Flight to Los Angeles is booked! We will be leaving on October 15th for sunny California.
Some photos from our first trip to LA, in January 2008:
We turned the heat on, in our house, for the first time today. We were kind of hoping that we would avoid this day. Oh well. I suppose having waited until the end of September is pretty good for Winnipeg.... and we can't complain because we're going to miss the disgustingly frigid winter.
is there such a thing as travel scrabble?
All the conditions of our house offer have been met, so the house is definitely sold now! It's also an exciting day for me; I quit my job of four years. I handed in my two weeks notice to my boss today. Although there were some interesting projects and problems to solve at work, I'm very excited to now be moving forward with our plans. The possession date for our house is October 28th so we're hoping to start our voyage the next day.
-Alex
We're inspired by
John Goddard who, at 15, wrote a list of 127 goals to accomplish during his lifetime. Although we're not interested in making a 'bucket list' at this time, we thought that a 'wanderlist', a list to inspire wanderlust, would be more appropriate. These are all things that we hope to accomplish during our travels.
Our list, in no particular order, is:
1. Learn to Scuba Dive
4. Visit all 7 continents
5. Skydive
6. Drive around a country in a campervan
7. Sing Karaoke in Japan
8. Learn 'Hello' in as many languages as possible
9. Take Dance Lessons
11. Volunteer Abroad
12. Study Yoga in an Ashram
13. Whitewater Rafting
14. Ride an Elephant*
21. Be an extra in a Bollywood movie
24. Join a huge choreographed dance (See here &; here)
26. Learn to ride motorcycle
28. Swim with dolphins
*We've seen several travel photos of people riding elephants and it looks like fun. However, elephants at some tourist destinations are treated quite cruelly. We would like to make sure that we don't indirectly contribute to animal abuse, and would rather support an organization that promotes conservation or forgo the experience completely. Any recommendations?
Speaking of suggestions, we'd like you to tell us what you think we should add to our list. If your idea makes it onto our list we will send you a postcard during our travels.
Guess what? We got an offer on the house and we accepted it! It's still subject to financing, but we're confident that it'll be official by next week. This is a huge relief to us. In the past few weeks we've had to reject other offers for various reasons, which was incredibly stressful. Showing the house to "Sunday shoppers" wasn't fun either. It seems like all that frustration is finally over. Now we can focus on sorting out the last few details for our wedding, selling remaining possessions, and planning our departure. The hardest part is finally over!
Our apologies to everyone who is tired of hearing about how we like to hang out and do nothing and eat and go to parks and eat and explore Winnipeg...and eat delicious food.
Trip planning is kind of difficult to do when you are trying to sell a house. We haven't wanted to post about the details of the sale process because: 1) this blog has been an escape from that and 2) it's boring.
We decided to sell our home privately and are very happy with our decision. We don't want to jinx anything, but we're kind of excited today while waiting for some news. Some (hopefully, good) news that means we can share some more details about how our plans have been progressing.
{P.S. We're still going to keep posting about how much we like to hang out and do nothing, and go to parks, and, I am sure, a lot more pictures of us eating.}
Some more pictures from our tiny trip just outside the perimeter of the city:
We experienced Pavlovian conditioning at it's finest - you should have seen the animals go crazy at the mere sight of the milk jug. If you listen closely, you can hear the poor lambs whining in the background as the calf is being fed. I was too scared to go into any of the pens. Most animals terrify me - but Alex had a great time (...and I still had fun observing).
-Mina
Since we can't start traveling just yet, we decided to take a little 'trip' anyway and went for a short drive that led us just outside of Winnipeg to go to a petting zoo and a corn maze.
Meet jack the horse:
These lambs were hilarious:
The long weekend brought lots of sunny weather - this weekend doesn't seem like it's going to be so pleasant. Between house showings we were able to get away to go hang out at
The Forks one last time.
The Forks would probably be considered the primary 'tourist attraction' here and we use that term loosely. We are not sure if it actually attracts any tourists - but if you're visiting family/friends here they'll force you to go there.
The skatepark was particularly busy when we walked by. Apparently this is one of the largest skate parks in the country. Tony Hawk filmed some scenes for a movie here a few years ago.
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