back home in canada now...

I've now been back home in Canada for about a month... it feels so so good to be 'home'. What I've done in the last 11 months feels incredibly surreal though. Coming back home... the city, the people, the 30 degree summer weather... nothing seems to have changed. It is so strange to think that I have just completed travelling 13 countries in 11 months, while living in England and going to university there, and to think how much this experience has changed me as a person, and yet my hometown of 90,000 people appears to have been frozen in time these last 11 months.

Although there's no place like home, and it feels awesome to be home in a familiar scene, I of course miss the amazing people that were such a huge part of my experience abroad. I knew before I left, that it wouldn't be the places I would miss the most, but the people for sure. They completely took me in, and showed me different aspects and attitudes of life and other cultures that people often overlook.

I've come to realize that this experience cannot translate to words. No matter how long or how hard I try to explain to anyone the journeys I had, the hard times, the good times, the people I met, the different foods I tried ... everything ... I get the same blank 'head-nod' from everyone. From this reaction I can tell that they will never fully understand how extraordinary my time in Europe these last 11 months was. One really has to 'do' it to understand its significance.

Below I've written the words that to me, that best describe my experiences.

... The Kindness of Strangers

So a little while back I bought this book at a cool travel book store I found near Covent Garden in London. I bought it o read while I was travelling, waiting for planes and trains. It's called The Kindness of Strangers, written by Lonely Planet, and it's about all different kinds of travel experiences that the authors had while travelling, but with a twist... it's about complete random acts of kindness by absolute strangers they had experienced while travelling.

The book has a preface by the Dalai Lama which reads:
If we really think about it, our very survival, even today, depends upon the acts and kindness of so many people. Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents; later in life, when facing the sufferings of disease and old age, we are again dependant on the kindness of others. If at the beginning and end of our lives we depend upon others' kindness, why then in the middle should we not act kindly towards others?

Honestly, as soon as I started reading this book, it made me realize of how many random acts of kindness from complete strangers I have gotten through all of my travels .. but I really never want to forget about them, so I wanted to write about them on here.

Cairo, Egypt:
I think I wrote about this previously, but it was honestly one of the moments of my time in Egypt I will definitely never forget. I was by myself and had taken a taxi back to our hotel from a park in Cairo I was at with some friends. However, the taxi driver didn't really know English, yet he seemed to understand on the map, where my hotel was. Firstly, the man made me quite uncomfortable while I was sitting in his taxi, as he repeatedly told me how beautiful I was. Secondly, I felt as though the car was going to break down any second and it was filthy dirty and had sand everywhere inside. So, after about 10 minutes in the car, he comes to this street and says "ok, here you are" so I look out the window and thought to myself "I don't recognize anything here, maybe the hotel is just down the street a little... I'm sure I can find it." So I paid the man, get out and start walking. Sure enough, I have no idea where I am and I don't see any building with the name Victoria Hotel on it... and of course I'm dressed in shorts and a t-shirt because it's about 42°C outside so I'm getting stares from the locals. I'm so lost at this point, but then I see a bunch of national guards standing on the street dressed in white uniforms. So I came up to them and asked them if they are aloud to speak to me while on duty and they replied "yes." I ask them if they know where the Victoria Hotel is and they all chat amongst each other and say "no"... but one guards gets up, walks away, goes into some building down the street, and comes back with this little book. He hands it to me and tells me to find the name of my hotel in this book (it was some sort of old travel guide book). I point at the hotel name in the book, and underneath it it is written in Arabic. The guard then takes a piece of paper, writes down the name and address in Arabic. He has me walk with him as he waves down a new taxi for me and tells the driver in Arabic where I want to go and negotiates a price of 5 Egyptian Pounds (about $1) to go there. The driver agreed, I got in, and he took me straight to my hotel.

