I’m pleasantly surprised.

When I left for Turkey two weeks ago, there had never been a time in my life when I needed a vacation more. I knew that if I hadn’t gone then, something else would have given, and I just cannot afford to unravel right now. So I planned the type of vacation I needed: the kind with lots of intellectual stimulation, so that I couldn’t possibly think about work, and physical activity, to shake my body out of its ageing rut. Travelling is always an emotional refresher, a bit of a degausser of everyday life. But to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure this was going to happen this time, I doubted that two weeks would be enough to replenish the energy that’s been so recently elusive. I was wrong, and found myself last Friday in Istanbul pleasantly satisfied, looking forward to coming home, and to going back to work.

But crossing a few things off the life to-do list (getting a scrubdown at a 600-year-old Hamam, visiting Troy, scootering through Cappadocia) has that effect. Who knew?

Jonathan and I have finally booked our vacation for this fall, and have decided that Turkey is the place. Because I was so handsomely rewarded for having read a bit of the history of the place when we went to Scotland, I decided to do the same with Turkey.

But so much has happened in Turkey! The Crusades, Alexander the Great, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottomans, Constantinople and, oh yeah, this little thing called the Trojan War! How am I supposed to learn everything I want to know in the months remaining?

There’s only one thing for a producer can do; come up with a plan and follow it through.

 

Last month, Jonathan and I went to visit his family in Scotland. In preparation for this, in April I churned my way through a heavy and long biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. As a result, the one place I really wanted to visit was Holyroodhouse Palace, where Mary witnessed a brutal murder and got married twice (out of 3 times). However, the current queen was in residence so we couldn’t get in.

For consolation, while driving to Edinburgh for a couple of days, we decided to stop by Lochleven, a castle on an island considered a much less important landmark in Mary’s life. It was there that she was imprisoned for a year, was forced to abdicate and miscarried twins. She eventually escaped by charming two of the castle staff into helping her commandeer a rowboat, sabotage the other boats and get away.

To get to Lochleven, we had to drive through the tiny village of Kinross, constantly thinking we were lost before finding another tiny sign for the hidden castle. Eventually we got to the shores of a lake, with hardly anything to indicate we had found our way. A ferryman in a small motorboat waited patiently for his next fare. It was really exciting to have found a bit of history that wasn’t completely overrun with tour buses and souvenirs. Lochleven showed nothing of its importance as it stood humbly in the distance.

When we got there, we had the run of the island and castle, all to ourselves. We stood in the room where Mary lost her twins, saw the window from where she bitterly watched fireworks celebrating her infant son’s coronation, following her forced abdication. She would never see him again, and he would be raised by her enemies.

I’ll visit Holyroodhouse next time I go to Scotland, but I doubt it will be as exciting as this impromptu visit. As is often the case when travelling, the unforeseen events that throw you off the planned path always lead to the best discoveries.

I got off the short flight to Boston and spent an hour staring up at a maze of exposed wires, ducts and tubes in the missing ceiling of Logan airport. What an ugly spot for a reunion, I thought. I wondered if I could snap a shot of the labyrinth of wires without being arrested for terrorist activities, and decided against it. A security officer chatted me up. I tried to look as unterrorifying as possible, begging him in my head to go away. Finally the Scotsmontonian came off his overnight flight.

After a few iterations of trial and error with what our holidays, bank accounts and personal fortitude can sustain, the Scotsmontonian and I have settled into a routine of meeting every three weeks, once here, once there, and once somewhere else. So here we were, somewhere else.

After Air Canada cheerfully reported that his luggage would “surely follow soon”, and I told the story of how an airline once lost my dead grandfather’s body for the 1000th time, we were on our way into Boston. I reflected in the hot and nasty subway that it should really be spruced up, as it’s probably the first Boston experience for many tourists.

When I was little, my grandfather went to Mexico and drowned. The airline lost the body for a few days. A really important person called my mother and apologized. As far as I know, they did not offer to compensate financially by the kilo. 1001.

It would be the last time I called Boston ugly in any way. That Boston is beautiful is something I’ve always known in the back of my mind, but had to see for myself to really know, like the fact that Milk Bones only look yummy. This weekend, the former became glaringly obvious. What’s unique about Boston’s beauty is that its many spots of gorgeous, from the brownstones of the South End, through the impressive sci-fi buildings of the financial district, to the quaint Quincy and neighboring marina, are not connected to each other through corridors of ugly, as is often the case. Boston does a good job of hiding its ugly, if ugly there is.

Our favorite sci-fi building was 111 Huntington, which is topped with a dome of concentric circles. It is surely the site of many an endgame battle between superheroes and villains. I mean, it just looks like it would attract epic apocalyptic showdowns between evil and light. When the circles begin spinning on themselves, they surely open a vortex that sucks cats and dogs (nothing else, mind you) into another plane of existence.

We visited the sites of the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, saw the USS Constitution, Paul Revere’s house and Cheers. I love big cities that are not built according to a grid plan, probably because I’ve never had to drive in one. But there it is, wedge-shaped buildings make me warm and fuzzy. At the Quincy Market, I turned down the Scotsmontonian’s offer to buy me Boston terrier earrings. Then I kind of regretted it.

I had to promise the Scotsmontonian that Cliff and Norm were only on vacation, that they otherwise would be sitting at the bar, and that of course they knew his name.

