August 19, 2009

Getaway to Vancouver Island

bc ferries

I have been semi-stranded in Vancouver for almost 2 weeks now, which is both unfortunate and awesome because I only got to spend this much time at home since I ran out of money, but enjoyed every moment back with friends and family. However, being in one place for two weeks in the height of summer and travel time, I still ended up restless and had to come up with some sort of getaway.

Me and Steph, a friend from wayyy back in high school, discussed trying to do a roadtrip to the Okanagan, Montana & Idaho, Whistler, or Vancouver Island. The first two involved too much driving time for the only 2 day weekend Steph could take off from work, and Whistler is almost too close to Vancouver to be its own holiday…and besides, Whistler is at its best during mid snowboard season.

So, we went to Vancouver Island. We took BC Ferries to Victoria where we met a friend of mine I had made in Montreal earlier this summer. He was the perfect host and a kind chauffeur, driving to and from ferry terminals, all around Victoria, and up to Nanaimo with a beautiful lake stop on the way. We stayed with his parents, two wonderful people who we joked and drank with more comfortably than I have with my own parents! The ferry ride back was a highlight, since we sat out on the top deck suntanning and taking in the scenery of untouched forests and far away blue mountains. The ferry ride to the island was a little less fortunate; we were befriended by two Persian brothers who came off really nice at first, but after buying us lunch we realized they just wanted to buy our company for the weekend in Victoria, and Steph’s silent retaliation was “No, I will not prostitute myself to you!”

It was such a great vacation because the cost of traveling with the ferries and benefiting from such generous hospitality made the entire trip cost about $50! We lucked out with great weather and enjoyed the nature saturated island beauty to its fullest. Life is beautiful in Vancouver city too, but people are too stressed and moving at a hundred miles an hour. But on the island, life just seems to slow down and city life becomes secondary to nature.

Find cheap flights to Vancouver on Dohop.com

August 10, 2009

What to do when you're Homesick

me and my sisters in Vestmannaeyjar in 2005... they're two people I miss alot when I travel!

I’ve come up with a check list to identify homesickness, and what I do about it. I hope it helps you fellow travellers…

1. You start missing friends and family from back home unbearably: Try calling, emailing, or Skype-ing someone back home to chat and get caught up on small talk and find out how everyone is doing and hear a familiar voice. If you dont have technology to facilitate that, keep a diary you can share later or write an old fashioned letter and use snail mail.

2. You stop trying to submerse yourself in the place you’re traveling: If you stop learning bits and pieces of the local language, or stop being adventurous about trying the local food or experiencing local customs, then you are probably missing the familiarity of home. The only way to get over that is to realize that you aren’t home and you should decide to make the best out of where you are instead; don’t miss out on any unique opportunities or the possibility of meeting an amazing local!

3. You are sick of living out of a backpack: Backpacking usually makes travelers realize they don’t have enough stuff, or that they have too much stuff and get sick of carrying it. Either way, remember that the only thing you need for an amazing travel experience is yourself, the clothes on your back, your passport and some money! So be glad to have what you have, or downsize if you can since “stuff” is superfluous.

4. You’re getting bored: Go somewhere else! Change the perspective you have of a place by seeing it from a different point of view, or just go somewhere new and exciting.

5. You’re lonely: Talk to anyone and everyone you meet, share stories, make new friends, get out of your comfort zone and try communicating without words if you experience a language barrier since body language and simple gestures are an amazing cross-cultural communication tool.

6. You are sick of being treated like a walking wallet wearing a “tourist” label: Try to blend in as much as you can, by dressing differently or acting differently, so that people can’t tell if you are local or not (if possible).

7. You just want to go home: Then, really, your homesickness has taken over completeley and the only way to cure it is…to go home! Thats the beauty of travel, you can always travel again after a short visit home, and plan your next trip for shorter or longer depending on what kind of traveler you are.

August 10, 2009

There’s No Place Like Home

You know how they say you can never truly appreciate something until you lose it? Well, its kind of like that with home when your away from home. Its probably just a psychological thing, but the further away I am from home, in geographical distance, the more homesick I feel just because of the physical separation. Then, depending on where I am, sometimes I get more or less homesick depending on how close to home the place resembles. For example, in Copenhagen, you don´t really miss Iceland that much since things are still familiar, or when you’re in any North American city, it still runs and functions the same way as most other major North American cities. But, if you’re in the middle of Burma, out of touch with phone lines, internet, and the regular commodities like clean running water or flushing toilets, home seems soooo much further away! The more difference a culture has to what you’re used to makes homesickness worse, and makes you appreciate home that much more when you return.

downtown Vancouver, the ocean and the mountains; where else can you have all that in one place?

