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Traveling in the time of covid

9/20/2020

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This past week, my partner, our boys, our elderly neighbour and I flew from Toronto to Edmonton. We had decided to surprise my partner for her birthday with a visit to the Columbia Ice Field. It was the first time we’d travelled together as a family since the ‘Rona, and the our first time on an airplane since the pandemic started.

As one might imagine, Pearson — normally crowded like any large, urban airport — was a ghost-town. Where lineups typically prevailed, a few masked travellers and their minimalist luggage moved smoothly and quickly through check-in and security.

For my partner - a commercial pilot furloughed since her last flight on March 13 - it was a particularly haunting experience.

In an attempt to both share my thinking about why we chose to embark on this “non-essential” trip and capture our impressions of the experience, I’ve decided to blog about it. I’ll start with the latter, and focus on the airport.

Out in Public

I found one of the strangest things about the whole airport adventure not so much to be the lack of people, but rather, the mask wearing.
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Mask on and hazy skies in Alberta, on acct of the smoke from the fires raging on the US west coast.
As someone lucky enough to have kept my job during this pandemic, I’ve been working full time. From home. This has meant that the meetings I attend virtually are with people who look — for the most part — as they did prior to the onset of the shut-down, i.e. they aren’t wearing masks. And with few exceptions, I largely do not leave home, other than for walks outside once a day and on weekends. My currently unemployed partner gets the groceries, drives the kids, and runs general errands. So I have not really been exposed to indoor public spaces and the mask-wearing that is now mandatory.

It’s an eerie feeling to see everyone, EVERYONE, masked. Only months ago online arguments were raging, about the appropriateness of Muslim women covering their faces... now I overhear the flight attendant telling person after person to please pull their mask up over their nose. (Yup, six months in, and people still haven’t figured out how to wear the darned things properly!!)

I’m also struck by how many people choose disposable masks. Almost without thinking, I set about ordering a supply of multi-layer cloth masks (some with insert for an additional filter) for our family shortly after the pandemic started. I’m curious about people’s choices.

Mask Comfort

Having the luxury of working from home, I also haven’t had to wear my mask for any length of time. Beyond a ten minute stretch here and there for various reasons, I have been living largely mask-free since the onset of the pandemic. Traveling at this time changed that.

This is the first time I’ve worn a mask for five hours, and I’ve had enough! I don’t know how essential workers are doing it, and I feel for my teacher colleagues who are still in the classroom/physical schools. My ears are hurting. My nose is itchy. Everything is sweaty. Ugh!

The Choice to Travel

So now, on to the non-essential travel choice. First of all, I realize how privileged I am financially to even be able to make the decision to travel. This blog post isn’t about that, but I do want to recognize that reality. Lots of people are struggling to pay the rent right now, and my biggest complaint is that I have to stay inside Canada for my 4-day vacation. I get it.

That said, we chose to travel for a few different reasons, which I will do my best to describe below. One thing I am recognizing about this pandemic is that people feel very strongly about their perspectives in relation to “managing” the virus. From masks to travel to school re-openings, everyone has an idea of how things should go, and the fact that we can control only ourselves and not society at large is creating a lot of anxiety for a lot of people. Moreover, the fear this anxiety creates can make it difficult for some people to think logically.

Safe Air Travel

Having a commercial pilot in the family, and belonging to a national organization that counts many professionals in the aviation industry among its members, we probably have a greater awareness of the travel-related matters than the average household. From cabin air quality to mandatory sanitation measures, we have more “inside scoop” than most folks. Given this knowledge, we believe that the risks of air travel are low.
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Edmonton has one of the most unique ATC towers I‘ve seen!
Transmission rates in airplanes are nil-low. A dig into reports of folks who contracted COVID-19 on aircraft reveal they likely caught the virus prior to getting on the plane. Even before Corona, the air on planes was among the cleanest. It’s circulated through the cabin every 4 minutes. You’re more likely to get sick on a plane from sitting too long, stressing too much, and not getting enough sleep when you travel and your routine is thrown off. And now, with increased measures like mandatory mask wearing, no open drinks in cups or food being served, and personal cleansing wipes handed out to each passenger to wipe down their area upon embarking, commercial airplanes are cleaner and more germ free than they’ve ever been.

The airport is also clean, with surfaces being sanitized constantly. Plus... wash your hands, people!

Weighing the Benefits

With one of us unemployed as a direct result of the pandemic, something my partner and I talk about a lot is the unintended side effects of extended lockdowns and social distancing. It’s no secret that mental health issues are at an all-time high, and that violence (including domestic violence) is not far behind.

Other impacts include a decrease in organ transplant and other life-saving surgeries and an increase of people dying of heart attacks at home because they’re afraid to leave the house and go to the hospital. It‘s not a small number.

The economic impact of the pandemic on those already struggling socio-economically has been devastating. While people celebrate “essential service providers” like grocery store cashiers and those who fulfill skyrocketing Amazon orders, the truth is that those people still earn minimum wage or close to it. Those lucky enough not to have been laid off, that is. Others are working longer hours than ever, and that, too, is taking its toll. For me at work the pace has been relentless. Most days are filled with back-to-back meetings and tasks with impossible deadlines. The evenings and weekends I’ve been working on top of the 8-ish hours my typical pre-Covid days comprised remind me of my days as a classroom teacher. I’m tired!
After months of increased struggle, be it financial, emotional or physical health, or other struggles related to the virus, people NEED a break!

​We believe that a family trip to another province, to visit an outdoor natural wonder not seen before, will have many benefits personally and — by extension — to those around us at work, school, etc. And so, since we’re in a position to be able to afford a few days away together, we did it.


Supporting the Travel Industry

On the earlier topic of job loss, let’s talk about the travel industry (and in particular, the aviation industry). While Jeff Bezos and his capitalist cronies continue to line their pockets with the spoils of people‘s retail therapy and other widespread swindles, small businesses everywhere are shuttering at an alarming rate. And other industries — and the people who work(ed) in them — are suffering, too.

