Travel conclusion

Sorry, that last post was a bit of a cliffhanger, wasn’t it? I did make it safely back, and even on the flights I intended. The Icelandic government put through an emergency bill to prevent the pilots from striking on the Friday, and to force a resolution between the parties by mid-June. I’m not sure how long this union action had been going on, but apparently the pilots wanted a 30% pay raise. Which to me seems a bit more like a number to begin negotiations from than one to strike over, but I’m not an expert on Icelandic inflation rates or the history of pilot pay grades, etc.

Because everyone else was also caught up in the strike action, all my planned meetings on Tuesday were cancelled. Which is fine since I was still a bit wobbly from my lack of sleep. I estimated I got about 3 hours of dozing in 32 hours of travelling, and then capped it off with 5 hours of actual sleep in an actual bed. So Tuesday, I did wander around Reykjavik and try to get my head in the right time zone.

Iceland is very picturesque and sadly, because I had to use my other carry on luggage allowance for my work laptop, I wasn’t able to bring my dSLR. However, I did bring my point and shoot, which takes better pictures than my iTouch.

Reykjavik skyline from my hotel balcony.

Reykjavik graffiti near a construction site.

A poster warning about the Icelandic polar bear tourist offerings. Which I had clued into when I was in a tourist shop. The fine print reads, “Polar bears do not live in Iceland. Sometimes they travel from Greenland on an iceberg. When they do, we kill them.”

A cute arrangement on a gate blocking an alleyway – single glove speed dating.

We went from Reykjavik to Hvalfjordur to stay at a hotel/conference centre for our two days of meetings. It was about an hour’s bus ride out of Reykjavik, surrounded by hills and wilderness. As the co-chair of my meeting joked with me though, “If you get lost in an Icelandic forest… Stand up.” There weren’t many trees, mostly low scrub bush on the hills. Near the fjord, it was grassy because there was a church and stuff.

Looking towards the top (?) (inland) of the Hvalfjordur (whale fjord).

Looking back towards the ocean, down the fjord.

Looking straight across the fjord at the mountains.

The flight back was fine, except I was sitting a row behind the emergency exit on the wing and my feet absolutely froze. After a quick but busy stopover in Toronto, we made it home by just before midnight. This time, I was travelling with my colleagues.

All in all, it did whet my appetite, so the next travel adventure will be to go back to Iceland with my boyfriend in July. I’ve already booked everything, so we should be set. We just need to figure out if there’s anything else we need to arrange beforehand like whale watching tours or something. And I’m going to bring my real camera this time. :)

 

The trip back

We got back last night from Quebec City and unpacked and then sat down with a “whew!” The train diverted at the last moment and instead of taking the remaining passengers to the other station in town, they had everyone get off at our station stop.

Now, we treated ourselves to travelling in business class (previously known as first class). Let me tell you, it appears that folks in business class aren’t used to not getting their own way. For example, on our trip down, we overheard a very unhappy lady explaining to her friend on the phone her dissatisfaction with not getting a meal on the two hour trip from Ottawa to Montreal. This is, of course, despite the fact that they had allowed her to switch her ticket at the last moment because her train (the one after ours) was at that point an hour and a half late due to the weather.

So, when the lady announced over the intercom last night that everyone must get off at the main terminal and that there would be taxis and buses available to transport folks the rest of the way, the not-too-classy couple behind us had a major problem with this. (We had unfortunately been overhearing them the entire trip, and we were “introduced” to them in the Montreal station as the woman loudly exclaimed in the business lounge, “Oh my god, how do they expect us to know where we’re going if they aren’t broadcasting the messages in English?!” To which I replied, “They broadcast English second…”). Whereas I suspected there must be a problem on the track or maybe an accident, the man said, “They want us to spend an hour in a cab getting there? Are they out of their minds?”

We all disembarked, with the man very loudly and passive-aggressively broadcasting his dissatisfaction at the change in his plans. Even going so far as to boorishly theorize that they just “didn’t feel like driving the train any further” and hurling aggressive statements and accusatory questions at all the staff. One quiet lady (fellow passenger) tried to intervene and he basically told her to butt out, by thanking her for her “kind and caring concern”.

Thankfully, the traffic controller fellow got them into a cab and on their merry way to the suburbs, but my boyfriend and I were just horrified by this couple’s terrible, entitled behaviour.

But the ride from Quebec City to Montreal was quite pleasant and picturesque. It was too dark to take pictures between Montreal and Ottawa.

Many flat fields where the wind must whip. As must the snowmobiles.

