Too many choices - where to go next?

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Geo: 51.0451, -114.063

I had trouble sleeping last night - I kept waking up, every so often. I eventually woke up on my own at 6:00 AM, 15 minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I sweated like a pig again last night, despite the cold room. Weird.

I walked over to the train station - there appeared to be an extra train to the airport that wasn't listed in the schedule. Woo hoo! That means I can arrive at the airport earlier and begin to think ... about ... going ... home ... wait a sec ... that's not a good thing ...

Anyway, I just made the earlier train and arrived 7 or 8 minutes earlier at the airport than I had planned to. On the train, I ate a banana and some juice that I purchased last night. The juice was pretty bad - Del Monte orange/apple/passion fruit. No flavour.

The check-in was amazingly quick, and the next thing I knew I was on the plane. The on-board magazine had a world map of all the destinations that Monarch Airlines flies to - what better way to get over the depression of going home than to start planning the next trip for this summer?

I've always had a long term plan of how I wanted to tackle Europe - I figured I need 5 more trips to finish it all off. There are still the Nordic countries, France/Germany, Turkey/Greece, Eastern Europe (Bosnia/Herzegovina/Serbia/Montenegro/Bulgaria/ Macedonia/Albania - this will be a tough one to pull off!), and the UK.

But given what I've seen of the UK on this trip, I might not do a separate trip for that and simply finish it off while in transit to the other European nations. With all of the cheap flights from the UK to mainland Europe, I can easily check out Ireland, Wales, and the rest of England a little bit here, and a little bit there.

Of course, the logistics of re-visiting certain countries I have already visited still need to be worked out. I'd love to see more of Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Holland, Poland, and the Czech Republic (and of course, SPAIN!!!). I also need to find a way to see Luxembourg and Lichtenstein, if only to be able to say that I went to these postage stamp-sized countries.

Maybe I can combine northern Germany with the Scandinavian countries, and maybe work in Denmark. The beauty about Germany is that it's a big transport hub, and there are direct flights from Calgary, making it easy to fly into London and then out of Frankfurt, eliminating any backtracking.

And what about Corsica? I could probably fit it into a France trip by taking a night ferry from Marseille. Madeira and the Azores? Kind of out of the way, so who knows if that'll ever be possible. I'd also like to return to the Balearic Islands in Spain ... somehow, someway, I always seem to go back there!

Hee hee, and maybe I'll start planning the next Christmas trip - maybe I could hit Tunisia (but it might be tackily touristy like the Canaries), Morocco, or Malta. They'll all be relatively cool in the winter - Malta might be a waste since it's more of a diving destination, and I don't know how that would be in the winter. Or maybe Israel, Egypt, Australia, Cyprus, or an African safari?

Winter time might be a good period to visit South America. Our winter would be their summer, so maybe Patagonia wouldn't be completely frigid. Perhaps I can finally achieve Spanish fluency if I hang out there for a while. There are just too many choices - how can a guy decide? I've filled roughly 7 pages in my passport with stamps, and have about 12 more to go! I guess it's unimportant how I go about that.

Anyway ... enough about travel. Breakfast was pretty blah - OJ, a cheese/tomato/lettuce croissant, and a dry walnut muffin. The apple breakfast bar had a bad artificial flavour to it. Holly McNarland's "Beautiful Blue" came on as I ate - that song definitely has a different meaning when heard on a plane, soaring through the stratosphere, amongst the clouds! I also listened to one of my favourite songs from the past year or two - Blue October's "You make me smile". I love listening to this song while traveling because travel makes me smile!!!

They played another episode of "Top Gear" - I am starting to love this show. They tested the Jaguar XKR and compared its ugly front end to a "stubbly, Coulthard-y chin". Pretty funny if you watch F1 racing, because David Coulthard is renowned for having a big, ugly chin.

One of the hosts got to drive a car outfitted with a jet engine - 5000 Hp!!! 10,000 Hp once you fire up the after-burner!!! He managed to take the car up to 340 mph on his first run but on the second, he had a tire blowout at 288 mph, resulting in a massive crash and some pretty severe injuries. Even sliding sideways, the car was still traveling at 240 mph. The show was filmed after he fully recovered, but the funny thing was that in the actual footage of him racing the car, he was making all sorts of jokes about crashing the car, etc. His co-hosts couldn't help cracking up every time he alluded to a crash in the footage.

Watched the "Bourne Ultimatum" - one of the few movie franchises that I would love to see more sequels from. It's refreshing to see the gritty, rugged action scenes, and I especially love the shrill music they play at the end of the Bourne movies. It gives me goose bumps!

Dinner was pretty suspect - a sour, mustardy potato salad that was almost wasabi-like with the way it burned, and the grains in the mustard were almost like masago, those tiny fish eggs you can get with sushi. A few shreds of romaine lettuce helped dull the burn of the mustard. The cheese and crackers were probably the best part of the meal - the cheese package read "Red Leicester", but I'm not sure if that was the brand or type of cheese.