Salzburg, Austria:
This was back just before New Years, and I had taken Ryanair from London to Linz, Austria, and from there was taking a train to Salzburg. While I was waiting for the train, I made friends with a British man who lives just outside of Salzburg. We caught the same train and chatted the whole train ride. He had asked me where I was staying in Salzburg and I said a hostel, but that I hadn't booked it yet. So he offered me his Blackberry to search for a hostel online to go to. As I looked at the site, I saw that actually all hostels in Salzburg were completely booked, and I really didn't expect this. I told the man I'm sure that there will be an opening at a hostel somewhere (hopefully). He appeared quite worried about me and gave me his cell number and name in case I couldn't find anywhere to stay... he said he had friends directly in Salzburg center that I could probably stay with if I needed to. I eventually did find an opening at a hostel in the center, but later I sent the man a text thanking him for his generosity.

Zurich, Switzerland:
I also did some CouchSurfing while I travelled. So I was in Lucerne at the time and had sent a girl an email asking if I could stay with her for one night while I was in Zurich. She replied back to me saying yes, but that at the time my train was due to arrive in Zurich, she would be at her work, a hotel, until 11pm... but if I was still interested despite this, that I could come pick up her house key from her at the hotel and then let myself into her house. I told her that if that is alright with her then that would be great! So the girl gave me the address to her work and I took a tram there from the main train station. I came up to the front desk and introduced myself to her, and she gave me a map on how to get to her house, told me how to open the door, and gave me the keys! How trusting right?! So I toured around Zurich for a few hours first, and then around 10pm went to her place. When I opened the door I had seen she set out a little mattress with blankets and a pillow for me already in her living room. I was pretty tired from travelling all day so I went right to bed. I heard her come home at about 1130pm, and she just closed the door to living room as to try not to not wake me. The next morning I was leaving Zurich and had to be at the airport by 1pm. We had planned to go for breakfast that morning, and she knew I had to be on my train out to the airport by noon, but at 10am she was still sleeping and I didn't want to wake her because I knew she got in kind of late last night... so instead I left a note on the bed saying "hey, I'm going to the center to grab some breakfast, I know you're probably pretty tired from work yesterday so don't worry about it. If you wake up before noon, give me a text and we can meet up - Brittany".... however, I never heard from her. So, literally, I had never even had an actual conversation with this girl, yet I slept in her house overnight and had been given her keys to her house.
It really showed me that there are really trusting and nice people out there.

These really are just a few of the acts of kindness people have shown me during my travels. More so than the destinations themselves, what I remember of my travels are the people I met.

I AMsterdam!

I just got back from Amsterdam a couple days ago and it was awesome!

I took the Eurostar from London to Brussels, then transferring trains onwards to Amsterdam.

The first thing I noticed is that nobody in Amsterdam drives... everyone bikes. The bike has replaced the car in The Netherlands! When I told my hosts that I drive a car at home in Canada,  they looked at me like I was insane! But then I explained that in Canada everything is so much bigger and if I tried to bike from one end of my city to the other, it would take me hours.

The first day I got there, the host I was staying with brought her bike to come pick me up from the train station and she was like "well hop on, we've got a 20 min bike ride" and i was like "... but i have a suitcase?" and she was like "just roll it behind us!" So here I am sitting sideways on the back of this bike while she peddles, and I am rolling my suitcase behind the bike! For any of us not from the Netherlands, this would've looked hilarious... but to them it was totally normal. It was one of the funniest things I've ever done in my life and probably ever will do.

I didn't really know what to expect in Amsterdam. After 2 days of being there, I still felt like I hadn't really seen anything.... but then I kind of realized something - that Amsterdam, even though it's as infamous as say London or Paris, it doesn't really have the sights like they do. I didn't see any monuments (similar to Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower), or anything else of this nature. Instead I realized that Amsterdam was more about the people and their lifestyle; their bike-culture, the laid-backness of the people, strolling along the canals, lounging in the squares, and the unique architecture of the houses and buildings ... this is the culture of Amsterdam. And of course you can't forget the famed Red Light District and the Coffeeshops.

If you plan on going to the Anne Frank house, be well aware of the que times. I was quite interested in doing it, however the ques were about 3 hours long before the house had even opened. Personally, I didn't have this kind of time to kill during my time in Amsterdam!

My hosts also took me to this incredible garden/park called Vondelpark. Since it is April, all the flowers were starting to bloom and it was just beautiful! This park is extremely popular with the locals. You will see tons of people of all ages enjoying picnics and drinks on the grass and benches here. I highly recommend this park for a stroll if you need some down-time from wandering the streets.

