Go See Run Eat Drink... done

The time has come to put this blog to bed.  It’s fulfilled its purpose, and there just isn’t anything more to say on the subject.  Hell, even the prodigal package from Africa has now completed its journey.  Go See Run Eat Drink was always intended to be just what’s in the title: “My year travelling the world – the getting ready, the going, and the coming home.”  So I wrote about getting ready for the trip – researching gear choices, planning the itinerary, and dealing with the anxieties of such a major life upheaval.  And then I was off and I wrote about the trip.  God, did I write – 275 posts in all.  (Aside: Before leaving I told my Dad, a decidedly non-techno type, that I’d figure out how to print out the blog posts and mail them to him periodically. (Of course Karen ended up being the one to do all this… I just emailed her the files.)  I even made up a binder with a nice blog-themed cover and filled it with all the posts up to that date and gave it to him for Christmas 2008.  By the time I finally fetched up on his doorstep again in June of 2010 the blog printouts had swelled out of their original binder and filled TWO more, all three of which were being leant out to other non-techno people in a weird sort of Luddite Valley Post system. But honestly, THREE binders?  I need an editor!)

I wrote about camping with hashers in Scotland, and hangovers in Russia and dead computers in Copenhagen and lost wallets in Barcelona and marathons in Athens and dodgy cab rides in Nairobi… and that was only the first half of the trip.  I wrote about places and people and things (and food!), and also about how I felt about it all, and about when I got cranky or homesick or just tired of living out of a suitcase.  There was also a lot that didn’t make it into the blog, but frankly that stuff is none of your damned business.  If you wanted to get the WHOLE whole story, you should have come with me (like Laurie and Patti!).

Me and Patti.  Oh, and the Taj Mahal.

And then I came home.  There were a few posts after I got back, but essentially that’s where the story ended.  Now my life has, naturally, entered a whole new phase.  I knew when I got back from the trip that I’d end up living in a new city, with a new job, and that the blog would be over, just like the trip.  It all seems like it was a hundred years ago, and now I look back at old blog posts almost as if I’m reading about someone else’s life. 
I hoped that I’d be able to write some kind of grand summing up post to end it all with great insight and clarity.  Clearly that’s not going to happen, so instead we exit with a bit of a whimper.  As for insight and clarity, I’m not sure I can say that I was profoundly changed by my travels.  I’m the same person I was before, except now I’m just a bit more, well, worldly.  I think I’ve got a broader perspective now and I’m definitely more confident and more easy-going.  Travelling around the world, especially (mostly) alone for an extended amount of time requires a level of flexibility that was not a big part of my personality before.  And now people laugh when I claim that I’m basically an introvert.  I mean you just CAN’T be an introvert when you spend a year interacting with strangers all day, every day, so I guess now I’m a recovering introvert. Also, I can sleep almost anywhere, and my hair is longer.  But inside? Still Pam.

Of course that doesn’t mean nothing’s changed.  On the contrary, almost everything has changed.  I’m not just living in a different city, I’m living on a different continent, and that’s something I would never have contemplated if I hadn’t taken the plunge, chucked out my old life, and turned my face to something completely new.  It’s not been a cakewalk so far, this new life, but I think it’s got potential, and I’m glad I’m doing it.  And I’m definitely glad I did the trip.  For all those of you who hear about a trip like mine and say, “Oh, I wish I could do something like that.” I say, “You can.  All you have to do is quit your job and sell your house.”  Easy.  Ok, maybe not easy, but definitely worth it.

One of the best days of the trip. Or of my life.  Standing in the water at the edge of Victoria Falls. Like I said… worth it.

And that’s all there is to say.  “Go See Run Eat Drink: My year travelling the world – the getting ready, the going and the coming home.”  It did what it said on the tin.  And now it’s done.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.




(Oh, and for those of you who want to read whatever happens to cross my mind these days… click here.)

And... we're back. Sort of.

The view from my vacation balcony on a stormy day, taken with the new iPhone.

