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The journey ends in London
“It is difficult to define: nostalgia is a common emotion, and all of us can be nostalgic about a time when we were younger, or happier, or only beginning to discover the world. The warm glow that surrounds our early years grows warmer, perhaps, with every year that passes. A journey taken as a twenty year old seems very different from a journey taken forty years later. But pry beneath the surface of that nostalgia and you may find real reasons for feeling as you do – reasons that are to do with growing up and with the growth of understanding.” Alexander McCall Smith The white cliffs of Dover shone…
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Lazy days alongside the canals of Bruges
We were nearing the end of our trip when we arrived in the enchanting city of Bruges. Our Eurail pass was spent. Our hostel card tattered. Our guidebook was a few crumpled pages. Our days in Europe were numbered. Soon we would make our way across the English Channel to Point B on our map: London. If Bruges had been at the beginning of my trip I would have taken more photos. The city is beautiful, in a fairytale kind of way – the gingerbread buildings, the swans gliding on dreamy canals, medieval bridges and cobbled lanes, and flowers overflowing everywhere. We stayed three nights in a comfortable youth hostel…
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Gezellig in Rotterdam
I recently went to a restaurant in Ottawa named Gezellig (gah-zell-ig). The restaurant characterizes gezellig as “convivial, cosy, or nice atmosphere, but also belonging, general togetherness, or time spent with loved ones…” It has many similarities to Hygge, a Danish concept I admire. I was not familiar with this Dutch adjective when I was backpacking. In hindsight, it’s the perfect word to describe the common room at our hostel in Rotterdam. It was gezellig. In my journal, I provided a detailed description of the common room where I spent many hours hanging out with fellow backpackers and watching MTV. It had a TV, three couches, a coffee table and another…
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A friendly face in Amsterdam
As a Canadian, my journey started with a plane trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Once on European soil, Sarah and I aspired to cover a lot of territory. So we backpacked for three and a half months. We met many Americans doing the thing. The Aussies and Kiwis we met took this to another level, often travelling for a year. It was less common to met Europeans on these lengthly multi country backpacking trips. Until we met Yöst. Yöst was Dutch. When we first meet him in Italy he declared he was doing Europe “the American way”. By the time we bumped into him in his home town Amsterdam, it…
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A little stroll around Luxembourg
A nice amenity of many youth hostels is a communal kitchen. Sarah and I liked to dine out to sample the local cuisine as much as possible, but cooking our own meals helped stretch our meagre budget. It had been a long time without a kitchen, so we were pleased our hostel in Luxembourg city was equipped. The tiny landlocked state of Luxembourg is situated in the centre of Europe and is home to several European Union institutions. Otherwise, I cannot tell you much. We were in Luxembourg for less than 24 hours. Essentially an afternoon stroll around this petite city located dramatically in a gorge. I kept a list…
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A record store in Paris
We stumbled across a huge record store. It was massive. Each floor was filled with individual music stations where you could preview a selection of CDs. The stations were equipped with nice big headphones that blocked out noise. I could listen to the CDs undistracted by the hum of the crowds around me. And when I choose a song to preview, it was not the first 30 seconds. I could listen to the entire song. I went from station to station for hours listening to music: discovering new albums, getting energized by familiar songs, and searching for the earworm song from Gandia. 🎵 Please don’t go, please don’t go, please…
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A beer garden in Munich
A nice by-product of travelling is getting inspired ideas. In Italy, I had the brilliant idea to buy a gelato maker (an unsuccessful quest in Finale Ligure). In Barcelona and Florence, I was inspired to learn about art and architecture. And in Germany, the idea that began to percolate was to open a beirgarten (beer garden) at home. Of all the eating and drinking establishments we visited throughout Europe I was most smitten with the beirgarten. In truth, this fascination had started in Austria but it was a full on love affair by Munich. In Munich, I finally got up the courage to order a full litre of beer in…
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An unexpected stay in Füssen
In Germany, we had advance reservations 4 nights ahead of us. This was not our usual tactic. But summer was coming, and so were the crowds. We thought it would be smart to book ahead. Having travelled for almost 3 months at this point, we were feeling like seasoned backpackers. We even mastered the fax machine to make reservations. We were so proud of our organizational skills. Except we forgot to plan our transportation. Arriving in Füssen at the end of our Romantic Road bus trip, we discovered there was no train or bus available to Kempton where we had booked the youth hostel. We were stuck in Füssen. The…
