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Published: August 8th 2010
P1310002
Backyard pool in the desert!It had to happen! Someday our tour would have to end…and that was February. The determination of when the tour would end was budget based. When the money runs out, the tour would end. So we are back in Canada and settled in our new home city of Ottawa. So while the tour around the world has to end…our adventure continues…just in a different form!
The budget we created for the tour was essentially four months and we were hoping to stretch it to at least six, with the sale of my car and some frugality. Well the car did not sell, and we arrived at a point where the end of the budget was in sight. So we made a tentative return plan and, once that was determined, it no longer made sense to sell the car so we pulled it off the block.
Are we sad to have the tour end? Nobody has expressed that sentiment…I know I could spend a lot longer on the road …but I do not think anyone would regret returning. Of course the end of our tour means the need to return to reality…but it does not mean the end of our
journey as relocating to Ottawa will be an experience all to its own.
The end of our tour would not be complete without another marathon flight…so we booked Australia to Los Angeles and endured a nine hour flight to Hawaii, where we only had a three hour wait before our plane to Los Angeles. The kids got a kick out of the fact that we were able to relive an entire day. Our plane left Sydney at 9:20 pm on January 29 and we arrived in Los Angeles on January 29 at 9:20 pm. Too bad our free day was spent in airplanes 😞. The customs guard at the Hawaii airport noticed we had been travelling and was very interested in where we had been and how long we intended on staying in Hawaii...when I mentioned just a couple of hours, he thought we were crazy to be in one of the world's paradises and not spending any time here.
Before getting back to Canada we had the opportunity to visit with my sister, brother-in-law, niece and mother in Palm Desert. So once again we got off a long flight, took a ten minute shuttle ride to the
Africa??
No this is in a zoo in the california desert. rent-a-car area and drove two hours to Palm Desert. Waking up to Palm Desert is indeed a treat. Sunny skies, palm trees, a beautiful back yard called Tuscana Golf Resort, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and guests at a gorgeous home. We really appreciated being invited to spend a few days and have to thank my sister and brother-in-law, Heather and Mike for allowing us to invade.
Just before going back to Canada though...we spent an entire day at Disneyland. This was the Christmas gifts for the kids from Nadine's parents, Gilles and Marie. We all had a blast and possible found the world's greatest ride in 'California Screaming'. It has everything from a bullet like start to up, downs, upside-downs, twists, turns and lots of screams. I think we rode it 6 times...and screamed everytime! It was incredible and a fitting grand finale of our touring adventure.
The weather on our tour was absolutely stellar. In our 5 months of traveling I think we have had something like 5 days of rain. Totally incredible! The coolest weather was in Greece…which we expected…but even then it was double digit temperatures and harvest time for oranges. No complaints about the
weather that’s for sure…although there were some who complained about too much heat at times (like in Spain, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Thailand, and Australia…I think that was about it though!).
Speaking of no complaints…it is amazing that over our entire trip we never had any problems of any consequence at all! We were very fortunate indeed. Given all the time we spent in airports and airplanes, there were no missed flights and no lost bags. With all of the planning and details that needed to come together…they actually did. Of the few problems we encountered, almost all had to deal with cars…a blow-out in Spain, getting towed in Sous, a fender bender in Tunisia, and parking ticket in Australia. Very thankful for our guardian angels!
Save for some stomach ills for almost everyone at some point, we maintained our health during our trip. We were very disciplined about drinking bottled water and only eating cooked food. We were afraid the different bacterias that we would encounter for which we would have no immunities, could have an impact. But we were fortunate again. I think it helped that we built up immunities to different bacterias by starting in
Zoo
Heather (2nd from left), my mom, Nadine, Alex (background), Nicolas (foreground) the relatively safe environment of Europe.
When we talk to people about our tour, the first question is always what did you enjoy the most. I have yet to come up with a good answer to that question. It was all so different!