Only the tracks visible in the snow.

The power of Thor will save us in case of emergency.

These mountains were so gorgeous – also on our trip there, they were a fairyland of snow-wreathed trees.

Pulling into Montreal at sunset. Gorgeous.

In Quebec City

This year, my boyfriend and I decided to do something very different. We decided to spend the Christmas holidays away, just the two of us together. Initially, we were thinking Paris, because, well, Paris. But I was still feeling a bit tight after Ireland. So we thought about Mont Tremblant. But trying to rent an appropriately sized condo there kept falling through.

So we ended up buying first class train tickets, renting a little suite, and coming to Quebec City.

Yes, I was here six months ago with my mom and sister. It was a tiny bit warmer then.

We came to Quebec City for relaxation and for the atmosphere. We packed movies, books, comfy clothes, wandering clothes, and going out clothes.

We’ve gone for a few walks around the old city, a couple of which were bitterly cold, requiring us to stop in a pub to warm up. D’Orsay warmed us yesterday, with Hefeweizen brewed in Quebec and mushroom ravioli in a green onion sauce as munchies.

We’ve had some lovely dinners at Le Quai 19 downstairs. And we just got back from a quite amazing dinner at a restaurant my boyfriend suggested -Echaude.

Cute street in our wanders today.

One of the archways in the ramparts, near the Assemblee Nationale.

We are on our way back home tomorrow. It has been an exquisite and relaxing time away.

Down East

For the first time in years, I’ve been sent to a conference. So I got on another plane today at the end of my workday and flew to the east coast, to Halifax for the ArcticNet conference.

Right behind the wing.

I watched out the window again, having once more held back my liquid laugh of glee at we punched forward and found lift. And I flew over my boyfriend’s father’s house. I could see everyone’s Christmas lights colouring the snow on their lawns.

Christmas lights in the ‘burbs.

I watched sparkles fly past my window, and I wondered if it was the way the strobe reflected off the twin prop engine and back onto the frost on the window. But they were always in different spots. It was only when we were preparing for approach and the pilot turned on the headlights that I realized we were flying through snow.

We landed and the tires of our wheel drove black marks through the white snow on the Tarmac.

As we were landing, the strobe was still flashing.

Then it was a long, slow, snowy drive from the airport, which is very far outside of Halifax, to my hotel downtown. My cab driver refreshingly didn’t overestimate what the car could handle. He also said after a drive like that, he was calling it a night.

My room is comfy with a king sized bed (but I’m trying to figure out where i will be doing yoga tomorrow am) and I’m looking forward to a soak in the bathtub before calling it a night.

But first, I was just pleasantly surprised by the hotel restaurant, Tempo, and the fact they had my favourite wine by the glass. I perched at a side high top table in the lounge and watched as the taxis lined up in a very civilized way to pick up the folks from the casino next door.

Ah, wonderful way to finish off my day.

Good glass of wine.

More travels

Ahhh… My boyfriend and I are just back from a relaxing and wonderful long weekend, mini-vacation to Stratford, Ontario, where we ate good food, drank loads of alcohol and watched two Shakespearian plays – Romeo and Juliet and Othello.

Stratford is a lovely little town in southern Ontario, and we have gone there to watch Shakespeare three years in a row now. Luckily, we both love theatre, Shakespeare especially.

We each took Friday off and we drove down, through Toronto. Traffic was actually pretty good, considering. And Friday night, we just let ourselves relax. We went to one of our favourite restaurants – Fellini’s (where we realized that neither of us remember having seen a Fellini film in actuality). They have Hob Nob Pinot Noir by the bottle, and a delicious appetizer of marinated olives (with sundried tomatoes) and hummus and pita. They also have limoncello…

Saturday was R&J, in the evening, so we had the whole day to do even *more* relaxing. I managed not to fill our day up with things to do and let myself relax too. We wandered around town, poking into some of the stores but we didn’t end up buying anything. Which was nice. I commented to my boyfriend, as we had just passed two ladies with two shopping bags each, that I wondered whether those ladies had actually wanted to buy those things or if they’d bought something just to pass the time.

We wandered by the Avon…

And we saw ducks and swans and geese, all enjoying the water and free tourist food.

This one was pretty big…

We ate at Pazzo that night, in the cellar/pizzeria. We really lucked out to get a table, I think, because the place filled up quickly right after we sat down. The upstairs is a fancier dining experience and the downstairs is more like a really good restaurant, where you get to sit in their wine cellar, or near their wood-fired, thin crust pizza oven. We had delicious food and a bottle of Californian Zinfandel (though not my favourite one). Then we headed off to R&J.