All over the world and particularly in places like Canada, the aviation industry has basically come to a standstill. Pilots, flight attendants, flight engineers, ramp attendants, caterers, cleaners, office staff and huge numbers of related folks have either lost their jobs or been furloughed. Initially, the hope was that things would open up again in a month or two. As work restart deadlines continue to be pushed back and support cheques draw to a close, the struggle is becoming more real for many, including my partner, a first officer with a regional airline that stopped flying in March.
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At first, travel was basically forbidden while governments tried to understand what they were dealing with, and develop policies in response. The last pandemic occurred in the 60s (google Hong Kong flu), when air travel was not as ubiquitous as it has become in the last decade or so... and so governments are in new territory here. Trying to be “safe” (and avoid litigation), they err on the side of caution, insisting on mandatory 2-week self isolation for all who travel outside the country, even to other countries with low rates of transmission. Some (e.g. the Atlantic bubble) even impose these barriers on those traveling inside the country! This deters people from flying anywhere, and the industry continues to suffer, despite evidence of its safety.

In Canada, the situation is particularly dire: While airlines in other G8 Nations receive substantial subsidies to stay afloat, Canadian airlines have largely been left to figure it out on their own and hope for the best. I read somewhere recently that Air Canada (which has attempted to keep some of its crew and other staff) burned through 1.9 million a day from April - June. Smaller airlines don‘t stand a chance!

Other than 3 weeks on PEI this summer (the first two of which were spent in provincially imposed mandatory self isolation while I teleworked) that we drove to and spent at the property we own there, this Alberta trip was our first out of province excursion, our first time staying on commercial property and our first time traveling by air since the pandemic started. We are eager to support our sisters and brothers in the industry, and help begin to rebuild a strong travel network.
Traveling Safely

Earlier I wrote about weighing the risks. I believe that the benefits of travel are significant. And with appropriate precautions, risks can be effectively mitigated. Frequent hand-washing and keeping a healthy physical distance from those outside one’s bubble are generally good rules. At this time, they become even more important.

The requirement to wear a mask on board planes, and inside restaurants and other public places, may further decrease the risk of spreading the virus.

Given the benefits of travel for those who enjoy doing so, I hope I have encouraged at least some of you to consider getting back into it. Our family’s exploration of the natural outdoor beauty of Banff, Jasper and the Columbia Icefields was a welcome reprieve after months of restricted freedom. And for those who are still uncomfortable with travel, I hope you’ll agree that we can have differing comfort levels with this and still coexist on this planet!
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A beautiful disaster

3/20/2020

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I remember seeing an artistic tattoo, “beautiful disaster”, in stylized lettering, on someone’s arm a few years ago. If you looked at it one way, it seemed to read “beautiful”, and from the other perspective, it seemed to say “disaster”. I was mesmerized. How could something be both disastrous and beautiful?

And yet, here we are, in the midst of a global beautiful disaster. Around the world, people are both hoarding toilet paper and volunteering to shop for the elderly and otherwise vulnerable. People are both “stuck” at home under government- or self-imposed isolation, and taking glorious “social distancing” walks in large open areas, breathing in earth’s abundance like never before. Hospitals are inundated and overwhelmed, and some of the most smog-impacted places on earth are healing and clearing up due to the reduced CO2 emissions resulting from social distancing and the (temporary?) collapse of the airline industry.

If these are not examples of “beautiful disaster”, then I don’t know what is!

As an educator long interested in the possibilities of the internet and digital tools for collaborative, global learning, I personally am intrigued to see how those who have been saying, “we can’t” and “not yet” are now jumping to “we must immediately”!

While nervous for students and their anxious parents who are waiting to see what all of this means for “public education”, I’ve also been extraordinarily inspired by the many corporations and individual educators who are developing/co-developing and/or sharing for free some of the most creative resources I have seen in a long time.

The global implications of this beautiful disaster are profound, in education as anywhere else. Earlier this week I attended a webinar put on by an Ed Tech company, on the topic of “supporting remote learning”. The panel consisted of a principal, a Kindergarten teacher and a middle school tech teacher. In the chat pod, i counted over 150 participants, from at least 11 different countries. I found out about the session from an educator I follow on social media. I’ve never met her in person.

The big themes in that session, shared by the people on the ground, were threefold: First, a reminder that teaching is a highly personal profession. For all the systemic complaints some people may express, the truth is that Teachers usually have a lot of control over what they, personally, do with students and how they do it. Second, teaching well is about relationships. Relationship with students and their families, and relationships with one’s colleagues. If and as teaching moves to online, teachers will have to leverage new and existing tools to (re)establish and maintain strong relationships with the little (and big, in secondary) friends who often have spent more time with their teachers than their parents! Finally, differentiation. “Live where they are” said one of the educators on the panel, referring to the fact that — since the middle schoolers she taught “hung out” on Instagram — that was where she was posting her lessons. This women knew her clientele!

In our excitement to contribute, there will be a lot of “stuff” that continues to be created and shared. It will be a challenge for the average person, also dealing with the personal fallout of this pandemic (possible job losses, small abode with kids and other at home, lack of resources due to panic-buying, etc.) to critically select what’s worth pursuing, and what can be relegated to background “noise”. Now, more than ever, it will be important to consider the criteria by which we choose the things we expose our children to and share with our students. The choices we make in the coming days, weeks and months will set a precedent for whatever comes next. There is no “going back to normal”.

Like never before, we have an opportunity to work together to create something new, something more beautiful than disastrous.

Here’s hoping we get it right!
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A Stopover in the Most Magical (and Safest?) Place on Earth

12/13/2019

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It was with mixed feelings that we booked our stay at Disneyland in Hong Kong this past month. It didn’t seem right, somehow, to be revelling in an amusement park while the city was struggling with the fallout of continuing protests.

The political situation had changed considerably in the week since we’d spent a night there on our way from Toronto to Phuket. Then we’d easily avoided the protests in and around Kowloon. Now schools were shut down, people had been hospitalized, and even the airport was on high security alert. The threat of increased violence permeated both the media and our imaginations as we considered our options for passing through this international hub on our way back home to Toronto.

We knew there was a Disneyland in Hong Kong, and that it was near the airport. And while we’d made a wide berth around it during our previous overnight a week earlier, now it was looking like actually possibly the safest and most convenient place to spend a night, given that we’d need to be at the airport again the next afternoon for our flight home (standby loads were looking good for the flight we had in mind, so we were pretty confident we’d get out).

Plus we’d read that there were all kinds of specials currently available, because of the significant decline in tourism to the area. Which also meant a basically deserted park. Which meant no giant crowds and long lines full of sheep. Which meant that at least some of the “issues” I had with places like Disneyland were no longer quite as significant. We also considered that for all its faults, Disneyland provides a huge number and diversity of jobs for the local economy. Supporting the resort at at time like this is probably important to the many people who work there and are wondering about their future job security.

