Monthly Archives: July 2014

MENOPAUSAL TRAVELERS SLEEP DEPRIVED IN EUROPE

MENOPAUSAL TRAVELERS SLEEP DEPRIVED IN EUROPE

You know you’re sleep-deprived when you’ve sat up the entire 9.5 hour night flight in an economy class seat. The two TYPE A travelers would have coped if they hadn’t started their journey with a 5:00 alarm to make a ferry connection first. And no one sleeps well when relying on one’s alarms going off, right? Certainly, arriving at the airport too early for one’s flight and hanging out in the airport for a number of hours, made for an endless day, before even taking off! … And so their story began.

The real fun started when arriving at one’s destination after being awake for 30 hours. Operating in a fuzzy, brain dead state, it only made sense we’d … Read the rest

FRIENDSHIP-BUILDING in MIDDLE AGE

FRIENDSHIP-BUILDING in MIDDLE AGE

After returning from a three-week adventure in Europe, our hostess sent me an email with the following German proverb:

“Came as a stranger and left as a friend.”

It couldn’t have expressed my feelings better.

When our travel plan to Germany and Holland was hatched, it was somewhat decided on a whim. My husband decided to circumnavigate Vancouver Island over a period of 4 weeks with three other sailors. The minute my friend (and sister-in-law) heard this, she pounced. She had a strong yen to return to Germany where she still had a best friend living. My sister-in-law had lived there in another life, back in the 70’s. She asked me at the right time (I had declined the year … Read the rest

SUITCASE TRAVEL NIGHTMARES IN EUROPE

SUITCASE TRAVEL NIGHTMARES IN EUROPE

DISCLAIMER: My travel partner has given me permission to divulge some of the more colourful journeys our overweight suitcases went on during our somewhat muscle agonizing adventure.

One has to ask, where were you when I posted my PACKING DILEMMA before flying to Europe? Someone needed to set me straight – BUT NOOOOO- you didn’t comment. I’m almost certain I would have listened…

Prior to embarking on our BIG ADVENTURE, my traveling partner and I talked almost daily for months about what we’d take (not what we SHOULD take). She’d tour my packing progress, and I’d check out her continuously changing clothing piles spread out in her spare bedroom. Our biggest decision we agonized over for weeks was what outfit … Read the rest