Gearing up for France

Huh - just realized the pun in my title. I often don't insert a title until I'm done writing the post, but this time I just knew what it would be. Anyway... I just got back from a really nice ride with my favourite group to ride with. We went to Gatineau Park and headed out to Wakefield - even saw the steam train stopped there - a little busy, mind you. Marcia took some pics of us in Wakefield - if I don't look like a total dork I'll post it right here when she sends it out. Then we headed back into the park to do a few hills before heading into Old Chelsea for lunch together. After NFLD and MTL, I have felt quite out of shape - and no cycling at all in the last 2 weeks. It was so good to get back on the bike today - I had a big smile when I hopped on. Also got caught up with my friend, Ruth, who just got back from cycling in Greece. Very cool.

Part of the reason for this post is to put up some info on my trip - which I leave for this Thursday! Woo-hoo! Jan says she needs her morning distraction, and others have wanted me to post the route I'm taking for the cycling tour, so here you go... the tour company is actually listed to the right hand side of this page under my links "French Cycling Holidays", however, the actual route I'm taking is through the Languedoc. Click on that word and it will take you to the page so you can follow where I'm at each day if you like - it gives you a rough estimate of what I'm doing (Day 1 is Sunday, Oct 8). I'm partly excited and partly nervous right now. I'm sure once I hop over the pond I'll be feeling much more relaxed about it. That, and maybe once I've gotten the first couple days of the tour done and I've conquered some hills. I'm a little nervous about them too. It took me a while to get up the courage to tackle the park - and apparently this is waaaayyyy hillier!

... ok - here we are today:

Photos from the Rock

They are posted! Enjoy! You will notice a lot from Cape Spear - I went twice. The waves on the first day were 15-20 ft because of the hurricane in the Atlantic. Pretty cool! I didn't rename all of Nic's photos - too lazy. All of the mermaid photos, courtesy Nic, are from all around St. John's. They are pretty fun! And the one of me at the National rental car desk - I'm holding the keys and a hanger - yep I have a hanger and I know how to use it! Won't get my camera out of the car today? Just watch me! ;)
Aristea has the pic of me kissing the cod, and I don't have it yet. I'll post that when I get it.
Hope you like them!
-Bex

Back Home

Well, I'm home thanks to my sis! I'm totally wiped and ready for bed, but thought I'd post one last time on this trip. Last night at dinner I'm 95% certain we sat beside Mary Walsh. Nic didn't know who she was, but I thought it was pretty cool. I always liked her skits when she dressed up kinda like Sheera and taunted the PM. Anyway, this morning I woke up feeling like a truck hit me. It's the combination of walking for at least 3 days straight up and down those crazy, steep hills around St. John's - how do they drive there in the winter?? Yikes! And also the hike around Signal Hill yesterday, combined with sleeping in a couple of different beds this week. That's certainly one drawback to traveling a lot: I find that even if a bed is comfortable, it's not yours. And the longer you sleep in it, eventually you'll live to regret it. So chiro and massage appt are on the agenda before I head to France. Nicole left this morning after breakfast for a very, very long flight back to the west coast and I left a couple of hours after her. In the meantime I took one last walk around town (I dragged my sore butt out to do it) - it was a really beautiful day. I am so happy that I can now say I have been to all 10 provinces in Canada! And I have to say that I am grateful for having such privileges in my life. I've inserted a sneak peek at what will come soon in the photos section (me at Cape Spear)...
(PS: I did get to kiss a cod! Oh my GOD did it ever smell bad!!!)

Touring the Island

Finished up our meetings with a day of training and a dinner with just our group (the spec reps), which was nice. We don't often get the chance to hang out together. Next morning Nic and I checked out of the hotel, picked up a rental car and dropped our bags off at our B&B, just down the street. It's called the Bluestone Inn - very nice. Neil and Anne run it and they are really great. We headed out on the road and did a tour of a very small part of NFLD... this place is so big! We went to the following places: Brigus, Cupids, Holyrood, Conception Bay, Bay Roberts, Dildo, and Placentia Bay. The highlights are as follows:

• Nic had a PB&J sandwich for lunch in Brigus;
• Stopped in and got our pics taken with the giant squid and Captain Dildo in Dildo;
• Had to stop and document cows on leashes on someone's front lawn (you'll see the photos once I get home and upload);
• Saw a moose on the side of the TransCanada (tres cool!);
• Got chased by local NFLD boys in Placentia Bay - Nic got out of the car at the Heritage site and said to them: "I'm guessing you're not here for the visitors' centre" - they didn't know what to say - I could not stop laughing!!;
• Ended it up at Cape Spear (the 2nd time for me - it's so beautiful I had to see it again!);
• Spent about 7 or 8 hours on this tour and came back entirely exhausted!!