For me, Amsterdam was a different kind of holiday... but definitely in a good way and I would love to return one day!

Edinburgh!

Edinburgh, so I've read, is one of the most beautiful cities in all of Europe... and I totally concur with this claim now that I've been there myself.

Edinburgh has an almost medieval appearance with a fortress style castle overlooking the city and completely monochromatic buildings throughout. The buildings themselves each look like medieval castles of some sort.

At the north edge of Edinburgh is the North Sea. Surrounding the city however, are quite lush green rolling hills; one of which is called Arthur's Seat and is a hot spot for tourists to hike up to to get incredible views of Edinburgh, nearby villages, and the North Sea coastline. It's actually an extinct volcano, as is the hill that Edinburgh Castle is built upon.The Castle of course also provides some panoramic views of Edinburgh below and is easily reachable by foot.

Another notable vantage point for pictures are up on Calton Hill where you'll find some interesting monuments including an Athenian Acropolis. It only takes about 5 minutes to get to the top from the Regent Road staircase on the Southside.

Also in Edinburgh is the Palace of Holyroodhouse which is the Queen's official residence when she's in Scotland. It's directly across the street from the Scottish Parliament. It's a very modern and rather artsy building, built just in 1999. Tourists can go inside, so I did. It was neat to see some of the acts and commissions that have formed the laws in Scotland today and also see the debating chamber where all assemblies take place. I saw one of the acts which in 1457 banned all golf and football (soccer) because King James II wanted people to practice archery instead so they could be more useful in defence for the country.

Edinburgh doesn't have any shortage of places to go or things to see, especially with the infamous shopping streets: the Royal Mile and Princes Street.

The city has a lot of green space which makes up for the lack of color everywhere else in the city.

Swiss-land!

For Easter in England, we got two weeks off from uni so I though it would be a prime time to do some travelling. I flew from London to Basel, Switzerland with Easyjet and guess how much it cost me round-trip.... 57GBP which is around 100CAD! In comparison to Canadian flight costs, this is dirt cheap! 

I flew into Basel because I have some friends who live there, who were study abroad students in my program in Canada. Basel is a very artistic city with tons of modern art sculptures and with murals and paintings on almost every building. The city has the Rhine River flowing through it, with several park benches lined along it for those to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

For it being April in Switzerland, it was considerably warm when I was there! Somewhere around 25°C... I even had tan lines! The first night I got there my friends had already bought me a ticket to the International Music Festival, also called Les Museiques that plays in Basel every year.  It's a massive event that is very popular and was totally worth going to! The festival includes various genres of music, played in numerous different museums and art venues all over Basel, and your wristband/ticket gets you into each of them. You just hop on a tram and go from one to the next! 

From Basel I caught the train to Lucerne. Lucerne is amazing! The city, Lake Lucerne, and the 3 major mountains surrounding it: Mt. Pilatus, Mt. Stanserhorn, and Mt. Rigi. Lucerne is a total postcard-picture-perfect spot. It's also a 'walking city'. I didn't have a map or guide, and I ended up finding all the main sights on foot by myself. Here's my favourite spots:

- the Chapel Bridge: an icon of Lucerne. The wooden bridge actually caught on fire in the 90's and had to be re-built, but the tower is still the original structure.

- the old city wall: this medieval wall was built in the 1300's and are mostly still in tact!

-the Lion of Lucerne: this lion monument carved out of the cliff face, was built to commemorate the more than 600 Swiss soldiers who lost their lives during the French Revolution when the Tuileries Palace in Paris was invaded

Being in the center of the Alps I couldn't resist the urge to go to the top of one of these incredible mountains. So from Lucerne I took a train to Goldau, and connected with a Cogwheel train that took me to the top of MT. Rigi on the opposite side of Lake Lucerne. It's in the north-eastern Alps with a summit of 1,797m. Towards the North you see a flat Switzerland of tiny cities and villages, and towards the South are the major peaks of the Alps; no human life, just mountains.

I finished my trip in Switzerland with Zurich. There's the typical 'Old Town' of Zurich with historic churches, monuments, and buildings, and then you come to Lake Zurich which splits the city along 2 banks. I walked for about a 1/2hr past the 'Old Town' along the lake and got some gorgeous pictures with the Alps in the backdrop. 

