I'm Back...

....perhaps in body but certainly not in spirit! I think I've left my soul somewhere in the Rockies - it stubbornly refused to leave the unworldly beauty and solitude of such a place, merely to return to the mundane and ordinary that awaits me back home.

To sum up my visit to Canada in one word.....SPECTACULAR!  I will be posting more on my trip soon, but I still have 2,972 photographs and video clips to process first...even so, I doubt they will do justice to the magnificent landscapes that I was privileged to view. I'm thinking of preparing a series of themed posts, rather than a day-to-day trip report as that could get a bit tedious :-)

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a taster of my Top Five Sights and Experiences:

1. Watching Black and Grizzly bears at close (but safe) range...and not getting eaten by one!

Grizzly cub in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park

2. Ice-walking on the Athabasca Glacier, of the Columbia Icefields Parkway.

Ice, ice, baby!

3. Gazing upon the milky blue and turquoise shades of Lakes Peyto, Kinney, Moraine and Louise.

Lake Peyto - that's not PhotoShop, it really is that colour!

4. Standing in silent forests of towering giant Douglas-fir, Red Cedar and Grand fir trees.

Berg Lake Trail

5. Feeling dwarfed by the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

Highest peak in the Rockies (3954m)

Leaving On A Jet Plane...

Well, it's time for me to sign out of the bloggersphere for a couple of weeks. I won't be posting or commenting on any of your fabulous blogs for at least a fortnight, as I plan to stay very far away from all computer screens.

Instead, I'm going to be looking at such wonders as these.....

Lake Louise (Photo found HERE)

Bow Lake, Banff National Park (Photo found HERE)

Eating treats like these.....

Mmmmmaple syrup (Photo found HERE)

And hopefully not getting eaten by one of these.....

Grizzly bear (Photo found HERE)

Take care everyone!

Here's where I'll be....

A Recipe For Stress

Ingredients

• One disorganised but likeable client in Australia who expects you to be available very early in the morning as that is their evening.
• One scatterbrained and frankly quite insane UK client
• One highly demanding US client, who assumes that you work until all hours of the night, as after all, it’s only the afternoon on their side of the world.
• One frustrating friend who is something of a drama queen and has no concept of the meaning of your plea “please do not call me when I am trying to work...yes, I do work from home but I am still not available during office hours”, who constantly asks your advice on her personal life, does the complete opposite and then tells you, “Yes, you were right!”, when things go horribly wrong.

Method
Start the preparation a few days in advance by scheduling a whole load of workmen to arrive on what will turn out the busiest day of the week. Noisy work is the best type, preferably something along the lines of repairing the gutters directly outside your home office, which requires the construction of scaffolding in line with your window. If possible, also book a bloke who gave you a good quote to power clean your driveway to turn up on the same day. Then, make sure you get as little sleep the night before....staying out until all hours drinking coffee and catching up with a friend you haven’t seen for months is a good method to ensure minimum shut-eye.

First, have your crack of dawn teleconference with the Aussie client....halfway through the call, bring in the blokes who are here to assemble the scaffolding (yes they’ve arrived an hour early but they aren’t fazed) so that they can thump and bang as loudly as possible, yell obscenities at each other and at one point almost smash through the glass with a very long plank. Pretend there is absolutely nothing going on out of the ordinary apart from a bit of background buzz from the long-distance call (luckily the client is pretty OK with things...he often dials in from home and has had his two-year old yell “Daddy, I need a wee wee!” right next to the phone).

Put the phone down from the Aussie client, and immediately answer it again...to speak to Insane UK Client who has just remembered she is supposed to have submitted a manuscript (badly written and requiring extensive editing) to a high brow journal, yesterday and has also just realised she is presenting at an equally high brow medical conference next week and needs a set of slides right now! Start working on Insane Client’s manuscript, discover there is a ridiculous amount of work to get done and the brief sucks. By now, Power Cleaner Man will have arrived (“Cuppa tea for us, love....mine’s 4 sugars”) to crank up his VERY LOUD and apparently very high voltage power cleaner....so energy-loving that it immediately trips the power in the house, cutting out the PC, internet connection and telephone, right in the middle of your second call to Insane Client, in which you’re trying to diplomatically explain to her that unfortunately, as your time machine is temporarily out of action for its annual service, you probably won’t be able to travel back to last week and thus meet her unrealistic timelines.

