now boarding all passengers...

the ticket has been booked and i'm on my way!!!!
where to this time, you may ask? well... let me give you a sneak peak...



now that you've been left breathless... i shall reveal... in it's 360 days of sun-filled glory... MALTA!!

why Malta? I shall explain...

so three years ago, my beloved British uncle decided to host his wedding in his (and my mother's) hometown of Oxford, England... now, everyone has been to England at least once in their life! I, myself, have been there more times than i can recall... no, i'm not complaining.. but there is something kind of blase in saying, "oh yes, i'll be summering in the UK this year".. so you can imagine my delight when my internet-savvy sister approached me with the idea of taking advantage of a new offer from Iceland Air to stop in Reykjavik, Iceland en route to London Heathrow.... GENIUS! i have to admit, it didn't take much to convince our co-traveller (my mother) into swinging by the dazzling Blue Lagoon or marvelling at the wonders of Geyser (worlds 3rd largest) and the colourfully painted town/city/capitol Reykjavik for a few days prior to the said nuptials... without giving too much thought, we booked and were on our way to the luminous and mysterious Iceland...

now i have to be honest, i went to Iceland with very few expectations... i kind of pictured to people to be similar to Slavic or Northern Europeans... blonde, pale, etc... this was relatively true... googling a few Icelandic phrases before i left, i was shocked by the incomprehensibility of their native tongue... being a language junkie i exhaustingly tried to master the complex use of accents and symbols but in the end, only managed to master a couple phrases... namely "Velkomin" = "Welcome" and "Bless" = "Thank you" (i think??)... the land itself was like nothing i'd seen before.. at first it made me think of the central parts of new zealands south island.. but with even less lushness... as far as the eye can see there wasn't a single tree in Iceland that stood more than 2-3 ft... i heard it describes similarly to the moon... with moss... everything was EXTREME... from the blueness of the water... scalding heat of the geysers... grandness of the waterfalls and vastness of the glaciers... Reykjavik, the only city, was similar to St. John's Newfoundland.. minus the avid drinking population... in a word... it was the most random place i had ever been.... which got us thinking... what if we picked a random destination each year to visit and discover it's glories... again, GENIUS!

so was born the annual random adventure... year 1: Iceland; year 2: Vegas (it was random for US.. a bunch of non-gamblers.. and we took a side trip to the grand canyon) and next; year 3: Malta! i can already feel the Mediterranean sun burning my Canadian winter-bleached face...

Remembering...

Buenos Aires, Argentina

lonely planet on your iPhone...

so I just recently got into the whole i"whatever" hype with my recent acquiring of a hand-me-down iTouch from a new iPhone customer and i have to say i've become quite wrapped up in the thing... for the first month i toted the touch sensitive pad around with me absolutely everywhere i went raving about all the wonderful functions and 'apps' available... everyone received an email from me with the signature "sent from my iPod".. it was great! just as the honeymoon was beginning to wear down, i discovered the lonely planet app...

now for any of you who have traveled with me or had the pleasure of browsing through my books shelf, you will know that i am an AVID lonely planet activist, user and lover... i have a lonely planet for everywhere i have traveled in the last 5 years and they pretty much all reflect the tender love and care i have for my travel experiences, often including food stains on the pages... i'm not sure if its the format, maps or price point or the sometime brutal honesty they contain (re: india) but i've been actively using their product since 2005 with very few complaints (exception: new zealand 'boot leg' version bought on the street in thailand.. probably my own fault)... most of my books are more like 'bibles' with penciled in notes in the margins, corrections, additions, etc.... i covet them as though they are my children and am reluctant to lend them to others unless certain promises are made in advance... firstly, you must add your comments (price changes, hotel closures, missing information, etc.) part of the fun of my travels is testing out recommendations and finding places and things not yet discovered by lonely planet adventurers... for a long time my dream job was working for lonely planet and writing my own renditions of the far-reaching globe... but i transgress... the lonely planet app allows you to purchase and store guidebooks and language books right on your iPod which can be accessed without a WIFI connection!!! this may not seem like a big deal, but after carting around the 1000+ page anthology of the india lonely planet for 3 weeks, i can understand what a useful tool this could be! not to mention the language guides which have an audio feature so that you can actually hear pronunciation!!! i'm telling you, technology never ceases to get the better of me!
currently, i only have the Mexican Spanish language guide and the San Francisco City Guide which come free when you download the app... as much as i am impressed and fascinated by this app, i'm not quite ready to hop aboard the eBook train just yet.. there is something about the smells and textile function of a living, breathing book that i can't quite get from digital media... once they figure out that glitch.. then we'll talk!

stuck in an elevator...

for a number of months now, people have been getting stuck in the elevator at my work... sorry, i should rephrase, STUDENTS have been getting stuck in the elevator.. it's an ongoing problem as they, in their haphazard excitement, jam themselves beyond capacity to go up one floor causing the disgruntled, crabby elevator to heave and eventually surrender to its inadequacy...
at first, i was struck by the horror of being crammed among 20 or so other bodies with limited oxygen for upwards of 4 hours... then i heard that one of the students had video-taped the experience and posted it on youtube much to his classmates amusement... in an attempt to find this video, i was overwhelmed by the number of videos people have created of their elevator "experiences" over the years... clearly this is a creative point of view i have yet to explore..
continuing my research, i was shocked to see the number of images of such an incident as well as stories.... found friendships, love encounters, sexual encounters.. suddenly, being trapped in an elevator didn't sound so bad!!!
but... as always, the cloud with the silver lining falters and the storm rages through... i later heard that the youtube captured elevator experience was not the fun and excitement that i had pictured... among the trapped was a student who fainted from claustrophobia, another in tears as she required washroom facilities and someone with unfathomable body odour... as i headed over to the elevators to visit my friend on the 9th floor this morning, i heard the all too familiar buzz of the emergency push button.... i think i'll be taking the stairs...