I thought I'd post one final entry for 2007 since a couple things of note did happen at the Vancouver Scouting Conference, although far less exciting things occurred on a daily basis than in Ecuador. The meetings themselves were fairly standard Scouts Canada Commissioner's Forums and Youth Forums, although the settings were not. The past SC AGMs I'd attended had been at a Scout camp in Oshawa, Ontario, which was nice enough, but the organizers of this event really went above and beyond. They someone managed to round up incredible sponsors which allowed us to stay in a nice hotel, eat [View Full Entry]

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Here I sit in the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. It will be my home for the next 9 hours as I wait for my flight to Vancouver so I can continue my recent Scout meeting binge with 3 more full days of national Scouts Canada meetings. I'm pretty pleased because I've got a table, I've got access to a power outlet, and I'm sneaking free access to the "Continental President's Club Lounge" wireless network so I'm not even paying for internet! Excellent. The United States really is a different country from Canada, despite what some may say. For [View Full Entry]

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I’m on a bus right now driving back from the “middle of the world” (as they call it). In other words, I was at the equator! I stood with one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and one foot in the Southern Hemisphere. That alone is pretty cool, but the whole experience was made absolutely unforgettable thanks to the incredibly hard work and detailed planning by the Ecuador Scout Association. They bussed about 8 huge busloads of conference delegates to this big monument (which, by the way, took FOREVER because there was a marathon on so the traffic was reduced from 4 [View Full Entry]

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****WARNING: Ridiculously long blog entry. Please feel free to skim/skip this one. Wow, this is why it’s good to be limited to pay-per-hour internet café time and not have unlimited computer access. **** Gasp! The internet is out! Ohh horror of horrors. I can only hope it’s working again by the time I get back from today’s sessions. In the meantime, I’m writing this in Word and I’ll have to upload it when I finally get an internet connection again. It’s Sunday morning now, I was wayyyy to tired when I got home last night to write an entry, but I’m [View Full Entry]

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If you'd have told me two years ago that by Nov. 2007 I would have visted all six populated continents of the world, I NEVER would have believed you. Yet, here I am, just 13 months after Derek, Mark, and I first boarded the plane for Australia, typing a blog entry from Quito, Ecuador, South America. I made the first half of it all happen--my world tour took me all over Australia, SE Asia, and Europe. But since I returned in March Scouting has been doing a nice job of taking care of the rest of it. First I went waaay [View Full Entry]

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Well, here it is, my 75th (I think), and final entry (maybe). It was 5 1/2 months ago that Derek, Mark, and I said goodbye to our loved ones, boarded a BC Ferry, and left the land of Tim Horton's, Canadian Tire, cold Pacific Ocean, and sane traffic behind. Yah, that was a random summary of Canada, wasn't it? Well, it's what came to mind. I thought I would do one last entry to sum things up a bit. And yet, I'm really not done my year of crazy travelling. In fact, as I write this I'm sitting in bed in [View Full Entry]

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I have to say, the two major Parisien monuments really let me down today. The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower just really didn't come through. Let me explain. We started our day off at the Louvre. After waiting in a pretty big line to get tickets and then fighting our way through crowded halls, we finally made it to the Mona Lisa. "Well, there it is." was pretty much Derek and my responses. It's not like we hadn't seen it a thousand and one times other places (including on EVERY imaginable peice of Louvre merchandise) and it really wasn't that [View Full Entry]

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We're in Paris now, but I think it's important for me to report on the Juno Beach center where we spent two days after leaving the ski hill. If you don't know (and you SHOULD if you are a Canadian citizen!), Juno Beach is the name for the 8km stretch of Normandy coast line where the Canadians landed during the Allied Forces D-Day invasion. The Canadians did great and penetrated farther into occupied territory than any other group that day (although, looking around the area, I had to wonder if that was due to a more forgiving landing site). At [View Full Entry]

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Wow. I just finished four of the most fun days of my life living waaaay above my general social class and income bracket thanks to the intense generosity of friends from highschool and their subsequent, equally kind, connections. I'm talking, of course, of my time in the ski resort village of Meribel. Not sure what Meribel is? Let me give you an intro: it's in the center of 3, interconnected, skiable valleys containing the biggest area of skiiable terrian in the world, it boasts 190 lifts, has FOUR Club Meds, was home to the alpine events of the 1992 Winter [View Full Entry]

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If you're just checking my blog, be sure the you caught my last entry which I just published. I split this up into two because the last one was getting excessively long. So, when we last spoke, Derek and I had just arrived at Vicky's house in Erps-Kwerps, Belgium. OH! I forgot a pivital moment of our first night there. We went and got some famous Belgian frites (fries) to take back to Vicky's house. Mmmmm so gooooood! That's where the real "French" fries are from, for sure. We ate an absolutley disgusting amount of fries, and Derek has the pictures [View Full Entry]

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