Archive for » February, 2012 «

Things-To-Do in Vancouver

29 Feb 2012 -

 

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I have a lovely plan for 2012. Funny, how 2012 almost seems so old already, so yesterday’s news…but the fact is, that the majority of the year is still to come. This, as Miz Martha would espouse, is a GOOD thing.

One of the fab benefits of being a travel writer, which is not, as you may have guessed, the paltry payments for articles. No, one of the best things about travel writing is the free swag. Need I remind you of that whole frugal Mennonite aspect of my personality? And please be reminded that we have come to agree that frugal sounds much nicer than cheap.

Besides, it’s not just cheap. I have no problem paying for a great meal or an amazing experience but that doesn’t stop me from always being on the lookout for a really great free chair during the Spring Cleanup (seriously, people throw out the best stuff!)

All this to say, Tourism Vancouver provides travel writers with a free Tourism Vancouver Experience Pass. This means I get to go try out pretty much every touristy thing the city has on offer, like the museums, Science World, Aquarium, etc. etc.

I have carried these passes around for the past several years. At the end of each year I toss it in the recycling bin with only a few of the experiences checked off.

Which brings me to my announcement. You just knew there had to be a freakin’ announcement right? But by now you know too, that I am a firm believer in the motivating effects of public declarations.

The announcement is this…by the end of 2012, I will have gone to every single thing on this pass and I will have written about it here on my Traveling Light blog. There are 39 Vancouver-area experiences. (I am not including the eight out-of-town experiences, though I’ll certainly try).

I’m looking forward to it all. I’m going to be a tourist in my own city.

 

Category: Food/Restaurants, Musings, Photos, Travel writing, Traveling, Writing  Tags: , ,  4 Comments

Dear Twitter Hacker Person

28 Feb 2012 -

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This morning my phone started pinging and wouldn’t quit. I was receiving tons of Twitter messages telling me that I was sending out messages that said, “Have you seen this nasty rumour/blog about you?”  This message of mine was accompanied by a link to the purported nasty rumour. Luckily, the link didn’t actually open to anything.

It seems I was also sending out tweets that said “Try this new fast weight loss plan and detox!”

The good news is that most people know me and understand that I would never send out a horrible message about rumours, nasty or otherwise, and that any diet I might recommend would involve lots of dark  chocolate.

I’ve now changed my Twitter password and reported the spam, but cannot send out any messages to all the nice people that warned me of what’s going on because a message comes from Twitter telling me I’ve exceeded my message quota. Well, hello??

I am utterly flummoxed as to why people do this. What possible satisfaction is derived from this kind of annonymous attack? I know it’s not personal at all, because I’ve been on the receiving end of these same kinds of messages when other people’s accounts have been hacked. In fact, I think I would  understand it better if it was personal.

But now I would like to get personal;

Dear Twitter-Hacker-Jerkface,

May a pox be upon thee. May you be covered in boils and other strange and violent rashy eruptions. May your guts liquefy in hot and twisted violence and your toes continually cramp. May your hair fall out in nasty clumps and your teeth wobble and loosen in your jaw. May waves of nausea accompany your every halistotic breath. And most of all, I hope your fingers twist into contortions that prevent you from ever tapping another key on a laptop or phone.

Yours truly,

Colleen Friesen

PS Leave me alone.

 

 

Category: Musings, Photos  Tags: ,  2 Comments

The Art of the Pilgrimage

27 Feb 2012 -
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Beauty

“With a deepening of focus, keen preparation, attention to the path below our feet, and respect for the destination at hand, it is possible to transform, even the most ordinary journey into a sacred journey, a pligrimage.” 

-  excerpt from Phil Cousineau’s, The Art of the Pilgrimage.

I remember when I first found The Art of the Pilgrimage. Kevin & I were still in the throes of being gainfully employed, but we had agreed on our plan to check out .

You know how some people collect stamps or salt & pepper shakers?  Well, I was busy acquiring every book I could find about living differently, traveling and alternative or simplified lifestyles. But when I found The Art of the Pilgrimage, I felt like I had found the book that held a very important key.

I’m thinking about this book again after my return from the writing conference at San Miguel de Allende.

Because, as I’ve discovered and confirmed over and over for myself; traveling is a pilgrimage. Like those ancient knights in search of the Holy Grail, I came home from this trip with my treasure. And the boon for me is the gift of knowing that I am now truly on the right path with what I need to write.

Attending the conference, meeting the presenters, other writers and dedicated readers has given me the clarity to know what I need to do, and most importantly, the way to do it.

And so, as I am wont to do, I am making an announcement to help hold my feet to the proverbial fire. That is;  I am writing a memoir.

