Travel Dreams
Travel is something that I am always dreaming of. It is a constand thought lingering around in my mind. Constantly dreaming of the places I wish I would rather be than in freezing cold Canada. Though Canada is the beautiful country that I love to call my home, there are so many places all around the world that I hope to see one day.
Now that 2015 is upon us, travling is one of my goals for this year. Some of the places on my 'Travel Bucket List' are: France, Italy, Spain, Scotland, Thailand, Bali, Hawaii (and many more). Oh my, the thought of living in a place like Hawaii would make all of my pondering thoughts become a reality.
The question that remains is HOW all of this is possible. I believe that a potential answer to this question is A LOT of intense planning beforehand. Planning out the savings for the travels is one important thing to do for the trip. Seondly, discussing a plan of action to move forward with which specific places I will visit. I would also need to consider where I would be staying and what I would be doing throuhgout the travels. One idea that has recently come to mind is volounteering throughout my travels. This would give me an opportunity to get close with the community of where I would be visiting, as well as potentially getting free meals and housing while volounteering abroad. One interesting opportunity I looked at was the Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand.
Just imagine? Something to think about and look into when planning travels.
Traveling Close To Home
One of my favourite places to travel that happens to be close to home is located on Brindley Beach in Goderich, Ontario. This place happens to be my family cottage. This cottage has been a part of my life for 10+ years. My cottage has provided me with the most beautiful sunsets that I have ever witnessed and the most magical starry nights that take me to another planet. It is also a place for family and friends to have great food, amazing drinks and on-going conversations that will last all night.
The cottage is a place of escape during hard times but also a place to vacation to during hot summery weekends. This is a place where you can come to clear your mind and not have any worries in the world. Some of the best family times and family conversations have been held up our cottage.
Some of my favourite Brindley Beach Cottage Activities include: Paddle Boarding, Swimming, Tanning on the beach, Peppering, Beach Volleyball at Bob's court, Delicious family dinners, Wine nights, Campfires, Stargazing and much, much more.
The video attached is from a recent visit up to Brindley Beach. Being here in the winter is so peaceful and calming. This is a time lapse video of the calm winter fire, the dark wintery sky and the frozen lake off in the distance.
This video brings me peace and serenity. Enjoy.
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Posing Around The World
So far in my lifetime I have done a fair amount of world traveling. The travels I've done so far have mostly been family vacations or small trips with friends. I still have yet to do the world travels that I always dream about. Though I have not yet completed my full goal of traveling the world, I feel as though those travels are in the near future. Some of the previous destinations I have been to so far in my life are: Hawaii, Mexico (x5), Cuba, Dominican Republic, California, Arizona, New York City, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, Vancouver and I'm sure there are a couple more that I am forgetting. The places I have gone to so far are amazing, but, I have yet to do any big, big travel trips to even more exciting places.
One thing I know for sure is that I am totally in love with the sea, sand, beach, sun and waves. I have realized that I belong somewhere where I can wake up every morning to a beachfront view and to the sound of the waves crashing down on the sand. I am a total surfer girl wannabe and such beachy type of girl that living in Hawaii or somewhere similar would make all of my dreams come true. I have realized over the years that I am in love with the summer lifestyle and that being on any beachfront will make me the happiest. No matter if it is up at my own cottage at Brindley Beach or on the North Shore beaches of Oahu, Hawaii. The beach is where my heart belongs and it is where I will be one day soon enough.
The pictures posted above are of three different travel experiences over the past couple years where I am doing some yoga poses on the beach. The top left is dancers pose in Varadero, Cuba. The middle is Warrior pose in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. The top right is dancers pose in the Caribbean Sea of Isla Mujeres.
What worldly destination does your heart belong to?
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Hawaiian Travels
So I am sure it is obvious by now that if you have read any of my travel blog posts so far that I am in love with Hawaii. It is definitely my dream location for my future and I will do anything possible to make this dream come true. After having visited there once before, the place that is of most excitement to me is the North Shore, Oahu. This location has the most incredible beaches in the world and has an indie surfer vibe that I completley fell in love with. It is such a magical place that I knew from the moment I saw it that I would be back one day. One place in the North Shore that I visited was Turtle Bay in Kuilima cove. This was the location of the surfing competition in the movie Soul Surfer as well as the resort they stayed at in the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I would highly suggest visting this place in your lifetime if possible.
