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Prague, my Favorite City so Far.

/ Terry Heck / Leave a comment

We got in at six in the morning by train from Krakow. We got to the hotel by tram and from the moment we stepped off the tram and crossed our first bridge I knew Prague would simply be magical, purely and truly. The area we stayed in was filled with colorful and ornate buildings. Each door was custom and different. Art was everywhere you turned, whether it was being sold by people on the street and on the Charles bridge or on the buildings and structures themselves. We were essentially outside of the main tourist area, but close enough that it was a medium length walk to the center square. Performers are everywhere, from classical instruments to side show type spectacles. One Irishman was doing a show that involved whipping his volunteer and ended with him laying on broken glass which happened to be smashed in front of us and created from the beers he was drinking all afternoon while doing his show.

The city is alive and there is a buzz in the air at most times of the day. It’s not just tourists, it’s locals too. Granted most places, even coffee shops surprisingly, don’t open until eleven in the morning. Even with that there were people out as early as six or seven jogging, commuting, talking with friends on the street. Its very active even though you would assume it wouldn’t be given the opening times. Our first days were spent walking around, sampling the Czech food, drinking beers and Cecile shopping for art and jewelry, which was great. After the hustle of Paris and the emotions of Auschwitz it was nice to just chill out for a bit.

We stayed at a hotel in the Mala Strana district. It was a pleasant, clean, well kept hotel. We had a suite instead of a regular room and it was really spacious and comfortable. The receptionist at the hotel, Eva, was simply a dream. She made phone calls for taxi’s and rental cars, got our room ready early, and made arrangements for a great many things. She was the single greatest hotel receptionist that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Truthfully the car rental we got was in order to head over the Vienna, Austria for a day, which turned into getting a hotel and staying the night. Vienna was less awesome than expected. In fact I don’t really know what I expected. I was in Austria when I was a kid and we were in the Alps back then. I figured Vienna would remind me of that. Old school houses, nice scenery and the like. It didn’t. It had almost zero old world charm and granted we were only there for twenty four hours but I expected more of it. The saving grace of Vienna was St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Now, if you’ve been keeping up with my site and blog then you already know I’m a sucker for Gothic architecture. This is the reason that this church was the highlight of this particular city for me. We left Vienna with a sense of wishing there was more to it. Again, we were there for a single day, these are my impressions based on old memories that I wish were more prevalent and the fact that we didn’t explore much other than city center. Take my take on Vienna with a grain of salt, I’m sure it’s awesome when you have more time.

The drive back to Prague however was crazy! We decided to take some back roads instead of the main highway. This was great, really great. It was like being in a rally car. I was navigating and calling the upcoming turns and whether they were sharp or not while Cecile was driving. Keep in mind that some of these roads were single lanes and you had two way traffic. It was pretty intense and absolutely fun!

We were both really happy to be back in Prague and we decided to go to a musical performance that was part symphony and part opera. It was held in an old church in the tourist district, a few minutes from the Charles bridge. The acoustics were impressive and the voice of the soprano was amazing. She had a very large range and actually managed to make me tear up a couple of times. It was overall a great and moving performance on all fronts. The same day we went to a theater show, which broke my brain. It was kind of an Alice in Wonderland story, but not actually a retelling. It was a show about how the author of the books was telling a dying child the things Alice was doing after the books, but again, not really. It was done in black light and interpretative dance. It had clowns and Jewish ghosts, was based in Prague as a setting and confused the hell out of me. I had no idea what was happening, nor did most of the others there, from the reactions I saw. It was kind of about Alice’s maturation and finding love, but again, and I cannot stress this enough, this is coming from a person that had no clue what was going on. I would recommend you stay away from shows named Aspects of Alice and for those that have seen is and can tell me what I watched please comment and tell me because I’d like to know.

Our last day was spent going through the exhibits and buildings at Prague Castle. Again, a massive Gothic Cathedral that took my breath away, more than any other Gothic structure yet. The stained glass was crisp and colorful. The architecture itself was stunning and was everything I hoped for when we stepped in the doors. Other parts of the Castle included an exhibition on the history of the area as well exhibitions on torture devices, palaces and treasures. Overall, an impressive collection of activities that took us about six hours to go through. A pleasant way to spend our last day there.

I would recommend Prague to pretty much anyone I can. It’s a great city, filled with many characters, many stories and many fun and exciting things to do. It’s fast paced and slow all at once, depending on you and what you want out of the city. It quickly became my favorite city I’ve visited due to the culture, diversity, art and sense of life you can feel there.

