Tomorrow night, one of my dreams will come true…to see Metallica live.
I’m hopping on a train tonight, headed to Montreal. I’ll be meeting up with sis, and three other good friends for breakfast (or brunch, as I expect the train to be late). I head back on Monday evening, and should be home Tuesday afternoon, just in time to catch a class.
I can’t think of a better way to complete a recovery from nearly a week of battling the flu. What’s more; next Thursday Heidi and I are going to see The Jimmy Swift Band, Friday we’re going to Halifax to meet with friends we met in Cuba to catch some fantastic thai food and a Marilyn Manson concert, only to return home the next night to see Louis C.K. live at the Capitol Theatre.
I am incredibly fortunate to be able to do all this, but I worked hard all summer and didn’t make any of my usual expeditions away. More importantly, I consider this to be an appreciation of my health. Without which, none of these experiences would have any meaning.
I’ve been off the boat for a couple of hours, but my legs and core still think I’m swaying with the water. This weekend of sailing to and around PEI was just unreal, and I can’t wait to post some photos. For now though, I’m going to go back into radio silence till tomorrow; it feels good. I just needed to clean up a bit of spam on the site anyway.
Cuba was nothing short of fantastic. Jon and I did the typical resort thing in Varadero for a bit, before heading to Havana for a couple of days. (You can see photos by clicking here)
Havana was the highlight of the trip. Instead of paying for the rediculously-priced hotel “expeditions”, we just hopped on a local charter bus. We had no maps, reservations or plans. Just a few phone numbers I got through Couchsurfing.org. People were friendly, save for the few who were just befrending us for money. Police were incredibly helpful. I even spoke to an army guy which turned out to be not so much of a good idea, haha. In central Havana, we walked down a street to hear very loud percussion music. We peeked through the open door to see what it was—and that’s whenthe “mom” of the house, came out and invited us in with much enthusiasm. “Venga! Venga!”.
Four hours later we’re still in this house, it’s a Santeria ritual. Booze is flowing, 50 people are crammed in the room. People in trances were dancing wildly. It’s getting dark and we stil have no idea where we were staying the night. Jon was getting hungry. Our kind hosts found us a restaurant and a legal casa particulare in which we could both stay the night for only 25 CUC. We chatted it up with them till late before going to bed. I had never has so much appreciation for being able to speak Spanish. I realized how much I missed it and how many doors it opened, even though it’s only intermediate.
We wandered the city more the next day. There are so many stories I could tell, but I’ll save it for when we go out for a beer.
The remainder of the week at the all-inclusive resort was nothing short of blissful. Jon was an amazing travel partner, and I look forward to our next adventure.
I’ll be offline for another week, in a blissful beach paradise. I contacted a few Cubans via Couchsurfing.com and I may be linking up with a few Havana locals. Jon and also wanted to hitchhike from Varadero to Santa Clara, just so I can take a picture of myself next to the Che Guevara Monument…wearing my “Che Wearing A Che T-Shirt” t-shirt. That should be one of the coolest photos ever. Bah, I’ll probably just stay on the resort and soak in some rays…
Until next week!
PS: Go (Backhawks, Ducks, Capitals, Bruins)! My pool depends on you!
I just got back from Ottawa, after a 17-hour bus ride. I sincerely thank all the friends I got to catch up with for taking the time to hang out. Unfortunately, the switch to daylight savings time threw me off, and I stood up a friend at a coffee shop. Not only is that embarrassing, but I just feel horrible; I was really looking forward to chatting with him, and I took up his personal time for nothing. I’m really sorry Derek.
Other than that, my trip had been nothing short of fantastic. I didn’t get to skate on Rideau Canal, as the weather was a bit too mild, but I got to do my favourite thing in any new city: walk around and explore. I went to the War Museum, The Canadian Museum of Civilization, explored the UOttawa campus, and walked by pretty much every embassy and government building in town. In my opinion, the Supreme Court building is one of the most beautiful in the city, as I love art deco architecture. It looks like it came out of an old Batman comic. The Saudi Arabian embassy is also gorgeous. Ottawa has wicked pubs too.
Now it’s back to the reality that is university assignments, exam prep and applying for jobs.
I went to the Canadian War Museum the other day and was thoroughly impressed. It was very well laid out, the special exhibit on life in WWI’s trenches was incredible. I’m not a guns&ammo fan – I’m just a history nut, and the museum was really good at telling the tale of the past 400 years of conflict having to do with the area.
One idea that kept ringing in my head : How wars are viewed from home.
Nobody really wants to go to war, or to need to
…but people have an enormous potential to band together in the face of a threat to their “world”
The U.S. was invigorated to join in the fight for WWII because they wanted to exact revenge from a single very cruel incident (that was actually foreseen, but that’s another story), same for Afghanistan. But there’s also a critical mass of acceptable casualties, it seems, before a populace shows weariness and wants to back out of war. I believe that in a just war, we need to do whatever it takes to convince people of it’s noble goals, and how they are being achieved. However, there have been unjust wars as well. It may be tough to trust the government in the case of a real need for an effort on the homefront.
When viewing the reaction of Arabs following Afghanistan/Iraq, I can’t say I blame them. How would we react if some foreign power, of some “heathen” religion, invaded and killed a bunch of civilians, claiming that we would greet them as liberators? I can understand why someone would consider strapping a bomb to themselves to exact revenge from having his/her entire family killed by these invaders. Isn’t that was your typical dude from Kansas would do if that happened to his family?
It’s okay if we do it, just not if it’s them.
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
—William Shakespere, The Merchant Of Venice, Act III, scene I
While up in the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill today, who walks by and hops in the elevator going up? None other than Gilles Duceppe. Hah. Since watching the last federal election debates, I have an incredible amount of respect for that man.
Then we went to watch a rather entertaining Question Period. Jack Layton, Ignatieff, Harper, Duceppe, Dion et. al. were all there, bickering away at the best of their abilities. I loved it! I couldn’t help but laugh on how many of the MPs in the room spent most of the time with their head hunched over their BlackBerries.
It also makes me appreciate how lucky we are to actually be as close to our Prime Minister, or any of the MPs and party leaders while in the House. The fact that I can just decide to maybe check it out, and actually be in there two hours later is something really special. Try that in many other countries, and I’m afraid they’ll have some pretty big guns pointed at you before you even get near the building.
For those who are not familiar, Couchsurfing is a network for travelers. As is implied by it’s name, the idea is that you can just crash on an available couch in the area you are visiting, for free. You build a profile, indicate the availability of your own couch for travelers, and search for couches in cities you are visiting. It is an absolutely great way to meet interesting people of all walks of life, and travellers of all types are usually quite trustworthy. Hosts leave references for their surfers and vice versa, building trust within the network.
In the past week, I’ve had the pleasure of hosting three different couchsurfers. Sunday, I had a French guy stay a couple of nights. He lived and worked in Banff and was hitchhiking to Newfoundland to see the area. The day he left, I hosted a young Czech man who had pretty much the exact same story. Currently I have a guy from Utah/Hawaii crashing here. He’s in the area doing work to help people recover from all sorts of ailments, as he recovered from a personal brain injury himself, making his way up to an honors degree in psychology.
Being able to learn from all these peoples backgrounds, points of view and travels, and being able to share the idea of “chiac”, among others, has been nothing short of a great exchange. I hope to someday be a surfer myself, and hop around anywhere in the world for next t nothing in accomodation costs, and being able to really learn from locals wherever I go.
I want to suggest that you join Couchsurfing, but I see that most of the traffic hitting this website is frm Moncton, and I don’t want you guys to hog all the potential surfers!