One of my favourite things about the North Shore was when my family and I visited the small little surf community downtown. This was the place where there were small local shops and shaved ice Cafe's (for those who do not know shaved ice is a type of snow cone treat that melts in your mouth and is so delicious). The beaches and the culture in the North Shore are captivatingly beautiful. Maui was another place I visited in Hawaii but did not like as much as the North Shore. It was more commercialized with big shopping strip malls and clusters of people. Not that I didn't like Maui, but the thing is, I would much rather reside in a place like the North Shore where it is raw, cultured and peaceful.
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Spontaneous Travel
One thing that I absolutely love to do in life is be spontaneous. It brings a spice to life and makes it fun to have new random experiences. This week included one of my most spontaneous travel experiences so far. As I sit here writing by the poolside in Florida, I could not be happier to have made the spontaneous decision to take this mini vacation.
The trip was booked on Tuesday morning and I flew out on Wednesday morning at 6a.m. Luckily my Grandma, Aunt and Cousins were renting a house in Orlando for a couple of weeks so that is how the destination of Florida came about.
One thing for sure is that my experience of actually traveling to get here was not good at all. I arose at 2:40a.m. to make it to Buffalo in time to catch my 6a.m. flight. I brought a carry on bag to make it easier BUT I was forced to check my bag due to the lack of space on the plane. While on the plane, the flight took an extra hour to land due to the foggy weather therefore I was terrified that I was going to be stuck in the air forever. To top it all off, when I arrived in Florida, no bag ever came through the luggage conveyor belt and my luggage was pronounced lost.
To say the least, my travel experience getting here sucked. BUT with all of that being said, the moment I stepped out the door into the hot sunny weather, all of that negativity went out the window. I became grateful for the opportunity to be somewhere warm and to be able to get away for a couple of days. As soon as I stepped foot onto the beach, I didn't care that I had no luggage or that my travel experience sucked. I have realized that it is so important to be grateful for the little things and not get upset about the things you can't change.
In the future, if this happens to you, just take a minute to take a deep breath and then realize where you are and how appreciative you should be to be given the gift of travel and gaining new experiences.
City Living
Over the past month, I have picked up my life and moved to the heart of downtown Toronto. After living in St. Catharines for the past five years and moving back home to Stratford each summer, this was a big change for me, as I have never really lived in a big city or lived alone. It has taken some time getting used to because this whole experience is something totally new to me. It was scary for the first few nights being in a big new city all alone in my solo studio apartment.
Now that I've been living here for almost a month, I have been trying to explore everywhere and anywhere I can. Though it has only been a short time that I’ve lived here, I have already experienced a lot of new things. Some of these things include: exploring local shops, finding new restaurants, visiting parks, finding new bars, meeting new people, getting new jobs and much more. I have done some cool things with friends such as: attending Blue Jays games, visiting a yoga convention, fun dinners, great drinks, local shopping, discovering of new cafes and exploring new streets.
Reflecting back on everything so far, living here has definitely expanded my horizons and willingness for the future to potentially move around and live in other places around the world. Moving, change and constant travel are things that I love to do. Who knows the next place I will reside in after I leave Toronto in six months? Or maybe this will be my new permanent home? The answers to these questions do not really matter because being in the moment and focusing on the present is all that matters. Going with the flow and enjoying my Toronto lifestyle is all I'm going to focus on for the time I spend in this wonderful city.
Ups & Downs of Travel
This past month I traveled to Europe for the first time. Throughout my travels I learned so much about European culture as well as the ups and downs of travel. How this particular trip was planned was that my parents were already in Europe and my sister and I were planning to surprise my Mom there (my Dad knew and he was the one who planned it all). When you are traveling, you can’t count on everything to go perfectly smooth, which it didn't. To start out the trip, we were at the airport almost 4 hours early but we almost missed our flight. We were directed by Air Canada agents to wait in a specific line for three hours, which happened to be the wrong line. Secondly, we connected in Montreal and were supposed to fly out at 6:30pm. While sitting on the plane for an hour and a half we were told by flight attendants that there was a delay due to maintenance issues so we left around 8:00pm.
