Bolivia

For every experience I've had travelling, there are probably a dozen I missed out on. There are many places I'd like to return to and more than any other is Bolivia. Maybe it was the circumstances, maybe it was who I was travelling with, or maybe it was the impossibility of leaving that left me with a sour taste in my mouth, but it will remain a source of disappointment when remembering past trips. Getting there required a long, uncomfortable bus trip from the sea level city of Lima, Peru, through Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world to the capital of La Paz, the world's highest capital city. Before we left Peru, I had eaten raw chicken, and the severity of my food poisoning was rivaled only by the altitude sickness I developed once we arrived. Despite that, I still attempted the "World's Hottest Curry", a terrible mistake that was just as spicy coming up as it was coming down. I was bedridden for a couple days as my companions explored the jungle, climbed a mountain and went on a camping excursion. When I was finally mobile and could keep a meal down, our time in La Paz was coming to an end. One of our group had lost a close friend biking Yungas Road, or The Road of Death, and consequently no one wanted to join me in the bike trip down it. We only had limited time to get to Brazil, and couldn't fit in a detour to the Salt Flats in Sucre. Instead, we spent four days waiting for violent protests to end so we could board a train, slept in the street at the border waiting in line with hundreds of other stranded travelers and caught a 22 hour bus into Brazil.  Almost every thing that could have gone wrong did, and when I left I vowed I'd never return. After I left though, I realized the reason I disliked the country so much was because I missed out on it entirely.

Canada

Every time I come home from travelling, I appreciate the little things that I enjoy so greatly about the country I live in. I also realize just how much there is to see in Canada, and just how massive our country really is. One of my life goals is to travel to every province and territory. So far I'm 4 for 13, which leaves a lot of options. This means my options for my first $10 flight would be adding one more province to that count. The only time I've been to Ontario was stopping over before connecting to other flights, never leaving the warm interior of the airport terminal. I've never seen the CN Tower, never been into the Hockey Hall of Fame, or seen the Blue Jays play. As a Canadian, typing this it seems pretty absurd I've never had these experiences. I've looked into flights, and with three day weekends, I can easily go. The only problem is that the Maple Leafs don't happen to play my favorite NHL team in that time frame, maybe I'll just go to Winnipeg.

Where Next?

Recently, my mother got hired at WestJet. Because I'm under 25, I'm entitled to flight benefits through her. For the last week, in this busy time of term projects and finals,  all I've been able to focus on is where I want to travel to. At one point, you could go to the airport wait for a flight with an empty seat and jump on a plane to a random destination for next to nothing. But unfortunately, standby flights, carrier seats and other forms of cheap travel are a thing of the past. This recent development, changes that completely. From domestic flights from the standard rate of $2.50 to industry standard rates of under $400 round trip to Europe, suddenly I can travel anywhere I'd like on a student's budget. I can go to Montreal for less than a cab ride home from the bar. Combined with the vast network of partner airlines and interlines that WestJet has,the world just got infinitely more accessible. On January 16th of next year, I'll be able to fly anywhere I'd like for almost nothing, and I guess I should figure out where it is I want to go first.

JB in Brazil

The city square in Salvador was packed for Brazil’s annual Carnival, and I just barely noticed the small hand pulling at the back of my shirt. I had become desensitized to being groped and pick-pocketed and, after the sky got dark, it felt almost unnatural to be in a crowded area without the feeling of opportunistic hands digging around in my pockets. I turned to see a girl about five smiling, and her mother standing behind her. She asked for a photo and held out a camera. The girl excited mentioned Justin Beiber. I was used to it; being called Justin Beiber.  Rarely a day passed as I backpacked across South America where someone didn't feel the overwhelming urge to point out my resemblance. They even shouted it across the street. It was annoying and inaccurate, but I couldn't bring myself to say no to this girl or her pleading mom. Figuring they just thought it was fascinating that I looked like him, I agreed. After I took the picture, I turned around to see a line of about ten kids, and their mothers, waiting. Waiting in line to take their picture with me. Justin Beiber. By now, I was committed. There was also no way I’d be able to explain the situation in Portuguese and there was no way I’d be able to walk away from these children. The first few pictures went alright and they were all ecstatic to take their picture with a celebrity. One girl, in particular, looked at the ground as she approached me. Slowly, she looked up and tried to speak. Standing in front of me, unable to find any words, she broke down, and began crying uncontrollably. All I could do was hug her,  and take the picture, her smile shining on her tear stained face. If felt pretty unbelievable to be famous, even for only a few minutes. Afterwards, I came away with a great story and those girls left believing they met one of their idols. They are going to be very disappointed when they develop those pictures.