From what I could sense, Zurich has a bit of everything: culture, accessibility, nature, and it seems very multi-cultural. Although of course, you can sense the typical commerce vibe that most major capitals have.... "busy, busy, busy, go, go, go".

I didn't expect to love Switzerland as much as I did, but I was actually really sad to leave! I wouldn't argue that it's one of the most beautiful countries in the world.

Until next time...  
Tschüss!

Slovenia: Ljubljana, Postonja Caves, & Lake Bled

One of my university professors once asked my class "do you know what the most romantic country is?"... the answer... "sLOVEnia because it has the word LOVE in it!" 

I don't know many, maybe not even anyone who has actually been to Slovenia. It just isn't as "on the map" as it's neighbouring countries to the west like Italy or Germany. But I wanted to come to Slovenia for the reason that this was the country my grandpa was born in, in the capital Ljubljana. 

I took a train from Flachau, Austria where I had spent New Years with some friends, to Ljubljana which was a very very beautiful train ride through the Julian Alps.

When I was checking in the girl at the front desk needed my passport... so I gave it to her, she looked at it and said "Klanchar (the actual pronunciation), you are Slovenian!? Do you speak Slovenian?" I was like "yeah, my grandpa was born here... and umm no, I don't speak anything but English!" I will assume it's a common name in Slovenia!?

I arrived quite late in Ljubljana but didn't want to waste any time so I headed out right away. The city was covered in heavy thick fog, which made it difficult to see but I read somewhere that Ljubljana is actually known for it's fog... apparently they have fog 121 days a year!

After grabbing dinner, I headed back to my hostel for a night's rest to set out again in the morning. In the morning I picked up a map at the tourist office. Everything was very central because Ljubljana is actually almost like an island, with the Ljubljanica River circling around the city like a ring. When you look at an ariel view of the city, the Ljubljana castle sits atop a  lush green hill right in the middle.

My day included all the major sites - the Ljubljana castle, town square, famous bridges (like the Dragon Bridge and the Triple Bridge), a few cathedrals, the Ljubljana university, a farmer's markets, town hall, and the Slovenian parliament building.

The city is quite old, which is evident just by the look of the buildings and the damage done from the earthquakes/floods. Actually, the infrastructure of the city is in quite poor condition because of these disasters.

I recommend the castle for anyone visiting Ljubljana because it can award you some very outstanding views. There are two options for those wanting to get to the top - a funicular (for a fee) or the walking trail (which has some steeper inclined sections but is free to do). 

Some small interesting facts I learnt were that:
- the Dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana, representing power and courage. (You can see it on many signs and statues around the city).
- Ljubljana is on the south part of the Eurasian Plate and therefore has had several earthquakes as well as floods in the past, 2 of which were quite severe
- After the devastation of the earthquakes and a flood, Ljubljana was re-built in similar style to Graz and Salzburg in Austria
- Slovenia is the 3rd most forested country in Europe (after Sweden and Finland), according to their tourism website

One of my days in Ljubljana was spent going to the Postojna Caves, one of the biggest tourist attractions in Slovenia and biggest Karst caves in the world, which are about 20km long and 2 million years old! The guided tour was available in multiple languages, split into different groups for each and lasted about 1.5hrs. The inside of the caves are relatively warm but make sure you wear a waterproof jacket and enclosed shoes! Some of the Karst columns and formations are literally jaw-dropping, their size is incredible! If your schedule allows it, don't miss Postojna Caves!

My last day in Slovenia was spent at Lake Bled. The lake has an intense emerald green color, and in the centre of it is a petite islet with a cute church on it... this lake is truly a picture perfect spot! From what I got, there was not a whole lot more you could do there other than walk around the lake, rent a boat to paddle around the lake in, or walk up to Bled Castle which was on a steep cliff overlooking the lake. Because of this, I couldn't imagine spending any more than one or maximum two days in Lake Bled. Nonetheless, make sure to stop for a picture or two if your passing through the area!

I think that's all... I hope you liked the post and get to enjoy some of the beautiful sights Slovenia has!
Adijo!