Additionally, I think we may all have a different response. So I prepared a survey and had everyone answer and the responses are included in the accompanying blog entitled “The Results Are In”. Suffice it to say, that the experience itself was all enjoyable!
We certainly hope you have enjoyed reading about our exploits. It is amazing the number of people that have thought about doing it, have done it, or are doing it…so we feel extremely fortunate to be able to ‘check it off our list’. I for one seem to have adapted a more risk tolerant attitude and decision making mind set as a result of taking the plunge to embark on this adventure.
Once you get something like doing this world tour in your head it is difficult not to do. We certainly did not want to live with any regrets…and as I said several times, we were the only ones
preventing us from going. What was preventing us is our risk tolerance. Our reluctance to step out off the ledge and believe everything would be okay. But it is! I am so glad we took the chance and did what we did! Have faith!
While we were still on the road with an identified return date, our down time was spent researching Ottawa, arranging living details (like schools for the kids), looking for work and finding places to live. We found the perfect rental house but it would not be available until May. So we also identified a furnished town house that would suit us perfectly until May. We returned to Canada by flying into Montreal and arrived in the evening. Gilles and Marie were there to great us with winter coats! Nadine and I took off for Ottawa at 8 AM the next morning to visit the rental places and sign leases to begin our resettlement.
When we were making plans for settling in Ottawa, we were thinking we would find a place to move into for April 1. The original plan was for me and Alex to fly back to Medicine Hat, have all of our
belongings loaded into a large rental truck and drive them across Canada. When we had the moving company requote we discovered they could do it for the same price that Alex and I could, so we changed the plan and arranged for the professionals to drive it across. However, Alex and I had already booked flights back to Medicine Hat…which was okay as we still had my car to pick up and drive back and Alex needed to see his friends. So it worked out well.
We live in Orleans now, which is an Ottawa suburb in the very east end. There are 100,000 people…just in Orleans, with a very healthy francophone population. Ottawa has almost 1 million people. The kids have been very successful settling into their new city. Save for missing their friends they have adjusted very well. Gabriel and Nicolas are in the same school, which is the largest francophone school in Ontario! So this is quite a change from the Ecole Les Cypres francophone school in Medicine Hat which had about 70 students to now one with 800 students! Alex is also in the largest francophone high school in Ontario with 1500 students and has
assimilated well. Nadine is in heaven with all the kids immersed in francophone culture and everyone speaking French everywhere…all except for the guy beside her 😞. A shout out must be done to Nadine who kept up with the school studies while we were on the road and all the kids received excellent grades upon completion of this school year…so well done teacher Nadine!
We have become settled in Ottawa with Nadine taking a 6 month contract position with the City of Ottawa and I accepting a 4 month contract with the Canadian Association of Optometrists in a government relations role. Speculation is that the City will not let Nadine go once her contract is complete and they will find her more contract or permanent work. I on the other hand want to go the consulting route. So I am establishing a network of contacts and trying to find consulting gigs to build up a reputation. I have always wanted to do consulting and, being more risk tolerant, feel now is the time to try. So here we go again!
So on we go! I suppose this final blog has been delayed because of my reluctance to end
our voyage. But we now look forward to planning future adventures. We have already talked about South America and the Galapagos...once we pay our dues in our new city and earn some vacation…we will be off again. We cannot wait to share that with whoever is interested!
Thank you for sharing our voyage with us. We have really enjoyed capturing our adventures and receiving your encouragements. Now our efforts turn to keeping alive our memories of what we experienced. We will be meeting up with Father Jacques from Burkina Faso in Montreal soon. If anyone is in the Ottawa/Montreal area, please do not hesitate to send us an email to xploringcoopers@gmail.com so that we can plan to get together and share our mutual life experiences. Until the next adventure…take care!
The xploringcoopers
Dana, Nadine, Alex, Gabriel, and Nicolas
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Dave Rawlyk
non-member comment
Welcome Back!
What a great experience! Welcome back to Hockeyland. Best of luck in your new city. Hope to see you soon. Dave and Launi