America – aimlessly ali

Little Trips

I’ve been feeling a little mopey about the fact that I haven’t been travelling lately, and can give about a hundred reasons why “I deserve” to feel this way… (just look at what I was doing a year ago!) but then it was pointed out to me that it’s not an entirely true fact that I haven’t travelled – more so an opinion of mine. And so, I guess I have to admit that yes, I did spend a week the Dominican Republic, then a day in Panama, and weekends in Vegas, Jasper, and Seattle. Fine – if we’re going to get technical I supposed I still have had a pretty great summer adventuring around. Why is it that I always feel the need to see more, go further, lose myself somewhere new?? (I could easily spiral into all sorts of ridiculous thoughts like; ‘My identity is a traveller: therefore do I lose my identity and fade away when I’m not away?’)

Glossing right past the silly existential questions for now, I want to share some of the moments that stood out for me this summer. My most recent jaunt was to Seattle for a quick work event, and while I won’t bore you with those details I will tell about my day exploring Seattle’s famous sights. I may have a grownup job now but I still really enjoy my aimless explorations, and so when I travel on my own I very happily throw planning aside just to see what comes my way. I chatted with the hotel clerk and found out that I could take the free shuttle to the airport, then hop on the train from there to the centre where I would find the city’s highlights, so that’s exactly where I started. Stop number one for me was the famous Pike’s Place Market. I knew it was busy, but I have to admit some shock at JUST HOW BUSY it is! I did a bit of digging after, and discovered that it’s in the top 40 destinations by visitor number in the whole world. Crazy! ( Tourism stats ) I liked seeing it, though, even if I was almost equally amazed by the people watching as I was by the oldest continuously operated farmers market in the US. My wanders took me through the market, along the piers, downtown to coffee shops, past the Space Needle and back to the water. It’s a pretty city indeed on a sunny August day!

Seattle Market

Totem Pole

Pacific Northwest

Moving back in time, I had a previous work event that brought me to Las Vegas. I’ve been there several times before so this didn’t hold the same wonder and awe for me, but I still had a great time walking the famous strip after dark to marvel at the neon lights, and sitting by the pool with a novel the next morning before my flight home.

New York, New York Las Vegas

Ali for Avionco

More exciting for me was July and exploring my own ‘backyard’ in Alberta. Have you ever been to Jasper before? It’s stunning. You should plan a visit. Even though it’s an easy and scenic 5 hour drive from my front door, I haven’t been since childhood – I generally go to Banff instead, less than 2 hours away from me. But a long weekend camping trip in the cutest little cabins has me convinced I’ll be back again!

Jasper Cabins

Squirrel!

Hiking forest trails

Continuing in my July adventures at home, I took in some time at the Calgary Stampede. If this is something else you haven’t heard of, look it up and plan to come. It’s a huge city-wide party, a cultural homage to our heritage, a thrilling competition and vibrant midway all packed together. ( Calgary Stampede ) And I just love it!

Authentic Tipis

Midway ferris wheel at dusk

Night on the Midway

Prior to all this I kicked off my summer 2017 down South with a little quality beach time. Thankfully my cousin decided to get married in the Caribbean so I had a chance to visit Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. I wouldn’t typically chose to go to an All-Inclusive resort, but I was thrilled with the chance to go and celebrate with family and friends. So often I’m alone when I’m away from home and this made it an extra fantastic treat to be in the middle of a huge group of friends this time. And now if I ever go to resorts again, I know I’ll want about 40 people I adore there with me. At least.

Photo by Dan

Photo by Dan, I think

Also my birthday – celebration breakfast

Beautiful resort

Caribbean style

Going into this week in Punta Cana, I knew that this would be my last trip with the freedom to just book my own employee-pass standby flights, so I wanted to make the most of it. I didn’t know exactly how I’d be getting home until the day prior – when I saw that I could fly directly to Panama. OF COURSE that called my name! Spending time in Panama would mean that I’ve been to each of the North American/Central America countries and I just couldn’t resist. (and, I plan to celebrate that milestone again if I ever go to each Caribbean nation. I haven’t done that yet!) I didn’t have long, but I made the most of it in Panama by choosing a charming hostel in the Casco Viejo Old Town in central Panama City. This is the epicentre of the tourism in the city and gave me the freedom to walk and explore. I loved walking along the bay and taking in the contrast between the glittering new high-rises and the old Latin/Spanish legacy.

