I left you last time with some shots of Tallinn and I'm opening here with a few more. The second two are obviously from my trip to Paris. Enjoy!
Thursday, November 28, 2013
A small photo retrospective
Since I spent my last post lecturing whoever is reading this thing, I thought I'd repay you by posting some sweet photo love.
I left you last time with some shots of Tallinn and I'm opening here with a few more. The second two are obviously from my trip to Paris. Enjoy!
I left you last time with some shots of Tallinn and I'm opening here with a few more. The second two are obviously from my trip to Paris. Enjoy!
Stepping Stones
Dear void,
It will now be only 10 days until I fly out of Canada and into my new job in England. A move like this tends to create some familial angst. Every time I go anywhere or do anything out of the ordinary, this kind of friction tends to appear. The angst I'm referring to has thus prompted a lot of questions; Why are you moving when you have student debt? Why do you insist on digging yourself into a deeper and deeper financial hole? How do you see this affecting your future? What is your motivation for this seemingly needless move? Why do you insist on making things so difficult?
This is not a post about angst. This is not a post justifying why it is exactly I wanted to make a decision like this. This a post about decisions and making lots of them- big ones- about your life. To be fair, most of the questions listed here (and I have, indeed, heard each of them), have been posed by people who have never been on an adventure, and who have likely never taken a substantial risk. I am going to answer some of these questions here in case anyone out in the void is considering a move like this and are hesitating because they are mired in the self-doubt and anxiety that these kinds of endless questions generate. First, take a deep breath and repeat to yourself, "I am just walking toward the first stepping stone of a much longer journey."
I am a firm believer in stepping stones. Every time we make a choice or a decision, we take another step toward something. Sometimes we head straight towards a goal, sometimes we veer and end up somewhere totally unexpected. That's okay, either way, we are constantly adding a step to a collection of previously taken steps that will eventually fill our life. I wanted to go to Europe because I am a Europhile. Pure and simple, this was my ultimate motivation. I have a Master's degree in European politics, I have lived there twice before, and this move is another "stepping stone" that will enable me to not just move there but also, to stay. I have goals. I want to pay off my debt while working and having a look around my new country. I'd like to have a little fun. I want to start a PhD program at the University of Glasgow next year and don't want to worry about moving there especially for that. I want to find a job in my field, to work really hard and travel all over. I can't do that from home. Here, I'm stuck. There, I'm a free bird.
Everybody makes mistakes and I don't expect this abstract 5-year plan to go uninterrupted. I might muck it up and need to re-think some of my key strategies. The point, though, is this: Some people meet someone, find a job, get married, settle down, and save for their retirement. I will do some of those things, too. But not now. Everything in it's time and place, as they say. I'm looking forward to the adventure. For me, this is what building a life is all about. It's not crazy, it's just what I want.
I'm getting more excited as these last 10 days move by and in my opinion, everyone else should, too. And if you can't get excited about your life, change it. The only way to shift anything is to take that first step- or- stepping stone if you will.
10 days.
It will now be only 10 days until I fly out of Canada and into my new job in England. A move like this tends to create some familial angst. Every time I go anywhere or do anything out of the ordinary, this kind of friction tends to appear. The angst I'm referring to has thus prompted a lot of questions; Why are you moving when you have student debt? Why do you insist on digging yourself into a deeper and deeper financial hole? How do you see this affecting your future? What is your motivation for this seemingly needless move? Why do you insist on making things so difficult?
This is not a post about angst. This is not a post justifying why it is exactly I wanted to make a decision like this. This a post about decisions and making lots of them- big ones- about your life. To be fair, most of the questions listed here (and I have, indeed, heard each of them), have been posed by people who have never been on an adventure, and who have likely never taken a substantial risk. I am going to answer some of these questions here in case anyone out in the void is considering a move like this and are hesitating because they are mired in the self-doubt and anxiety that these kinds of endless questions generate. First, take a deep breath and repeat to yourself, "I am just walking toward the first stepping stone of a much longer journey."
I am a firm believer in stepping stones. Every time we make a choice or a decision, we take another step toward something. Sometimes we head straight towards a goal, sometimes we veer and end up somewhere totally unexpected. That's okay, either way, we are constantly adding a step to a collection of previously taken steps that will eventually fill our life. I wanted to go to Europe because I am a Europhile. Pure and simple, this was my ultimate motivation. I have a Master's degree in European politics, I have lived there twice before, and this move is another "stepping stone" that will enable me to not just move there but also, to stay. I have goals. I want to pay off my debt while working and having a look around my new country. I'd like to have a little fun. I want to start a PhD program at the University of Glasgow next year and don't want to worry about moving there especially for that. I want to find a job in my field, to work really hard and travel all over. I can't do that from home. Here, I'm stuck. There, I'm a free bird.