After the flight took off, I thought it would be smooth sailing from here and I was excited and ready to go. I didn't think anything else could go wrong until my sister pointed something out. My sister is quite paranoid of flying and about an hour into the flight she knew something was wrong. They never turned off the seatbelt sign, which is something they normally do shortly after takeoff, so at this point she knew something was up. She was right.
Shortly after my sister noticed this issue, the captain gets on the speaker and says that the plane has to make an emergency landing back in Montreal - right where we started - due to “weight” issues. While we were flying back to Montreal, not only were we shaking in fear that we were going down, but to top it all off, we saw one of the Air Canada flight attendants do the sign of the cross, praying that we wouldn’t be going down. At this point we were pretty scared that the flight attendants themselves thought the plane was going down.
As we landed there were 25 fire trucks waiting for our plane. At this point both of us start freaking out because we thought that the plane was on fire. After the "weight-issue" excuse, the captain proceeds by saying it was just an issue with "over-heated" tires and that they needed to be cooled down. This excuse wasn’t even the last excuse they gave us either… The next excuse they gave us was that we needed to refuel the plane (which is really reassuring after we had already taken off for an 8 hour flight over the ocean). Finally they told us the truth, which was that there were engine problems. Finally some truth from someone. They couldn’t hide the engine problems much longer from us because we happened to be sitting right beside the engine, which was cranked open like the hood of a car. We sat on the plane for 2.5 hours while they attempted to “fix” it.
After sitting on the plane for a long period of time, the captain proceeds to get on the speaker and say that we are going to “aim to take off again in 30 minutes”. This was definitely not ok with either of us, so we went up to the flight attendants and told them that we were getting off the plane no matter what. After 2 hours of sitting on the parked plane, the captain finally announces that they were going to evacuate the entire plane and that the plane would be “worked on for a couple hours” and be "re-scheduled to depart at 1:00AM." This was also not ok with either of us still so we were protested that we were not getting on a flight that was using the same broken plane. That night they put my sister and I in a hotel in Montreal and scheduled us for a flight the next morning at 10:30AM. They ended up cancelling the 1:00AM flight anyway so everyone on our flight was dispersed to different hotels around Montreal (so we were just ahead of the game).
The next morning we were right back where we started, at the gate, anxiously waiting for the plane and the crew. We decided to grab some breakfast and a couple of mimosas in order to relax a little bit. After breakfast we attempted to find out more information to make sure it was a different plane. We asked the Air Canada attendant at the desk about the plane and she told us it was the same plane. Great! This was the point when my sister stormed away in fear and terror down to the other end of the airport. Due to the lack of information from everyone who works at Air Canada, the lady who we originally asked gave us the wrong information. We had to ask the captain directly, and he reassured us that it was a new plane. From this point on, on our flight was smooth and everything went ok.
When we landed in Rome we thought everything would be uphill from here. But of course, our luggage did not land with us so we were without clothes for 3 days. In order to get our luggage back, we had to physically drive back to the Rome airport, which was a 120 Euro cab ride there and back. We spent about 3 hours running back and forth from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3, on a massive treasure hunt to get them to give us our bags back. I felt like I was in a video game where you had to find the next clue in order to find the right door to look behind. Eventually we got them back. Our bags were stored away in this tiny room where we had to knock on a closed door that was in a random spot located in this airport. At this point we were just laughing at the series of unfortunate events that continued to occur, because what else could go wrong (apparently everything)!!!
Rome & Corfu
My first Euro experience was amazing. It's a different world over there and I believe it's a must for everyone to see at least once in their lifetime. The first place I visited with my family was Rome. Rome was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen from an architectural standpoint. On every street corner there would either be a 500 year old church or a 300 year old building that held so much history. Rome is such a cultured palce that it's a privilege to be able to see these unbelievable structures up close. Rome was short lived, since we lost a day of our trip due to some unfortunate circumstances (read below), but I am happy that I was able to see as much as I could of this beautiful city.