So, we booked a room for one night, and threw in a character buffet breakfast and three tickets to the theme park. For the first time in all our lives, we were going to Disneyland!
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Fancy Ass Hotels and Miles of Service

There were three hotels to choose from, all fairly similar in price. One featured an outdoor maze and a pool with a water slide. We picked that one, and although we never did get to the water slide pool, we were not disappointed.

Apart from the beautiful view from our window and the incredibly comfortable beds (which were very much appreciated, given the 15-hour flight ahead of us the next day), the many whimsical touches such as Seven Dwarves toiletries and shampoo and conditioners caps adorned with Mickey Mouse ears instilled a childish delight, even in those of us already over the hill!
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From the moment a smiling service provider opens the lobby door for you, to the moment you enter the glittering breakfast buffet hall and are greeted by iconic characters and their smiling handlers, the place is loaded with customer-service oriented staff. (Granted, they were probably considerably less stressed with the thin crowds than they usually are; nevertheless, we were impressed.)
I couldn‘t believe how excited I felt to be greeted by Micky Mouse at breakfast! And Eyore was not far behind, making several visits to our table - really seemed to bond with Tats, Eyore did.

Each character had their own handler, and also a photographer who followed them around, taking pictures on professional cameras and scanning a card code that could be used throughout ones stay at the resort. This latter detail was intended to ease the pressure of recording the adventure, so that you could just feel free to enjoy said adventure. (This came at a price, of course, should one want to order actual prints later on, and we instead availed ourselves of the fact that the photographers also happily took photos of our little group on our own personal phones if requested. Still, it‘s a neat touch for those who want and can afford to just live in the moment for a day.)

A Perfect Day in Paradise

After breakfast and a meander through the hotel maze, we hopped aboard the free shuttle, and set off to the amusement park. We had about 6 hours before we had to head back to the airport for our flight home to Toronto, and we intended to make full use of every minute!
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Apart from the sheer excitement of it all (and my partner’s indulgence of that wild abandon), three things conspired to make my first (and probably only) Disneyland experience particularly enjoyable: The weather, the (lack of) crowds and the music.

At low twenties Celsius all day with a light breeze off the water, it was the perfect temperature in which to be outside enjoying this beautiful masterpiece. Moreover, without the usual throngs of people, we were able to not only hop on whatever ride we wanted with little to no wait time, but were also able to see the incredible set up of the park‘s architecture so clearly. It‘s truly a magnificent place, with attention to detail in pop culture whimsy, physical accessibility and natural beauty around every corner.
Everything is just so well thought out!

Perhaps my favourite part of the whole adventure, or what contributed significantly to the stress free experience, was the noticeable absence of loud, annoying pop music. Instead, a Fantasia-like soundtrack played throughout most areas of the park, with the vast majority of music being classical and/or without words.

For my wildly distractedly auditory mind, it was a relief of enormous proportions, and allowed me to feast my eyes of the many visual delights that surrounded us.
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Everything was just so fun! Plenty of friendly „cast members“ (customer service folks) are on hand at any given time, and most of them are quite fluent in English. There‘s also a whole thing with stickers, the staff at the hotel and at the park hand them out to anyone who wants them, and even we got caught up in the frenzy and started collecting them.


Even the candy floss is more fluffy in Disneyland, I swear!
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It’s not all consumerism and tchotchkes, though. I did some research when I got back home a few days later, and it turns out that Disney is in the midst of installing what will become the city‘s largest solar power system, producing as much clean energy as would be required to run nearly 600 3-person households! So there‘s that (I know, doesn‘t exactly eradicate the amount of plastic the place produces...)


Disneyland: What you Expect, and yet Unexpected

As I hinted at before, I do have some issues generally with Disney - it‘s all the usual stuff, like the perpetuation of gender, race and sexual stereotypes, plus all the big consumerism polluter stuff. And that‘s all alive and well at Disneyland Hong Kong as it is anywhere else,no question.

On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised at how much greenspace the park includes, and how much attention they have given to highlighting and promoting the local culture. For example, in addition to the typical North American breakfast foods at breakfast that morning, the buffet was also brimming with more traditional local foods and delicacies appropriate to the geographic area. Another example is the Mystic Mansion experience. Apart from being probably the coolest technological ride I‘ve ever experienced, it reimagines the traditional North American „haunted house“ to make it more culturally appropriate... if somewhat exotically glamourized and leaning towards the imperial obsession with „orientalism“!

Look, if you‘re hoping for an eco-adventure led by a black lesbian, you won‘t find that here. But if you‘re looking for a little magic and some unexpected bonuses, Disneyland is the place for you - especially if you can find a way to enjoy it as we did, on a nearly empty day.
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9  impressions of Phuket

11/21/2019

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After 26 hours in three airplanes and one night in a Hong Kong hotel, we finally arrived in Thailand!
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Having only a week, we elected to spend our time in Phuket, mainly in Ban Karon (a more spacious and slightly less seedy version of Patong), with a few day trips to other parts of the big island.

These impressions are therefore limited to that context.

1. The Food is Awesome!

Anyone who knew I was going to Thailand advised me to “eat all the food”, and they were right! From street pad Thai to sticky rice and mango to banana pancakes and rolled ice cream and even authentic Russian cuisine... the food is fresh and just generally amazing!!!

On arrival our first night, we wandered out into the street not too far from our AirBnB to discover a lineup of street vendors selling various skewers for BBQ as well as a variety of pad Thai. We selected several of the former and two of the latter (a chicken and a vegetarian) to take back to our apartment.
Subsequent days in town and near the beach revealed additional tasty food selections, including fresh fruit smoothies in every flavour imaginable, waffles made to order, and sticky rice with fresh cut mango.

The best part was how affordable everything was: Most items cost less than 120 baht (the equivalent of about $5 CAD or less), and without taxes and tip added on (tipping is not really customary in many parts of Asia), our money went far!


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2. The Wiring is Lava

One thing I noticed almost immediately upon arrival and often after that was the number of wires hanging in the street. It was as though everyone had just added whatever they needed to the thick, electrical jumble.
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Surely there is some kind of safety guideline for electrical wiring there, but it just seemed to the casual observer like a fire or some other sort of electrical disaster waiting to happen!

