Prague

We are really enjoying our time in Prague. It's a beautiful city and is one of the few European cities not destroyed by war. Lori flies back to Paris today and I meet up with my tour group tomorrow. I'll have more once I get back to Paris but I thought for now I'd let you know I'm enjoying the local beer and food. I love the open-faced sandwiches.

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Amman

When you travel on business it tends to be difficult to get to experience the places you go.  A taxi from the airport in the middle of the night.  The following day filled with meetings.  And then a taxi back to the airport followed by the long flight home.

But occasionally you get lucky - a meeting finishes early, you have a late afternoon flight, or you are able to take an extra day.  Amman was one of those lucky trips.

After an early wrap up, I was able to visit the Amman citadel and the amphitheatre and got to experience one of those magical moments that make traveling my favorite thing in the world to do.

Atop the citadel on a brilliant sunny day, the call to prayer began.  Within seconds the sound from mosques throughout the city began to echo off the surrounding hills.  I got to sit in the sunshine surrounded by the hauntingly peaceful sound.  A travel memory to cherish. 

Lori

Back to Paris

My time in Calgary has come to an end, I fly to Paris tonight. I managed to get everything crossed off my official list. I had an unofficial list as well. It was sort of a Canadian bucket list if you will. Most of which included food of some sort. Eggs Benedict, chicken wings, butter tarts and Caesars were all consumed (not at the same time). I also got to see a hockey game thanks to Anna & Eric, enjoyed a backyard BBQ thanks to Jess & Greg and watched some football thanks to Darren (who also put me up at his place for two weeks). It was a great trip but I'm ready to get back to Paris. I won't be there long however, because Lori and I fly to Prague on Saturday. For a guy who doesn't like airports, I seem to spend an awful lot of time them. Here's a link that shows where I am going on my Beer Trip.

http://www.beertrips.com/trips/oktoberfest.htm

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Calgary

I've been back in Calgary for a week and it's been great. Managed to get almost all of my errands finished, hung out with friends, visited some of my old haunts (the ones that aren't out of business anyway) and it's all been done with fantastic weather. It would've been nice if Lori was here with me but she has her own busy travel schedule. She did get back to Paris in between trips to the Middle East, but it was cold and wet and she was very jealous.

It didn't take long to realize I was back in Alberta though, the dry prairie wind and giant pickup trucks gave it away. There were lots of pleasant surprises though, like the guy who rolled down his window and apologized for pulling into the crosswalk or the bus driver who said good morning when I got on. Those are not things you experience in Paris and I used to take for granted here. I think I've missed Calgary more than I thought. Having said that, I'm anxious to get back to Europe next week so I can go on my beer trip to Czech Republic and Germany.

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Random Thoughts

Tomorrow I'm flying back to Canada for a couple of weeks to take care of quite a few things including doctor, dentist and optometrist appointments. Don't worry about Lori being here alone, she is going to China, Jordan and Oman while I'm away. The thought of being back in Canada has me thinking about how different life is in Europe as opposed to life in North America and I thought I would share a few of my random thoughts on the subject.

• The most famous Canadian city outside of Canada is not Toronto nor Montreal nor Ottawa. It's not even Moose Jaw. The most famous Canadian city is Vancouver. Almost everyone I've met knows Vancouver, has a positive impression of Vancouver and wants to visit Vancouver. You can debate the value of hosting an Olympic games but you can't debate that it's helped the image of Vancouver.

• English has become the world language. Esperanto is a language created by a L.L. Zamenhof in 1887. His goal was to create a common language that could be used when people of different cultures and countries interacted with each other. It never took off but it sure seems that English has filled that role. I was in the airport when a French employee was speaking to a Spanish customer and they couldn't understand each other, so they both switched to English.

• After eating French butter, I will never again eat margarine or mass produced butter. I don't care about calories or fat or the "Heart Health Benefits" of canola oil. What's the point of living longer if you're not happy.

•  North American plumbing is much, much better than European plumbing. I'm sorry Europe, you win on food, lifestyle and health care but lose terribly on toilets.

•  The French are much friendlier than their reputation. I think the idea of the French being rude comes from a few snooty store clerks and waiters. I've found the general population to be very friendly and helpful. They are funnier than you would think too. They are well aware of their reputation for poor customer service and bureaucratic nightmares and can be very self-deprecating about it. Believe me, that waiter is not ignoring you because you're a tourist, he is ignoring the locals too.

• It doesn't matter where you live or what language you speak, people are basically the same everywhere. They just want to live their life in peace and spend time with their friends and family.

I won't be updating the blog very often for the next couple of weeks but Lori has promised that she will post something. Talk to you later.

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Roma

We are home from another spectacular weekend. We were in a beautiful city, but what made this trip special for us was spending time with our friends Anna & Eric. We only had a short time there so we weren't able to do a ton of sightseeing. Most of our time was spent eating, drinking, talking and laughing.

The food was fabulous. Most people think of pasta and pizza when they think of Italy, but there is so much more. When you look at Italy on a map you realize that it is almost all coastline on the Mediterranean Sea, which is why the seafood is so fresh and so good. We enjoyed tuna, sea bass, lobster salad, and squid ink pasta. Of course we also enjoyed lots of wine too.

We did some sightseeing on Saturday afternoon. We went for a nice walk in the Villa Borghese Gardens near our hotel and found a spectacular view of the city.

We found the Trevi Fountain as well.

Thousands of other people found the fountain too.

You can find art literally everywhere.

It was a quick trip but I think you can see that we all had fun.

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