It´s been so nice to come home to Vancouver after living out of a bag for 3 months with no sense of home or locality anywhere! Stuck in transit between Montreal, New York, Mexico and roadtrips in between has made the comforts of home priceless to me. The familiarity of people and places instantly gives me a sense of belonging, and knowing where to eat, where to go out, and how to navigate the streets and public transport just makes the city feel like the back of my hand again. Meeting up with good friends seems like absolutely no time has passed apart, and these are the same friends I’ve been dying to see for so long, and now they’re only a phone call away! What luxury 🙂 As for my family, home cooked food is another amazing luxury, and I can not seem to get my fill of mom and grandma’s cooking. Its nice not to carry my life on my back, not worry about getting lost or missing a flight, and especially nice to sleep in my own bed.

But now I have this strange identity dilemma where I don´t know if Im rightfully homesick for British Columbia or Iceland, (or both) but now Ive found that as soon as I satisfy a homesick feeling for Vancouver, I start to miss Iceland! I want Icelandic hot dogs, nightlife that lasts all night, long days and stinky, hot showers. It’s certainly confusing and annoying… but I guess having two places to go home to isn´t all that bad 😛

July 25, 2009

The Big Apple for the perfect NY holiday

I often travel through New York since the city has 3 major airports within a few kilometers of each other, offering an endless supply of travel opportunities. It also happens to be one of the cheapest cities to travel from, only a 4.5 hr direct flight away from Iceland (closer than west coast North America), and way cheaper and funner than London, the only other city i consider a major travel hub. I have been stalking flights to Cape Town, and often find flights with South African or British Airways that fly from New York, through London, and down to Cape Town, for cheaper than the exact same flight that just does the London to cape town segment. This time around, I made an actual visit to New York just to see New York, and spent 8 days in the city instead of 12 or 36 hrs like I usually do between flights enroute somewhere else.

tourists in the Big Apple

I´m glad to have done that since New York City is an amazing vacation place. I arrived 10 days ago, last Thursday, via an overnight bus from Montreal that was scheduled to arrive at 6:15 am and rolled in at a cool 7:45 after my cousin had waited in downtown rushour for an hour and half. By absolute coincidence, my mother and uncle from Vancouver were flying to Iceland via JFK and had that Thursday morning from 7 am til 11am in New York to meet up with me and my 3 cousins (and their wife/baby/husband) and we had the most glorious goat curry breakfast complete with rice, roti and merlot at some ridiculous time like 9 am. Then, dropping my mom and uncle at JFK at noon also coincided perfectly with Jon Smari, my partner in crime from Iceland, arriving in JFK from Iceland. New York is such a big city but only in New York would all our paths be able to collide like that!

Me and Jon Smari spent the week in my cousins basement apartment (were talking absolutely underground, no way to see sunlight or predict the weather/temperature… a strange feeling) and were joined by Clio from Montreal the next morning. We walked the entire island of manhattan, all of downtown, midtown, and the 51 city blocks of Central Park starting at 110th in Harlem where Jon Smari was a strikingly white minority. We literally shopped til we dropped, our feet covered in blisters and dirt after 10 hrs of city walking in poor foot attire. It also rained a few days, keeping us sore, dirty and wet, but with enough $7 pitchers of beer (Rudy’s Bar and Grill on 44th… an amazing find), we hardly noticed and just did the exact same exhausting marathon the following days. One cloudy day the entire top half of the empire state building disappeared in the clouds, and it so happened to be the only day we planned to go up to the top… but of course there was no use, so at least there’s still one reason to go back.

Some of the highlights included seeing the typical sights: the world trade center site, the empire state, the flat iron building, rockafeller center, DUMBO and walking over the Brooklyn bridge. Other strange highlights included meeting the Naked Cowboy (NYC mayor hopeful) and running into a 60kg 3m long snake at battery park… a little out of place, but still a beautiful creature. We also got to see a free concert by the salsa singer Frankie Negron in battery park, a free orchestra performance in prospect park by the NY Philharmonic, 2 broadway shows and a carriage ride through central park in the same carriage that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Angelina Jolie had once graced (or so the Irish driver told us).

