Category Archives: Personal

August 19, 2014

Travel Tuesdays | Lisbon, Portugal

Something about Portugal grabbed me. I’d spent years waiting to go to Spain, and I loved every minute there. But it was her neighbour that intrigued me, that made me want to stay a month and lazily make my way around the country, or even just around one of Lisbon’s neighbourhoods. It might have been the language; so close to Spanish and yet I could hardly understand a word. The portuguese accent had me constantly trying to “place” the language. Was it a mix of German and Spanish? Or was that French and Italian? The streets of Lisbon are narrow and steep. The trolleys are colourful and the flowers fragrant. We had an amazing meal there, the restaurant recommended to us with a vague hand gesture by our hostel owner to “follow the alley.” It was practically in a cave: dark with stone walls and lit by candles. No menus.

August 12, 2014

Travel Tuesdays | El Nido, Philippines

Our trip to the Philippines in January 2010 started off with the best weather-related problem we’ve ever had. It was snowing in Seoul, and thank goodness we left for the airport three hours early, because we just made our flight. Only the flight itself was then delayed because of the lineup at the de-icing bay, and we missed our connection in Hong Kong. Cathay Pacific put us up in a 5-star hotel for the night, and allowed us entry into the hotel’s 5-star buffet. AH-MAZING. Best start to a trip ever. We spent one month in the Philippines. We got our diving certification, went Island hopping, rented scooters, chased the whale sharks (never caught them), survived atrocious sunburns, met up with friends in Boracay, and overall had a wonderful vacation.

August 6, 2014

August Long Weekend Cousin Reunion

When my grandmother died it brought our family together for the first time in a long time. I saw cousins that I hadn’t seen in almost two decades. The sad event had a happy outcome, and now my brother and I have ten older cousins + their spouses and children to build more memories with. For the last few years now we’ve tried to have a cousin reunion each summer. Not everyone can make it every year, but we do our best. In just a few years we’ve welcomed new partners and new babies, and the family is growing quickly! My cousins are goofy, accomplished, down-to-earth, hardworking, and weird. I’m proud to call them family! And what better way to spend the Civic Holiday weekend than at the cottage with relatives?

August 5, 2014

Travel Tuesdays | Strasbourg, France

We were in Strasbourg for all of 2.5 hours, but it was enough time to make me wish — once again — that we weren’t limited to train travel. There were so many small towns and villages that I wish we could have driven to, ideally while accidentally taking a wrong turn on the way to somewhere else. We left Basel, Switzerland on route to Paris, but a short connection allowed us a couple hours to wander Strasbourg. While it’s a modern city, the train station is located in the heart of the old town, and the buildings style is exactly what I hoped to see in “old” western Europe. We headed in the direction of the Cathedral, which has some of the oldest Christian stained glass in the world, dating back to the 12th century.

July 29, 2014

Travel Tuesdays | Dubrovnik, Croatia

We arrived in Dubrovnik after a 5h30m bus ride from Sarajevo in late October of 2008. The Bosnia-Herzegovinian countryside was beautiful, and its dense forest and mountains made me nostalgic for Canada. The slight chill in the air disappeared as we descended to the coast. Our hostel owner had connected us with a friend in Dubrovnik. This older woman met us at the bus stop and walked us to her pension, which turned out to be first-class accommodations. We had our own entrance with a patio, a living room, kitchen, dining room, and large bedroom (with a king size bed!) and ensuite. After weeks of sharing dorm rooms or, at bed, two twin beds pushed together in a room the size of a closet, this was paradise.