I’ll be posting pictures later on, as it have thousands to sort through. I will create a gallery and update you guys on it.

Next up will be Rome and just a heads up, I hated it there. More on that later.

Keep your eyes on the horizon!

Krakow to Auschwitz

/ Terry Heck / Leave a comment

This post will be split in two parts. The first will be about Krakow and happy and the second will be about Auschwitz and quite sad.

I will not be posting pictures of Auschwitz as I personally believe it would be in poor taste and not appropriate to do so on social media. Those that want to see the pictures can either e-mail me directly, or wait until I get home and I can show you in person.

So that being said, Poland was not what I expected at all. When I thought of Poland as a destination I assumed it would be a drab, cold, grey place where no one smiled. I landed and was immediately taken aback. There was color everywhere, happy people, green landscapes and rolling hills. It was not what I envisioned in the slightest. I was extremely grateful that my previous assumptions were incorrect. Now granted, I did not do a lot of research on Poland (Krakow) as we were only going to be there for thirty or so hours. I broke my own rule about lack of understanding a place before I got there. Shame on me I suppose but maybe you don’t need to completely research places, as that may just ruin the surprise when you get there.

We had a fantastic meal at a restaurant about a block from the hotel. The equivalent of fifty dollars got us beers, cider, two appetizers and two mains. At home a similar meal at a similar restaurant would have been three to four times that much. This was the first indicator we had about the cost of things here, and it was looking like an inexpensive place to be. Again, quality of food versus cost was astounding. We liked it so much we went back the next day to try other things. Total food we had in two visits there: boar sausage, cold beet and hot rye soup, rabbit loin wrapped in bacon, ribs, pork knuckle, many beers and drinks. All of the food was great and I would recommend Straka (name of the place) to anyone going to Krakow.

Auschwitz, a one hour or so drive from Krakow. I know quite a bit about WWII history and what went on there however my primary reasons was to see what it felt like to walk the same paths that the prisoners did, to see the actual places that people were lined up in front of a German officer and separated from friends and family and either be put to work or sent to die. I could read about the things that happened and learn about them but to actually be there definitely threw me for a loop. The second we entered the main gate of the small camp, Auschwitz I, you could see it in some people’s faces, and I’m sure you could see it in mine as well. It was sadness. The part of this section of the tour that I lost it in was seeing two thousand kilograms of hair, sitting in a glass enclosure, that spanned an entire room. This was the hair of approximately seventy thousand women that entered Auschwitz but never got to leave. It was heartbreaking to see this as well as other rooms filled with confiscated shoes, thousands and thousands of shoes. Hundreds of suitcases and luggage, in another room, that they brought to these camps without realizing what was happening to them. They packed their lives away, one suitcase per person, and everything was ripped away from them. Approximately one and a half million people were murdered in Auschwitz before the end of the war and many children were sent to Germany for re-education and to become Germanized. Seeing the temporary gas chamber that was still standing there was tough to deal with as well. You could see what appeared to be finger nail marks in the walls where people were trying to claw their way out. They used a poison delivery system that could take up to twenty minutes to suffocate the people inside. It was genocide at it’s worst. Thinking about the panic and sheer terror that people must have gone through trying to survive an impossible situation is almost unbearable.

The second part of the tour was a short distance away at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the three camps at Auschwitz. The others dwarfed in comparison. The concentration camp here was housing one hundred thousand prisoners at a time. This was the site that had multiple large gas chambers that the Nazis used to kill up to two thousand people at once, per chamber. They also had crematoriums situated close by to use as disposal methods. All of these buildings were destroyed when the camp was liberated. There is a monument there that serves as a reminder that we should not repeat the past and to let it be known that this was the location of one of the most tragic and unthinkable things to happen in human history. You can see rows upon rows of barracks that housed these prisoners. They were often made to work over ten hours a day in whatever weather was present, given two meals a day that served as perhaps one third of their needed intake and allowed to go to the bathroom only when instructed (they were counted down from thirty seconds, then removed from the latrine). This was brutal, daily life for these people. If they weren’t starved or worked to death, they were killed systematically by a group of people that viewed them as cattle, not people.

