Sunday, April 17, 2011

Canada Trip Summer 2011 Homeward Leg


Canada Trip Summer 2011 Homeward Leg

It is Sunday April 17, 2011 and I have confirmed my bookings for a summer trip to Canada 2011. I have tired of taking the long and extremely boring flights to Nova Scotia via Newark which often exceeds ten or twelve hours in duration in favour of continued stop-overs in Amsterdam. I have managed to score two fairly low priced tickets at about 25% less cost than my last summer trip to visit mom at the Victoria General.

My departure date is June 22nd and I will arrive in Amsterdam following a couple hours brief stop-overs in both Beijing and Copenhagen airports arriving in downtown centrum probably around 7:30-8:00 PM. I will be staying for three nights at at a small boutique hotel (without curfew) on Jan Luijkenstraat directly on Museum Square across from Rijksmuseum.

Early Saturday afternoon (just before 1 PM) June 25th I will take a Thalys train to Paris arriving at The Gare du Nord just after 4:30 PM and have booked two nights accomodation nearby south of the station on Rue de Chabrol at a hotel ten minutes walk from Montmartre and supposedly near the Eiffel Tower? It's supposed to be a dumpy neighborhood but it has more character than Sun Dan Dong in Pocheon for sure. I hope to meet Fati and Pauline as Sacré-Cœur and Montmartre as well as Versailles are all on my agenda.

A return to Amsterdam on Monday evening will bring me to another boutique hotel on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal a couple of canals across from the Oudekerk in the old city centre.

My departure on Wednesday June 29th I am bound for Reykjavik where I will arrive just before midnight and remain until the evening of the next day. There I shall meet Gudrun (Kriemhild?) whom I have not seen for as long as Fatima at least seven years since I left the green fields of Fairy Meadow in Wollongong. While in Iceland I hope to sample the pickled shark (h ákarl) or smoked puffin ~reyktur lundi~ while trying to pass up the léttsteiktar svartfuglsbringur which appears to be a guillemot or seagull's cousin? Prior to after or during these Icelandic feastings I hope to take a dip in The Blue Lagoon.

Then final arrival will be Nova Scotia and the Annapolis Valley the Canadian home of my ancestors, friends and family. Perhaps in a couple of weeks I will plan the return leg. But I am halfway there.While I admit my home valley is probably one of the most beautiful places in the world the only way to confirm that is to just keep visiting.Who knows? Maybe there actually is somewhere more beautiful? I still haven't found it yet.

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