Tag Archives: vacation

I’m heading home

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It’s almost noon and I’m sitting poolside, but in the shade. I had a shower and really don’t want to lather up with sunscreen when I’m going to be taking a cab to the airport in just over an hour. After writing this I’ll put my audio spy novel back on for 20 minutes before heading to a shack restaurant in the strip of restaurants and shops across the street. I’ll order one more delicious breakfast burrito and savour it.

I usually prefer more active holidays, rather than planning my day between pool chairs and meals, but I have say that this was a fabulous trip! I was with great people, and my wife and I had more quality time together than we’ve had in quite some time. It’s easy at home to get busy and live side-by-side lives, without spending enough quality time together. It sometimes takes a holiday to really enjoy each other’s company and not just spend time planning the next thing, the next meal, the next shopping list, the next… and the next, and the next ‘thing’ we need to do.

I’m heading home today, but I hope to be able to find some chill time at home that keeps this holiday-time feeling going, ‘small slices of relaxation every day’ or ‘holidays in a cup’. I won’t have this gorgeous poolside view, but I can still find moments, slices, and tiny tastes of holiday every day.

Off to T.O.

I’m off to Toronto tomorrow. Just me, going to visit my parents. It’s not a very long visit and so I won’t be doing any visiting other than my sister and one buddy. I’ll mostly be in Oakville, and won’t be leaving my parent’s house too often… although I hope more family will visit while I’m there.

The hardest part of going home is not getting a chance to visit with people. I’d love to sneak off to Guelph for a few days and visit friends. I’d love to catch up with a buddy just outside Kitchener. I’d like to have a reunion with ‘kids’ I played and coached water polo with. But more than that I want to spend time with my family.

I used to get home then hardly be home, but as the years go by, I just want more time with my folks. And as much as people in BC make fun of Toronto, I love the city. It’s so multicultural, with food like no other city in Canada. It is a great city, and there is a lot to do. But I’ll be a bit of a turtle this trip and my parent’s home will be my shell.

I’m not really visiting the city, I’m just visiting my family.

Vertical panaramas

I like taking panarama shots. I love the look of them (although the rest of my family does not). I think they give a good feel for what the visual experience was like beyond the view from a camera lens.

But I also like taking vertical panaramas. And while like the horizontal ones, they can distort the view, like in this square courtyard:

And they aren’t always needed like in this case (first image is an unneeded vertical panarama):

Here it is again without using the panarama:

… But sometimes I really get a kick out of them. Here are a few to enjoy:

La Sagrada Família, Barcelona

Monserrat, Spain

Royal Palace, Madrid

And just an hour ago I took this one from a ferris wheel in Bordeaux, France

I’ve never printed them, and so it’s not like I do anything special with them. Also they can be hard to find on my camera roll because when you take them vertically they don’t always show up in the phone’s panarama folder. But I really like them. I enjoy taking them, and sharing them… even if my family doesn’t enjoy them as much as me.

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A final shot, Wells Cathedral in England, taken back in the summer of 2018:

Graffiti everywhere

In both Barcelona and Madrid there are no pull-down security shutters or blank walls that don’t adorn some graffiti. While a lot of it is just tags and initials, there are also some cute characters as well.

I find myself walking down old neighbourhoods covered in graffiti that would make me nervous to walk down in Vancouver, but that are just a natural part of any neighbourhood here. There is no connection between graffiti and bad areas to walk here, the street art is part of every community.

It’s Christmas Day and we are walking down a crowded outdoor Sunday market in Madrid. I’m surprised to so many people out and about here, tourists and locals alike.

When we reached the bottom of a long hill we took a small detour along a typical side street and in a matter of 5 minutes I took the following photos:

Any other street would have provided just as much to share. It seems that in the big cities of Spain there is graffiti, graffiti everywhere.

La Sagrada Família

The work of architect Antoni Gaudí is something you will probably have an opinion on, but I think that opinion can vary significantly thinking him a creative designer or a wacky artist. It’s easy to wonder if he every did hallucinogenic drugs when looking at some of his work.

When we saw one of his buildings last night, Casa Batlló, my daughters said it reminded them of Whoville, from Horton Hears a Who.

Today we visited La Sangrada Família, the church that Guadí dedicated most of his life to building and that is still being constructed today. An interesting thing about this church is that the intricate decorations and religious reliefs are all outside to appeal to the masses to come to church.

Inside is grand with vastly open ceiling space, and columns that resemble trees.

And beautiful stained glass windows.

I’m a fan of unconventional design. I love the merger between art and life, pillars like trees, uniquely shaped spaces, and the blend of curves integrated neatly with straight lines. I think Gaudi was brilliant and wish that his architecture had a greater influence on buildings designed today.

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One more shot, taken later after a tapas tour.

The long game

Playing the long game is often referenced in sports and revenge. ‘Wax on, wax off’ for the Karate Kid, with thousands of repetitions leading to skill improvement.

Or one of the best ‘long game’ movies I can think of, Fresh, where a young kid makes strategic sacrifices to get him and his sister off of a dangerous path.