Scrabble around in the fuse box to flick back the tripped switch and restore power, inform Power Clean Man “This really can’t happen again as I am far too Busy and Important for this, and no, you can’t have another cuppa tea”. Then phone back Insane Client to apologise for the “unexplained temporary power cut” (“no, I did not slam the phone down on you!”) and continue the discussion of why Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is just that...in theory you could time travel but in reality you won’t be.

Finally, get down to actually doing some work, only to have to jump up a few minutes later to answer the door...to find a very mournful-looking Wheelie Bin Cleaning Man on your doorstep. He’s here to collect his 3 quid for his monthly jet clean of your bin, but is apparently sulking as he once mentioned to you that he was expanding his business to the cleaning of driveways, yet now he’s noticed that “You got someone else in then?” (yip, nothing gets past this bloke, especially not the large as life Power Clean Man jet spraying around his feet). Commend him on his powers of observation, inform him that he was slow off the mark getting you a quote and then add insult to injury by having to pay him for the wheelie bin clean in 5 and 10 pence pieces from the “Loose Change Jar” as you have absolutely no other money in the house.

Get back to work....by now the US client is on line and emails are flying in faster than you can reply. Make an executive decision to ignore them for the moment and try and get something (anything!) done for Insane Client. Realise that the loud grinding noise is coming from your stomach and is not Power Clean Man (he appears to have blown up his jet cleaner and will be coming back to finish the job another day) and as it’s now gone 3 o’clock, grab a quick bite to eat at your computer. Peanut butter on toast works well....it’s perfect for getting your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth so that when the phone rings for about the fortieth time that day, you can sound like a hornet just went in your mouth and stung you several times.

Realise that it’s Drama Queen friend phoning ...inform her that you really can’t talk now, and no, as you’ve already discussed at great length, you don’t think the guy she’s been running after for nearly a year is that interested, and that a Facebook poke from him is almost certainly not grounds for buying a wedding dress and booking the chapel.

Spend the next couple of hours desperately trying to get Insane Client’s project done, only to get a call from her at the end of the day, informing you that she’s changed her mind and won’t be submitting that manuscript or going to that conference after all. Put down the phone and curse out loud at no one in particular, then console yourself with the thought that she still has to pay for the day’s work. Then take a deep breath and prepare yourself for a long night ahead with the US client.

Where In The World Wednesday: Transylvania

It's Wednesday...which means it's time for Where In The World Wednesday, brainchild of Classy In Philedelphia. If you'd like to take part too, all you have to do is post a picture (or many like I do!) of someplace in the world. Don't forget to use the WITWW button in your post, and to visit Classy in Philadelphia later to post a comment on her WITWW, so that other participants can visit your blog too.

Today, I'm taking you to picturesque Transylvania, where, in keeping with our tradition of seeing in the New Year in chilly climes, B and I spent the last few days of 2008. Romania only joined the EU in 2007, and has yet to cause a blip on the mass tourism radar. The infrastructure still leaves something to be desired, but the beautiful mountains and forests, fairy-tale castles, and medieval towns and churches of this East European country provide plenty for visitors to see and do.

Transylvania is perhaps best known for Bran Castle, the setting for Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, "Dracula". In truth, Bram Stoker never came near Transylvania...and the real "Dracula", the 15th century Wallachian prince, Vlad Tepes, better known as "Vlad the Impaler", did not reside at Bran. Although never accused of vampirism, his methods of execution....spread-eagled victims were bound and a stake hammered up their rectum, then raised aloft and left to die in agony....quickly earned him a certain notoriety.