My personal highlight was getting to spend time with some of my closest friends, all those mentioned already plus Ursula, my old roommate from one of the most amazing times in my life, Semester at Sea. We got a blissful 3 hour reunion together after almost a year without contact, which surely wasn´t long enough, but since she’s in NYC for good now, then its just another great reason to make it back to New York a.s.a.p!

June 25, 2009

Montréal: City of random where anything is possible

I’m living in Montréal for a little over a month, nestled downtown where the latin quarter and gay quarter meet, not too far from Chinatown or the old harbour, and every day something interesting is bound to happen. Montréal is a city where french, festivals, sex stores and drag-queens reign, and has been affectionately nicknamed the cultural capital of Canada. Just this month in Montréal, there has been the Fashion & Design festival (think outdoor runway show with a free concert by K-os), L’off Festival of Jazz, the world acclaimed International Jazz Festival of Montréal, a White Night Festival (a night time, outdoor street-art festival), the World Beer festival, and the infamous Fringe Festival where people from the “fringe” of society from all different parts of the world come to perform an art, theatre or music shows that differ slightly from the norm. I went to one such show last night, entitled Perverts!, and it mostly consisted of completely nude performers jiggling around on stage and acting out various forms of sexual affection that would push the comfort limits of any spectator. There wasn`t much dialogue, dance, or decipherable message, but the shock factor alone entertains.

Clio and I at Cirque du Soleil´s Ovo

Montréal is also a place there it doesn´t matter if your male, female, transitioning from one to the other or both, and homosexuals, bisexuals and heterosexuals can all thrive since anything goes.In a lot of newspaper classifieds, the “Escort Services” section is bigger than the employment, housing and cars-for-sale sections combined. Sex shops, strip joints, peep shows, and “bath houses” are everywhere along my section of St. Catherine, the main street through the gay village. Sunday night I went to a bar entitled Mado`s where dragqueens and hopeful transvestites put on an amazing lip sync/dance performance, and if I wasn`t enjoying myself enough watching dressed-to-kill males more beautiful than myself prance around on stage, I was even more pleasantly surprised when the last performer came out and performed Bjork`s “It`s Oh So Quiet.” Iceland represent! The nightlife in general is always entertaining, since I went to the most impressive gay bar I`ve been to yet called “Sky” which consists of 5 different dance floors with their own separate dj`s and bars, complete with a rooftop terrace, a swimming pool and a jacuzzi hot tub that stays open til the wee hours of the morning.

one of Montreals many festivals, Fringe

During the day there is also a bustling underground world, where the subway system and an entire shopping mall of 200+ stores lay underground downtown Montréal. The architecture of Montréal is a melange of old French and English colonial buildings, with more modern glass and concrete sky scrapers around, dwarfing them. There are a lot of old, beautiful cathedrals also scattered throughout, and when I spotted one such church tower in typical gothic style, I walked in through the massive wooden doors only to realize I`d walked into a university building that was built on the site of this church, but kept the tower as its entrance. Very confusing.

rooftop bar with my roomies

Its noticeable how many students this town caters to, with 4 major universities speckled throughout the centre of the city and an extremely friendly student nightlife. From all the parts of Canada I`ve visited, Montréal has by far the cheapest and most accessible alcohol, with every cornerstone selling cheap beer and wine and the province regulated liquor store still boasting comparatively low taxes, great selection and long opening hours. There are a bunch of restaurants which allow you to bring your own wine without paying a corking fee, and last Monday I polished off a bottle of pinot grigio with a kilo of steamed mussels at a white-table cloth restaurant for less than $20 with tax and tip. And when I want to eat a budget meal, poutine is easily and cheaply available 24 hrs of the day within a few blocks from wherever you end up after a night of drinking with the drunk munchies.