They did it in period costume with rapiers (okay, autocorrect – really? rapiers turns to rappers? It’s like you don’t even *know* me…). Juliet did a good job evoking the “Eeeeee!!! He’s so dreamy!!!” And Romeo did a good job with the melodramatic and rash young man role. They broke the third wall and were interacting with the crowd a bit – it would be nice if one of these times, we could get them not to kill themselves…

Sunday was Othello. Not one of my favourites of Shakespeare’s plays but one I hadn’t seen yet. Wow. It was intense and Iago is a very, VERY bad man. It was also in period dress with rapiers, and I’m sure Othello needed a soothing lozenge between Acts because of the way he yelled and growled so… I couldn’t help but think that, again, all of this could have been avoided with some effective communication between the parties involved. Let that be a lesson, boys and girls – before you murder your significant other based on the rumours of someone else, have a real honest conversation with your dearest to prevent, well, a murder-suicide.

I really did appreciate the utter relaxation we had to do. :) And only a week until my next long weekend.

Vignettes

Just a few snippets today.  It’s a post that I’ve been partly writing in my head for most of this week.

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I went to my friend’s wake yesterday.  It apparently hadn’t sunk in yet until I pulled into a parking spot.  I had to sit in the car, waiting for my crying face to calm down before I went in.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t finished my crying and I kind of lost it by the time I got to my friend’s husband.  He said, “It’s okay.  It’s really sad.”

Also, I have to say this for the record – I love my friend and I love her family because they were a part of what shaped her into who she was but… I absolutely *hate* open caskets.  I’m sorry.  I really do.

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I went to my friend’s funeral today.  I wasn’t sure I was going to – I thought it might be awkward.  Usually I think of the funeral as being for the family, to help them with the grief.  A ritual to say goodbye.  But then I figured I would probably regret not going, so I woke up this morning, planned what I was going to wear, and then went into the studio.  I worked a bit more on one of my recent canvases.  Remembering that I wanted to rearrange some of the small ones I have up, I grabbed my tube of Polyfila, pulled pictures down, pulled nails out and fixed the nail holes in my wall.

The service was good.  Her husband made an amazing eulogy about who she was – he was so brave to stand up there and speak.  Their daughter, I think, had a better idea of what was going on today.  There were a lot of people in the church.  I sat between two of my old colleagues, which was good.  I gave one of them Kleenex.  Score one for me on the Mom Test.

I did my measuring, leveling, and hammering after I got home.  So now I have room for more canvases.

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Let’s rewind in history and switch countries for a moment.  A vignette I wanted to write about Galway.

I was walking down Quay Street in Galway, just after having my dinner at The Malt House and my pint of Guinness at The King’s Head.  I had just watched an extremely inebriated man be “escorted” out of the establishment (yes, even in Ireland, someone gets tossed from a pub when he’s too drunk).  He was wearing sunglasses and very slowly still “finishing his pint”, trying to stave off the inevitable.

I was following these two men down the street, just trying to keep my head up and eyes open.  I was walking alone through an unknown city around 10pm – just being smart.  I watched them as they drifted together, linked fingers, and then drifted apart again.  Together and apart, holding hands and then not.  My heart ached – the unlinking of the hands usually coincided with someone being passed or someone approaching.  I wanted to go up to them and give them a hug.  I can’t believe how much that must hurt – to not feel like you can express yourself in public.  Perhaps not feeling safe enough to.

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Also on Quay St, on my way to The King’s Head pub, I passed a man and a woman walking the opposite way.

“Oh yeah, there’s a McDon@ld’s back here.  I need a Mc-Something…” says the man.

In my head, I say, “Why??  You’re in Galway!”

Yeesh…

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In the last car

Cool. Long, straight track. Fast train.

And back again

It was a lovely trip to Quebec City. We arrived in a torrential downpour and sadly resembled drowned rats upon our entry to the Chateau Frontenac. We walked the ramparts, watched as two locals tried to catch their ramparts-hunting cats, got to meet a nervous rampart chipmunk, looked at rampart graffiti and walked in the cold rampart rain.

Chateau Frontenac entryway. My sister has a similar photo – I was trying to block the wind that whips through there when she was taking it because she was shivering. It didn’t work, apparently.

