Finally..

Its taken me a few days to secure a good internet connection and find the correct adaptors for my Canadian plugs. But I am all set now, and ready to start blogging.

To bring you all to date, I am traveling in Europe for the next two months. I start teaching yoga in beautiful Zurich for one month before meeting Andrew in Italy and traveling with him for two weeks and then visiting my family and the Czech Republic before heading home to Vancouver in July.

Here are some entries I wrote while en-route to Europe.....

Vancouver - Calgary May 2, 2008

Departure… and so it begins.

Some tears and a margarita and I was on my way. In tearing myself from Andrew and making my final phone calls I still remained desensitized to the reality of Europe. This enigma of history and heritage lies before me and I feel like I may as well be going to Winnipeg for the weekend.

As I staggered (I don’t remember asking for a double) from my seat down the carpeted gateway, I laughed out loud. “I am going to Europe.” I thought.

I didn’t even make it through the take off and was out like a light, thankfully closed mouthed and drool free.

The descent into Calgary woke me gently. Conversation bubbled around the airplane, eager Europe bound passengers reciting their travel itineraries eyes bright and eager like small children.

The hour in Calgary offered me an opportunity to flex my journalism

muscles. Finding out from my fellow passengers the EuRail passes can only be bought outside of Europe, I had 45 minutes and a cell phone to figure out how to score a pass. Andrew came though with a flight center phone number and I managed to secure a pass that will be available for use three days from now. Crisis averted.

Amsterdam May 3, 2008

I arrived in the Amsterdam airport and wasted no time. I b-lined to the Capri-Sonne juices and bought a bag of Haribo coke bottles. I nearly squealed when presented with all the yogurt options, man Europe has it right! With a Body Shop and Whistler Water, this airport is so heavily westernized its disappointing.

Though I would love to spend the day in Amsterdam and fly out to Zurich tomorrow,

I managed to find a flight for under 200 Euro to Basel where I will catch a train to Zurich and arrive with enough time to get somewhat settled.

In recent conversation a friend told me that our sense of smell is our strongest of the five. While I briefly stepped out of the airport, my nose filled with the small of cured meat and European cigarettes, and I recognized it. Like, “oh yes, this is the smell of home.”. Could it be that I remember?

The people are already well dressed and beautiful, but I am still searching, hungry for an experience that will make me feel like I am in Europe

more to come tonight I promise......