Perfect morning

Casco Viejo morning

Pretty good for only 14 hours in the country, hey? I hope I get a chance to go back and see more of Panama.

So looking back with a little more gratitude, I can clearly see that I had a great summer and even one worthy of dusting off my travel blog. But let me tell you, I have higher hopes for my fall!

Crabby Cabbies

This post starts off with a disclaimer: the following may not be as nice as the usual tone of my average posts. But I am sitting in the backseat of a taxi right now, hoping I’m on my way to the airport, still trying to quell my tense unease.
It started about 10 minutes ago when I walked out of my very fancy hotel room, in a major American city and right downtown, into the misty rainy night. I saw three taxi cabs at the curb right in front of me, and I hesitated for a moment in case there was a queue. I tried to make eye contact with the drivers of each to see if there was an order, and when none seemed to move I took another step forward. The driver of the cab directly in front of me smiled, so I started towards that car. He opened the trunk and just as he was lifting my bag there was a furious blare of a horn behind us. For a split second I instinctively thought a car crash was happening in the intersection, but as my eyes registered the angry arms and clenched fists I saw it was clearly no accident. Into our stunned immobility started walking a sight that added another layer to my disbelief of the current events. Long white hair, stringy, uneven and matted, topped a faded black denim coat layered open over a green plaid flannel jacket and dirty t-shirt. The most nightmarish Santa-in-opposite you could imagine. This was the other driver, coming out of a branded and licensed city taxi cab, livid over an accidental slight. The first driver set down my bag and started backing away with apologies in an attempt to appease. I stopped him and said I didn’t want to ride in a car with such a furious driver. By this time the doorman of the hotel appeared and tried to diffuse the situation. The angry driver was placated and I was informed he had been in line and was the next due for a passenger. I shrank back, and said again I wasn’t comfortable getting into that car now on my own and I would like take another ride. To which the doorman asked “hey, you spooked her. Are you ok to drive?” as he Placed.My.Bag.In.The.Trunk! I still didn’t move and was protesting again when I realized that I seemed to be the only one fazed by this outburst. I suddenly noticed a uniformed security guard standing about a metre away, eyes down, and many other people at the hotel entrance and on the sidewalk. The doorman’s voice pulled back at my attention and I heard him say softly “it’s ok now, he’ll be alright. Get in, you’ll be fine.”

So I did.

And my stomach clenched with unease the entire time.

In the time it took me to write the above paragraphs I arrived at my destination but the story isn’t finished yet. At least now you know I’m safe. The ride was anything but fine, though, with my internal monologue churning; asking myself if this guy was drunk (probably not) or homeless (so what if he is? It’s good he’s working, right!?) to wondering if I should worry about being kidnapped (doubtful) or not arriving at the airport on time (much more likely). The first five or so minutes of the drive passed with the car giving the little chime warning of a seatbelt undone. I watched as he spent a few minutes reaching behind him and fussing with the seatbelt he had fastened behind him, then suddenly he tells me “I’m not going anywhere” as he stops the car in the middle of a residential street. My fight-or-flight response revved high again as he opens his door and got out; and I’m not sure it was actually relief when I saw he was only getting up to stretch the still-buckled shoulder harness across him. As we drove off again he explained to me that “this seatbelt was the trickiest one he’d ever seen.” We lurched on in the darkness, the car constantly changing speed as he see-sawed his foot on the gas pedal with sporadic regularity. Any time I would look up at him or our surroundings I would imagine myself peeping through my fingers, though of course I was much too polite to actually let him know I was terrified, other than a quiet frightened gasp that escaped my lips once. He cursed to himself after veering for an exit and missing it, which prompted me to stop writing and look again at my google maps. “Did we make a wrong turn?” I asked him sweetly when I saw we were not where we should be and he grumbled he missed the North Access road in a manner suggesting someone else was at fault. I watched him as he hunched forward over the steering wheel to peer out past the windshield wipers and rain and I spent the rest of the drive simultaneously in silent prayer, writing the beginning of this post, AND watching my map to help guide him.
An eternity later, I finally stepped out of the car and collected my suitcase, nearly 45 minutes after I walked out of the hotel. It seemed exponentially longer than the 30-35 minutes I had expected! I asked the driver his name, and made a mental note of the car number and company with the full intention of writing a complaint to the company and also the hotel…. maybe I still will, but by now I’m not so sure. As I sit safely in my cozy airplane seat, writing out the rest of this, my main emotion is sadness for this driver. I feel bad for him, because as I spoke to him briefly he seemed to brighten, giving me a glimpse that he’s probably had a very hard life and I worry how my complaint may affect him. Then I think that even though he may need the job, should he really be driving the public?? I don’t know yet what I’ll do….