Everybody makes mistakes and I don't expect this abstract 5-year plan to go uninterrupted. I might muck it up and need to re-think some of my key strategies. The point, though, is this: Some people meet someone, find a job, get married, settle down, and save for their retirement. I will do some of those things, too. But not now. Everything in it's time and place, as they say. I'm looking forward to the adventure. For me, this is what building a life is all about. It's not crazy, it's just what I want.
I'm getting more excited as these last 10 days move by and in my opinion, everyone else should, too. And if you can't get excited about your life, change it. The only way to shift anything is to take that first step- or- stepping stone if you will.
10 days.
Friday, November 15, 2013
The Cosmic Void
It's been several years since I've even looked at this blog. I'm sitting at my desk in Baddeck, Nova Scotia (neat place- you should look it up) and I'm reflecting on my last travel adventure and on the next one to come. You see, I leave for a very long time on a very permanent excursion to the UK. Leaving in two weeks, in fact. Basically, after a few degrees in political science here in Canada, I've somehow come up with the wild idea to get me a PhD. There's an amazing program at the University of Glasgow that I've been accepted into. This experience has come up after a lot of time spent traveling through my Master's degree, after all of the growing pains associated with that time, and after a lot of successes and a lot of failures. I've learned so much but the urge to keep going and to keep discovering hasn't faded. Not one iota.
In the last three years, I've spent six months living in Vilnius, Lithuania, traveled to Paris, Rome, Chicago, Washington DC, to some really big mountains and Burlington in Vermont, and I have been all over Canada. After taking that first massive leap and getting on that fateful plane to Stockholm over 3 years ago I literally have not stopped. It's occurred to me after watching my friends find permanent jobs, get married and buy houses that I might be running from adulthood. But I've found recently that there are many versions of "adulthood" and that mine happens to look out over the clouds from the seat of an airplane. I'm not behind, broken, or otherwise deficient in any way. I am rather, a nomad, a gypsy, part migratory bird, part sentimental soul who just wants to feel everything from every part of everywhere. In the movie of my adult life I am deeply moved and affected by the world and that, my friends, is just fine with me.
I think that in comemmoration of this next big move, I might retroactively post some photos and thoughts from the travels I failed to document here. You know, the memories that are still rattling around in my brain, yet to find their place on virtual paper. In that vein, I will send this post out into the void of the internet and if you read this, maybe you'll write me. Maybe you'll shirk the idea of a nuclear adult life as well. And maybe we can be friends.
Good bye for now, dear void. It's good to be back.
In the last three years, I've spent six months living in Vilnius, Lithuania, traveled to Paris, Rome, Chicago, Washington DC, to some really big mountains and Burlington in Vermont, and I have been all over Canada. After taking that first massive leap and getting on that fateful plane to Stockholm over 3 years ago I literally have not stopped. It's occurred to me after watching my friends find permanent jobs, get married and buy houses that I might be running from adulthood. But I've found recently that there are many versions of "adulthood" and that mine happens to look out over the clouds from the seat of an airplane. I'm not behind, broken, or otherwise deficient in any way. I am rather, a nomad, a gypsy, part migratory bird, part sentimental soul who just wants to feel everything from every part of everywhere. In the movie of my adult life I am deeply moved and affected by the world and that, my friends, is just fine with me.
I think that in comemmoration of this next big move, I might retroactively post some photos and thoughts from the travels I failed to document here. You know, the memories that are still rattling around in my brain, yet to find their place on virtual paper. In that vein, I will send this post out into the void of the internet and if you read this, maybe you'll write me. Maybe you'll shirk the idea of a nuclear adult life as well. And maybe we can be friends.
Good bye for now, dear void. It's good to be back.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Goodnight, Tallinn. It's been a pleasure.
Of course, for my last few weeks in Tallinn, just as I was about to leave, the sun came out and it started to feel summery. Spring was very short and after the thaw and the rain, the heat didn't take long to follow. I went to see a few small sites around Tallinn that I hadn't squeezed in yet, finished exams and made my arrangements to depart.
With business taken care of, I spent a lot of time lounging in the garden at the back of my apartment since it hadn't been warm enough to use it before. I spent a lot of time with friends, including one memorable day at Kadriorg Park when we picnicked in front of swans, and ponds, and sunshine. It was idyllic. Except for my very large departure date looming in front of me.
I tried not to let it get to me. I even had a party at a local pub to commemorate the trip. Inside, though, I was afraid to leave, and afraid of how I would feel when I got home.
On my very last day in this very wonderful city, my friend Kevin and I went to the Old Town city walls where you can sit over a courtyard and drink coffee. It was pouring horribly and I like to think in its way the city was sad to see me go.