I'm in China! Country #23. And after two weeks of no blogging I was kind of looking forward to getting back at it. But after just two hours, I've had my first taste of life in China - all Blogger blogs are banned here. I can't compose new posts. I can't update my Last Known Location or recentre the Google Map. In fact, I can't even open the blog. This post was composed and uploaded via email, which is why there's only one picture. I've tried to link the captions of the missing photos to Flickr, so I hope the links work. If so, you should be able to click on the link and see the photo I'm talking about. I'm looking into work-arounds, but they seem to involve things like HTTP proxys and such, and I have no idea about that. Can anyone help? And can someone please email me and let me know that this post appeared, and if the links worked, and if it looks sorta normal?

In the mean time, here is the report from my big vacation and the short, steep road back to... the road.

(Edited on March 10, 2010: I've cracked it! I can now access Blogger, Twitter, Facebook... all those subsversive websites China doesn't want me to see. I've gone back and fixed up the old posts to include the photos, so they're all pretty pretty now.)

The vacation is over. As I write this I'm hundreds of feet in the air, winging my way to Beijing for the beginning of the thrilling conclusion to my big adventure. Getting in the cab to the airport last night was tough. I had a really nice vacation, though I'm hard-pressed to say what I actually did. Mostly this is because I didn't do much that warrants writing about, which was entirely the point. There was sleeping in, reading, watching tv and videos, drinking beer and wine, eating lots of good food, running, working on cryptic crossword puzzles and a lot of general farting around and wasting time. I didn't take out my camera for two weeks. Hell, I didn't even get around to writing that last blog about Nepal. Like I said, it was great.

So great that I'm really not feeling ready for or interested in, you know, the whole CHINA thing. I'd hoped that a break would re-energize me leading into the last three months of the trip. Instead I feel like I've lost momentum. Being in a "civilized" location and not dealing with packing and unpacking and traveling and sightseeing was addictive, and now I'm going cold turkey. I bought the LP China in the bookstore at the airport, and just glancing through it is starting to get me going, but I think it'll be a while before I'm all the way back in the saddle.

When I reported for my flight to Beijing (via Dubai, naturally… GSRED doesn't go ANYWHERE without transiting through Dubai) I checked the Aeronaut, as usual. Then a few steps from the check-in desk I realized I'd forgotten to take my Swiss Army knife out of my day pack; I'm just not on my game these days. I decided to go back to the desk to find out if there was a way to get the bag back so I could check the knife instead of having to abandon it at the security screening. But even though only a few minutes had passed, my bag had already been swallowed up by the airport baggage system, causing the helpful Emirates staff to get on the radio and track it down. I then got detailed instructions on how to proceed: Go to that door on the left. Take the elevator down to the arrivals level. Go to Information Desk Number Five. Tell them you need to go to Swiss Porter. They will give you a security pass. With the pass, walk along until you go by the post office. Take the next right into the secure area. Show them your pass. Show them your passport. They will let you in to the arrivals area. Go to the Swiss Porter area, across from… well, you get the idea. It was a bit of a process.

In the end I found myself standing alone at luggage carousel number four and in a few minutes the horn sounded and the beacon flashed and the whole hundred foot long conveyor system jerked to life in order to delivery my single, lonely bag a total of about eight feet. I picked it up and slung it over my shoulder and realized that to get back to the check-in desk, I had to go through the arrivals area. So off I trudged, wishing fervently that I really was arriving just like I had two weeks ago, and that it was the beginning of my vacation and not the end. It really felt like someone was twisting the knife.

The view flying out of Dubai, including the crazy spiky tower

Here's something fun: I bought a new phone! It's a 32GB iPhone 3GS, so I've had lots of fun figuring it out and downloading useful apps like customizable packing lists and time zone calculators and currency converters, and fun ones like backgammon and Sudoku and cribbage, and really stupid ones like the cowbell noisemaker and the crumpled paper toss game. I bought a local SIM card, but wasn't able to get data coverage on the pay-as-you-go plan, so I didn't get the full iPhone experience. Regardless, I'm finding it fantastic. I even have it syncing with information on my desktop, though it's not nearly as smooth a process as with my poor old Palm. Then again, the Palm wouldn't tell me which way is north and then whup me at ten pin bowling.