——————

The ironic part of me writing out this story (Entirely True Story!) is that I had been mulling a bit about crabby cabbies already before this happened. Last week I was on the other side of the USA in a small city with a decidedly back-woods vibe. (I’m choosing to withhold names, obviously) Again, as it was tonight, that morning I was alone leaving a hotel and on my way to an airplane. When the taxi finally pulled up, my first thought was to giggle and look around if I was being pranked. The car was an ancient rust bucket painted lime green. I could smell old cigarettes before I even got in, and as the driver opened his door to stow my suitcase he drawled “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long… I had to stop and make sure my Momma ate her lunch.” This was going to be my most crazy cab story – until tonight! During our short drive he proceeded to tell me all about his family squabbles; a nephew that stole his mother’s car, a good-for-nothin’ brother, and his sweet momma with her dementia. All this and much more I learned over the blast of his old classic rock radio, while I did my best to nod and not look too shocked. When I handed him my visa to pay he launched into a tirade against big banks, and how he gets charged for each credit purchase… At least he was sweet in his complaining. He spoke to me as if I were a trusted co-conspirator with him, us against my the world, and the grin he gave me when I was able to find enough cash to pay with instead of my card made me glad I was able to.

I feel like I should wrap up with saying that this is not my normal transportation experience. I haven’t run the stats, but for effect I’d say 95% of the taxi and Uber drivers I’ve had have been great, 4.9% have just been fine, and only 0.1% make me worry. But a good driver isn’t likely to make a good blog story!

The More Things Change…

Remember that old cliche saying – The more things change the more they stay the same ? I’ve been thinking that quite a bit over the past week, and it’s never rung so true for me as it has recently. I used to consider it a silly expression, but I think life taught me not to be so quick to judge the old folk wisdom. Here’s a recap: Seemingly everything in my life has changed over this past year, and much of that within the last few months. One of those changes was my work, and I wrote about this major career change I was beginning about a month ago; yet here I am again tonight in a hotel room in a city far from home, doing a new version of the same job I have for the last decade. It’s amazing! I had a quick conversation with a friend about this bizarre twist in my career and was reminded “you’re good at it – roll with it!” so that’s exactly what I’m doing…. and soaking up every moment because as far as I know this is still a temporary blip rather than a mainstay of my new job.

I was able to take a day during one layover to explore Hollywood, California for an afternoon. I’ve been to Los Angeles before, but this was my first time walking down the Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame. My friend Jenilee also had the time off, so we set out together to see what we could see. The day was a little chilly, but as long as we did our best to stay in the sunshine and avoid the wind it was still pleasant enough to be walking outside – a nice treat for late December according to a Canadian!

Right when we first arrived, we were greeted by an Art Deco style monument. I had never before heard of this – I’m not sure it’s one of the famous landmarks – but with its replicas in silver of four of Hollywood’s early screen stars it was a nice start to the Walk of Fame.

Next step brought us to the stars… and some comical moments as I realized that along this crowded stretch of street NO ONE was watching where they were going! We all had our heads down, reading the names of the Stars as we walked along. I think for every celebrity name I heard called out by tourists wanting to be excited there were almost as many “excuse me” and collisions narrowly missed.

Is it narcissism or normal to search for my name on the stars?

One guy picked this crowded location as his spot to demonstrate, so for about 45 minutes we heard his chant amplified through speakers and a smattering of participants. I don’t think he likes the upcoming government very much….

Continue walking further away from the largest concentration of people, and found we almost had the streets to ourselves. All the better to study the stars and surrounding architecture!

There’s something about this building I love

The rest of the week brought more change – time in 3 different cities – but again the changes are familiar in some way. I’ll write more about that again another time!

More from New York

I have a confession to make. I have been avoiding this blog for a week, even though I still have lots to say and even though I really do love writing it. That’s weird, right? I would want to sit down and start a post telling you about all the great things I saw on my last trip, (finishing off the post I started in Naming New York ) but then I would open YouTube or Pinterest instead, or watch a movie or pick up a book, pretty much anything to avoid productivity. I’ve also managed to avoid laundry and vacuuming through these same tactics. But I think it’s about time for me to wrap up this little brain break I’ve given myself and get back to seeing how much I can accomplish in my day instead of how little. Do you know the feeling – have you ever had a chance to just let yourself be a blob for a while? (Not counting any times prior to your 23rd birthday! I remember lots of us choosing to be brainless at times before the full pressures of adulthood kicked in!)