Even thinking about it while writing this nearly brings me to tears. I did end up feeling many emotions throughout the day. Anger, sadness, empathy and maybe even guilt. It was hard to differentiate between what I was feeling at times, because I didn’t always know what I was feeling. It was a lot to take in and caused a lot of emotions all at once. I still find myself having difficulty with processing everything I saw and felt, and likely will have trouble for a long time to come.

I think everyone should go here once in their lives, regardless of religion, historical background or racial heritage. It’s a tragic part of history that I think everyone needs to experience and witness and learn about.

Next up, five days in Prague and a bit of time to relax, maybe. Keep your eyes on the horizon!

Paris…..C’est la vie

/ Terry Heck / 3 Comments

Before I get to what we did and what we saw I want to start off by saying that the bad rap that Parisians get in regards to being rude or smug couldn’t be farther from the truth in my opinion. Each of the people I had interactions with were friendly, kindhearted and genuinely willing to help.

/Begin Rant
I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason they get this bad rap is because of us, North Americans. We expect service a certain way, the servers to be ultra attentive and nothing to go wrong. Meanwhile when the person serving you comes even one too many times you immediately think they are infringing on your god given rights to be left alone at dinner. We (North Americans, and not all of us) created this paradox for ourselves. Yes, service is important, but unrealistic expectations are of no help to anyone. For this, I will provide an example.

This is eyewitness testimony of a situation that occurred yesterday at a cafe. I’m the eyewitness, in case that was not immediately evident *wink*. Picture this, a square near the Opera House in central Paris (more on this later, I have my rant to finish, be patient). A single cafe on that particular side of the block. The outdoor seating, as with most cafes in Paris, have small tables, cramped spaces, and chairs all facing towards the street. Cue the single, solitary server that has been assigned to the twenty or so tables outside, by herself. She is visibly flustered, trying desperately to clean tables while taking orders and getting people their bills and make change. Next, cue two women from the southern United States (accent guaranteed this, not hating on the US or their splendid women) who crammed their way into the last two tables in the corner to my left. The tables were not cleaned yet, so they grumbled about that immediately. Meanwhile I ordered my salami and bread and espresso from the same server, who also had yet to clean my table. I told her not to worry about it as I knew that she was working her ass off and hell, its a coffee and sandwich, how much room did I need?

She started to clear a table directly behind me and dropped a wine glass, it shattered and the previously mentioned women scoffed about it in her general direction, calling her clumsy and such. The server likely noticed this as she went right over to them without dealing with the glass situation. They asked for the two tables they were at to be pushed together and cleaned as soon as possible and told her that they were getting tired of waiting. She apologized, left to get her clearing tray and was caught on the way back by someone wanting coffee. These two women weren’t having that, it would seem. They waited for her to clear the two tables by about ninety percent, got up, told her she was terrible at her job and squeezed their way back out of the seating area. My mouth was agape and I was stunned. How could these women, seeing the shit storm this girl was in, be anything but understanding? It was crazy. We made sure to give her some kind words and a good tip, she was earning her pay that day, and likely most others.

Why tell you this story? Because it lends itself to what I was saying before, about expectations. We have expectations that things will be like they are at home, that we will have all of our creature comforts, that we don’t need to adjust how WE are in another country. That’s bullshit to me. When you go to another country have the courtesy and wherewithal to learn some basic words and phrases, some common customs, do some research about where you are going and gear your expectations to meet the things that are the norm there. Paris, and much of the rest of Europe so far, has slower service. This isn’t to screw with you or make your life harder it’s just the way it is. Guess what? You do some of the things I listed previously and you won’t be disappointed and the people of the place you are visiting might just appreciate it.
/End Rant

Now, on to the non-ranty portion of our program.

Paris, is confusing at times, huge, overwhelming at first and great all at once. We stayed at an apartment in an area called Montmartre.Paris
This was apparently the usual hangout of artists, poets and musicians back in the day. Today it’s a trendy spot full of cafes, bistros, small fruit and vegetable stands as well as seafood and butcher shops. Its quaint, while busy and small but feels massive. Sacre-Coeur (Sacred Heart), a splendid, white stoned, Gothic church is a short distance away and was pretty busy. We also visited the Dali museum in the area. The art was beautiful and thought provoking.

