Blogs from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, North America

Last evening Jeanette and I once again had papers spreadout over our dining table and with two computers running, sought to fine tune a few areas in our planning for our Europe vacation which starts on June 7. Being the only driver, I will have a fairly busy workload in France and to a lesser degree in Spain. Of course in the earlier part of the vacation we travel by coach through Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland before ending up in Paris. After a stint in paris we rent a car for both France and Spain. Towards the end of the holiday, we will be in Amsterdam so we are currently ironing out how we will spend our time. We certainly know that we will visit out friends Dorothy and Rens in The Hague while ... read more

As soon as we got into Manitoba the scenery changed to emptiness, all of the hills and lakes of northern Ontario were gone. We arrived in Winnipeg the first day and stayed at Benny’s cousin’s apartment. This was our first house we stayed at in a while and we definitely appreciated the homey feeling again. It was real nice to take our first warm shower and clean up a bit. We ended up staying two nights in Winnipeg to see the town and rest up and then said our goodbyes. Next we drove into the heart of the prairie’s and trekked 7 hours to Regina. We took the Trans Canada highway there and our car couldn’t even make the speed limit of 110, our max speed is 105. It was a long drive of not much ... read more

Do you think you're a admirer on the UFC? If that is so,now we have an a thrilling thirty day period of fights coming up you are absolutely sure to get excited for. 1st we received the UFC on Fox: Diaz vs. Miller on May 5, then we acquired UFC on Fuel TV: Korean Zombie vs Poirier and then it's the large considered one of all of them. UFC 146: Dos Santos vs. Mir. Initially Alistair Overeem was suppose to fight Dos Santos but examined positive for elevated amounts of testosterone and was later eliminated within the principal celebration. This can be the to begin with time in UFC heritage which the principal card might be all heavyweight fights which is fairly amazing since I like a very good heavyweight scrap. If you are wanting to ... read more

Hello everyone! Dave and I will be trying to keep a travel blog while on our travels. This is just a test entry to see if I know how to work this thing. We are getting pretty excited to leave, and Dave tells me he is nervous. Personally, I am more nervous about going on the plane then I am about being in Africa for 3 weeks. We are leaving Tuesday, May 1st from Calgary at 6:45 PM. First we fly to London, England where we have a 10 HOUR layover...any suggestions on what to do? Then we fly to Nairobi, Kenya then to Lilongwe, Malawi then to Blantyre, Malawi. I hear the plane from Lilongwe to Blantyre is really tiny...Yikes! Basically, it takes us 3 days to get to our target destination. 3 days of ... read more

I am going back to Europe!! My friend and I have been planning a trip to Europe for some time now. It has hit a bit of a road block with the Olympics in London. Hopefully we will get it resolved soon so that we can finalize our flights and hostels. Once that is done it will feel like our trip is really going to happen.... read more

Hey, Just a check that this thing works as well as I want it too. Enjoy the random picture. Rae... read more

1st blog as testing. We leave tomorrow AM . Calgary to Vancouver - YVR to HKG / HKG TO BGK. Arrive in Bangkok Wednesday 8.30 pm. Watched Hangover 2 last night, Sean said don't loose me in Bangkok.... read more

Vanuit Banff kregen we binnen een half uur een lift naar Calgary. Een vriendelijke man, die van een conferentie over educatie in Banff kwam en gereedschap ging ophalen in Calgary voor hij naar huis in Edmonton zou rijden, nam ons mee en zette ons af bij een metro station in Calgary. Darren, waarbij we zouden slapen, hadden we al eerder in Canmore gezien omdat hij met Ben en Ofer ging klimmen toen wij Hei Ling beklommen. Om zijn huis te bereiken moesten we echter eerst het openbaar vervoer van Calgary trotseren. We wisten ongeveer waar zijn huis was op de kaart en we hadden zijn adres, maar onderweg kon niemand ons echt de goede kant op wijzen en onze telefoon was blut. Na een metrorit, een uur wachten op een bus en een paar honderd meter ... read more

Got up early this morning (UK time) to get to the airport. I was a little worried at the weight of my bags. I had crammed as much as I could into my carry-on and purse but my checked bag still weighed more than I was allowed. At least I though so since the scale I was using to weigh with it was hard to actually see the numbers when the bag was fully on it, so it was a bit of a guess at the actual weight. I did manage to get it from around 25kg to 23kg although that was still 3 kg too heavy. British Midland International (which is what I was flying to London on) has a limit of 20kg and charge £10 per kilo over 20kg. My bags weighed in at ... read more

Have we mentioned that time flies? We’ve been back home for 10 days now and we’ve been busy catching up with friends and family and getting our “normal” lives back in order. We’re currently staying with Jordan’s parents until we figure out whether we want to rent a condo as we did before (perhaps even in the same building), or if we’re ready to take the plunge into home ownership in this real estate obsessed city. Fortunately we both managed to get jobs back with the same companies we worked for before the trip and we’ll be starting those on January 9. We even returned home to the same cell phone and vehicle that we’d left behind. Same city, same jobs, same car, same phone number…honestly it feels like we never left. 500 days, 18 countries, ... read more