I also broke down and got a haircut while I was on holiday, and I regretted it instantly. It really had been driving me nuts, and I decided I needed a bit of a trim - enough so my hair could feel like something other than a sweaty pelt on the top of my head. I just wanted a bit of shape, a bit of style, and a bit of an idea of what to do with it while it continued to grow. I ended up at a pretty posh and trendy salon where I paid some poncey git way too much money to not listen to what I wanted and chop off way to much hair and leave me with a weird asymmetrical nightmare that made me look like Liza Minelli playing Dr. Spock. I was seriously gutted. I mean I've never cried after a haricut before, and that guy made me cry. I got over it of course, and later that night the scissors came out and there was some home-barbering done to correct the most egregious points. By that time I was mostly just angry that I'd lost so much of the growth I'd been nurturing and whingeing about for the last five months. So, Rob H, it's back to the drawing board.

(And here' a time when I am very very glad that I can't post pictures. Not that I took any pictures of that abomination of a haircut anyways.)

Oh, and I had to deal with a stupid thing about my Chinese visa. As I was getting ready to leave Kathmandu, I casually glanced through my UK passport to double-check that all was well. To my dismay I realized that the fine print on the Chinese visa said I was required to enter before March 1st, 2010. It was issued along with the Indian and Nepali visas back in December, and was only valid for three months, so I suppose I should have been paying more attention. I had a few choices – I could try to get a new visa issued from my vacation stop. Or I could send the passport back to the visa service I used and have them do the dirty work and charge me an exorbitant fee. I chose the less-hassle-more-money option, and sent my passport off via a heart-stoppingly expensive courier, and once again the Hash came through with a mailing address for the return delivery. In the end it cost me about $317.00 to get the stupid mistake ironed out, but I'd much rather pay that than have arrived at the airport to check in for my flight only to be told I had no visa… I really should pay closer attention to these things.

Ok, one more end-of-vacation anecdote: When I finally boarded the flight for Beijing I found my seat, 38J, and figured I'd hit the jackpot because it looked like the one next to it was empty – all except for some magazines in the seat pocket. I thought they were detritus someone had left behind and had a quick look through them to see if there was anything interesting. They all turned out to be photography magazines in German, so I put the pile under the empty seat and got on with doing all those tiny housekeeping things you do when you first arrive at an airline seat: arranging the seat belt so you're not sitting on it, riffling through the crappy in-flight magazine, kicking at your carry-on bag until it's crammed under the seat in front of you, emptying lots of tiny, easily-lost items into the seat pocket so you can forget them when you get off… that kind of thing.

The view from 38J

Not long after a tall, older German man walked up from the back of the plane and it quickly became apparent that my spare seat was not spare at all. I apologised for moving his magazines and he was so bizarrely put out that I decided he must be blogged about. He muttered, "Jesus Christ!" in a not very sotto vocce, and then proceeded to radiate such perfect contempt that I apologised again and tried to give him as wide a berth as possible with a seat only four inches wider than me. Really his overall tone and demeanor made it seem more like I'd shit in his chair, smeared the results across his tray table, and then left his seat back in the reclined position… not merely rearranged his reading material. In the end though, I think I got the last laugh, because Mr. German Man was so put out he got up and reconnoitered himself a different seat to avoid having to spend seven hours next to such a dangerous and unstable hoodlum, thus leaving me with the spare seat I always knew was mine. Heh.

And now I'm in China. Fasten your seatbelts. Apparently it's going to be a bumpy ride.

A short announcement

I’m taking a vacation. Yes, I know I’m already on vacation so let’s call this a vacation from my vacation. In the last 75 or so days I’ve been through Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Jordan, Egypt, India and Nepal. They were challenging destinations. On March 7th I’m booked to start a 20 day tour of China. That will be challenging too. So in the intervening days I’ve decided to take a break. A break from packing and unpacking. A break from the endless string of “must see” sights. A break from early morning buses and overnight flights. A break from squat toilets, and toilets where you have to bring your own paper, and toilets that are bushes, and toilets that aren’t even bushes (banks of the river Ganges, I’m talking to you). A break from cold water showers and crazy food and strange languages. And – brace yourselves - a break from blogging.