Travelling

I didn't initially plan on travelling, deciding instead to move to Vancouver three days after graduation to try living away from home. Absolutely hating Vancouver, I moved even further west with my first girlfriend, my high school sweetheart as it were, to Vancouver Island. It wasn't until we had found a place, and I had gotten a good job that I realized everything was happening too fast. I couldn't even legally drink but we were already looking at houses to buy. I panicked, bought a ticket to Peru and bailed. I quit my job, ended things with my less-than-impressed first love and met some friends from home who planned on backpacking across South America. It would be the first trip that wasn't a vacation to an all inclusive resort with my family. This was a four month adventure across an entire continent I had never been to before. There are a lot of mistakes we made and I learned a lot, both about myself and how to coexist with those around me. I would like to go back to most of the places I've travelled, mostly because I don't feel as though I've fully experienced them, or places I enjoyed so much that I could never visit enough. I've been robbed, ripped off, pick-pocketed, almost arrested, and resorted to sleeping in the street in no less than four countries. from seeing some of the most beautiful sights the world has to offer to attempting the "World's Hottest Curry" while experiencing altitude sickness and food poisoning. I'm nowhere near done travelling, and this travel blog is dedicated to both capturing my experiences and researching new unique experiences.

What's it all about?

I didn't go to University straight out of high school. I never planned on going right away anyway, I always knew I needed a break after graduating to figure out what it is that I'd like to do. I always knew I wanted to travel, but had never really thought of where. The nomadic existence appealed to me, but out of high school, I was involved in a serious relationship and invested in finding employment so that was put on hold. Instead, i looked into possible places to travel, things I'd like to see, and by the time I did leave, I had a long list of places to travel to before I die.

Writing Experience

I can't sit down and write an essay. My thoughts are scattered, and linking an introductory sentence to my conclusion through several yet-to-be-thought-of body paragraphs is overwhelming enough to often leave me constantly rewriting or questioning every sentence. If I try to write all my ideas at once, it becomes a jumbled mess, exaggerated by my terrible printing and impatience with handwriting. Idea's remain half formed, if even legible, and by the end, I find myself almost rewriting the piece in its entirety when I do finally type it.

Write a bit, make a mistake, erase. Write a bit, notice a spelling error, erase. Write a bit, realize it's an irrelevant thought, erase. Notice the entire paper is covered in gray smudges or crossed out sentences and start fresh.

With a computer, it is so much easier. Especially when it comes to correcting my work. I can build several paragraphs almost simultaneously, moving them with the click of a mouse, deleted or adding to segments without compromising the flow of the work or disrupting the overall appearance. I can remove unnecessary information and polish each sentence to portray exactly what I want it to. If something is out of place, it's as easy as simply highlighting and moving it. I can't do any of that with a pencil, and the idea of multiple drafts and rough copies frightens me in my Microsoft Word dependent mentality of writing.

Despite the inconvenience and difficulty I associate with handwriting, at leas I can SEE the paper. I can notice a mistake, I can take the couple seconds to alter a sentence or correct something that doesn't quite feel right. I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been for Helen Keller to write her book. Every sentence would have taken time and deliberation, and even the slightest miscommunication could change the writing entirely. So despite the hardship I see handwriting as being, I can't help but feel guilty for complaining and taking something for granted that could very easily be taken away.