3. Body Care Options Are Ubiquitous

Everyone who goes to Thailand talks about the cheap prices for awesome massages... unfortunately, many of these seem to be linked to “happy ending”.

But many places are legit, and offer a wide range of delightful body services at very reasonable prices. You can even get them right on the beach, which I did, three times, with the lady below. No attempts at a happy ending, thank goodness, but I was happy at the end!
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While in Phuket, I enjoyed two oil massages, some foot reflexology, and a Thai massage. On our final night in town, Alex joined me at a little spot tucked into a side street for a face massage and back and shoulder work. Unlike the fancy spas here in Toronto, most places there just have a row of hard mattresses with a curtain between each one (and no curtains at all at the beach). It’s not super private, but seems to be the norm.

The Thai massage in particular was fantastic, and if the prices were like that here at home, I’d get one every week or more, no question!


4. Laundry Service Rocks

Our Airbnb didn’t include a washing machine, and since we’d packed pretty light, by Day 3 we urgently needed to wash a load! Luckily for us, there was a place right around the corner (and indeed, they are pretty much everywhere), where you could drop off your clothes to be laundered, ironed and folded.

The charge per kilo was about the equivalent of what we spend on the machines in our laundry room at home, only we didn’t actually have to do the work, just drop it off any pick it up all clean and nicely folded!

Laundry service is definitely worthwhile (and necessary if traveling light and you sweat like a pig... as I do!) if you are visiting Phuket.


5. Thai Language and Google

The language in Thailand is super cool... and very different from English. The alphasyllabary of the Thai script contains 44 consonant symbols and 15 vowel symbols, and the language is mostly (though not exclusively) monosyllabic. There is also considerable use of gender endings when speaking, so for example the way I say “hello” and “thank you” would differ slightly from the way one of my sons would.

This vacation was my first trip to Asia, and unlike when traveling to other destinations, I hadn’t really done my homework beforehand in that I knew essentially no words in Thai. But I soon learned to say hello and thank you with the appropriate gendered language (as an aside, apparently most ladyboys - or “kathoeys” as they are known in Thai — use the female gender when speaking; I asked a local!)


Also, Google translate is alive and well! As well as a few Chinese, and the odd Brit or North American, the place seems to be crawling with Russians, and it is not uncommon to see “interesting” translations of Thai into Russian, English and Cantonese in many restaurant and on store signs, etc.


6. The Islands are Plentiful and Beautiful

Some of my friends who who visited Thailand before for longer periods of time advised visiting at least some of the smaller islands, of which there are many, surrounding Phuket and Thailand generally. They have been made famous from the filming of James Bond movies as well as “The Beach”, starring Leonardo DiCaprio (we did not see Leo while there).

Since we only had a week, we opted for a day excursion to Koh Phi Phi, a string of small islands about a two-and-a-half-hour boat ride way from the pier. This adventure served to be an incredible day of diving and snorkelling, and we marvelled at the nature both above and below the water (only got photos of the former, though)!


I imagine that a week spent on one of the smaller islands would provide a considerably more authentic flavour, in some cases, than the crowded tourist beaches of Phuket.

Perhaps one day....


7. Elephants

While Tats wanted to do some diving, my main interest in Thailand stemmed from a desire to visit the elephants, and learn more about these magnificent creatures.

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I’ll write a separate blog post on our magical day at the Phuket Elephant Sanctuary, but for now, suffice it to say that there are many opportunities to spend time with the elephants on they island of Phuket, and one should research very carefully to ensure one is not supporting the many abusive/fake “elephant experience” tourist traps that continue to exist under the guise of “sanctuary”.


8. Burmese presence (Myanmar)

I noticed in Ban Karon that some of the locals were wearing a sort of face cream in large circles - mostly women, but also some men were wearing this, and I wondered about it.

As I learned during our visit the elephant sanctuary, they are Burmese (as they refer to themselves, rather than saying from Myanmar) - apparently this people group constitutes Thailand’s largest migrant population. And the creamy paste on the face is actually called “thanakha”, and is both cosmetic and practical: Made from ground bark and a little water, it cools the skin and provides protection from sunburn as well as being an effective anti-fungal.


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An interesting aside: Several of the Mahouds at the elephant sanctuaries are Burmese, and have to learn Thai for their jobs - the retired elephants don’t understand Burmese!


9. Traffic is insanity

In order to get to the beach (or anywhere, really) from our AirBnB, we had to cross a main road. Traffic lights are few to none, and scooters and busses whiz by on the sidewalk-less streets. Congestion in Thailand, which has the unfortunate notoriety of having the world’s deadliest roads, is infamously bad, and Phuket is no exception!

On the days when we had arranged outings and excursions by car (van), we learned to anticipate long delays as a result of traffic. These delays were made more unpleasant by the often sharply winding and hilly roads, which caused me personally a fair bit of car-sickness.

With so many beautiful sites to see, traffic was really one of the most annoying features of our time in Thailand, and all things considered, I guess we shouldn’t complain about something so insignificant. But I do wonder how people who live here full-time manage!


In Conclusion

During our week in Phuket, we enjoyed many exciting adventures and also had a chance to swim in the ocean and relax at the beach.
The time we spent seemed just right, though I do wish we had had a chance to visit Phuket Town and maybe see a fishing village on the other side of the island. We did not get to Bangkok or any other part of Thailand, and I know our visit to Phuket gave us just a small glimpse of this country’s beauty, history and culture.
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Early Morning on the Jordan Road

11/10/2019

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Our night in Hong Kong was never intended to be the focus of our 10-day vacation... Headed for Thailand to do some snorkelling/diving and visit an elephant sanctuary, we were looking for a quick place on route to stop over for one or two nights, mainly to recover from the foreseeably long flights through multiple time zones before settling in at our intended destination for a week.

I knew little to nothing about Hong Kong, and was admittedly ill-prepared for this leg of the adventure. Other than exchanging some Canadian dollars for local currency and looking up a bus route from the airport to our Airbnb before we left Toronto, I’m ashamed to say I knew virtually nothing about this part of the world.

I have been (mostly) pleasantly and embarrassingly surprised throughout our little stopover.
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The city offers a fascinating contemporary urban architecture against a backdrop of millennia-old geography, infused with a curious combination of ancient and modern cultural quirks. The view from Victoria Peak at night is unbeatable, and the wide variety of food, entertainment and available tourist accommodations is laudable.