Legend or not, on the gloomy winter's day that we visited Bran, the castle (perched atop a rocky peak) was looking every bit the "Vampire’s Lair".

Bran Castle

All this vampire-hunting can build up quite an appetite...so we went to sample the local cuisine at a restaurant specialising in game, including bear. Before you get too horrified, it's worth knowing a bit more about the bear population in Romania. Notorious dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, who ruled for 25 years before the collapse of Communism, outlawed bear-hunting for all but himself and his friends. As a result, when Ceausescu was toppled and executed in 1989, the country's forests were teeming with brown bears, wolves and lynxes. Today, there are an estimated 5,500 brown bears in Romania, and that population is growing by 10%, or about 500 bears, every year. Consequently, Romania is one of the very few countries in Europe that permits limited bear-hunting during seasons that span half the year. In exchange for this rare hunting privilege, hunters pay a licence fee of between $15,000 and $25,000 per bear, depending on its size, which has been good for the tourist industry, and has brought badly needed revenues to this poor country's coffers.

But the hunting policy hasn't produced adequate results. Romania allows just over 300 bear licences each year, which isn't enough to keep the population in control, and the bears are increasingly descending from the Carpathian Mountains and raiding local towns in an effort to find food. This has led to a series of unfortunate encounters between humans and bears....

Luckily, however, the only bears we encountered on our trip were the stuffed and mounted ones on the walls of the restaurant...and, of course, the medallions of bear on B’s plate. Sensitive vegetarians look away now...he is gradually working his way down the edibles on Noah’s list, and has so far munched crocodile, frog (legs), escargot, kangaroo, goat, horse, wild boar, springbok, kudu, ostrich, pigeon, pheasant, guinea fowl.... and now bear. Apparently the taste of the meat that day was ‘bearable’. I had the vegetarian option (a plate of cauliflower and peas).

Restaurant "decor"

Eating so much meat can have adverse effects on one's figure....but luckily, help was at hand in the form of this apparently magic weight-loss slide....you appear to go in one size and shoot out the other end a leaner version of your former self...

Billboard in Brasov

I'll end with a random (but I thought funny) picture I took at the petrol filling station...

Glam granny on a quad bike

And this one of a winter wonderland, taken on a hike through a beautiful, silent forest on New Years' Day....

Forest Walk

On Jedi Knights, Elvis Presley and Bear Skin Hats

Yesterday, we had a half-day Aikido training course in weapons... although Aikido is known as a nonviolent, noncompetitive martial art, much of its technical structure derives from the art of swordsmanship. Wooden weapons are often used as training tools to better illustrate Aikido principles and movements and to train in self-defense against weapons. The three main weapons are the boken or ken (wooden sword), jo (wooden short staff), and tanto (wooden knife).

Our Sensei arranged for a Very Important Aikido Dude (6th Dan and almost as important as O Great One that I wrote about here) to come and teach the class. Once again we were primed to be on our bestest behaviour and not show up our dear Sensei....tempted as I was to take the piss, I reckoned he may have suffered a sense of humour failure if I’d pitched up with my own Weapon of Mass Destruction, perhaps a very big umbrella (hey, I’ve had one confiscated by Edinburgh airport security) or novelty Star Wars glow-in-the dark light saber.

On the topic of Star Wars and light sabers, VIAD (a sprightly 70-year old who’s a walking advert for the benefits of keeping yourself fit and supple all your life) was quick to point out that we are NOT to grip the boken or wave it about above our heads a là Luke Skywalker and friends. The sword handle needs to be held as if it is an injured bird, just enough strength to stop it getting away, but not to cause any harm. “The boken will do its own work”, VIAD said. He had a lot to say in fact...typically, he’d pause in the middle of demonstrating a technique (usually when we were all in posture, arms stretched out clasping our boken with no one daring to release their grasp) and begin a long oratory of his views on life, the universe and everything else between.