One of the things I loved about this trip was the location of the place we stayed. We stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment that was located down tiny side street, right in the heart of downtown Rome. We were surrounded by cafe’s, pizzerias and small food stores where you could pick up groceries. Even though I've never sweat so much in my life, as Rome is one of the hottest places I have ever been, it's definitely worth the trip to see all of the amazing aspects that make up the city of Roma!
Some of my favourite things about the European culture is how they do "coffee". It's a lot different in comparison to the way North America does "coffee on the go." In Europe, it is rare that you will see a Starbucks or a Tim Hortons like you do in Canada. Instead of the mainstream coffee shops, there are smaller cafe’s down every street. The catch is that you must sit down to have your coffee. This ritual is to reinstate the idea of sitting down and interacting with others to have a relaxing experience while you have your coffee. In Canadian culture we are always on the go and we take our coffees with us to “refuel.” We rely heavily on coffee to help sustain us for the entire day. In Europe, it is more of an all around "experience" when you sit down for your Espresso or Cappuccino. I definitely loved that.
My next stop was Corfu, Greece. Corfu is a tiny island surrounded by the Ionian Sea. I was privileged enough to stay in an amazing villa that had an infinity pool with a view of the entire Ionian Sea. With the daily view we had, we were able to see Albania to the left of us and the small town of Ipsos to the right. Our view each day consisted of the tiny houses that rested on the hillsides of the entire island to the miles of mountains that caught the horizon across the sea.
On one of my last days in Greece, we visited a place called “La Grotta Beach Bar.” This was definitely my favourite day of the entire trip. To get to this place you had to walk down about 200 steps until you reached the bar and grotto. It consisted of a be achy style bar up top and a grotto to swim, cliff jump and snorkel down below. This place had a beautiful view that almost resembled Thailand in a way. It was covered with many different cliffs, mountains and rocks. People were able to cliff jump, swim all around the rocks, snorkel and take boat tours to see the whole island. Being able to say that I went cliff jumping in Greece is a pretty cool thing to look back on. This was such an amazing experience I if I could go back there right now I would.
I had so much fun in Greece. It is definitely a different lifestyle on Corfu Island where everything runs a lot later than a regular Canadian schedule. Our daily schedule resulted in waking up around 1pm, making breakfast, going to the beach until 5pm, coming home for “Sitesa” (the daily nap ritual), waking up around 9pm, going out for dinner until around 12am, coming home and “pre-ing” until about 2am and then going to the bar from around 3am-5am. After we would get home each night between 4am-5am, we would always go for a stargazing swim. This was a magical sight to see. Floating in a pool that faces the sea while you are gazing up at the millions of stars and listening to the sound of the waves is one of the most amazing things I have ever done. One other thing about Corfu is that I've never seen such a bright moon. Since it is such a small island surrounded by so much water and minimal lighting coming from the town, it left room for the moon to be the brightest thing I've ever seen. It was such a magical experience and I'd love to go back at any second.
One of the extra “late” days in particular, we stayed up for the sunrise which was one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen. I loved the island vibes and the relaxed culture of Corfu. I would definitely recommend visiting Corfu if Greece is a potential place on your travel bucket list. It gives you the best of both worlds with either beaches or grottos as well as a great nightlife and delicious Greek food.
Check out some pictures below from both Corfu and Rome.
Calgary, AB
Once again, I have packed up my entire life and moved away from home. This time it's not just a 2 hours drive away from home, but instead a jump across Canada, all the way over to Calgary, Alberta. The crave for travel and new adventure has happened once again. The perfect opportunity happened to come up for me to venture to Calgary so I took that opportunity. Being out west is always where I saw myself living so I decided that it would be a great decision for me to do so. I would always say to my friends that west is best and it is where I want to live eventually. With only visiting the west a few times for volleyball, I had fallen in love with it just from those few visits. I figured I would always be out here one day, but I never thought it would be this soon. The path that life takes you on can be a crazy one sometimes. You may never know what is going to happen, but often there is reasoning behind what happens and things will uaually work out in the end. It's important to take risks and chances in life. Stepping outside your comfort zone is where all of the magic happens and it definitely pays off in the end.