But what really interests me is the “real“ life in a city, not what the tourists come to see, but what happens “behind the scenes”, as an almost invisible yet ubiquitous part of the fabric of a place.

As it turns out, I had the opportunity to catch a small glimpse of this on our second morning here.

Still horrifically jetlagged after our arrival from North America the previous morning, I awoke multiple times throughout the night, and eager not to wake my sleeping travel companions, I quietly dressed myself and snuck out of the apartment around 5 AM.

The streets near our Airbnb at the intersection of Nathan and Jordan Roads downtown were quiet, but nowhere near deserted.
In the distance, the golden arches beckoned, as they do now in virtually every city of every country around the world.

Eager for some free Wi-Fi and curious how their breakfast items compare to those in Canada, I wandered inside.
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It’s quiet, but already filling up with early morning meal seekers. Several folks sit sipping their coffees and nibbling on globally recognizable fast food breakfast items at a large central table, their faces buried in their mobile devices.

But a second, shocking “sub-population” makes up the periphery of the restaurant: Every bench of every table booth is filled with what appears to be sleeping street people!
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A quick Internet search reveals that the 25 or so homeless folks I count at this McDonald’s are — sadly — not an anomaly. With increasing rent prices, the increase in homelessness has also soared, and a study published in March 2018 indicates that the number of homeless spending the night in 24 hour McDonald’s restaurants has doubled in the past three years!

I’m reminded of how fortunate I am to be a visitor here, and how lucky, irrespective of where “home“ is, to have found a path in life that has afforded me a steady income with regular access to food and a decent apartment, as well as the ability to travel. I’m also intrigued by the reaction of the food-purchasing locals. No one seems to bat an eyelash at their less fortunate neighbours, many of whom are still fast asleep on their benches when I leave an hour later, heads resting on backpacks presumably containing all their worldly possessions. (I consider that in Toronto, where both the climate and the mindsets towards such public integrations seem to be much colder, such sleepers would surely have been evicted from their temporary posts rather than left to find a few hours of relatively safe and peaceful escape from the elements.)

Hong Kong is similar to and yet significantly different from how I imagined it.

As I stumble out from my early morning of blogging at the familiar restaurant-come-homeless shelter and back into the street to wander “home” with the sun finally rising in the distance, my mind turns to our afternoon at Kowloon Park yesterday.

Filled with greenery, Asian “kitsch” and some impressive accessibility features for the visually impaired, this urban park tells the city’s story from a different angle.
And as I return to the older building where we’re staying for the night, I realize again how lucky I am, this time with timing: About 20 police officers are milling about with face masks and hard helmets, commuting with one another by radio. I can’t understand what they’re saying of course, but as more of them pull on their masks, I infer they’re preparing for yet another protest, and I’m grateful to have arrived safely back at my Airbnb before that erupted!

How glad I am that we had the opportunity to spend a day in this bustling metropolis. Like all travel, this experience is one that expands the mind and provides opportunity for reflection, both on life‘s big problems, and ones personal contributions to either the problem or possible solutions.
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The Great Thailand Adventure, Part 1: In Transit

11/10/2019

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I had forgotten how hard long haul travel can be (well, for those of us pions who can’t afford first class, anyway).


Full Disclaimer: This blog post is full of whining and complaining about what a former colleague of mine would call “FWP” or “first world problems”!! I so get that I am super lucky to have the ability to travel as I do, both in terms of having the luxury and privilege of being employed in a job that offers annual paid vacation time and also in terms of having the means to pay for accommodations and standby travel; even though it’s cheaper than how some people travel, I fully recognize that most people don’t get to travel like this at all. That said, within the context of said travel, I am going to get my complain on. So if y’all can’t handle it, you should stop reading now and go back to consuming whatever more worthy online crap you were consuming before the internetz rabbit hole led you here.


So my partner is a pilot with an airline in Canada. And even though it’s a small regional airline, it’s one that has some awesome reciprocal agreements with partner airlines, which means we (her partner and kids) can all travel much cheaper than market value, and she even more cheaply (and in some cases even free).


But it’s standby. That means not confirmed. As in, you could be waiting a gazillion years before a seat comes up on a flight you want/need to get where you’re trying to go. And the more people you’re traveling with, the less likely it is you will get your first choice. Especially when traveling with a partner airline, because there’s a whole ranking system, and if you’re the family of a person working for an airline other than the one you’re trying to travel on, you’re basically at the bottom of the list. A third (or fourth or fifth) class citizen, as it were.


Below an illustration of how this played out recently. We were lucky in that it’s a fairly seamless example, but hard travel nonetheless.


Three of us had decided to use our 10 days of vacation time (and in the case of our kid who was joining us, his 7 skipped days of school) to try and get to Thailand. Unless we wanted to pay upwards of $1000 a person for a guaranteed seat, we had to figure out which partner airlines (that have the agreement with my bae’s airline) fly from Toronto to somewhere in Thailand, or to a place that has other qualifying flights to Thailand.


We quickly established that we’d likely have to go through Hong Kong, staying a night or two in an AirBnB there before trying our luck with a flight to Phuket, where we had rented an apartment for a week and arranged for some diving and snorkelling.


There were a few options, the “easiest” of which was a non-stop Cathay Pacific flight from YYZ to HKG. It leaves in the afternoon on Friday, and arrives in Hong Kong sometime on Saturday evening.


The only problem is that it was oversold, and already had three people (who were not us) on the standby list. So we decided not to risk it.


Flying standby successfully depends largely on one’s ability to predict the likelihood of finding an empty seat on any given flight. Knowledge is power. But knowing the loads means requiring access to inside information not usually available to those outside of airline staff. Out of this necessity, and thanks to the power of modern technology, an online network of inter-airline collegiality exists in a way that most people outside of the aviation industry cannot possibly imagine. Even if you don’t directly know someone who works for the airline you want to fly with and can check the loads for you on their internal systems, chances are you know someone who used to fly with someone who flew with a friend of someone who works for that airline. And if not, there’s always the apps and the facebook groups, the ones where you plug in your desperate plea, and some bored keener with inside information will give you the best available intel at that time.


So my partner obsessively googled and texted.


The next best options where all out of Newark, which conveniently is a destination her airline frequents. Lots of available connecting flights to Hong Kong there.


Alas, not a lot of space to get from Toronto *to* Newark.


So back to researching.