An interesting chap, but after 3 hours of this, my aching arms made me want to yell out “Dude, in the words of the great Elvis Presley: ‘A little less conversation, a little more action, please!’” Possibly that would have drawn a bit too much attention my way...as it was, he singled me out early on, apparently delighted to see a “young lady in our midst ”....hey, to him, I’m young...as there are some very senior women in Aikido but not enough joining the ranks.

When we did actually get to do some Sword Action, it was great fun and quite therapeutic with only the odd bashed head or two. I suggested to B we have a practice session in the garden this evening (the ceilings are too low in the house). That should give the neighbours something to gawk at....maybe they’ll think twice about letting their cats use our garden as a public convenience if they think we’re armed and dangerous!

I’m going to end this ramble with a picture I came across in a daily tabloid. Captioned “Fainting of The Guard”, it shows an unfortunate Scots Guardsman who fainted at a final rehearsal for next weekend’s Trooping The Colour. Saturday was a hot, hot day...ideal for going to the beach, but not for standing perfectly still while wearing a 2lb bearskin. Protocol forbids his compatriots from batting an eyelid, let alone checking if he is OK...

Eyes front....

Packing Dos and Donts

 Photo found here

In just under a week, we fly to Canada! In true Nat style (paranoid overplanner), when I’m going on a long trip like this, I like to start my packing around about now. I’ve already commandeered the spare bedroom for Operation Pack (No guests allowed, this space is reserved for packing and packing-related activities only) and have started laying out items according to my packing list. The washing machine has been working overtime the past week and I have issued a memo, reminding team members (or rather member i.e. B!) that the “Under No Circumstances Shall Clothes That Are Going With Be Worn ” policy is now in place.

My approach to packing, and more specifically to what to pack, has changed dramatically in recent years. When we first started travelling, I would over pack by ridiculous amounts....taking with just about everything in my wardrobe, just in case of freak weather, mass coffee spillages and unforeseen need-to-dress-up events. The result....overweight baggage, overstretched arms on husband, much complaining from overstretched-armed husband and a return trip with more than half the items still unworn.

Nowadays, I’ve got my packing down to more reasonable quantities...perhaps a couple of extras “just in case”, but nowhere near the gargantuan amount I used to haul across the globe. You’ve probably heard this before, but the secret to successful packing is to think of wearing layers, several thin layers that can be mixed together rather than one bulky, and less versatile item. And, to take along a small bottle of detergent to wash small items so they can be worn more than once. Travel-sized toiletries also work wonders for reducing weight and space.

During our Canadian tour, we will be moving on each day and so we’ll have to live out of our bags. We did this before on our US road trip, and coped well on that tour with a bit of careful packing. A really easy way of keeping your small items organised and quickly accessible is by these mesh packing cubes. I’ve bought several, and pack my socks, undies and even tee shirts into them. A large-sized one is perfect for keeping small laundry items separate from fresh clothes until you get chance to do a wash.

Packing cubes

I like to plan my carry-on bag too, to make sure I have everything onboard to make a long-haul flight bearable. My two priorities are keeping warm and keeping entertained. I am always freezing on a plane and even if you’re lucky enough to get an airline blanket, they are never enough to keep me at a comfortable temperature. I always carry a fleece with me, slipper socks, a pashmina and my own Dream Sack, a raw silk, warm yet very compact travel blanket. While sleep generally eludes me onboard, earplugs and an inflatable pillow can make catching any bit of shut-eye a little more comfy.

For entertainment, I never rely on the inflight movies as the choice can be appalling. I take a lot of reading material... at least one good novel that I’ve kept aside for the trip (I’ve been hoarding 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini for this trip), my travel guides as well as a few magazines for light reading. I also pack my ipod, a notepad and puzzle book. As I tend to get hungry onboard and the airline food is never very appealing, I take some snacks like nut bars and chocolate, and lots of water (purchased after security) to keep myself hydrated. A travel moisturiser and lip balm are essential for staving off the ravages of the aircon. Finally, being a germaphobic, I cannot travel without my antibacterial hand gel and wipes.

How about you....do you have any packing tips or are there any travel items you can’t survive without?