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I’ve been up for a couple hours. My plan to stay up and adjust to the new time zone after my long trip to Barcelona failed. And so after 2 days of travel with no exercise I decided to work out. 5 sets of 20 pushups, leg raises, and crunches. Then a meditation. Right now I’m writing this listing to some 432 hertz music and I’m going to try to go back to sleep for a few hours.

I decided to write this first because the meditation I did on the Calm App with Jay Shetty was about perseverance, and while I listened I could see my reflection in the glass balcony door. In the reflection I saw my shoulders, trapezius muscles, and physical outline clearly, while my features were less visible in this not-so-perfect reflection. I noticed that over the last 4 years I have really transformed my body.

Four years. Not 3 or 6 months, not even 1 year, four. I started my fitness journey with a calendar on January 1, 2019. This was my reflection after a year. The path has been a tiny bit bumpy, but overall extremely consistent and without any significant injury as a result of my fitness regimen.

So often people (including me in the past) go on fitness binges and/or eating diets. It’s a race to see results. And while results can come from these brief attempts to improve, unrealistic fitness plans and unsustainable diets eventually lead to a point where they can’t be sustained.

I’m not trying to run ultra marathons or have a bodybuilder physique. I’m actually going to let myself let loose and eat a bit more gluttonous while on vacation. But I’m also going to find time to exercise, I’m going to return home and be more thoughtful about my diet after my vacation. I’m going to keep playing the long game and not worry about minor fluctuations in my schedule. Because while there will be fluctuations, I’m going to keep a schedule of writing, meditation, and exercise. I’m not looking for quick gains, I’m just working on staying on a healthy path, knowing positive results are still to come… in time. Perseverance and the long game are the path I’m on.

Travel plans

I find it odd how much time we spend planning to go away. We have a cat that needs attending to, and fortunately we have a nephew who will be staying at our place while away. There are flights and places to stay to arrange. There is the packing, and the planning of things to do.

Holiday getaways are wonderful things, and I feel fortunate to be able to enjoy the great trip to Spain we have planned, but I don’t get excited by the planning and prep work the way I see others get. I don’t know how to ‘do’ anticipatory excitement. But I love arriving at a new destination. I love waking up in the morning in a foreign place knowing that the sights and sounds of the day will be different and new. I enjoy the flavours of new foods.

Now it’s time to start packing so that I’m not in a scramble the night before we leave… and hopefully a little excitement will creep into the tasks I need to do.

Travel plans

I’m heading to visit my parents during the March break. I’m looking forward to it. It will be wonderful to see them, my sisters, and other family.

But hopping on a plane in less than a week got me thinking of a planned holiday that was cancelled almost 2 years ago. We were going on a Mediterranean cruise with stops in Spain and Italy, and holiday stops in Spain and Portugal. Covid stopped that and all other holiday travel.

I thought about this trip and how much I love going to new places I’ve never been before. I love the newness of the environment, I love exploring different foods and flavours. I love the touristy sights, but also the side trips off the beaten track. I love the adventure.

There is a saying, ‘No matter where you go, there you are.’ But I want to see more of the world. I want to visit new places and see new things. And I also want to do trips where I connect with family and friends.

Travel is a luxury. It is also a gift. It’s a way to expand your horizons and have relationships grow richer. I’m looking forward to the world opening up more. Thoughts of travel help me escape the pandemic, and news about war. No big trips planned yet, but the planning is part of the fun. I have no idea where the next big holiday destination will be, but I’m hoping Spain or Portugal might be back on the radar in the next year or two… it’s probably not something we could do this summer, but it really is good to be thinking about travel again.

Old locks

While packing things away for our renovation, I came across a my collection of old locks that I purchased at different markets in China. These locks are simple when it comes to operation, but complex in design and artistry.

My favourite of these are the combination locks:

The last of these I can’t get open despite having the combination.

My wife loved going to all the open markets when we visited a new city, and spending a few hours shopping at them really bored me. That is, until I found one of these locks and started looking for more. Suddenly I had a reason to go and it didn’t bore me quite as much.

While the locks are all unique, I honestly have not looked into them too closely and they could range in age from over 500 years old to less than 50 years old, but my guess is they are not worth that much in the condition they are in. And, I probably paid too much for them anyway. Still, I didn’t buy them for their inherent value, I bought them for the adventure of looking for them and finding them.

These locks may not have a lot of financial value, but for a couple years living in China they unlocked the secret to being a happier shopper when my wife would drag me to yet another open market on our vacation adventures.

Home Sweet Home

On my last day of work I left to visit my parents. I came home from that trip for 3 nights and then visited Nelson, then home for 4 nights and left for Kelowna. I also came home for 1 more night to drop my daughter off and head back to Kelowna. This whole summer I’ve been on the go!

I’m now looking forward to sticking around for a bit. I feel like I’ve had a great holiday and now I just want to rest up at home before starting back to school. I love to travel, but being home feels good. Sleeping in my own bed is something I’m looking forward to.

What’s even more exciting is that my wife and I decided that we will stay in our home for quite a bit longer, and so we are going to do a renovation that we’ve been talking about for years. We are planing to make ‘home sweet home’ even sweeter.