Travel Bug

Why do I have the travel bug? First, let's define this term "travel bug". I've read that it is "a certain restlessness to visit sites that till now exist only in the traveller's imagination". This sounds about right. I think that it is also a restlessness to just get away from it all. For me, it is sort of linked to my laziness, my love of planning and the way I grew up. My parents and I have been travelling our whole family existence.

Soon after I was born, my dad took my mom and I to Switzerland for 2 years. He was doing is post doctorate at the University in Zurich. My mom and I also lived in Holland for about 3 months while Karin entered the world. After we moved to Ottawa, I don't know how many times my father has been to England, France and Germany to colaborate with colleagues, sit in on thesis exams and give lectures at various universities in these countries. My parents have also been to Israel, Hawaii and San Francisco. My father has also travelled to many different cities in the United States and Canada, all in the pursuit or recognition of scientific discoveries. So, as you can see travel was a big part of my growing up.

As a family, we drove to Winnipeg and Taber, Alberta coming back by way of the northern States. We also drove back and forth to Burlington, ON countless times to visit relatives and friends. In highschool, I had the privelage of visiting Quebec City, Toronto and Boston.

When I finished University, I rewarded myself with a month long trip to California. I spent quite a bit of money doing this. I had no job lined up for when I came back. I think this would be the traits of a travel bug or wait am I a travel bug or do I have the travel bug:) Ok, so to rephrase. I think these are the symptoms of the travel bug.

I guess it was inevitable that I began to work for WestJet, an airline, in the business of travel. Since starting here, Reuben and I have gone to Vancouver, Edmonton and Victoria, not to mention the many flights between Toronto and Ottawa. Since dating, we have also gone to Halifax but that was pre-WestJet. This year we are still planning to go to Winnipeg, Halifax(again) and Raleigh. But we are driving to Raleigh, as it's a lot cheaper and less hassle even with a good airline deal.

I love to travel. I hope we can keep travelling. Our big trip for next year is Paris, southern France and Barcelona. We hope to travel with my parents and my Dad's cousin, Ina. We also hope to meet up with friends who are living in Holland but will meet us in Paris.

I could go on and on about travelling, maybe I'll write some more posts at a later date on the joys and also the hassles of travelling.

Camping Pictures

My toes on our early morning canoe and Reuben dismantling our sleeping structure.

Camping Round 2

Bon Echo is a beautiful park. It's about 2.5 hrs from our place. The campsites only take up a third of the actual park and there are 300 of them.

Why is camping considered such a wonderful pastime? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Also, if my husband is so enamored with it does that necessitate that I become enamored as well?

What's the point of bringing modern conveniences to the woods, like trailers, when you are meant to be roughing it?

I find, even in myself, such a contradiction between loving luxury and conveniences and wanting to get away from it all by living in the country and doing things simply.

So, our camping trip. Well, it was fine. Except for having to use the Ladies Room in the middle of the night, 3 times the first night. The weather was beautiful. The scenery was beautiful. Our air mattress didn't deflate, too much. The water was warm. S'mores are yummy but messy. The mosquitos bit and bit and bit forcing us to go just a little bit mad. The food, provided by my mother-in-law was plentiful and good. We had a romantic, early morning canoe on the pristine lake.

I really hate to say this but I am glad I don't have to go again till next year. I just love my creature comforts too much. I love not having to share a bathroom with other people not to mention a gazillion different species of bugs. I love not having to wear bugspray and then hopping in to bed soaked in the stuff. Oh wait ...I promised myself I wouldn't turn this into a rant ...

Sorry, Reuben.

Please save

The problem with the computer being that if you are typing a wonderfully, long and inspiring paragraph about important topics, it will invariably freeze on you and be unable to recover anything.

This just happened to me ... bear with me as I try to recover.

So, I beg and plead with you to please hit save if you are writing for longer than 30 seconds.

A long time

Well, it has been a long time since I've posted. Almost half a month. We've been busy. Work has been slow. There is not much to fill my hours here but I get by and it's better than nothing, I guess.

So, for the Canada Day weekend, Reuben and I went downtown Ottawa and stayed overnight on Friday night at the Radisson. WestJet uses this hotel to board it's airline crew when they have to stay overnight, so they give all employees a really good room rate. It was a really nice hotel and we enjoyed our stay there. For dinner, we walked down to the market and ate at an Irish Pub. I had a chicken boxty, which was sort of a chicken stew wrapped in a potato pancake. It was really rich and flavourful! Afterwards, we walked around some more and ended up eating some really horrid dessert at Carmello's on Sparks Street. It was really sweet!!! oh well. On Canada Day, we went to Parliament Hill and sat on the lawn along with thousands of others and watched the end of the Musical Ride on a big screen because we were too far back to see it even though it was right there. And then Stephen Harper and his family came along with the Governor General and her family. We heard a couple of speeches and a couple of musical acts. Then we walked over to Majors Hill park and checked out the scene there. We were really hot and the sun was beating down. I was pretty spent by this time.

We were signed up to help out at the Ottawa Mission for Men at 2 so we had to cut the festivities short and walked over there. We served food and cleaned up in the kitchen till about 5:30. Then we walked back to our car and went home. My parents came over with pizza and we went to Dairy Queen for dessert. It was a nice evening! They were meant to stay and watch the local fireworks from our balcony but when they didn't start at 10 they decided to go home. Just after they left the fireworks started so Reuben and I watched them on our own. There was a really big tree in the way but we could see the really high ones. It was still really nice!!!!

On Sunday, we witnessed little Zachary Hart's baptism. It was a really hot day, again.

Last weekend, we spent Sat morning with some friends from WestJet. They had organized a morning at Thunderbird Miniputt/Driving Range and Go-Kart. So we did that. It was hard getting up early and heading out there. And then it was really hot and sunny!! We had fun. Reuben really enjoyed the go-karting. I got off the track after 3 rounds. It was sort of uncomfortable and I'm just not competitive enough, I guess. Oh well. So then, in the afternoon we went shopping, which was fun! Oh and on Friday we both got off work early and went to see Superman Returns. It was decent! Nice cheesy love story and not too violent or obscene. Yay!

On Sunday, we got up early, again and drove to Montreal with Mom, Oma N, Karin, Josh and Emma. We went to the ERQ church in Laval where my cousin's baby Ezekiel was being baptized. The service was in French but they had a copy of the sermon in English printed out so that was really helpful. It was nice to see our Jager family again! Unfortunately, Corrine had to head back to Raleigh right away after church:( Whereas, we went up to Derek's parents' cottage, just north of the city. We had a nice afternoon. Good food and good fellowship. The weather was hot and sunny, again and so I tried to stay in the shade. I would have gone swimming but apparently, the bottom of the lake wasn't too nice to stand on.

On the drive home, we stopped at the Chateau Montebello for drinks. They made a mighty nice sangria!:) Then we got on the ferry at Masson and crossed over to Cumberland, Ontario. It was only a 5 minute ride but fun nonetheless.

This weekend we are going camping at Bon Echo. It should be another hot weekend so hopefully, it will be a great improvement on last time we went!!! I'll let you know how it goes.