It Ain't Half Hot Mum!

Temperature reading on my car display this evening (87F)

It’s been a mini heat wave in the south of England today! Yes, it really does get hot in the UK sometimes....the high humidity makes it feel even hotter, so as soon as it gets over about 26°C (77F) it becomes sticky and very uncomfortable. Some of the hottest times of my life, I’ve spent living in the UK, and in London in particular. The buildings trap the heat and the worst place to be is the Tube, where on a packed (and not air-conditioned) train, temperatures rise well above 45°C (113F)...it’s illegal to transport animals at those sort of temperatures!

Despite growing up in the tropics, I actually don’t do heat all that well....I get headaches and feel lethargic and grumpy. I’m much happier when it’s warm but not too hot, so living in southern England suits me well. Sure it’s cold and very wet a lot of the time, but it tends to be quite comfortable on the whole without extremes of heat or cold (this past winter aka The Great Ice Age of 2009/10 excluded of course). This surprises some people here, quick to point out the minute the mercury starts rising “You should be loving this....it must feel like home!”

Hmmm...yes, because it’s always hot in southern Africa, the sun always shines and it’s never cold or wet. I’ve been trying to remind some British friends travelling out to South Africa for the World Cup that it’s going to be winter there (they don’t quite get the reversal of the seasons going on between the northern and southern hemispheres) so they may want to pack a fleece and perhaps a rain jacket.

Winter in Cape Town can be beautiful....it can also be chilly and very wet, and it can be very wet for days on end. And then the wind blows....normally at the same time the rain is falling, and sometimes at gale force. It took me the whole winter (and three wrecked umbrellas) my first year of university to work out that such contraptions are redundant in the Mother City. Finally, there is no such luxury as central heating and double glazing, so you can be just as cold indoors as out. Over here, our homes are designed to keep the heat in...great in winter, but a real bugbear during a hot summer when it’s almost impossible to get cool enough to sleep.

And I can’t believe I’ve just managed to write a whole post about the weather....

Worthless info: 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' was a slightly dubious (potentially racist) British sitcom about the adventures of a Royal Artillery Concert Party, broadcast between 1974 and 1981, set in British India and Burma, towards the end of the Second World War.

Where In The World Wednesday: Prague

Would you believe it, it's time for Where In The World Wednesday again, hosted by the fabulous Classy in Philadelphia. Why don't you take part too? All you have to do is post a picture (or many like I do!) of someplace in the world. Don't forget to use the WITWW button in your post, and to visit Classy in Philadelphia later to post a comment on her WITWW, so that other participants can visit your blog too.

Today, I'm taking you to Prague....capital city of the Czech Republic, and nicknamed Stověžatá Praha ("City of a Hundred Spires"). At the end of March last year, B and I spent a freezing cold weekend exploring this fascinating city....B was pretty ill with a bad bout of 'man flu' but soldiered on regardless.

Our first port of call is the Old Town Square, home of the famous Astronomical Clock (that you can read more about here) and dominated by the Church of Our Lady before Týn (Kostel Matky Boží před Týnem) dating from the 14th century.

Old Town Square (Staroměstské náměstí)

Astronomical Clock

Old Town Square with Astronomical Clock Tower

Old Town Square by night

Winding our way through the old streets towards the Vltava River, we cross Charles Bridge to reach Malá Strana (Lesser Quarter).....

Cafe culture

Bridge Tower, Old Town side

View from the top of the Bridge Tower

View from the top of the Bridge Tower

Organ grinder on Charles Bridge

Watch Tower, Malá Strana side

Malá Strana

Then we walk up towards Prague Castle....

Street art (once parking metres)

Prague Castle seen from the banks of Vltava River

View from Prague Castle

This is just a selection of my photographs from the amazing city of Prague, and I would throughly recommend a trip there if you ever get the chance. Everywhere you turn there is something else that catches your eye, like this statue, which I called "Death"....

And this manhole cover....

Click on any phtotographs to view larger versions, click back to return to blog