No more throwing fictional smoke and mirrors on the subject. It is what it is and I need to get it down. Click cursor to screen, pen to page, chisel to tablet…(someone please make me stop).

T.S. Eliot said, “We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Category: Books, Musings, Photos, Writing  Tags: , , , , ,  10 Comments

Syria Needs Us

24 Feb 2012 -

 

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Calling All Angels

 

One of my first stories ever published was in a now-defunct magazine called Travel, Etc. I sent it in as a contest entry and was thrilled to  win a suitcase. Ah, yes, the glory days …

I have printed the story below because it still means so much to me. Of all the countries I have ever visited, it is the Syrians I found to be the most welcoming and hospitable. Which is why what is happening there now fills me with such hopeless dread.

At the bottom of the story, I have included a link to the Avaaz petition that will be taken to the international meeting taking place in a few days. Please, take the time to sign the petition. It’s not much, but at the least, our friends in Syria will know we care. The story follows:

The Kindness of Strangers

The women are languid. The steaming marble baths are filled with the scent of lilies lit by the amber glowing candles. I walk past the bathers, past the foggy glass walls, looking, hoping, for the next empty bath. Finally I am led to the last room. I slide back the door and there is the tub. It is chipped, cracked and filled with rocks and sand.

I wake up and remember. I’m on an iron cot in the middle of the Syrian desert. There have been no baths. There will be no baths. We have been traveling on an open truck with nineteen others for just over a month and all I long for is a tub.

London-based tour operator Encounter Overland billed this trip as a great adventure. Nine and a half weeks traveling from London to Cairo. Our big orange truck left London at the end of March roaring across Europe in just over a week. We spent two weeks traveling down the Turkish coast. It is now near the end of April and we have arrived in Syria.

Syria – Aren’t the Syrians supposed to be terrorists? Or at the very least hate Westerners? The women are unknowable in their head-to-toe black drapings. The men all sport red-and-white checked head cloths a la Yasser Arafat. It seems as though I’m looking at National Geographic and have tumbled into one of the magazine’s incredible photos. Turkey had been a huge contrast to Europe but this scene made Turkey look European.

People begin yelling at us as we arrive in our conspicuous truck. Through the cacophony of horns and traffic, we can finally understand what is being said: “Welcome, Syria!” They smile and speak the only English most of them know. We have arrived in a land of gracious hospitality. The people we meet can’t welcome us enough. Everything we had heard regarding the Middle East was wrong.

A few of us wander about trying to find a post office. We hold our little Arabic phrase books firmly in hand and look hopelessly lost. We stop a man and show him the Arabic line that makes sense of what our mangled attempts at the language can not. “Aeynae akrab maektaeb baerid?”

“Aeywae,” he nods, motioning us to follow.

We walk in a direction that we are all quite sure is taking us away from the post office. He stops beside a car that appears abandoned. It is covered in a faded automobile blanket. He gently removes the cloth, folds it in neat squares and ushers all four of us into the car. We drive for about ten minutes over ruined roads. He smiles and nods. We smile and nod. The car stops. We are in front of the post office. Money is refused. Each hand is shaken and he is gone.

I have never met so many kind people in one place. We truly had a grand adventure. I just wish I could have had a bath.

 

Please click on this link to sign the petition. Thank you.

 

Category: Events, Published Articles, Traveling  Tags: , , , , ,  2 Comments

Vacation Rentals in Canada & Mexico

23 Feb 2012 -

 

A-Lister Sisters Vacation Rentals
by: atastefortravel

Michele & I came to the San Miguel Writers Conference to take workshops, pitch our stories (sort of) and write.

What we didn’t foresee was that we’d cook up a business as well.

I guess you could say we did some screenplay writing too, because we produced the video you see above. My apologies to those of you who have already seen this on Facebook, but hey! it’s short.

It’s not exactly Oscar-worthy, but trust me when I tell you we did a lot of snorking while we put it together. I do regret that there wasn’t a more appropriate avatar for me…that brown-haired woman needs a lot more silver in her hair and a helluva lot less cleavage to pull off a closer facsimile to moi.

We thought we’d milk all that romanticized glamour that is so often associated with travel writing. Kind of how glamorous it was to grab free WiFi wherever we could and spend hours setting up the A-Lister Sisters Facebook page and a Twitter account.

Still. It was fun.

So, if you know anyone who is looking for a home to rent in Puerto Escondido, Sechelt, Vancouver or Toronto…just send them to the A-Lister Sisters.

Category: Traveling, Video  Tags: , , , , , , ,  4 Comments
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