That evening, my friend Indrek took me and my one bag of luggage (how?!?) to the bus station for the first leg of my journey. Kevin came with us and they both stood there until the bus left the parking lot. I remember thinking how I would manage without them. I thought about what brought me here in the first place, what I learned and how Canada and I would get along when I got back. I didn't sleep all the way to Riga, from where my flight was to depart. I didn't sleep on the plane to Kiev where I was held up for 14 hours. I didn't sleep there either because I took advantage of the delay to go exploring. I slept all the way to Toronto out of sheer exhaustion and then was awake overnight and all the way back to Halifax. I couldn't believe how fast I was back. How easy it seemed to get from Ukraine all the way to Halifax.
My parents greeted me at the arrivals gate. They were the same, everything was the same. But I was prepared for how I would be different. I was ready for what came next.
I spent only one week in Cape Breton, my home and not my home. I spent a summer and then a year in Fredericton, New Brunswick trying to get my head on straight. And soon, I will be in Vancouver, British Columbia, ready to do it all over again.
Where next? Slovenia? Belgium? California? Banff? Guadalajara?? (Kidding- not Guadalajara, though I hear it's very nice).
Stay tuned....
With business taken care of, I spent a lot of time lounging in the garden at the back of my apartment since it hadn't been warm enough to use it before. I spent a lot of time with friends, including one memorable day at Kadriorg Park when we picnicked in front of swans, and ponds, and sunshine. It was idyllic. Except for my very large departure date looming in front of me.
I tried not to let it get to me. I even had a party at a local pub to commemorate the trip. Inside, though, I was afraid to leave, and afraid of how I would feel when I got home.
On my very last day in this very wonderful city, my friend Kevin and I went to the Old Town city walls where you can sit over a courtyard and drink coffee. It was pouring horribly and I like to think in its way the city was sad to see me go.
That evening, my friend Indrek took me and my one bag of luggage (how?!?) to the bus station for the first leg of my journey. Kevin came with us and they both stood there until the bus left the parking lot. I remember thinking how I would manage without them. I thought about what brought me here in the first place, what I learned and how Canada and I would get along when I got back. I didn't sleep all the way to Riga, from where my flight was to depart. I didn't sleep on the plane to Kiev where I was held up for 14 hours. I didn't sleep there either because I took advantage of the delay to go exploring. I slept all the way to Toronto out of sheer exhaustion and then was awake overnight and all the way back to Halifax. I couldn't believe how fast I was back. How easy it seemed to get from Ukraine all the way to Halifax.
My parents greeted me at the arrivals gate. They were the same, everything was the same. But I was prepared for how I would be different. I was ready for what came next.
I spent only one week in Cape Breton, my home and not my home. I spent a summer and then a year in Fredericton, New Brunswick trying to get my head on straight. And soon, I will be in Vancouver, British Columbia, ready to do it all over again.
Where next? Slovenia? Belgium? California? Banff? Guadalajara?? (Kidding- not Guadalajara, though I hear it's very nice).
Stay tuned....
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
"Stranger than Fiction": Real Life
There are times in ones life where it gets too complicated and too busy to allow for any kind of reflection. That's been the last three months for me. But, simply because three months have gone by, it's not to say that the memories have faded. So here we find ourselves again in the memory of my adventures. Welcome back!
Estonia is a small country, but as I came to discover, the locals consider it to have three capitals. Tallinn is the main point of interest and was where I lived for the duration of my stay. It's the official capital and the centre of business for the country. The second capital is Parnu which is referred to as the summer capital as it mainly occupied in the summer when its long beaches become more appealing. The third capital is Tartu, which is the university capital where students populate the city for the duration of the year.
As per usual, my travelling companion was Kevin, the American, and for this particular excursion we chose to take the train to Tartu! I had never been on a train before and it was one of my missions to accomplish before I left. This would be the last time Kevin and I travelled together and so it was a kind of bittersweet adventure.
We took the bus into downtown Tartu (in which time I broke my only pair of sunglasses and was forced to buy a pair of new ones) and decided to eat at the shopping centre and kill two birds with one stone. Sorry, birds.
Tartu is on a winding river and borders both of its banks and so, when rainy, it also becomes bug-y. Tallinn has a breeze. I missed it. The rain started in the afternoon, about a few hours after we had disembarked. Humid, muggy, sticky, and rainy, this soon became my least favourite of our excursions. Add to that, that my camera broke (it had sand in it- my fault entirely) and I quickly had a little hate-on for this quiet university town. I know I'm whining. Be patient, it gets better.
After thoroughly scouring the downtown and river front areas for interesting things to see, my mood was delivered from its fugue by the beautiful, abundant greenery, stone pathways and little hills that dotted the town. I was even more appeased after entering into its old town and botanical gardens. Old Town looked the miniature of Old Town, Tallinn except for the university smack in the centre. People were out in the streets, sitting outside of cafes and restaurants despite the weather and the overall feel was pleasant.