We finally decided to fly United to San Francisco, and try our luck with a connecting flight departing 45 minutes later to Hong Kong. If we were successful in getting on both flights, it would mean 22 hours of flying through multiple time zones over the subsequent 24 hours, but it looked like our best option, meaning that we were more likely to be doing 22 hours of flying than 40+ hours of sitting around an airport! The loads for the first leg were looking VERY good, and the second leg (assuming we could make it from one plane to the next in time) seemed to have just enough seats for us, based on the latest intel from an airline colleague.


With some free pens and chocolate, and a little sweet talking to the United CSRs in YYZ, we landed ourselves some adjacent seats on the first flight, and spent the next 6 hours strategizing (with support from an eager flight attendant) how we would manage our assorted carry-on luggage for the run from one terminal to the next, in order to attempt our luck with the connecting flight. It was an uncomfortable 6 hours, but the adrenaline from our first foray into international standby travel was flowing, and so the pain that lay ahead did not really sink in until much later.


The standby gods were smiling on us as we raced from one terminal to the next in San Francisco, arriving just in time to board the connecting flight to Hong Kong — we’d all three of us successfully obtained seats on this flight, too.


Middle seats.


And the flight that lay ahead was 16 hours. The longest I’d ever been on a plane in one stretch.


As I squeezed into my allotted 18 square inches, the burden of long haul travel sunk in. I had not slept more than about 20 minutes on the preceding flight, largely because my sweet but largish teenager kept leaning against me in his own pursuit of the elusive unconscious. And now I was squeezed in between two strangers, both of whom seemed to have little concept of physical boundaries, as I soon discovered. Encroaching elbows, arms and legs turned from mildly annoying in the first several hours to claustrophobia-inducing through the middle third of the flight.


After sobbing through “The Art of Riding in the Rain” (I digress, but you gotta see this movie! So sweet!! I’d read the book some years back, and they did a really nice job with the film version) and attempting for a few hours to sleep upright in my narrower-than-I-remember economy class seat, and failing to do so, despite my comfy memory foam pillow, eye patch and noise canceling headphones, I decided to go for a walk and find my partner.


I soon found her, luxuriously stretched out and fast asleep, in the middle of aisle 40, a few rows back on the other side of the plane.


Granted, hers was also a middle seat. But whereas I was sentenced to 16 hours between two man-spreaders in a standard, narrow row of squishy seats in in inadequate armrests, my skinny little girlfriend who can sleep in any position anyway had been assigned to an exit row, the one right next to the lavs, so that she had BAGS of room. Moreover, her seat was ensconced on either side with a solid half wall that firmly delineated her space from that of her neighbours’, hence protecting her from wandering lower limbs.


I considered waking her up and demanding a seat exchange for the remainder of the flight, but I figured it was better for one of us to get a decent night’s sleep than for neither of us to. (My motives were partly selfish: I knew that she would be better equipped to deal with my inevitable meltdown at some point later in the journey if she had slept a while at least.)


So instead I rummaged through her bag for a cheese sandwich I knew she had packed for me earlier, left her a hastily-scribbled note begging her to come find me when she woke up, and ventured to the back of the cabin, where one of the flight attendants indulged with me a cup of hot tea and surprised me with the fact that she was in her 53rd year of working as an FA with United!!! I was very impressed, and stayed a while to shoot the breeze with her and her colleagues, learning a little more about the secret lives of cabin crew on long haul flights such as these. She was gorgeous, by the way. Bright eyes, beautiful white hair and an engaging smile. I can only imagine the adventures she’s had over the years.


My tea and chat finished, I returned to my partner’s row to see if she might be awake now, so that I could have some reprieve from my cramped quarters for a while. Alas, she was slumped forward in her seat, legs splayed out in front of her, with her hood drawn low over hear eyes to block out the light. And still asleep. Blast it!


So I decided to make a quick pit stop on the way back to the man spreaders.


But there is no “quick” on an aircraft of this size. Despite having three lavs right there in the immediate vicinity, all three were occupied, and remained so for the next ten minutes or so. What the temporary inhabitants where doing in there for that long, I don’t even want to imagine, but suffice it to say that by the time one of the tiny stalls finally became available, my bathroom visit of boredom had become one of necessity, and I actually had to pee!!


Sleeping beauty was still, well, sleeping, so I returned to my row, climbed over the lightly snoring man spreader in seat C, and crawled back into my 18 inches. I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the last 8 hours had begun to produce a body and mouth odour from my neighbours that was less than desirable. Convinced I would never sleep again, I resigned myself to writing down my adventures thus far, my typing abilities more than marginally hindered by my tight quarters.


Only 8 hours to go.
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A Morning at Argyle Shore

8/25/2019

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It seems that after a full three months on the island, fate has seen fit to give me one additional “bonus” day here on PEI. (While it’s true that there are wonderful travel benefits that come from being the spouse of an airline pilot, those benefits come with a cost: Confirmed uncertainty!)

After trying twice on standby, I still couldn’t get on a flight back to Toronto. The next possibility being another 12 hours away, I decided to make the best of it, and explore one of my favourite beaches on the south shore, at Argyle provincial park.
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Since I was turned away (again!) at YYG around 6:30 AM, and the park does not open until 9 AM, I made a brief stop at Victoria by the Sea, and then went to the parking lot at nearby Bonshaw provincial park for a nap in the car.


When I awoke, it was 9:30, and after a brief chat with my family to update them about the situation and lament the fact that I would essentially have no time between my arrival in Toronto and my return back to work, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and headed over to Argyle Shores, where I arrived approximately two hours before low tide.
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I always forget what a splendid beach this is when the tide is out; my only other visit this summer was at nearly high tide, when only a narrow ribbon of rocky shore remains walkable.

But now, now endless red sandy beaches were my Oyster!