After two days in Beantown, we took the ferry to Provincetown, a “gay-friendly oceanside community”. After giving us a tour of our seaside cottage, our host handed us a paper detailing the local current events, which had a picture of a person in a gimp suit on the cover. Embarrassed, he tried to apologize for the current leather festival, but we told him we lived in the Village. I never thought posing as a veteran of the fetish scene would get me out of an awkward situation. As if to keep up the pretense, we went for a little walk and ended up going into a fetish shop, the only open shop that night. A small group of round, past-middle-aged female tourists from Orlando attracted our attention when the eldest one fell backwards onto the floor. When I asked what had shocked her so, the owner showed me the rock chick, a female stimulation device. That’s when I decided that the Orlandonians were probably not here for the leather fest. At the same time I wondered if the Scotsmontonian would have offered to buy me that, had it come in a Boston terrier motif.

I’ve always been amazed by the fact that despite the country’s gargantuan proportions (something I was all too aware of on the endless flight out west last Thursday), all English Canadian cities have a common feel to them. There’s a certain laid back hipness to them, and they all seem to have pedestrian streets lined with colorful little eco-friendly shops and cool, airy cafés full of artists. Think Ottawa’s Byward Market, or Granville Mall in Halifax. The other thing Canadian cities have in common is that they always give me the feeling that though I’m in an urban center, nature isn’t far.

With its superclean but deserted downtown area, its one hip shopping street, and its large, wild wooded ravine that cuts right through the city, Edmonton has that distinctly Canadian feel. Even though it’s been years since I’ve been anywhere in Canada outside Quebec, the familiarity was unmistakable.

Edmonton told me that I was home, and to take a load off and chill. I didn’t visit the Phone History Center proposed by Dr Wank, and didn’t even see the West Edmonton Mall (for the uninitiated, it’s what Kevin Smith calls the Big F***ing Mall, complete with indoor water park and roller coaster). But I did drink a lot of Chai latté and played several video games.

(Edmonton does have one eccentricity, though:
Price for a beer “imported” from Québec (Blanche de Chambly): 13$
La Maudite: 14$
La Terrible de Unibroue (never heard of it): 21$)

Exactly ten years ago, I spent three months backpacking in Indonesia. Back then, communications weren’t as easy as they are now. The Internet was in its beginnings, and certainly wasn’t readily available over there. It was my first trip ever and I was as disconnected and isolated, alone with my thoughts, as I would ever be in my life.

I have to admit I was horribly homesick in the first few weeks. I wondered how I’d make it through months of this. I was surprised and disappointed with myself that that was my reaction; I would have been proud to feel a sense of excited discovery, but homesickness, that seemed unexpected and weak to me. But there it was.

During that period, I was happy if I dreamed I was home; it felt like I got a vacation from my vacation, like I got to enjoy familiarity and my loved ones’ company, just for the span of a dream.

Little did I know there would be times, ten years later, when I would enjoy a short return to Bali or Java, just for the span of a dream.

I’m sitting at my desk today, and an instant message pops up from my ex (we work together).

“Check your Shared folder, there’s a file called Surprise”.

Three years ago, we spent six days in the Sahara desert, on camelback and by Land Rover. The first day was spent driving along endless hot and pebbly plains. The guide, Ibrahim, didn’t talk much and instead subjected us to his tinny Malinese music tape in a endless loop. It was horrible. We wondered if we’d made the mistake of our lives embarking on this expedition.

It soon became one of the best weeks of our lives. By the end of it, we had developed a wonderful camaraderie with Ibrahim, and knew his tape by heart. There was one song in particular, simply called “Africa”, that stuck with us, and we still sing it once in a while for a laugh.

That song was today’s surprise… And it instantly transported me back to the paprika-colored dunes of Morocco. Ah Africa! Ah, to travel again!

…or should I say “paminnelsegate“?

While I lived in Lund, I took lots of lovely pictures of the beautiful Swedish town, and then my camera was stolen, my memories with it. A Flickr tag search has allowed me to revisit it for the first time in years. Happy, happy times. The web rocks.

The library of the university I attended.

We’d travel everywhere by bike.

Used to go for coffee on this street with my Finnish pal Janne. He looked like Elijah Wood. I wonder what became of him.

I’ve always said I hated L.A., but I’m starting to come around. It probably helps that I’ve managed to avoid going to Hollywood on my last three trips, but also, I started yesterday by having my morning coffee on a lovely terrasse…

…and ended it sitting in a tiny can being blown all over the tarmac in a bumpy attempt to land, five hours late, in icy Montreal.

How are the Kings doing this season? Just asking…

“If I take one more step, it will be the farthest from home I’ve ever been”.

Just got my ticket for Sydney today. It will officially be the farthest I’ve ever been from home, though not by much. Clocking at 23 hours and 50 minutes of flight time (one way), with a destination 16043 kilometers from Montreal, this trip beats out my Indonesia journey by only 35 minutes of flight time and less than 200 kilometers.

I’ll be arriving in Australia on my birthday, although I’ll biologically still be 33 because of the time difference. The client expects me to be sound enough of mind to take intelligent part in a three-hour meeting that very day, but I doubt that my one extra day of youth will compensate for the brain-melt of the journey. Then we have two days of presentations and meetings, then come home.

We leave Sydney on the 17th, get to Honolulu on the 16th, and get home on the 17th. We will have travelled 62 hours to be in Australia for 74. Holy Air Miles Batman!