So here we go. I think I’ll still start off with something easy, though, and keep this to a pretty simple recounting of the time I had in New York with my girls last week.

Four childhood friends from a small town are set loose in a big city where they discover new adventures and new things about each other. If you didn’t read that last sentence in an exaggerated movie-trailer-narrative voice then please go back and read it again the way it was meant. Or skip it entirely – lines that cheesy aren’t meant to be taken seriously!! But actually…. that pretty much sums up my 5 days in New York. The four childhood friends are myself and 3 of my cousins that I grew up with, and we really did keep busy with exploring for the entire trip.

We’re not always so elegant… That photo was just before the one Broadway show we were able to see. And side note – go see Cirque Du Soleil PARAMOUR if you ever get the chance. I loved it sooooo much!! I think my exuberance to see the show must have caught the attention of Karma, because when we arrived at the theatre to pick up our tickets, (cheapest ones available and at the top back of the room) we were given an upgrade and watched the show from nearly the best seats in the house! Made my night!!

Another highlight was going to Yankee Stadium to watch a baseball game, again made even better when our team won! Go Jays! We had jokingly wondered before if it would be a problem cheering for the visiting team, but when we got to the stadium we saw almost as many Toronto fans as there were for the Yankees. It was incredible to sit out in the sunshine with about 37,400 or so other people and cheer on the teams.

On a day that was slightly less hot and sunny, we chose to be a little more active than we had been previously so we found some bicycles to rent and cruised our way through Central Park. I still find it amazing that a park so big can be in the middle of 8.5 million people… and there were times where it felt like we were the only ones there! Beautiful! As we were making our way through the park, Julie saw signs leading to a castle in the park so we made our way to go see it. Now, the part that I really want to convey other than the fact that an almost secret mini castle exists, is the fun coincidence that this is Belvedere Castle. If you’ve been reading my other posts, you may remember that I was just at Belvedere Palace in Poland with two other friends. Unless I was just the only one that hadn’t realized Belvedere was a major global name, this seems an unlikely parallelism. Not that I’m reading anything into it – I doubt the universe is trying to get me to drink more Belvedere Vodka! – but it’s made me smile none the less.

FullSizeRender 13 — Part of Central Park’s Belvedere Castle in New York

Other things we did during our days there: Ate a lot of ice cream. Gawked at the crowds in Times Square. Walked through SoHo and countless other communities. Shopped on 5th Ave. Saw the Statue of Liberty. Took a moment to reflect at the 9/11 Memorial site. Rode the subway. Noticed two rats. Marvelled at the Brooklyn Bridge. Gossiped together while getting pedicures. Laughed at the “Pretty Lady Discount” we were offered by creative vendors. Took a ton of pictures of the four of us together. Further cemented our bond as friends for life.

Naming New York

New York City. Those three words together are almost certain to evoke a reaction whenever they’re used. Clearly more than just a mark on a map, New York has a persona of its own, and in the realm of cities, New York is an A-list celebrity that everyone recognizes and wants a part of. The fame of this city makes it seem completely familiar, but with an edge and enough mystery to keep us intrigued.

I’m here with 3 other girlfriends, and I am soooo happy to have their company on this trip! Always happy to see them, but especially now after travelling alone for the past 6+ weeks!! Having their excitement and seeing their view of NY along with the way they’ve relayed that to their own friends back home has been fascinating for me. It’s fun to have another perspective – a reminder of what it’s like to experience the hum of the Big Apple for the first time.

For me, it’s the rush I feel just as I step outside the theatre after watching a great Broadway show that keeps me coming back. Having so many sounds and sensations saturating my nervous system is the best intoxication for me, and I’m floating on that energy for the rest of the night. The skill of the performers; the set, costumes and lights and music; then to walk outside into the crowds – sirens and horns and bike bells and street hawkers and advertisements all blaring; the sizzle of hot dogs and kebabs lingering over it all. This is New York. Not the mountains of garbage on the curbs or the smells on the subway platforms, those seem to fade away to the background of what I notice or remember. And that, in my opinion, is what really makes any A-lister, whether city or celebrity: that certain magic equation where the good is so great that it subtracts away the negative.