We arrived at the catacombs under Paris around nine in the morning, coffee in hand, and waited until it opened at ten to go in with our tour group. These underground tombs hold approximately six million people’s remains. I was awestruck while walking through the hallways made of bone.
We then made our way to the military museum that houses Napoleon’s tomb and a ridiculous amount of weaponry and armor from the twelfth century to World War II.
I’m big fan of anything from the middle ages, so I thoroughly enjoyed this visit. We were both pretty tuckered out after doing these two things so we came home and enjoyed a small nap (these are way easier to have in Europe) then headed off, once again, into the void that is the Paris subway system. As a side note, the subway here is amazing, fast, and well planned, not a bad thing to say about it. We arrived at the docking point of our boat ride around the river. We were served food, which was terrible and had a warm beer, equally terrible. The real treat here was getting to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up at night.
Cecile and I had no desire to actually go to the tower itself, as crowds are horrendous, but we got to see it in all it’s glory from our sparsely occupied boat. With the day and night complete we hopped back on the train and headed home to a peaceful sleep.

The next day we headed over to the Arc de Triomphe, snapped a quick picture then went right back down the stairs to the subway in order to make our appointment to see the Paris Opera House (told you I’d come back to it). The opera house was fairly busy and everything appeared normal. Marble stairs, some sculptures and things of that ilk. Then we walked in to it, the single most opulent, shiny, gold, silver, art filled room I have ever witnessed in my life. The sheer magnitude of wealth of this room both in history and objects actually made my jaw drop and say, “Holy shit”. A first on this trip. This was another place I desperately wanted to see in Paris, and it did not disappoint or fail to impress.

After the Opera House we went to the Luvre. The crowds here were super intense, which I half expected, but it was difficult to get in to see any of the obligatory things such as Venus De Milo and the Mona Lisa. We did get there eventually though, through a sea of people all cramming in to get a look (thank you zoom lens, you saved me).

The museum is gigantic and it is unlikely that you can visit it all in a single day. We managed to see some of the Italian painters, some Greek and Roman sculptures, a myriad of trinkets, baubles and artifacts from the 1700’s. There were egyptian relics we were able to discover and eventually we made our way to the Napoleon apartment displays. After being there at that point, approximately four hours, we decided to head home after a long day. I must say that the crowds were huge to see the two famous objects I mentioned above and barely anyone was around in the other wings. It’s kind of sad really, that so many people that enter the Louvre don’t seem to care about the other wonders you can see in its vast collections.

Paris is certainly an experience and a half. It has things to do to suit the tastes of anyone that visits this city. We only had three full days here, and accomplished a lot. I think I would have liked to slow it down a bit and explore maybe one exhibit per day over a longer period of time, perhaps a week instead. It was really great today, after the Dali museum, just walking around the streets in the area, getting lost, having to ask directions and then recognizing something we had seen before while wandering another day. It was fun to wander and I liked it.

Au revoir mes amis!

Next up is Poland where we will be for only one day to go to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Keep your eyes on the horizon!

Leaving Ireland with a Smile

/ Terry Heck / 2 Comments

Today, we leave Ireland for Spain. I leave with a smile, with the knowledge that Ireland is a fantastic place. We saw many things both grand and emotional. I have two hours before the flight so I’m going to use the time to go over what we did, and my impressions of each.

Day One:

 

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Our first stop was the Killmainham Goal, a prison that housed primarily political prisoners, built in the late eighteenth century. This was a state of the art jail, with new ideals. Segregation of prisoners from one another to give them time to reflect on their actions was a primary goal. It was reform that this prison was after, unfortunately it did not work a lot of the time. It housed many of the Irishmen that led the 1916 Easter Rising.

I enjoyed the history and the architecture of this tour/exhibit. Our tour guide Peter was enthusiastic and informative which made the information we gleaned come across much better than expected.

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The second place we visited was the Guinness Storehouse. This is on a top ten list on every website I’ve seen. My impressions, not worth it, even with the free pint at the end of the tour. It’s a free roam tour once you get in the gate. You can see and explore however you want. It is just WAY too crowded to actually hear the automated messages telling you about the history. Even though it’s a self guided experience, the workers there seems very rushy with the activities, trying to push you through or entice you to do other things instead of standing in that section. The saving grace for me was the advertising section they had showcasing all the all campaigns and mascots. The Gravity Bar at the top where you got your pint of Guinness was alright too. It gave you a 360 view of Dublin which lent itself to a few decent photos. If someone were to ask me if they would do this, I would say save the money and buy a pint of Guinness at the pub.