The main course was a creamy chicken and leek type of stew with mashed potatoes, carrot balls, and peas. It was almost like Chicken a la King, but it definitely wasn't fit for royalty! The dry bun wasn't too terrible when I used it to mop up the creamy sauce.

Dessert was an orange meringue with graham cracker crumbs, topped with chocolate shavings and whipped cream. It had obviously been prepared several days before, but it still didn't last long with me - most desserts never do! I finished off with a small piece of Lindt chocolate - this reminded me that I didn't consume enough chocolate on this trip!!!

Later on, one of the female passengers onboard passed out - turned out to be nothing major, but that's got to be a scary thing for her family to see at this altitude, and so far from any medical help.

So ... the Canary Islands weren't quite what I expected. I knew it would be touristy, but I never expected it to be this bad. Seeing as there are hardly any guidebooks for the Canaries, I suspected that there might be some good off-the-beaten-path spots. But there are probably no guidebooks available because anyone that goes there just wants to stay at an all-inclusive resort, and who needs a guidebook for that?

Those purpose-built tourist resorts are pretty bad ... there's very little that is real about them. It's like they took a piece of the UK and plopped it down in a tropical island. I really see no appeal in traveling somewhere, only to expect it to be exactly like how you have it back home - from the food, to the drinks, to the bars.

There's something nice about letting go of everything you know and immersing yourself in something different. Travel is an escape, a way of getting out of your comfort zone - how is that possible if all you want is a slice of home, with the only difference being that it's in a nicer locale?

Then it's like you're in a bizarre parallel universe, where you sit in a foreign paradise and wonder why instead of beautiful bronzed Spanish beauties, all you see are pasty/sun-burned Northern Europeans. Why? The Canaries are a lot like a beautiful woman that has been scarred by unnecessary plastic surgery and excessive much make-up, spoiling her natural beauty that lies beneath. What a shame ... it's completely unnecessary!

But still - there are some real places around. If you strip away the artificial aspects, there is still something beautiful underneath. Would I ever go back? At first thought, no - but there are still two less-touristed islands that I missed out on. And I really did like some parts of the Canaries - perhaps if I ever happened to be in the area again, but given its location, that really isn't feasible.

Scotland and England had their moments on this trip - but I'm not in a big hurry to return to the UK. But I know that I'll be there again soon, because it makes so much sense as a transportation hub.

So, this ends another trip. As always, there is definitely a song that became the soundtrack for the journey. There were several contenders - perhaps Nelly Furtado's "I'm like a bird" could be the song, with its title being a bit of a pun for the Canary Islands, and also a reference to me always taking off? Or perhaps one of the songs that was quite popular and all over the radio while we were traveling? "Bleeding love" by Leona Lewis, or a Spanish song, "Cuando me vaya" by Melocos (featuring Natalia, from "La Quinta Estacion"😉 are also good candidates. Or how about Massive Attack's "America"? 😊

But none of these songs fully encompass the spirit of this trip - to find an appropriate song, we must look to a classic Spanish-language song - La Cucaracha. What better song is there to express what we experienced on this trip? The cockroaches in Corralejo were scarily gargantuan, but they also are metaphoric - they represent the horrible scarring and destruction of these beautiful islands by over-development, like cockroaches on rotting carrion! So I leave you with the lyrics - adios!

La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
Marihuana pa' fumar

The cockroach, the cockroach
Can't walk anymore
Because it doesn't have, because it's lacking
Marijuana to smoke

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Photos

A
The shortest lineup I have EVER been to at an airport! There was none!!!

B
Exactly what are "American Muffins?" Probably twice the size of their European counterparts, and probably contain twice as much fat and preservatives.

C
I wanted to pick up a Manchester United fridge magnet, but all they had at the airport were these giant, tacky ones.

DD
Hmmm ... so Uncle Joe's mint balls keep you all aglow? Kind of reminds me of Chef from South Park, and his "salty chocolate balls".

F
Just bloody brilliant - chocolate fondue at the airport!!! And 2 GBP is actually a pretty good deal.

f2
But sadly, it wasn't available before I boarded my flight home :(

G
I don't think many people actually travel to Calgary from the UK - I've seen tons of UK people flying to and from Calgary with their skis, so most of their time is probably spent in Banff.

H
The view of the airport from my departure gate. Though it was rainy out, those aren't rain drops on the window that you see - they're my salty tears that have splattered all over the camera lens!!! Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't wanna go home!!!!!!

I
Another trip to Spain, and still no Spanish hottie to bring home to Canada. But I'm getting closer - this time, I managed to bring home a packet of Spanish mayonnaise.

z
So, the hosts of "Top Gear" compared David Coulthard's chin to that of the Jaguar XKR. Is it valid? I think so, given that his chin resembles Optimus Prime's!