Today when we dropped the car off again at the hotel, I dropped the keys in the drop box and then realized I'd left my camera in the car. Picked up the phone at the National Car Rental stand to talk to the lady who was apparently working at the airport. She was actually pretty rude (very unusual for this part of the country) and told me I wouldn't be seeing my camera today. I looked down into the drop box and could clearly see the key, so I asked Adam, the bell boy, if he could get me a hanger. He was a sweetheart and did and voila! One key retrieved and camera saved! :) Today we shopped around - I bought some souvenirs and then hiked up and down Signal Hill with Aristea. Tonight Nic and I have reservations for dinner at the Gypsy Tea Room. It looks really great. Tomorrow morning I hope to tour around the city a bit again before heading out to the airport... the weather has been phenomenal!! I hope it holds tomorrow.

Fish & Chips, Screech, and George St

What were my resolutions for this week? Hmmm…. to not eat fried food and to not get sucked into drinking too much. Well, that all went out the window on Monday night when we went on a pub crawl which commenced with a dinner of fish & chips (good fish, but a little too heavy on the ‘fried’ side of things – felt pretty pukey afterwards). I kinda knew I’d eat fish and chips this week once anyway, so I can check that off of the “List of things to do while in Newfoundland”… but the drink tickets at the 4 bars we went to didn’t help the ‘don’t drink too much’ aspect of my promise to myself. This doesn’t matter though – as Nic and I agreed: it was probably the most fun we’ve had at a meeting in our 4.5 yrs with the company thus far. There were bands, or at least a guy with a guitar, at most of the bars and at one of them we sang some Newfie songs which was really fun! They got people up on the stage at every bar to participate too. No – not me. At another bar there were professional Irish dancers who taught us how to dance a jig. At yet another we learned how to make noise with spoons (most people were too in the bag by then to keep the beat). The last bar had a really good band and everyone was on the dance floor. I didn’t actually stay very late, but had a ton of fun. And if you made a bet on whether or not I was up for that workout – well, surprise of all surprises: I was! However, when I washed my face before heading down to the gym I had a look in the mirror and thought, ‘Whoa… now those are bags I’ve never seen under my eyes before!’ 6 AM here translates to 4:30 AM at home, so you can imagine what I must have been feeling doing that on the first morning after touching down in this time zone.

Today was a long, long day of meetings and in the afternoon a very, very boring speaker. The content was solid, but the doctor was so monotone in his delivery… the funniest part is that apparently the videographer taping the session was snoring!!! In the evening I went out for a 3 hour dinner with my Ottawa and Kingston colleagues and we had a blast! After another totally amazing meal we went on to Trapper John’s on George St and we all got Screeched In… had to do it while we were with Darrell (our Ottawa team’s very own Newfoundlander). I’ve got a bunch of photos to post from that and a certificate stating that I am now officially an honorary Newfie. We didn’t get to kiss a cod though – we had to kiss a puffin’s ass, which apparently is also customary. However, I would like to have a photo of me kissing a cod from this trip, so we’ll see what we can do about that this weekend. Aristea is also staying on for the weekend and said she’s in for finding a cod to kiss – probably Friday night, I’ve been informed, since that’s apparently going to be quite the partying night here in St. John’s. After the screeching in we went on to a bar called O’Reilley’s where they had open mic night and one of our southern Ontario colleagues, Jamie, took the stage for a few songs. There were also 3 guys from New Zealand who got up – with their own instruments!!! A base, a guitar, and a stand-up drum! Aparently this was a "stop" to see a friend on the way to New York and then Tahiti - sure, I get that...??? They were really good – however, much older than my friends and I (maybe even a bit older than my parents!), and 2 of the songs they played were actually before my time so didn’t know what they were. Once they played a Beatles song it was all good.

