Adventures

Nine short years ago, I was in the middle of a personal travel-adventure. I'd decided pretty much as soon as I started University that when I convocated I would spend a year backpacking. In order to fund the adventure, I took a quickie course in teaching English as a second language and found a job in Poprad, Slovakia. It was a little city in the High Tatras Mountains on the border of Poland, filled with old blocks of communist flats. The city had made bids for the Olympics on numerous occassions; the Banff of Slovakia.

After I'd had enough of the job, I ended up traveling down through Eastern Europe (mostly solo, but sometimes with travel friends met along the way) through Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and finally to Turkey. I can't even begin to recount the many amazing people I met, places I saw, daily life and culture I enjoyed, and I always say that year taught me more than any formal education. I never regret embarking on that trip on my own as I could make all of my own decisions and I developed a newfound sense of independence and a realization that I could do anything on my own.

The other night, Stephen was working late and I started reading the U of R Alumni magazine. I came across an article about a 28 year old Regina guy who quit his jobs and had started a 3.5 year cycling trip around the world. He crossed the Atlantic in a Polish freight ship, he camps for free as much as possible, and eats mainly rice. If any of this is intriguing to you his blog can be found here.

It's amazing how reading about someone like this can bring back that travel-bug and desire to hit the road in an instant.