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...
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