St. John's

I am soooooooooooo tired! 6 hours of traveling kind of hit me hard after such a busy week. Friday night I stayed out with my colleague and a few of our friends, then had to be at a conference for 8 AM on Saturday. Didn't get home until 5 PM, and still hadn't started packing for this trip. Got to bed at midnight last night, up at 6 AM today to leave for the Rock. Needless to say, for someone who, before traveling abroad could not sleep anywhere foreign, I did a lot of sleeping on the plane today - both flights! I was one of those people who was catching flies and people point and laugh at. Thank GOD I don't snore!! (I hope)
It's 8:30 PM at home right now - 10 PM here and I'm going to bed now. I didn't get to see much of the view coming into St. John's - not because of the weather, but because I was in an aisle seat (which is my preference, actually, so I'm not put out by it at all), and the wing was in the way. Stupid wing. Do we really need a wing on the plane? ;) I have an amazing view of the harbour from my hotel room! We had a great dinner tonight - crabcakes, salmon, etc. Everyone I was with had something that came out of the ocean. Walked down George St on our way back to the hotel. That's pretty much all we've had time to do so far since we arrived around 5 PM. It's not warm here, but not really that cold either. Won't really matter tomorrow as we'll be in meetings all day anyway. Plan for tomorrow is to get up and join 3 of my colleagues in the gym at 6 AM. Who wants to place bets on whether or not I'll actually do it? Ha, ha! I'll let you know how I make out on that front.

NFLD Bound

After a jam-packed week of work: a 3-day meeting in Montreal where I had the opportunity to help with some new software training with the francophone field force - I got to practice my French skills, which was cool! Then a full day at a stroke conference here in Ottawa today... I am now thinking about re-packing my bags for the Rock. As most of you are aware, I have actually LIVED (yes - lived) in 5 of the 10 provinces of this great country. And in fact, I've lived in 7 of its cities - most of them small, but of course Canada is made up primarily of small places scattered about an insanely vast landscape. This is my first trip to the ONLY province I have not yet visited: Newfoundland. A place known for its small, quaint towns with crazy names, and it's even crazier dialect which I usually cannot understand, even having some friends who hail from The Rock. I am totally psyched! The trip is primarily business, but in proper 'national' sales meeting fashion (i.e. only once per year), we will have time for fun on one half day and lots of evening stuff. My only goals (beyond having a ton of fun - oh yeah, and working too): not to eat too much fried food, and not to get sucked into drinking too much. At the end of the week I will be sticking around for 3 more days with my good friend from the west coast (Vancouver), Nic. She and I should get into our fair share of mischief. Stay tuned...

The Roots

I've now updated one hyperlink so you can view my photos. I know that's what most people like about trips anyway... in the process heard from a few of you that I hadn't shared some of my previous trips' photos before. Too bad - sorry Boyko... I guess I figured I'd shared the Greece pics at the time. Only well over a year later do you get to check 'em out.
So maybe I'll fill some of you in on how it happened that I seem to have a thing for traveling. I guess I come from two families of travelers - it's in the genes. Maybe going back to Wales in the late 1800's is pushing it, so we'll start with my immediate paternal family who moved all across Canada and back home again (to PEI) when my dad was a kid. My mom's family moved around NB & NS, and it was in the former that my parents met. It was once told to me (don't kill me if I'm wrong M&D) that at the tender ages of 19 & 21, my parents had decided they wanted to move out west. As you might have guessed, in 1972 that didn't go over so well with their folks, and they were instructed that they would not be going anywhere together if they were unmarried. So they got married and I believe it may have been less than 2 years before they started trekking across the country... soon with one and then two kids, and a dog to boot. The shortest duration of stay in one place for me was 6 months, the longest 2.5 years, before we settled down for a while in the nation's capital city. Every place we lived, from Nova Scotia, to Alberta (and many places in between), my parents always took us on a summer road trip and we checked out all kinds of cool places in Canada and the US. Thus began my own need to explore the world outside of this continent.
My grandmother told me just this past summer when I was visiting her in PEI that I'm a lot like my grandfather - that he too had wanderlust. I'd not heard of the term before that, so credit goes to her for the title of this blog.

Post-Lake Placid

So, this is the first posting to this whole new world of blogging for me. I have had a request to keep a blog when I travel, and decided to fulfill it. :) Hopefully you won't find my postings either boring or weird. And well, if you do you can just bite me! (that's actually an inside joke between a few of my friends - I'm not normally that nasty)
So Jo-Anne, yes I am now keeping you updated. Thanks for the suggestion.
Lake Placid was fun. We seemed to have much better weather than you guys back home in Ottawa. It rained, but it was off and on. Basically it was a weekend of shopping, hiking, spa-ing, and the biggest thing I think we did - eating! Back on track this week. No more desserts and wine for me. (Yes, I drank the dreaded horrible stuff that I'm not supposed to have and it was really good too!) I'll try to post for every trip I do. Maybe I can back-track to a few from earlier this year when I have more time.