I’m going somewhere to relax and sit. Somewhere I can hang up all my clothes, sleep in the same bed every night and linger there every morning, lay about drinking coffee or beer or wine and do crossword puzzles or nap or watch Olympic hockey on tv or play with the new iPhone or simply stare at the wall.

Where am I going, you might ask? That’s none of your damned business, I say. For now, the “Last known location” area of the blog will remain Kathmandu. The little red line on the Google map will end at Kathmandu and pick up again, miraculously, in Beijing. In the mean time, you can speculate as much as you like.

I’ve still got a few blog posts about Nepal to write, so there will be one or two more published in the coming days. And if I really feel strongly about writing something while I’m on the break I will, but don’t count on it. Probably you’ll just have to go cold turkey until I get into China. I’ll still be online when I feel like checking email, but I’m not going to worry about anything else.

And that’s all there is to say about that. Have fun, and I’ll see you in Beijing.

Your faithful, weary blogger,

- Pam

Blog Housekeeping

Ok, now that I'm (semi-) underway, I've made a couple of subtle changes to the blog, and am contemplating a larger one.

1. Astute GSRED readers may already have noticed a new heading in the sidebar to the right, titled "Last Known Location". As you might expect, this lists my last known location on the globe. Or, to be more accurate, the last place I was when I remembered to update the was place I was.


2. Particularly astute GSRED readers may have noticed that the map in the sidebar is now showing a sporty new RED line, AND it's centred on my Last Known Location, instead of being stuck hovering over Winnipeg. I decided to leave the original blue line, because it was kind of a pain to build in the first place, and because I thought it might be nice to see what I thought would happen, compared to the red line which, of course, represents what has actually happened.

3. Astoundingly astute GSRED readers may even have noticed that the countdown clock skipped beat a little while ago, since I revised it to reflect my actual departure time from the Calgary airport, en route to Chicago, and then connecting to London Heathrow! I've left it in local time, because I couldn't be bothered to figure out what it would be in GMT.

4. Finally, once I actually arrive in London and have a chance to get online, I'll adjust the countdown clock so it will start counting up, adding up the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds I've been traveling.

Now for the other possible change I'm considering: Twitter. Those of you on Facebook may have noticed that I haven't updated my status since, er... January... so maybe I shouldn't be adding to my online To Do list, but it seems like Twitter may be a Useful Thing. A few people have commented that one of the good things about the blog will be that when they see new post, they'll know that I'm ok. However, there may be long stretches of time when I'm not able to post anything new (23-day overland tour through Africa, anyone?). However, I can update Twitter with a text message on my cell phone, which I plan to keep active by buying local SIM cards as I travel.


I think I can add a Twitter window to the sidebar of the blog so that even if there isn't a new post, there might be a quick 140 character update to satiate the addicts in the crowd, if only briefly. The trick will be in finding a gadget for the blog that doesn't ruin the lovely asthetic we've got going on here, and that I can implement without Phonella standing over my shoulder coaching me through it.

I've gone ahead and created a Twitter account, called "goseeruneatdrnk". Note at the "i" in "drink" is missing, because Twitter will not allow a 16-character account name. That was almost enough to make me scrap the whole plan...

So what do you think? Should I tweet, or should I just go have fun and let you guys stew between posts? Comments, please.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today, January 27th, 2009, I turn 40 years old.

For many years when I was single I relied on a couple of friends to help me celebrate my birthday (I called them the "Birthday Rescuers"). When I've been in a relationship, I counted on The Boyfriend. This time I didn't want to rely on anyone else to make my celebration for me. I decided months ago that I didn't want this birthday to slink in under the cover of darkness, so on Saturday night, with the help of friends, I threw myself a birthday party. I pushed the furniture to the sides of the living room, and laid in a load of ice and chips, and hoped that people would come and, as my invitation said, "make my 40th birthday not lame".