Very few people had arrived by the time I got there, but the beach was nevertheless busy: Assorted seagulls stomped around determinedly through narrow pools, picking at various tasty bits that the tide had washed in, transparent little shrimp or crayfish scampered around and large schools of tiny fish flitted every which way. Shellfish scuttled about looking for a safe spot to ride out the next few hours; I chanced upon a giant crab racing across one such shallow pool.
Argyle Shores provide an ideal opportunity to experience PEI’s signature red soil; at low tide, rocky shore meets a seemingly endless expense of red sandy beach, and once you’ve made your way down the rickety old wooden staircase, you can walk out quite far, wading between the emerging sandbars.
One of the most beautiful things to behold when flying over the island is its undulating shoreline with the most mesmerizing textures of subtly blending land and water. Here at Argyle shore, you can immerse yourself in it on the ground! While the gradients are incredibly difficult to truly capture effectively with a phone camera (even a good one!) it’s nevertheless a quintessential spot for a few Instagram-worthy shots.
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I first discovered this beach some years ago on my own, with our previous dog, a beagle with short stubby speckled legs who danced along happily behind me along the red shoreline, pausing frequently to sniff here and there. At that time I was amazed by the rich diversity of rock formations, various molluscs and barnacles and other sea creatures, and of course endless red sand.
The next year I wanted to show my boys; alas, I had not looked up the tides, and when we arrived, there was little evidence of the diversity I had described to them. We had to wait another year to (re)discover Argyle Shores.

This time, having both tide and time on my side, I walked further than I ever had before, and came to a little estuary.
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I followed it all the way to the end and saw two beautiful great blue herons.

They wouldn’t let me get close enough to take a photo, but I stuck my toes in the rapidly moving water to assure myself that it was considerably colder than the gently lapping waters of the wide ocean behind it!
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After plopping myself down on a sandbar for a while to feel the warm sun on my back and listen to the sound of the water and the birds mixed with the excited cries of children in the background (with the approach of low tide, more people were slowly starting to make their way to this still semi-secluded spot), I began my slow meander back to the staircase up to the parking lot.
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If you’ve never been to Argyle shore and are planning a visit to the island, I highly recommend visiting this incredible spot. It’s not so much a swimming beach as a walking beach, but it’s a beautiful tribute to this red Island, and well worth the half hour drive out of town. The park itself includes picnic tables (including some covered ones in case of rain), washrooms and showers, and is the perfect spot to spend a morning or an afternoon, after you’ve walked the red sands, rocky shore and tide pools.

While I am still sad about the delay in being reunited with my family today, I am grateful for the unexpected opportunity for one more visit to this beautiful beach!
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Sleeping Around on PEI

8/23/2019

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Some people who knew I was spending the summer on Prince Edward Island were surprised to hear that I spent part of my three months here living in a tent!

Although it’s true I co-own a house, it is typically in use by my co-owner for part of the summer, and we also sometimes rent it out to help pay for the various expenses that come with owning a home and country property. This year in particular, we had several folks stay, as we had to replace the roof last winter (not a cheap endeavour!)
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So, I did get about three weeks in a comfy bed in my room in the house, while spouse and kids were visiting. But at other times, I slept in an assortment of other places!

Last year, I spent a week in a tiny tent behind my music cabin; this year I got a lucky and generous upgrade (thanks to my neighbour whose property I was managing) to a 7 m canvas bell tent! Here I slept for most of June (COLD at the beginning; required warm dog and five blankets!!) and the first half of July.
Sleeping in a bell tent was an interesting experience, and one that certainly brought me closer to nature. I went to sleep each night to the sound of crickets chirping, and awoke each morning to the sound of birds singing and — depending on the month — lobster boats heading out of the bay in the distance.

Sneakers enjoyed it, too, and eagerly ran to the tent’s entrance each night, waiting for me to unzip the door so that she could bound inside for our night of snuggling down under the covers!
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Sleeping so far from a flush toilet also meant creative waste management solutions (being in the over 40 club and a birth mother to twins, there is not a chance in hell that I can make it through an 8-hour night without at least one washroom visit, lol!!)

At first I got ambitious and — after much research in the tiny home and off-grid community — installed a compost bin and commissioned a local guy to build us an outdoor composting toilet, which I kept well stocked from a nearby source of sawdust. I even worked in an outdoor shower with a rain barrel and down spout set up behind the music cabin... but honestly, most nights in the tent I ended up using a chamber pot. #lazy. LOL!!

That said, I did enjoy daytime “business” at the back of the property, with the outhouse door open, gazing into the forest.
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After some weeks in my house, it was back to the tent for me... and eventually, I moved to the music cabin, as the time came to prepare for my departure from the island and return home to Toronto. Here I experimented with sleeping in a hammock, which has provided many deliciously luxurious afternoon naps, but did not work out so well for a full night’s sleep as it turned out.
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In addition to these nighttime adventures, I slept around in the day, too! This included the OG hammock over at my place, under the deck, as well as a new rope hammock at Rick’s, and a cushioned swing inside the dog run.
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Each sleeping partner had its benefits and drawbacks, but overall, I’d say that sleeping around on PEI this summer was a relatively safe and fun experience. Though I am looking forward to getting back to my own bed in Toronto, largely because it often includes a cute pilot (when she’s not away on a layover)!!!
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The Grumpy Professor’s Artist and Mathematician Nature Retreat

7/20/2019

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My neighbour’s property is a little piece of heaven. His nearly 3-acre field bordered by forest/tree line on two sides lies across the road from my 1.74 acres on PEI’s north shore, a short walk from the harbour that is home to shallow waters and a gorgeous view towards the massive, parabolic dune of Greenwhich National Park.

A big big role for me this summer, apart from directly taking care of meal prep and tidying for said neighbour, has been to develop and manage his property.

The Grumpy Professor, as he’s referred to around these parts, is fairly open to ideas, mainly because he doesn’t really care all that much about the property, and is primarily interested in allowing the dog space to romp!

This has allowed me some freedom in my aforementioned development and management.

As I’ve been learning more about historical and current differences in how Indigenous Canadians and Canadians of Settler/Colonial descent view the concept of land “ownership”/use, I’ve been thinking a lot about whose land it all is, really, anyway. As a result, I have been finding opportunities to share “my” property and the one “owned” by our neighbour with others in ways that blends business and philosophy.

We have opened up both our properties to folks who want to camp here, either in their vehicles, their own tent, or one or more tents or small, rustic cabins we have set up on site.
This influx of guests has also allowed my neighbour to get out of his shell a little, and meet some interesting people of varying ages, from a wide range of backgrounds.

As the GP is a huge introvert, and really can live up to his nickname of “Grumpy Professor”, I worded any ads quite carefully to disseminate both the rustic, simple nature of the lodgings (priced accordingly) and the sometimes problematic nature of one of the hosts.