We ate Paris style sandwiches and real macarons in a little cafe and then found warmer jackets because we could see our breath. I received dress advice from a shop girl and now I have a unique, Quebec City dress for L’s wedding. We walked probably for 10 km all told yesterday. We were directed to a vegetarian restaurant that we suspect went out of business, then walked all the way back to a restaurant I’d found that would be okay for all of us. My sister’s poor feet did survive the walk in her “fast flats” because her alternative was sandals. Then we went to the cool St. Laurent bar in the Chateau Frontenac where we had signature cocktails invented by the Fairmont bartenders and sat beside Newt Gingrinch and his wife (who had amazing hair). People asked to take pictures with him – we didn’t.

And now we’re on our respective rides home. And it’s June. Craziness.

Hello, Montreal.

On the road again

On the train – not unlike in England. But I look out onto familiar landscapes this time, as I’m running through the area I grew up in, and worked in for a while. Just heading out of Ottawa for a weekend in Quebec City with my mom and sister. This is the fifth weekend of being busy and I’m noticing. I actually only have two unscheduled weekends left in my time off…

Somewhere in Eastern Ontario/West Quebec

So I took a bit of a break in my blogging when I got back. I had a mass transit cold that I’m just getting over, plus jet lag that had me waking up fresh as a daisy at 1:00am, because that was 6:00 am in Ireland – so a nasty few night’s sleep right after landing. I had a bunch of appointments and home stuff, vet related concerns (the old girl cat is being concerning), seeing family and delivering a few Irish presents. Not to mention getting to see my boyfriend and try to do something date-like with him (while trying not to pass on my cold) because I missed him during my adventure.

Downloaded my photos though – over 2500 of them. Most of them turned out pretty well. Only a few were washed out because I wasn’t paying enough attention to my ISO. I might be able to salvage them through some photo editing, hopefully (really need to finish J’s Understanding Exposure and then find all the full controls on the old camera). And only a couple are not salvageable due to focus issues (quick shots gone so, so wrong). I’m excited to print some out. I took a lot of door shots, window shots, birds, ruins, sea versus rocks, pathways, macro plants and tide pools and fossils. And my Stonehenge ones are pretty lovely too (probably 50-100 just of different pieces and angles on the stones). I think my viewfinder might be off centre though. A whole bunch of my photos seem to have a bit of a tilt and I was paying attention to alignment (most of the time…)

I got into the studio exactly once since Friday last week (I.e. since I’ve been back). But after going through my photos, I think the gnarled tree on my current canvas will borrow some characteristics from the one fairy tree at Carrowkeel. And I want to put a fuzzy “vision” “frame” around the image so that it’s shadowy and mysterious.

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My flight back from England was all afternoon. I actually got to relive 3:00 pm about three times as we passed through time zones. The Atlantic Ocean is very large. I kept looking down and seeing tiny white flecks. Now keep in mind I was at 34000 feet. I watched them and if they disappeared, they were probably white caps. If not… Icebergs? I saw a huge tanker or freighter churning across the North Atlantic but from my vantage point it looked only a few millimetres long. I sat with a chemist or chemical engineer graduate student (or post doc?) who was looking over a PowerPoint presentation involving the chemical structures containing some of the rarer elements in the periodic table. Behind me was a Norwegian fellow on his way to see his Canadian girlfriend in Edmonton. And a Canadian girlfriend who had decided at 2am that morning that she was coming home to see her boyfriend in Ottawa. We commiserated on the uncertainty of having grabbed all of our things and I shared my boyfriend’s priority list for absolute must-haves. 1. Passport. 2. Wallet. 3. Keys. Everything else is pretty replaceable.

Somewhere over the North Atlantic – much closer to space.
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There are other small stories from my trip that I’ll try to remember to share. Like the full castle dinner experience, and some more driving stories.

Bonjour Montreal!

Touring in a hurry

This was my first bus tour experience. And it kind of goes with my personality, I think, to go for the challenging one. Eleven hours, three sites, 400 km, one day. At least I wasn’t the one driving.

I found the coach station and boarded the bus (with my illegal hot drink that they let us have for the morning part). We got a bit of a tour on our way out of London, and then we were on the road to Windsor Castle.

The Union Jack was up, meaning the Queen was not there.

I didn’t realize Eton College was so close to Windsor Castle! The boys went to school very close to home (both Prince William and Harry went to Eton).

There was airport style security and we weren’t allowed to take photos inside. We also had only a short amount of time, so I got to skim through the State Apartments, Queen Mary’s dollhouse (with real silverware – not for playing, but because she enjoyed collecting miniatures), and the Drawings Room which had many portraits of the Queen throughout her life. She was a beautiful young queen. The ones displayed today included Lord Snowdon, Andy Warhol, Yousef Karsh, and Annie Leibovitz (they cycle them in and out – it’s a small room). The State Apartments were just jaw dropping. All those things you think about royalty and luxury and stuff? True. Absolutely.