It worked! There was a good mix - people I run with, people I work with, people I play hockey with, and other uncategorized but equally welcome folks. Some brought food, some brought wine or beer, a few brought presents, and it seems like all enjoyed themselves. I even had a birthday cake! (Thanks for that, K). There was music, food, conversation, mixing and mingling of people from different categories, touring of my house, spilling of red wine all over my kitchen (Thanks for that, K), and staying up until 2am. It was a good party.

There was also a lot of talk about my big plans. Some people at the party have known about the trip plans for ages, but some only found out in the last few days when I finally made my intentions known at work. Universally, though, people thought is was a cool and exciting idea.


And suddenly it's real. The last important people - those at work - know about the plan. Ironically though, there hasn't been a big Moment of Decision. It seems the road to this point has been made up of a series of tiny steps, not one earth shattering kaboom. Now it's almost as if momentum has taken over.

So I'm quite fine with the idea of being 40, perhaps because I'm not clicking over into a new decade with nothing to show. I have a successful career, a great bunch of friends, a nice house, and a loving family. It also helps that people keep telling me there's no way I look like I'm 40 years old.

And I have a PLAN.

Go See Run Eat Drink Welcomes the World!

Welcome! If you're just tuning in, this is the first post I've created since making the blog public. Though I've been posting since July, if this is your first visit you'd be well-advised to check out a few of the introductory posts like "Welcome to Go See Run Eat Drink" and "Blog 101". Or just dive in a poke around, it's all good.

Those of you who've been reading the blog for a while might notice a change over in the sidebar. There's now a place you can click to subscribe to the blog using a feed reader, and there's a link where you can choose to get notifications of new posts by email.

You can also now link to my blog from other places and you're welcome to do that, but if you actually find something I've written so compelling or witty or fantastic that you want to quote it, please credit me if you do. Fair's fair, eh?

And to everyone who's tuning in because they just found out about my big Quit-Job-Sell-House-Travel-World plan: Sorry I kept you in the dark for so long, but I needed to be sure I was really going to do it before I told you guys. There was no point in getting everyone all in a tizzy before then, as much as I'd love to see you all in a tizzy.

And that's it for now - just a quick post for a quick bit of news. Look for a new, more interesting post soon.

Sounding Off

Thanks again to Phonella, I now have the ability to paste a little MP3 player into a post so I can embed sound files into the blog.

Oh look - here's one now, a short Lonely Planet podcast:

A test post, sent by email.

This post was composed in Gmail and emailed for posting directly to my blog. I have also attached a photo to the message. I wonder what will happen?

Blog 101

In case you're not familiar with blogs, here's an overview of how mine works: What you're reading right now is a single post called "Blog 101". The blog is made up of lots and lots of these posts which I'll write and publish on a semi-irregular schedule. There will be links which are highlighted like this. Click on them and you'll be directed away from the post to somewhere else. Click your browser's "Back" button and you'll come back here.

There will be photos like the one in the top left. If you click on the photos you'll be taken away from the blog to my Flickr page where you can see a better quality copy of the photo, download it if you want, and look at all my other public Flickr photos.

There might even be embedded videos, like this one I took waiting in the starting corral of the 112th Boston Marathon. Click on the play button and it should start playing (if your browser is compatible, and you had enough bandwidth to load it when the page loaded, and the various other gods of the internet are smiling on you). I'm not sure how often I'll post videos - they take a long time to upload to the blog, and there will be many instances when my internet connection won't be fast enough for this. Enjoy them when you get them. Videos are special.

At the bottom of each post there's a link you can click on to add a comment on that post. It's hard to miss - it says "Post a Comment". Click there and a new window will pop open where you can say things like, "Hey Pam, it sounds like you're having a great time in Morocco. Things here are great too, except it's been raining for 2 weeks and my canoe is leaking..." Please send lots of comments, it turns this blog into a two-way medium instead of just my lonely cry in the dark.