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Next, we went to Dublin Castle, in central Dublin. This is one I was particularly excited for as I’m crazy about medieval architecture and history. On this tour you got to see the foundations of the original castle in the undercroft as well as the state apartments and chapel that the viceroys used in the eighteenth century. These of course were built much later but they were impressive. It is a guided tour, but you can explore the state apartments portion on your own as well. I enjoyed the history of this tour that included many aspects of viking attacks and the area trading hands many times due to said attacks. All of the things that formed Ireland into what it is today. I would recommend this to most people that are history buffs.

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Day one concluded with a visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. This is an extremely impressive Gothic church that is still in use for services to this day. They have a large number of religious relics, documents and of course, stained glass. All of the relics and atrifacts were extremely opulent in nature, made of gold or gold lined, which gives an idea of the wealth of the church through the centuries. The stained glass was of impeccable craftsmanship and detail. Seeing this place put me in awe. As I’ve said before, I love Gothic architecture and this did not disappoint. I would recommend a stop here for anyone, religious or otherwise.

Day Two:

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Belfast. A place riddled with a violent past, that is trying to break free of it. This was the sad part of Ireland for both Cecile and I. Even though the treaty between the IRA and Loyalists was signed twenty years ago there is still evidence of prejudice and mistrust and hatred. There is still a wall three and a half kilometers long that separates west Belfast into Catholic and Protestant communities. It has gates that allow for passage between the sides but they are closed and locked every night. Our guide, Red, explained that it makes people from both sides more comfortable and that it makes them feel safer. The above images are those on the Catholic (IRA side), the ones on the Loyalist side are much different in nature. For example, on the IRA side there are Palestinian flags with Irish flags, on the Loyalist walls there are Israeli flags beside Irish flags. It felt to me that either side chooses the opposite of the other just to remain different. When asked, Red told us that he doubts the walls will come down in his lifetime and perhaps the lifetime of his son, but he is confident that they will come down at some point. One of the leaders of the IRA that staged hunger strikes from inside prison said “Our victory will be the laughter of our children”. He was right. Even though the walls have not come down, Red told us that his son, friends’ children and many of the youth intermingle between the sides whereas the older people still do not. This was the first stop on our day long adventure out of Dublin and it was definitely a very somber start. The tour on this stop was called the “Black Taxi” tour and it was only about two hours long. I could have sat there all day talking with Red about the history of this place.

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Once we left Belfast we ventured farther north, to a place that has been on my bucket list since the first time I read about it. The Giant’s Causeway. A natural marvel and a UNESCO heritage site. Columns of basalt rock line the coast and they are naturally occurring hexagonal in shape. The landscapes here were breathtaking, awe inspiring and simply magnificent. I was climbing in and out of small crevices, crossing rope bridges over one hundred foot drops and climbing along cliffs. I definitely got a lot of exercise this day. My breath was taken away too many times for me to count. There was one point where I teared up after crossing the bridge to the tops of the cliffs. That’s how badly I wanted to be here and see this. I got my wish and it did not disappoint.

The others days in Dublin were spent relaxing, walking downtown and shopping. Not much to say other than that. Not very exciting, I’ll spare you the details.

I will be posting all the pictures in a library when I land in Spain, they just called for boarding.

Keep your eyes on the horizon.

 

Ireland….Simply Awesome

/ Terry Heck / 2 Comments

Right after getting off the plane yesterday, I was hit with a vibe. The vibe I got was one of kindness and relaxation and friendship. It was immediate, starting with the taxi driver, one Mr. Brendan Murphy. From the amount of times he joked with us, said “shite”, gave us helpful information, or the directions he gave us. All when he didn’t have to.

I’m used to sitting in complete silence when in a cab, minus the obligatory “Hello, I’m going to *insert destination*, ok?” This cab driver was different. I wanted to talk to him, wanted to know about him, it was very strange to me at the time.

The next morning it hit me, it was plain as day. People here are genuinely nice, genuinely interested in talking with you, it’s like a completely different social situation than back home.

All of the other drivers we met, same thing. Willing to help, just because. Willing to shoot the “shite” with you for the sake of doing so. A hostess (we did not interact with her at all until after dinner when she came to clean up the table) at the steak house we ate at tonight gave us the names, street addresses and directions to other restaurants in the area as well as one in Belfast for when we are there Wednesday.  She even gave us one for while we are in Paris. She was pleasant, thoughtful and kind. She spoke to us about her daughter and the travels she has done and places she loves. It was a solid ten minute conversation with someone we had just met. She didn’t need to do all of those things, but she did and it wasn’t to get a tip, or phony in any way. It was refreshing.

