit of Olympic culture. It’s definitely worth a trip, although it’s much easier to get inside at the Vancouver Airport and CTV locations (Bay visitors have to wait on the lengthy Olympic superstore line). In general, collectors are an easy-going lot. Stop by and they’ll gladly show off their wares . . . just as long as you don’t call them pin-heads.

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• Olympic Winos: Great grapes at Vancouver 2010
• In Search of Real Pizza in Vancouver
• A New Saudi Presence in Vancouver

Vancouver’s Winter Games have an official credit card, cola and cold medicine, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there’s an official wine gracing Olympic tables.  Last week, I had a chance to cover the Olympic wine scene for Wine Spectator.  Among the highlights: discovering North America’s first Aboriginal-owned winery, tasting with Napa Valley wine royalty Margrit Mondavi and sampling the Olympics’ own brand of bubbly.   The reporting was included in a special Olympic Unfiltered column on WineSpectator.com.

Olympic Champion Lindsey Vonn says, ‘Cheese!’

WineSpectator.com

Inside the big Indian longhouse erected in the heart of downtown Vancouver, a bit of Olympic history is taking place. Vancouver 2010 marks the first Olympic Games ever in which an Aboriginal community—Canada’s First Nations peoples—has participated as an official host. Guests at the Chief’s House, as the quirky, postmodern Aboriginal Pavilion is known, enjoy traditional Inuit throat singing, buffalo burgers and wines from North America’s first native-owned winery . . . .

Click here for the full article on the Wine Spectator site.

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• Trading for Gold: Vancouver’s Olympic Pin Traders
• Aboriginal Tourism 2.0: Canada’s First Nations Court Olympic Tourists
• In Search of Real Pizza in Vancouver