#IHateHashtags

I cannot stand the use of hash tags. For those of you unfamiliar with what a hash tag is, it is a statement or word following the prefix #, such as #YOLO or #IwanttheworldtothinkI’mfourteen. What began only a couple of years ago as a way to link or tag comments and posts has regressed into the most over-used and blatant way to show one’s stupidity and need for acknowledgement. The original use of hash tags, popularized during the Iranian election protests,  has become my largest source of annoyance any time I log onto a social network site. The use of hash tags themselves are not the issue, and often can add as sort of a secondary caption to a comment or photo, but their overuse is unbearable.  They dominate my Facebook newsfeed, especially since Facebook took control of Instagram, a site seemingly dedicated to turn every person into a photographer and to further promote the use of this atrocity. I can’t imagine a better way to express to the world you that are intellectually inferior than tagging a picture of yourself, say, enjoying a drink on a beach with #herecomesthesun, #drinkdrankdrunk, #whitegirlwasted #summertime, bestdayeva, #summervacay, #imisswearingshortsthatrevealtoomuchskin. So many times the message people are trying to convey could have just as easily, and more effectively, been stated in simple English language instead of massacring  it into a half-thought, lazy caption broken up by inappropriate punctuation and symbols. I can’t stand it.

I dated a girl for a while, and after we ended it she developed an interest in Instagram. In a matter of weeks, my Facebook news feed went from occasional posts from her containing interesting information about her life and career to over-edited photos, from a site I didn’t request to browse through, that had so many hash tags I couldn’t remember what the original caption was. It eventually got to the point where I had to “hide” her posts to avoid losing respect for her as a person.

After repeated exposure, the overuse and misuse of hash tags speaks deeply to me as a judgement of character and intelligence. Maybe one day everyone will be effectively utilize the tools we have available online, and their need to be noticed will no longer blind them to seeing just how annoying it can be when they feel the need to resurrect old jokes and over caption things in hopes of getting a few more “likes”. But I doubt it.

This blog is a hash tag free zone.

Rome

We landed in Rome at about 1 am. Exhausted from sleeping in the airport the night before, we boarded the last bus of the night headed down town. After sleeping in the street in London, we learned that booking a hostel ahead of time was one of the most beneficial things we could do before arriving in a new city. The two South Africans next to us on the bus, however, hadn't learned this yet and we offered to bring them to our hostel. Luckily for them, there was room in our hostel, and at their encouragement, we began to drink to celebrate. Despite being tired, there's just something about warm whiskey from the backpack of a stranger that begs me to make bad decisions, and before long we were at a local bar ordering rounds of gigantic, cheap shots. Coming from Paris where a beer can cost as much as fifteen dollars, being able to buy a shot for a euro was too enticing to pass up. By the time we got to some underground club in god know's where at the heart of the city, everyone was much drunker than they needed to be, which is the perfect amount of intoxication for me to dance. I spotted a girl at the far end of the dance floor, a short brunette wearing a long, tight, neon green shirt for a dress that claimed "Bring Back The 80's" in bold letters.

My travel partner was about as useless as me on the dance floor, but much less willing to embarrass himself, which makes for a terrible wing man. Add the aggression and stubbornness of a night of drinking whiskey, and I was left to approach her alone. Maybe Suadela, the Roman goddess of persuasion decided to lend me a hand, or maybe she was bored and happy to have a dance partner, but either way she agreed to dance. Her name was Gosia (pron. go-sha), born in Poland before moving to Ireland and finally to Italy as a tour guide, which meant that she not only spoke Polish and Italian, but English with an Irish accent. As the club began to close, the others in my group demanded I give them the only map. I found out they already had maps but were too drunk to realize. Gosia looked at me and asked if I'd like to go for a walk. Anticipating the standard, drunk staggering through the streets and kissing in dark alleys, I agreed. As we left, she grabbed my hand and took off running down the first alley we came to. When we finally left the shadow of the side street, we stood at the base of the Trevi fountain, empty of the thousands of tourists that normally surround the imposing fountain, eager to throw their money in hopes of having their wish granted. I handed her a coin and we had barely finished throwing them before she took off again, waving for me to follow. For four hours we ran through the city, each stop with enough time for me to see the beauty and awe-inspiring Roman architecture and art before she scurried off to the next sight. We saw the Colosseum, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, ancient Roman roads, countless archaeological sights and all of her favourite parts of the city, without seeing another soul.
By the time the sun began to come up, we had walked around most of the city and ended up at the front door to my hostel. After I kissed her, I watched her neon green shirt walk down the cobble stone street and realized that I had fallen in love, both with her, and this city.