Now I may be a bit cynical because in Winnipeg, my home, that kind of thing just doesn’t happen much, if at all. Servers put on fake smiles, and feign interest. They seem to just want you out the door as soon as they can so they can fill the next table and get the next tip. Disclaimer : this blog post is in no way meant to offend, harm or otherwise make any person in the service industry feel like less of a person, or that I am roping them into some large group of assholes. You guys have it shitty sometimes, needing tips to live. I get the problems and I acknowledge them. These are simply differences that I have observed personally.

Another thing I noticed was peoples’ genuine interest in the others around them. No cell phones, Ipads or Ipods were out at the tables during any of the meals we had. I looked around and saw these people engaging in very odd behaviour. They were actually talking with one another as a family. It was both refreshing and unnerving. In North America we see the exact opposite so many times in so many situations. How did we fall so far from the values of the time before cell phones, before social media, before the internet?

I realize the irony of my spouting these thoughts while blogging on a social media platform on the internet. It is not lost on me. I think I need to make some changes when I get home. I need to make more of an effort to be attentive to those around me. I need to make more of an effort to see my friends and family on a more regular basis.

Ireland, hands down, has been one of the best places I have visited in my life. I will find it difficult to find another place on this trip to be more inviting and welcoming than this island has been to us. If it happens, I would be very surprised. I just wish I could spend more time here than the currently allotted number of days. I’ll be back Ireland!

Next post, hopefully tomorrow, will be about the sights we saw and things we did over the last couple of days and what tomorrow will offer, in more detail. So far we have gone to the Kilmainham Gaol, the obligatory Guinness Storehouse tour, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Dublin castle. Meeting up with a friend of a friend tomorrow (hopefully) and he is going to show us around his city for the day.

After that will be our trip to Belfast in Northern Ireland on Wednesday, and I will get to see one of the sights on my bucket list. The Giant’s Causeway. I’m super excited about what we have done and what is in store over the next two days and I cannot wait to share my Irish experiences with you.

Keep your eyes on the horizon!

Leaving on a Jet Plane with a Fresh Start

/ Terry Heck / Leave a comment

Good Morning!

It is currently 8:30am and my flight for Sweden leaves in seven hours. I am beyond nervous, beyond excited, but also somewhat worried.

You see, my place of employment agreed to give me the time off for this trip, had me work extra days to bank time to make up for some of it as well as had me train someone as my temp while I was gone. Then last Friday happened. The HR lady called me and asked me to come to her office. “I knew it” I thought. I had my suspicions about the honesty and integrity that my boss decided to show in regards to the time off request as he barely showed much integrity at all in the past and very rarely kept his word. You see, two weeks previous I decided to ask him if my job was secure, if I had nothing to worry about. He looked at me straight faced and told me that everything was fine and that I didn’t need to worry. The one time I took his word about a serious matter, the one time I did not have my guard up when speaking with him, was the time that it came back to bite me.

I was let go due to “restructuring” of the company. I couldn’t believe the audacity of this man. He and I never got along, but I didn’t think he would do something like this. How can it be restructuring if the person I trained now has my job? Essentially he took the opportunity of a system change while I was gone to get rid of me because they had no other way.

Now, I will say this, losing the job did not bother me as much as being lied to (I work in transportation and the field is fairly specialized), so I did what I needed to do. I asked him why he lied to my face, how it could be called restructuring, how he could sit there with a smug look on his face and if he had it planned from the time that I requested the vacation? His response, “You no longer work here so I don’t need to explain anything to you”. Can you believe that? After five years of blood, sweat, determination to succeed and putting up with his intolerable bullshit, that is the answer I get. It’s a shame really, and I hope the person that got my job can deal with what is to come for him, more of the same.

All that aside, I’m excited to be leaving, I’m excited to explore, and I’m excited to look for a new job when I get home. One that treats people, well, like people. One that does not look at you like an ass in a chair.

I’m all packed and ready to go. Five shirts, three pairs of pants, five pairs of underwear and socks. My camera and related gear, my laptop, my journal. I’m all set to have a great experience and put all this nonsense behind me. I’m going to worry about the road ahead and what lies in front of me. The past is the past and you just keep going, keep dreaming, keep learning. I’m looking forward to it.

The next post will be once we land in Sweden and get situated, providing I can snag some WiFi at the hotel. You will be hearing from me more often, I apologize for the delays so far.

Keep your eyes on the horizon and never stop dreaming.