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May 2nd – May 9th, 2016

Our flight from Vancouver to Glasgow was super cheap. I think it’s because it had a very long stopover in Halifax, which was actually perfect for us because I’d always wanted to take Scott to my old university town. We had enough time to take the bus into town, walk around the waterfront, have lunch with my old thesis supervisors (Kazue and Chris), get candy at the Freak Lunchbox, eat Economy Shoe Shop nachos, climb citadel hill, have a few drinks, and bus back to the airport. Perfect.

We went to Glasgow to visit Scott’s bff Jono and his wife Kirsten. They were awesome hosts. They took us into the Scottish highlands, where we had a wee dram at the Glenturret distillery, haggis neeps and tatties at King’s House Hotel, and took in the scenery in Loch Lomond National Park. It was lovely. Jono also took us around Glasgow itself, where we went into a few museums, ate some really delicious foods, and had a few drinks.

Scott and I went to Edinburgh for a day on our own. The castle was a bit out of our budget so we mostly just walked around looking at stuff and tried to find a restaurant that served homemade Scotch eggs (did not succeed).

Scottish food was something special. Jono made sure I tried everything. Highlights included: the most enormous plate of haggis anyone has ever seen, deep fried halloumi (delicious), macaroni pie (delicious), blood sausage, square sausage (salty!), cold grocery store Scotch eggs. They really do deep fry everything. Nom.

After Scotland we flew to London Stansted, and then took the train for 2 hours for the sole purpose of going to the Jorna Indian Restaurant. If you have not had the pleasure of listening to their amazing theme song, I have uploaded it HERE.

We ordered our food based on the song. Tasty saag aloo, creamy korma, and Peshwari naan. It was OK. TBH the best part of the meal was telling our waiter that we came all the way from Vancouver specifically to go to their restaurant. I think we blew his mind.

The next morning we took the train back to Stansted to fly to France to start our camino!

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After 3 months, 8 countries, 9 flights, 400+ km of walking, 1000s of km by bus and train, 4 ferries we are HOME. Our new home in Melbourne, Australia.

We had an epic time.

Highlights included:

  1. Meeting up with so many friends and family, especially the ones we hadn’t seen in years. (Kazue, Chris, Jono, Kirsten, Annukka, Shaun, Karen, Archie, Mirjam, Kees, Frank, Eveline, Rhiannon, Johan, Bonnie Mae, Lieven, Kai, King Ling, Isabel, Sarah, Daniel)
  2. Getting our ticket into heaven. More about this later.
  3. Wine. So much cheap Spanish and French wine. Until Scott got sick, then wine consumption plummeted.
  4. Cheese. So delicious.
  5. AirBnb. Most of them were just lovely, and so much better and cheaper than staying in hostels.
  6. FlixBus. Such a cheap way to get around Europe.
  7. Daily massages in Thailand. So good.
  • Things we lost: one pair of socks each, my (already quite broken) phone, one water bottle, skin, weight (Scott).
  • Coolest new food: goose barnacles
  • Best cocktail: Belt Buckle (passionfruit nectar + champagne)
  • Best museum exhibit: Picasso sketches of buttholes and naked ladies

Anyway right now we are staying with Scott’s parents. Scott has been applying for jobs like crazy, and I was looking for apartments. We just found out yesterday that our application for a place in St Kilda was accepted so I guess we are moving out soon! It’s just a 6 month lease so we can move closer to our future jobs if we need to.

I can’t do nuclear medicine for a while though. The committee decided I have to write the exam, at the end of October. I haven’t decided yet what I will do until then, possibly some temp office work or volunteering at a hospital, or something else part time while I study. Or 24/7 crafts?

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Well, blogging while traveling was a complete fail. 😩

But we’ll be home on Friday and I’m not planning on going anywhere for a while. So… new posts coming very very soon.

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Ever since I saw a massive group of friends celebrating a 30th birthday in Fiji I’ve wanted to do the same. I managed to convince 12 people (me, Scott, Rosemarie, Lauren, Natasha, Helenka, Marjorie, Lateef, Lani, Ilyssia, Leslie and Kyla) to rent a beautiful Airbnb place in the Riviera Maya. It wasn’t the easiest thing to coordinate people coming from 4 different cities, but it ended up being SO SO awesome.

Highlights included:

1. The house/pool. The house was perfect. It had everything we needed, enough beds and rooms for everyone, tons of space. I loved going in the pool every morning and evening. Plus we saw iguanas, lizards, coati, and cool birds all right in the backyard! Airbnb win!

2. Snorkelling in Akumal with turtles, barracuda, squids, and more.

3. Empanadas and bioluminescence/stargazing in Puerto Morelos.

4. Collectivo adventures. So happy that we had Marjorie to negotiate on our behalf.

5. Cenotes @ Kantun Chi. I still can’t believe that it was not overrun with tourists. Besides us and Louis CK (seriously) there was almost no one else there! The water was so clear and deep and refreshing. I absolutely loved it.

6. “Exploring” the Tulum ruins. Not really. It was too hot.

7. Cooling down in the ocean. Thanks Lauren! 😜 Swimming was so so good.

8. Tulum beach was amazing. Brad and Marita met us there. Brad’s wedding ring fell off but after 20 minutes of diving Natasha actually found it! It was amazing.

9. Just general horsing around with friends. This picture was immediately after trying to take a multi-person water jumping picture. You may have seen some of them on Facebook already.

10. El Fogon x2 because it was so tasty. We ordered a giant platter for everyone to share. Thank you Scott for going out to pick it up both nights!!! Tacos, meats, cheese, nom nom nom.

11. Rose and Lauren’s new nicknames: El Baño and Señor Baño. Also Dukoral. It definitely seemed to help prevent ‘gastrointestinal distress’ in those of us who took it.

12. Helenka’s jesus lizard impression. It is accurate!

13. The group. 😊 I had so much fun with everyone. Thanks guys.

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Last last Christmas I signed up for Reddit Secret Santa. I sent my person in Taiwan a bunch of Canadian snacks and someone sent me a box of Wisconsin cheese. Everyone was happy.

Last Christmas I signed up again. I sent my person some (I thought) cool stuff from Sara M Lyons. They apparently hated it, which I knew because they actually posted that on the thank you page. Yeesh. Why didn’t they just not say anything? And then the person who got me didn’t send me anything. So that was a bummer.

BUT THEN. If you get shafted, you can apply to be re-matched, and I was lucky enough to get re-matched. My new secret santa first donated to the Special Olympics in my honour (they saw from my blog that I do skeleton), and then got me a gift certificate for a tandem paragliding trip in Permberton!!! I was SHOCKED. So so so amazing.

Photos by Ricardo Coral @ Sea to Sky Paragliding

This is the DEFINITION of PERMA-GRIN.

So last Sunday we drove up to Pemberton to do it. It was so cool. Scott got a ride up in the truck too so he could enjoy the view and watch from above.

My shoe nearly fell off during the launch. My heel popped out of my shoe and I didn’t know if I should just let it fall off and keep running or try to jam it back on. I managed to cram it back on, and we still managed to get up in the air, but I doubt it was a very graceful launch, haha.

It really did feel like flying. And it was so comfortable!! I thought it was going to be in an uncomfy harness but instead you sit in a padded chair. The views of the valley were amazing, and it was fun swooping around over the trees. And our landing was super smooth.

THANK YOU REMATCH SECRET SANTA!!!!! YOU RULE!! It was a truly special day.