When we exited the State Apartments (I was lucky, they let me keep my backpack on – technically I was supposed to check it), we had to walk the moat path, and we got to see one of the bearskin hat guards patrolling (with a very modern, scary gun).

But as I passed onto the moat path, I stopped to pull my map of Windsor Castle out of my pack to figure out where I was going. One if the castle wardens came over, an older gentleman a bit shorter than I, with a twinkle in his eye. He says to me, “Saw your old bag…” (I sewed a Canadian flag onto my backpack before I left.). With that, he started to pull his tie out of the collar of his vest to reveal… a Royal Canadian Mounted Police tie pin! I said, “Well, hello there!” He said, “I used to be a Mountie, but I shrank so they tossed me out!” I laughed and we chatted a bit. I didn’t get a chance to ask him how he did get the pin, as I only had half an hour left (which he thought was a sin because you could easily spend a whole day there – to which I heartily agreed.) I was so glad that he took the time to make the connection with the little wandering Canadian, though. I don’t think I’ve encountered another Canadian on my travels, actually. As it was, I had enough time for a couple more photos outside and then to run back through the marketplace, grabbing food.

Wisteria climbing the castle wall, or blue rain as my Swedish seat mate called it.

Heading out to find my bus – one last look back.

Then we heading for Bath. We had access to the Roman Baths and our tour guide, Edina, gave us all sorts of history about it. For example, how happy the Romans were to find hot springs in England since they came here from hot Italy. She was assertive to get us into the Baths in good time, but the buskers in the squares were amazing. Classical guitar, jazz singing (with trumpet solos)…

Bath Abbey, built by Bishop Oliver King, symbolized by the olive tree with a crown around the trunk and a bishop’s hat over top on the corner columns (which you can’t see in this one, but do note the angels climbing up and down on ladders on either side).

It was really interesting to see how the baths evolved, and to see how they’ve reconstructed. Also to know little tidbits about the town – how it got its revival when Queen Anne came in search of the healing waters (so that maybe one of her children would make it to adulthood). Jane Austen lived there for five years and she hated it – she thought it was too snobby. Nicholas Cage had a townhouse there in a circular block of three buildings designed and built by a Freemason, so there are lots of hidden meanings in the architecture. And on our way out of town, we got to see Jane Seymour’s old estate – apparently she would throw wild parties and drunk people would be stumbling all over Bath – so much so that the local paper called her “the neighbour from Hell”. Eeep!

I finished up in the baths by drinking some of the healing waters. It tasted like warm, mineral filled water, honestly. Then, instead of heading into the abbey, I just wandered around admiring the Georgian architecture and the honey-coloured stone.

The square where we were picked up. I made some ladies giggle as I turned a corner and made a noise of glee at the awesome streetscape before me.

We left at 16:00 on the *nose* and took the scenic route to Stonehenge. We got to see an old Iron Age ring fort (which was apparently a favourite spot for UFO sighting back in the day), burial barrows and the “tank crossing” signs along the highway to Stonehenge because a lot of that land is owned by the British military. Prince Harry trains out there. We didn’t see any tanks. Though we did see an Army helicopter fly by.

But then we passed by where they are building the new Stonehenge visitors centre, where they are going to have buses or trains to run visitors to and from the site. Now I know why they were recently hiring for the position of General Manager of Stonehenge!

And then, we arrived. Our tour guide was even more assertive to get us in to the site before a group of 77 people.

Stonehenge. And the sun.

The stones were much larger than I expected. We were given the context of the large stones being 40 to 50 tonnes and requiring 300 men to haul each one on a sledge. Sometimes 500 men if they had to go up a hill… It’s hard to compare the volume/mass thing – Edina said for comparison, our bus weighed about 15 tonnes. They aren’t the size of a bus because they are dense, but still. And amazing to see the ball joints on top where the lintels would be held on. Engineering! Ravens were flying around and I got some good shots of one perched on top of one of the standing stones.

So I’m back in London, my last night here. Tomorrow, I’ll get up and do a really good yoga session to loosen up before the flight, have some breakfast, make sure everything is packed securely and I’ll start making my way to Heathrow. I don’t mind hanging around the airport – it is a big and interesting one. And then I’ll be home. :)

I can’t believe it’s done!

Shadows and light, stones and earth.