The hill behind the university was home to a few of its buildings, a number of statues (and an ancient sacrificial killing ground!!) and somewhere back there in the green and dirt we stumbled upon something we hadn't expected (especially since we hadn't researched anything to be found in Tartu, really, including the human sacrificing place). Ill-planned and we still found the historic sites! What I now know we were looking at is called Tartu Jaani Kirik Church- or Tartu St. John's Church and was once one of the most unique pieces of Western Gothic architecture in Europe due to its massive collection of terracotta statues. Now, mostly a ruin, you can pay for tickets and climb through its stairways and get a great view of Tartu from 360 degrees. Standing inside the ruined bit with no roof (located toward what I think was the back of the property) you get a very inspired feeling. There are still brick arches that are now transparent and empty that funnel light down onto the sand floor, which is really just the ground. I can't describe it but standing there I felt something a bit profound and was moved by the atmosphere under the arches.
Another spot not to be missed were the botanical gardens on the outskirts of the Old Town. It was a fun little trip that included saying hello to a lot of fish and making your way through tangled vines and pedways looking down onto tropical trees and flowers. A surreal departure from the snowy Estonia one gets accustomed to. We finished our trip with ice cream, a good chat with the locals and we were back on the train to Tallinn.
I spoke with Kevin a few nights ago (maybe 9 months or so after this trip) and I have to say that there are many ways people can make friends but few are comparable to being the only English speaking people in a country far away. It's like a little pressure cooker for a friendship, especially considering how much travelling we did together. He's still just as easy to talk to and as odd as he ever was. So, if you're reading this, Kevin... I miss you!!!
Estonia is a small country, but as I came to discover, the locals consider it to have three capitals. Tallinn is the main point of interest and was where I lived for the duration of my stay. It's the official capital and the centre of business for the country. The second capital is Parnu which is referred to as the summer capital as it mainly occupied in the summer when its long beaches become more appealing. The third capital is Tartu, which is the university capital where students populate the city for the duration of the year.
As per usual, my travelling companion was Kevin, the American, and for this particular excursion we chose to take the train to Tartu! I had never been on a train before and it was one of my missions to accomplish before I left. This would be the last time Kevin and I travelled together and so it was a kind of bittersweet adventure.
We took the bus into downtown Tartu (in which time I broke my only pair of sunglasses and was forced to buy a pair of new ones) and decided to eat at the shopping centre and kill two birds with one stone. Sorry, birds.
Tartu is on a winding river and borders both of its banks and so, when rainy, it also becomes bug-y. Tallinn has a breeze. I missed it. The rain started in the afternoon, about a few hours after we had disembarked. Humid, muggy, sticky, and rainy, this soon became my least favourite of our excursions. Add to that, that my camera broke (it had sand in it- my fault entirely) and I quickly had a little hate-on for this quiet university town. I know I'm whining. Be patient, it gets better.
After thoroughly scouring the downtown and river front areas for interesting things to see, my mood was delivered from its fugue by the beautiful, abundant greenery, stone pathways and little hills that dotted the town. I was even more appeased after entering into its old town and botanical gardens. Old Town looked the miniature of Old Town, Tallinn except for the university smack in the centre. People were out in the streets, sitting outside of cafes and restaurants despite the weather and the overall feel was pleasant.
The hill behind the university was home to a few of its buildings, a number of statues (and an ancient sacrificial killing ground!!) and somewhere back there in the green and dirt we stumbled upon something we hadn't expected (especially since we hadn't researched anything to be found in Tartu, really, including the human sacrificing place). Ill-planned and we still found the historic sites! What I now know we were looking at is called Tartu Jaani Kirik Church- or Tartu St. John's Church and was once one of the most unique pieces of Western Gothic architecture in Europe due to its massive collection of terracotta statues. Now, mostly a ruin, you can pay for tickets and climb through its stairways and get a great view of Tartu from 360 degrees. Standing inside the ruined bit with no roof (located toward what I think was the back of the property) you get a very inspired feeling. There are still brick arches that are now transparent and empty that funnel light down onto the sand floor, which is really just the ground. I can't describe it but standing there I felt something a bit profound and was moved by the atmosphere under the arches.
Another spot not to be missed were the botanical gardens on the outskirts of the Old Town. It was a fun little trip that included saying hello to a lot of fish and making your way through tangled vines and pedways looking down onto tropical trees and flowers. A surreal departure from the snowy Estonia one gets accustomed to. We finished our trip with ice cream, a good chat with the locals and we were back on the train to Tallinn.
I spoke with Kevin a few nights ago (maybe 9 months or so after this trip) and I have to say that there are many ways people can make friends but few are comparable to being the only English speaking people in a country far away. It's like a little pressure cooker for a friendship, especially considering how much travelling we did together. He's still just as easy to talk to and as odd as he ever was. So, if you're reading this, Kevin... I miss you!!!
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