Montréal is of course the birthplace of Cirque du Soleil, which is in my opinion the most random but amazing spectacle I`ve ever seen. Even though I`ve been to it in Vancouver and Vegas, seeing it here at their home stage seemed like a necessary thing to do, so me and my best friend Clio went on Tuesday night, their 25th anniversary show. Then, by random chance, a guy asked us for directions to the show tent on our way there, quickly followed by “I have 2 free tickets, are you two going?” We said yes, but that we would take them anyway and called 2 of my roommates who got to come for free. On Sunday afternoon, we went to the base of Mount Royal (a huge park in the middle of town) where hundreds of people come together to play percussion instruments, practice tight-rope walking, or reenact medieval battle grounds complete with middle age wardrobe and plastic weapons. Other random occurrences include a man riding a bicycle with a cat standing on his head, another guy riding past with an iguana on his shoulder, a police horse trying (and almost succeeding) to eat my Guyanese-gold bangle off my arm, and the current top male model in the world staying at my place for almost a week since he just happens to be my roommates best friend. Very, very random.

June 15, 2009

You know you’re travelling when…

Where am I? You know that question you ask yourself when you wake up totally lost and in a moment of total and utter confusion you try to remember whose house and what country you are currently in? That question has frantically entered my mind one too many times ever since school got out mid May.

Its not the same kind of “where am I” that you ask yourself after a night of too much drinking or too little sleep, but the kind of lost feeling when you’ve been moving to too many different places without enough time to readjust to any of them. I’m not complaining by any means, since I’ve been dreaming of the summer and all the travel to be had since last September, and actually, I’m certainly getting used to waking up in Montréal after 10 consecutive nights in the same place.

Before I got here, there was Boston, and before that, any and every city with more than 30 inhabitants in Iceland since me and my best friend took 2 weeks to drive 3700kms around Iceland, including the west fjords and any part of the highland we managed to drag his Toyota corolla into, neglecting the many “impassable” signs we later learned were always posted for a reason.

bathing in the wild – 38°c hottub in the westfjords

Sleeping in an assortment of tents, hostels, couches, floors and even a hammock over the past 3 and a half weeks has taught me to appreciate the single bed I now have in downtown Montréal. Even more gratifying is the fact that my dorm residence is totally free, thanks to an amazing Canadian scholarship that covers your living expenses, tuition, AND food costs for an entire 5 weeks to learn french in Quebec! At least those tax dollars are being put to good use…

I have to admit the “travelling” feeling is slowly phasing out, since 10 days in the same place starts to make things feel like home. Although, the efficiency of student housing at the University of Quebec at Montréal somehow justifies having 8 people living in one apartment, and lucky me – sharing the kitchen and bathrooms with only guys, so getting totally comfortable in my temporary house won’t be possible. My best friend lives in Montréal, so she’s my go-to person when the testosterone gets too much too handle, and the perfect tour guide of the city and all its local charms as I try my best to fit in as a “local.”

Even so, the travel bug still reigns, since summertime is the epitome of perfect travel climate. I got my first tan back in Iceland after lazing in the many natural, outdoor hot pots spotting the countryside, and reconfirmed another brown layer lazing on a friends yacht off the coast of Boston 2 weekends ago. There is a park for beach volleyball players in the centre of Montréal city, so that excuse to wear a bikini in-town has also done great things for my summer bod.

You also know you’re travelling when you get the first pangs of home sickness. Iceland is great, and its even nicer in the summer, but of course I lasted the 8 darkest, coldest months, cursing the ice I walked on daily, and left just when things started to get green, warm, and bright. I got a tease of the Icelandic summer before leaving, as the trees bloomed and around-the-clock daylight was almost in full force mid May.

The sun is different here in Canada, cool in the mornings and evenings, cooking you at midday, and setting a lot earlier. The city scene here really dwarfs Reykjavik, but the Icelandic nature is what I miss most. I love bathing in geothermal pools, drinking water straight from a free-flowing river, and having enough free, open space to drive for hours in any direction without seeing a soul… except for maybe a few sheep. Homesickness aside, it’s been an amazing start to the summer, and it’s true what they say, you don´t truly appreciate something until it’s taken away from you, so Iceland, I’m sorry for cursing your winters, I miss you and I’ll love you unconditionally when I return.

June 1, 2009

Welcome to My Blog

I’m going to share my travel diary with all you wonderful good folk so you can know what I’ve been up to, where I am, learn about new places, or just pretend you’re interested to make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Please comment when you have anything to share, as I want feedback from readers so I also have a reason to snoop into your travel-thoughts 🙂 If you have any travel or place-specific questions, also don’t hesitate to ask, and for all your travel planning, check out dohop.com for the cheapest flights.

Oh, and 200 before 30… well, thats the goal, so long as 50 countries don’t disappear, or 50 new countries don’t show up, because that could maybe take a little more than 7 years.