May 24, 2018

The Maldives

Maldives, country #212, doesn’t have much land to call home. Little spits of coral reefs and raised atolls make up an island nation in the middle of the Indian ocean, and luckily one island is wide and high enough to land airplanes. When you walk out of Malé International airport, instead of a curbside pick up, theres a wharf with many boats parked and ready to shuttle you to your island paradise of choice.

the view of the Maldives from the plane

Many islands are completely private, with only one hotel or resort, and still the bedrooms are built on stilts, in various sized bungalows. Many have outdoor showers, private pools, and your own entrance to the sea, and others have jacuzzis and butlers to make your stay even more luxurious.

sundowners and tapas

The Maldives are popular for honeymooners and destination weddings, so make sure you’ve got a good excuse to be there if you’re just there for fun. Going alone seems like a great idea, but be wary of all the lonely looks you’ll get from the staff whose job it is to ensure you’re showered in hospitality nonstop.

home at the blungalow, comlete with a hammock and an infinity pool

Coco Bodu Hithi was home for five nights, for a price tag that could have housed me for 5 months in East Africa. But the dining options and wine list on this tiny island spit could have kept me happy for weeks if I was a rich girl.

the hotel lobby

The view from the bungalow was a turquoise blue sea, with coral reefs and colourful fish right below the step ladder. You didn’t even need to snorkel to see the sea life – I saw a sting ray, a coral shark, and a Mantaray just from the patio. Once I finally got in the water, I followed a green turtle grazing at the edge of the reef for as long as I could before he disappeared into the deep blue.

Coco Bodu Hithi island

It’s hard to have an impression of the Maldives as a place – I only met a couple of Maldivians, and set foot only on one square kilometre of land outside of the airport, but I can definitely recommend the Maldivian fish curry and Coco Bodu’s spa as things not to miss. I doubt I’ll ever see the latter again…

May 19, 2018

NorCal, take 2

I once called Oakland home, for a short time while studying abroad at UC Berkeley back in 2009. Places and people change over the years, but it still feels a bit like home when you know where to go and who to see. I visited Maya again, and this time her shrunken belly had turned into a breast-feeding, squinty-eyed baby named Chloe. Her dog Duke was the same old, happy to snuggle away any attention he still got in Chloe’s presence. Their orange and lemon trees were creaking under the weight of fresh citrus, so missing out on freshly juiced lemonade was’t an option.

the best way to wine taste Sonoma – by pedal bike

The weather was slightly warmer, and the surroundings more green, but northern California seems to be constantly in a state of transition from spring to summer. When the fog rolls in, you have no idea what season it is, but you’re still sure of where you are. Driving 20 minutes east into the hills slaps dry, desert heat straight into your face, and you wonder how the state is ever going to recover from a water shortage with all those millions of people living in a tiny bay.

the vineyard of bubbles, Gloria Ferrer in Sonoma Valley

This time around, the focus was food and wine. Chef Thrainn from Iceland was in, and we had our fill of Moroccan inspired cuisine at Mourad in San Francisco. We carried on to Sonoma, where our dinner at the Girl & Fig kept our bellies fed and finally filled with something other than wine. We spent a day wine tasting in Napa as well, where we lunched at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon (The French Laundry was too daunting). We rounded off our wining and dining with some craft beers at Faction Brewing and some hard spirits at Hangar 1 vodka, both located on Alameda island in converted WW2 hangars.

Hangar 1 distillery bar, Runway Spirits

Our last meal was at Bird Dog in Palo Alto, a modern, Asian fusion bistro style restaurant, with another couchsurfer and one my oldest friends from UBC days. We boarded our Wow air flight back to Reykjavik 2kgs heavier, and the sight of Keflavik in a dismal, rainy grey made me want to turn right back around to sunny California.

May 17, 2018

Vancouver, take 2

I’ve been on my way to get my motorcycle license since I was 17 years old, and I finally renewed my learner’s permit last month. Now I had to do two more riding tests, but didn’t realize they’d be fully booked months in advance. Spring time seems like an obvious time to get it, so I’m an idiot for thinking I was the only genius – needless to say, I didn’t finish my tests within the one week window I gave myself. I did, however, get an overdue pedicure to fix my Fiji-feet to finally looking like summer ready toes.

picking a colour was the hardest part

Instead, I had sister time, visited my grandma, and did lots of beer and wine tasting with friends and family. Spring had officially turned into summer, literally the day I landed, and getting upgraded to a convertible jeep wrangler instead of the Toyota Yaris compact car I thought I rented felt like winning the lottery.