My journey to get to Calgary was a solo drive that took me around 32 hours total. I drove through the US and I stayed in Minnesota and Winnipeg along the way. The drive gave me a lot of time for thinking, listening to good music, eating 100 bags of sunflower seeds and laughing hysterically at some of the funniest audio books that I would strongly recommend listening to (Seriously, I'm Kidding by Ellen Degeneres, Yes Please by Amy Poehler and Bossypants by Tina Fey). It was interesting driving through a ton of tiny cities that I had never even heard of. When it was all over, it did not even feel like that long of a drive and I truly enjoyed the journey.
One of the reasons I always wanted to live out west was because of the beauty of the mountains and the outdoors. I loved living in Toronto but usually I would find myself coming home from work, sitting in my apartment by myself, watching Netflix and people watching some of the crazies who lived on Queen West. If I wasn't doing those things that I mentioned, then I would most likely be out for drinks and dinner, spending loads of money that I didn’t have (making it super tough to save any money at all). Living in Calgary is a lot different. There is still a great nightlife with a very pretty downtown area but it is surrounded by a huge blanket of mountains on the outskirts of the city. I love the feeling of being able to see the entire downtown while also seeing a row of mountains on the same horizon. There is a perfect mix of rural and urban living in Calgary and I love having little bits of both in my life. I love being downtown in the city but sometimes I get sick of the city and that is when I crave the outdoors and the mountains. Knowing that I can take a 45 minute drive and end up in the mountains is comforting to me.
Initially I was scared to make this big decision to move here. I’ve definitely never lived this far away from home before, but this entire journey has been an adventurous one and it has payed off so far. I obviously miss my friends and family back at home but that is what FaceTime is for! I love that we have the ability to be able to see and talk to our loved ones at the touch of a button even when they are so far away.
I definitely encourage those who are reading this to take chances in life by taking steps outside of your comfort zone. You never know what great things might be waiting for you around the corner!
Johnston Canyon
After feeling anxious about leaving my family and home after my holidays were over, I surprised myself with how great I actually ended up feeling when I returned to Calgary. With the help of a lot of new exploring and adventures right off the bat in the New Year, it definitely was what I needed in order to feel good about coming back here! My new year started off with a few adventurous experiences that I loved! The first adventure of the year was a hike at Johnstons Canyon in Banff, AB. This hike is one that I've wanted to do since I moved to Calgary. Not only was this hike the best one I've done yet, but it also threw in a few awesome surprises when we reached the end! This was the first winter hike I've done and it was breathtakingly beautiful with the snowy surroundings covering every tree and every mountain.
There were two parts to this hike - the lower falls and the upper falls. We started off with the lower falls which was a short distance of just 1.1km. When we arrived at the lower falls, it was an amazing view of a big waterfall through a huge sheet of ice! I had never really seen a frozen waterfall before but let me tell you, it is quite captivating to look at. The other cool part was that you had to climb through this tiny cave and out the other side in order to see the waterfall. Only two people at a time could fit through this tiny cave so it definitely felt like it was our waterfall at the time.
Now, if the lower falls weren't a cool enough experience to take in, just wait until you hear about the upper falls. We were obviously craving more than just the lower falls so we decided to take the extra 3km hike up the mountain. The rest of the hike was very peaceful and quiet until we reached the end. I was expecting something grand and beautiful when we got to the end but it was so much better than that! As we approached the end of the path that was guarded by a railing, there were tons of people standing there, looking up and pointing at something. At first we didn't really know what was going on but then we realized there were people rock climbing!!! The craziest part was that it wasn't even 'rock' that they were climbing, but a huge frozen waterfall that had turned into a sheet of ice!
This experience was definitely one of the coolest things I'd ever seen but also quite scary at the same time. Seeing this made me think about how brave these people are and how amazing they would feel when they reached the top as they accomplished scaling a kilometer high wall of ice!!! Seeing this made me want to explore some new hobbies and try out new things in the new year! It might not necessarily be rock climbing a wall of ice, but maybe something along the lines of getting back into snowboarding or getting into acro/ariel yoga! New things are always fun to try! I'd encourage you to challenge yourselves and to do the same in the new year! You never know how good you may feel after your goals are complete!