At the very top of the page is the black Blogger Bar (say that five times fast...). If you enter a search term in the box and click on "Search Blog", it'll show all the posts with your search term in them.

Next is the beautifully crafted Go See Run Eat Drink header image, which my friend Phonella and I spent many many hours on, so please take a moment to really look at it. It's quite lovely. Click anywhere on it and you'll be taken to the most recent post.

Just under the lovely header image is a menu bar with a bunch of buttons you can click on:

• "Home" will take you to the most recent post.
• "Welcome" will bring you to the first post - "Welcome to Go See Run Eat Drink".
• "Blog 101" will bring you back to this post.
  
• "Maps" will take you to the Google maps of my trip.
• "Running Log" will take you to a spreadsheet detailing my running while I'm traveling.
• "Links" will take you to a post with links to a lot of my favourite travel related websites.

Along the right hand side is the appropriately-named "sidebar". It's got:

• My profile, with a little blurb.
• My count-down clock, which is counting down to my estimated day and time of departure. Once I leave, it'll start counting up - keeping track of how long I've been on the road.
• A tiny window into my Google map. You can pan and zoom inside this little window without even leaving the blog! Cool!
• ADDED JUNE 5, 2009: "Last Known Location" - which will tell you the last place I was when I remembered to update you with the last place I was.
  
• The Archives, where you can check out all my past posts. Click on the little triangle arrow to expand or collapse the archives for each month.
  
• The Tag Cloud, which is an interactive view of all the different labels I've assigned to different posts. The more times a label has been used, the bigger it appears in the Tag Cloud. Click on any one of those words and you'll be taken to a page containing all the posts with that label.
• My Flickr badge, with an ever-changing random selection of photos from my Flickr page. Click on any of those little pictures to go to the Flick page for that photo. Click on the text at the bottom of the badge to go to the main page for all my photos.

At the very bottom is the fine print, and an inspirational quote. There's also an image of my email address. It's not click-able. You'll have to actually remember it and type it into a message. This is so that nasty web-crawling spiders can't read my email address off the blog and inundate me with spam while I'm busy trying to upload photos, check my email, or watch Youtube videos of cute puppies or people attempting to jump over piles of derelict cars on skateboards.

And that's it. You're now fully educated in the architecture of my blog, so click around and check it out.

And thanks for coming.

Welcome to Go See Run Eat Drink!

Thanks for stopping by. I've started this blog in an attempt to chronicle my year-long traveling adventure, including the preparations, the nerves, the packing, the good-byes, the sights, the running, the food and drink, the fun, the highs, the lows and, finally, the coming home. For those who are new to this plan, here it is in four easy steps:

1. Work in my current job for one more season (until the end of May, 2009).
2. Sell my house and put my stuff in storage.
3. Travel the world for a year.
4. Come back to Canada, find a new job in a new city, and start a new life.

Why did I decide to write a blog instead of just emailing my exploits to friends and family? Well, I thought that pushing my emails on people might get a bit tiresome for those left behind in the cold and dark of a Canadian winter ("Oh great, another email from Pam, with pictures of her sunning on a terrace on the Piazza San Marco. Charming. I'll read that as soon as I finish shoveling the driveway for the 9th time this week.") Also, I thought it would be nice to have everything arranged in a neat package for myself to look over during and after the whole event. A blog seems like a good way to do both those things. I can keep a sort of diary of my experience, and you can come and look when you want, if you want. The name of the blog is, of course, comprised of the 5 main activities of the trip, in the approximate order in which they will occur: going places, seeing things, having a bit of a run, and then having something to eat and drink.

I have to say a big big thank you to Phonella, my Blogger layout expert, HTML coach and overall booster. The reason this blogs looks as good and functions as well as it does is entirely due to her work. Thanks! Go ahead and click around to discover all the great features of this blog, or for an exhaustive guide to Go See Run Eat Drink, check out my post called Blog 101.

And because no blog of mine would be complete without a mention of the Boston Marathon, here is me at the top of Heartbreak Hill during the 112th running of the Boston Marathon on April 21st, 2008.