As I write this, we are currently in Lisbon and we must say, it’s nice to be back in Europe. Decent weather (18 with sun and some showers here and there), Mediterranean food, and cheap beer. We haven’t written much in the past 3 months as, well, there wasn’t a whole lot to write about. Sechelt was ok but it’s a small west coast town and there’s not a lot to do there. It was also winter (and still is judging by the weather report), so even less to do. But we had a dog to look after and we continued our ‘european-like’ lifestyle which was get up whenever, leisurely breakfast, go get groceries (with the dog), and wander about. So, we got our 7 to 10 km daily walks rain, shine, or as was the case for the month of February, snow.
In some ways, the time dragged a bit knowing we were out of there come March, but generally, it flew by. We always seemed to be busy. Errands to run and dogs walks of course, some yard/maintenance work at moms’ place, the obligatory medical and dental checkups some of which required the occasional trip into Vancouver. It’s interesting how stressful BC ferries and the traffic in Vancouver is after being away from it for a year. Still, there are worse places to spend the winter. Like, anywhere else in Canada. A hundred feet of snow and minus 40. Yikes. It’s been a brutal winter in the great white north. There was a news report I saw last week about some Alberta worker’s lunch being frozen complete with a nice photo of noodles and a suspended fork over a plate. While this kind of ‘art’ might seem funny when you are in your twenties, it’s stops being humorous when you get to our age.
So, we get asked a lot about why we want to spend winter in Canada and not somewhere warmer. It’s what everyone else does. The answer is…it’s complicated. Would we do it again? Possibly, maybe even probably. The house/dog sitting is a good gig and short of being ‘ex’, as in expats or even exit stage right, we need to be in Canada for some length of time. Spending the winter in South America, Australia, or South-east Asia and the summer back here has its appeal but it cuts into our Euro-time. There’s a lot to see and do over there and we still have much of Canada we want to visit. Nobody travels Canada or northern Europe in the winter unless you’re into skiing or staying in ice-hotels. And since we need to be in BC for at least some of the time…. it’s complicated.
I hear some of you saying, ‘oh boohoo, life’s tough, suck it up! Must be nice having all these first world problems!’ And to that we say… yes, you are absolutely right. Sometimes it doesn’t sit well, and it gets in your face after being in places like Guatemala. There are a lot of bigger issues we could be dealing with and maybe it’s time to think about giving back in some way. Thoughts for a later post perhaps.