Such calls bring to bear either fellow introverts or mathematicians (the GP is a retired math professor), or folks intrigued by and interested in what we have to offer. Consequently, over the past 6 weeks, we have enjoyed learning about civil war re-enactments from a lone traveler who stayed — bundled in multiple sleeping bags — in Rick’s stargazing cabin in early May, we have delighted in reading the poems on the road of two gals traveling across Canada in their camper van, we have learned to play poker with two young American campers who also hauled wood for us and watered some trees in exchange for the use of our parks pass and wood of their own campfire, and we have enjoyed several communal meals with one or several groups of visitors.

We’ve also had a number of visitors who have just kept to themselves, parked on “our” land for the night on their way to Souris or some other place.
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Observing a red fox meander across the front yard in the morning, or watching a great blue heron fly overhead to the nearby marsh in the afternoon serve as reminders that we share this land with a host of wildlife (beyond the horrid mosquitos... and even the dragonflies — who will eat their share of these small beasts — are starting to appear amidst the wildflowers).

Neither the rabbits in the back forest nor the robin whose nest (complete with three eggs!) is tucked in under the roof of the solar shelter near the front of Rick’s property pay any rent.

The struggle to reconcile what it means to “own” land vs to share it continues inside of me. On the one hand, who am I (or who is Rick) to decide who gets to use the property and when, and how much they should pay us for this privilege? On the other hand, having a well and outdoor shower installed costs money, as does the electricity to pay for the hot water bill. The composting toilet was not free to build and deliver to the back of the property, nor was the fire pit we had built, over which many of the people who stay cook some of their meals.
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And so we ask for a nominal fee from those who stay, and invite cash tips or work exchange from those who feel compelled or are able to contribute more.

A lot of the proceeds (and then some!) are used to pay for the many trees Rick has been planting on his property. He is determined to contribute what he can to the betterment of the environment.
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The two groups currently staying on Rick’s property have really jelled, and we are enjoying the opportunity to break bread together as we hear about their day’s adventures on this island that we call home for the summer. As an added bonus, my mother’s friend is here for a visit, and one of my boys has finally arrived!
It’s so lovely to have everyone together.

I relish my privacy and am very grateful for the privilege of home and land ownership. But I believe that the concept of “ownership” is problematic from an ethical perspective, and there are elements of this summer’s communal living experience that I wish I could enjoy year-round.
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Empathy for New York

4/14/2019

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Being partner to a pilot who frequently flies to Newark as part of her job means I get to tag along on the odd layover, taking advantage of a cheap flight, free hotel and a chance to discover a few more corners of this famous city as I add another 5-6 hours to my New York tourism experience. While I must confess that so far I’ve been more disappointed than impressed (just seems overly loud, busy and materialistic to me personally), I do see the value of familiarizing myself with such an iconic place.

This was my third visit to the Big Apple. It was a warm spring weekend in April; this time we brought one of the kids along for the adventures.
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Each brief sojourn has provided another piece of the puzzle for this somewhat reluctant traveler. This time, we got to visit the site of the former twin towers of the World Trade Center.

I remember exactly where I was when 9/11 happened (a Grade 1/2/3 Spec Ed classroom, as it were), and the complexity of emotions that plagued me both on that day and in the weeks that followed.

Having attended Come From Away (the musical), and read about both the Canadian side of the events (i.e. in places like Gander, NL, that rallied to support so many unexpected and emotionally overwhelmed short term visitors) as well as a book written by a journalist who covered some of the Afghan history and general world political and historical context as well as sharing minutes details of the terrorists’ organization and preparation to intentionally end their lives and so many others, I was eager (if such a word is appropriate here) to visit an American site and see some of the artifacts from this horrific day.

As I had been warned, it was a tremendously emotional experience, even for someone who did not have any personal connection. (I know no one who worked or lived there, and truth be told, I’m generally not a fan of the type of work that such a place represents.) The Americans have done an excellent job of finding a way to impress upon visitors the magnitude, while respectfully honoring the victims and survivors, of 9/11.

It did not feel right somehow to take photos on site, and it is difficult to really capture the whole experience with words, other than to say that it was quite visceral for me.

Surprised by my tears, my partner noted that under any other circumstances, I would not be likely to have a lot of time, emotionally or otherwise, for the sorts of people who typically would have worked at the WTC. (Other than maybe the cleaners.) True as that might be, I could still appreciate that everyone who worked and died there that day would have been someone’s parent, child, aunt or sibling, someone’s friend or neighbour. This context allows me to feel an incredibly strong human connection with them and with those who would have been looking for them, waiting anxiously and increasingly hopelessly as the horrible hours turned into endless days and eventually — for too many — dark weeks and months. And then there is the thought of all those who lived or worked or happened to be walking their dogs in the surrounding area on that fateful morning when one of the most incredible achievements of humanity - a flying machine - was used as a most deadly weapon.

From the accounts of first hand witnesses, the physical/geographical/climactic effects of two massive planes barreling into two giant towers lasted for weeks. The psychological and other impacts would of course have lasted much longer, and the way the site is set up now is a tribute to both that and to the desire for recovery, collective strength and determined progress.

Instead of photos at ground zero, I snapped a few pictures later, at Battery Park and out towards the Statue of Liberty.

Can Americans remember what that iconic symbol once stood for? And can we Canadians find ways to be good neighbors, encouraging and supporting our partners to the south to find new hope, and let this hope and vulnerability— rather than fear and hatred—drive their vision for a more humble and collaborative future?

As we near the end of the second decade after the horrific events of September 11, 2001, and pause to consider the ways in which travel to America (and indeed across the world) has changed since then, one can only hope so.
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    About Vera...

    Vera & her Sons, April 2021
    After writing for several teacher and multiple birth publications, including ETFO's Voice Magazine, Multiple Moments, and the Bulletwin, Vera turned her written attention to prolific blogging for some years, including BiB,  "Learn to Fly with Vera!"  and SMARTbansho .  Homeschooling 4 was her travel blog in Argentina.  She now spends more time on her Instagram (@schalgzeug_usw)  than her blog (pictures are worth a thousand words?!) 
    DISCLAIMER
    The views expressed on this blog are the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the perspectives of her family members or the position of her employer on the the issues she blogs about.  These posts are intended to share resources, document family life, and encourage critical thought on a variety of subjects.  They are not intended to cause harm to any individual or member of any group. By reading this blog and viewing this site, you agree to not hold Vera liable for any harm done by views expressed in this blog.
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Vera C. Teschow, OCT, M.Ed., MOT
Toronto, ON & St Peter's Harbour, PE
www.verateschow.ca 2021
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