I purposely parked under cherry blossoms so they’d flutter into the car and sprinkle my seat with pink pedals

My older sister was set up in a hotel in New Westminster overlooking the Fraser river for some work training, but we spent our evenings either at the hotel in the Jacuzzi, wine tasting, or gorging on sushi and Spaghetti Factory.

one of the oldest wineries in the Fraser Valley, Mt. Lehman Winery in Abbotsford

My younger sister and her husband live in a brand new townhouse in Langley. My oldest childhood friend also lives there and let me bum around her stable to get my horse-cuddling fix (and some allergies, yay me). We went fruit-wine tasting in Abbotsford and visited the southern-most vineyard in canada – Glasshouse Winery sits at the 49^th parallel on 0 Ave, where you look across the street to Washington state.

Big Rock Brewery tasting paddle

I didn’t make it to Chilliwack or Whistler, my other two go to’s when in BC, but instead spent some time in and around Olympic village where my few remining UBC alumni friends now live. We spent a Sunday together touring the breweries, starting at the Big Rock Urban Brewery, winding up Ontario Road past Faculty, R&B and 33 Acres brewing companies, before ending at Brassneck and Main Street Breweries where I was politely cut-off by a power-tripping bartender. Instead we carried on to a concert in a second-hand clothing shop, and paid our way into a closed restaurant by buying cocktails from the bartender, and before I knew it, I was back on a plane to the bay area for some wine tasting.

May 2, 2018

San Francisco and the East Bay

I took a sketchy craigslist rideshare from Hollywood to San Francisco, and only realized half way that the couple driving me were on their way to the Iceland vs. Mexico soccer game in San Jose. I nearly blew my plans to join them, but had a special invite to a ´play´ party that I couldn´t miss.

a morning run by the water to the ferry building

I based myself in San Francisco for the weekend, the city itself, which is rare for my bay visits. I studied at Berkeley, once lived in Oakland, and usually stayed with friends in Walnut Creek or Danville. Now a handful of UBC friends live in San Fran, Alameda and San Leandro, so that’s where I decided to bounce around for a week and play a good tourist.

Chez Mike and Maya and their four-legged friends

It´s getting rare to sleep on couches anymore, because my friends are all grown up, figuring life out with their families and homes with guest bedrooms. Our conversations revolved around pregnancies, children, remodelling, gardening and the bowel movements of pets. I became a live-in au pair for Maya, whose 34 week belly made her less inclined to do house chores or walk the dog. We did manage to do some expectant-mother yoga, bake and cook a ton and I squeezed a whole lot of lemons and oranges into delicious, fresh, vitamin-C rich juice.

every respectable home garden in California has a citrus tree

My friends Stefan and Mane bought a house in Alameda, where they´re waiting for their second miracle to enter the world. Their first daughter Isabelle is the cutest little bilingual toddler I know – I totally understand the desire to make another one. We spent day on the beach flying the biggest, highest kite I´ve ever flown, and when everyone was busy working, I took a brewery tour on a pedal pike around San Leandro and Alameda, finally figuring out that I may be allergic to hops, not anything flour or gluten related.

Stefan flying his kite on Alameda beach

I reconnected with a couchsurfer I met traveling in Albania in 2016, first for coffee and an overpriced kimchi croissant (only in Frisco), and a night out in the city. Our friend Billy was throwing a party to celebrate his self-proclaimed entry into a degenerate lifestyle, after quitting his cush job at Google and buying twenty people food and drinks at a speak easy bar called Bourbon & something. We had the ´Russel Room,´ hidden behind a rotating wall disguised as a bookshelf on one side, and a cigar cupboard on the other, which made way to an art-deco room that looked like a movie set, but was authentically original, complete with its pre-Vegas Chahuli chandelier.

Mike, Duke and Maya

My main goals in California were to eat plenty of In n Out, animal style, and shop at all or any Trader Joes that I saw. We hiked thru some red woods and poison ivy, discovered that the Oakland Zoo is not pet-friendly (strange, no?), and I assisted in a photo shoot with two Jess´s for maternity wear being modelled by Maya. Ironically enough the photographer Jess was also pregnant, and I started to wonder how much exposure I could have to pregnant women before being bit by the mommy gene. Fortunately for me, I´m now even more positive I’ll never be pregnant, since everyone else seems to do it so well – I’ve got no chance handle it as gracefully.