Category Archives: Travel

December 10, 2014

Traipsing Around Toronto

Last week went by in a blur! On Tuesday I left for Toronto for work. I only travel a couple times a year for work, so when I do it’s almost like a little vacation! A hotel room all to myself (even if it’s an airport hotel)? Yes, please! After finishing up on Thursday evening, I was lucky enough to hitch a ride into the big city, which sure beat the public transit marathon I’d been planning. My brother Kurt and his girlfriend Anna offered me a couch to crash on for a few days, and I eagerly stared out the window as the condos got taller and the restaurants more plentiful. By the time we arrived at their apartment off Queen and St. Patrick, I was pumped for my long weekend. And man did it start off right with all-you-can-eat meat at the Copacabana restaurant.

November 25, 2014

Travel Tuesdays | Yangshuo, China

Yangshuo is a popular tourist destination for people in China, and that much was obvious when we got off the bus. The streets were full of people who were clearly on vacation. The city of Yangshuo is beautiful, but it’s the surrounding karst landscape that really steals the show. And with hostel beds at $1.50 each and full western meals for even less, this place was paradise. Our hostel was clean and super cheap. It had a lounge with English movies (not subtitled) and was full of western backpackers that we could easily converse with. Keep in mind that during this trip we’d been living in Korea for over a year, and we were welcoming any signs of home.

November 18, 2014

Travel Tuesdays | Amsterdam, Netherlands

Exactly six years ago today, Rob and I woke up in Amsterdam. That sounds a lot more salacious than it was; we’d taken the train from Berlin the evening before and slept like rocks in our hostel. The weather was getting colder, the days shorter, and after 3 months on the road we were getting tired – sleeping in longer, and looking forward more and more to new socks, clean sheets, and not being on our guard all the time again losing belongings or being pick pocketed. We were starting to lose our edge as well: a few weeks earlier in Poland I left my iPod in a hostel and it was taken. In Berlin, Rob left our collection of foreign currency in the hostel, but they retrieved it for us and held it for us for over a week before we made our way back to Berlin just to pick it up.

November 11, 2014

Travel Tuesdays | Auschwitz, Poland

I thought about not doing a Travel Tuesdays post this week since it fell on Remembrance Day. But then I realized that there’s one place we’ve been that is particularly fitting to share today. Auschwitz-Birkenau was a difficult place to visit. Visit isn’t even the right word; it was an experience, but to say you’ve “experienced” Auschwitz feels like belittling those who were imprisoned and died there — and in all concentration camps. It was a place that I didn’t really want to go to, but that I felt I needed to. I left my camera locked up in the hostel because I couldn’t stomach the thought of taking photos. Rob is an avid World War II scholar, and he offered to bring his camera for some memories. And I’m glad he did, because every time I look at them I’m reminded — and that can only be a good thing.

November 4, 2014

Travel Tuesdays | Vaduz, Liechtenstein

We popped into Liechtenstein while we were in the neighbourhood. You really can just pop into Liechtenstein, since it’s only 160km² and has only about 35,000 people. The tiny country has Switzerland to one side of it, and Austria to the other. There’s just a mountain range in between. Everyone Most people seemed to live around the train station, it seemed. Castle Vaduz, where the Prince lives, overlooks the capital. We went for a walk up to it, but you can’t go in or even around the property, since the Prince and his family actually live there.