Travel

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, but despite that it is a far smaller city than the sprawling metropolis of Toronto. I stayed with Annabel and Alex (not tour-guide Alex from Toronto, in case anyone wondered) in Gatineau, which lies on the other side of the Ottawa river in Quebec Province. Ottawa was just a short walk across the bridge from there. Whereas Toronto is very much Anglophone the French influences are a lot more pronounced here and you see a lot of bi-lingual signs. This is especially true for Gatineau, but in Ottawa as well.

Usually the city is pretty quiet, as I would find out for myself on my last days there, but when I arrived it was for Canada Day weekend and the city was absolutely packed! On Canada Day the Canadians celebrate the birth of their nation. Interestingly this celebration is bigger in Ontario than in Quebec Province where Canada Day is the day most housing leases run out and new leases begin and is thus utilized as Moving Day.

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Canadian Chronicles, Volume 1, Episode 2Read More »

The next stop on my little round the world adventure thing I’ve got going on right now was Canada, and right away the differences between Canada and Iceland (or at the very least between Toronto and Reykjavik) became apparent the moment I set foot off the plane.

Temperature Toronto = 2.5 x Temperature Reykjavik

My god but was it hot! I’d gotten used to temperatures of ten to fourteen degrees Celsius and (save for a few times) wearing a coat. No coat needed in Toronto at the end of June. In fact, if you don’t want to die from heat exhaustion leave the coat at home (or in the travel bag in my case). When I arrived it was around 30 degrees Celsius. I remember thinking that I’d finally found true summer weather!

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Canadian Chronicles, Volume 1, Episode 1Read More »

This blog post was inspired by a challenge I faced in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on a lookout over the river, parliament, and the locks of the Rideau canal. The view from that lookout was absolutely perfect, so I took a lot of pictures. I also wanted a picture with me on it, and not just any picture. I knew exactly what I wanted: I found the angle and composition so the picture would have the locks on one side of me, and parliament on the other.

And then came the challenge of getting this picture. I went through several photographers over a span of two days (exhausted the supply of people on the first day and I had other places to be so I had to come back later) before I finally found someone who both saw the possibilities of the angle and understood the directions I gave her.

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The challenge of solo travel: PhotographyRead More »

Okay, I lied, I did two more small tours on the last day in Iceland. I couldn’t help myself, when you’re in Iceland you just have to do things! For me this last day was a long one. First I had dragged two of my roommates off to a bar crawl and didn’t get back until 3:30am. I slept well though, so that was good. No hangover either, despite the fact that I drank a bit more beer than I’m used to. All though, in retrospect, about six beers in five hours isn’t really that much.

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Icelandic Sagas, Volume 1, Episode 5Read More »

The last of the three tours went to the south coast of Iceland, all the way to the small town of Vik, and back. Took about 10 hours there and back. Like the tour up north the land down south is more rugged than the Golden Circle, but not as rugged as the north peninsula. This time the group was large again, so we went with a big tour bus.

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Icelandic Sagas, Volume 1, Episode 4Read More »

One of the things I really like to do when I travel is to take pictures and I do take a lot of them (easily in the thousands). I put some of the photos I took in Iceland and Canada (Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal) in Google Photos and shared them on my Google+. It was hard to make a selection, but I think these came out all right.

Links:

• Iceland: https://goo.gl/photos/SFvRCT8qDraZyasbA
• Canada: https://goo.gl/photos/7jtdJwMLhy3ddYVy9

The very next day after Snaefellsnes I went on the second of my booked tours, the Golden Circle and Green Energy tour. This was also the day of the Iceland – Austria match, a match I managed to see the tail end of at the big square in Reykjavik along with the locals who hadn’t swarmed to France. It was a special moment for sure, but I’m getting ahead of myself once again – this is starting to become a habit.

The Golden Circle is the most popular region/route near Reykjavik and it shows. Unlike Snaefellsnes there is no shortage or rest stops, restaurants and any other facility you might need. Despite it being so commercialized though this is not a place you want to miss. There are many tours and organizations that do the Golden Circle, with many that offer optional packages as well.

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Icelandic Sages, Volume 1, Episode 3Read More »

Last time on Dragonball Z: I talked about arriving in Iceland and staying in Reykjavik. While Reykjavik is a very nice city it’s not what springs to mind when you think of Iceland. That honor is reserved for the country’s natural splendors (at least for me) and trust me, Iceland has plenty of that.

Since I had chosen to base myself out of Reykjavik for the whole of my stay I was limited to doing daytrips to the surrounding areas. I decided on the following three early on:

• Snaefellsnes (Reykjavik Excursions)
• Golden Circle and Green Energy (Sterna Travel)
• Beautiful South Coast (Sterna Travel)

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Icelandic Sagas, Volume 1, Episode 2Read More »

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Icelandic Sagas, Volume 1, Episode 1Read More »