There & Back Again: A Non-Hobbit Story of Coming Home to Canada

Oh, boy. It’s been a crazy, crazy month. And I still have to catch you all up on what happened before I left Spain (was that actually over a month ago?! How?). But, we have time and it will probably happen slowly as I try and figure out some sort of system for not making myself completely mental having a blog and a full time job. I know there’s loads of you out there who manage it, so I will as well, it’s just going to be a bit of a period of figuring out how that looks for me. For now, however, I’ll be providing a fairly short rundown of what happened coming home and what I’m up to now and then will, as I said, slooooowly (but not too slowly), backtrack to the rest, as well as a few other things I’ve been planning for awhile. 

I flew from Spain on August 31 after bumping around for a week, from Seville to Melissa’s apartment and then from her place to Allie’s before Allie wonderfully helped me with my stuff to the airport. Pat on the back to myself for keeping my bags all underweight, all to the same amount of bags as when I arrived and all fairly easy to manage by myself. (If I didn’t have my photo gear I’d have been down one backpack and I’d feel even more like a superhuman.)

While I left warm and sunny Spain, I ended up in cold and rainy Reykjavik for 9 hours just after 1 am, doors opening and closing and tried to nap on a table but ended up rather just blinking up at the lights over head and drowsily eying the people around me. After an hour’s delay where I ended up deep Lamaze breathing because I did not want to miss my connecting flight, we boarded and can I just say: Iceland Air is probably my current favourite airline company. Beyond comfortable, with great air hostesses and their ads were probably my favourite, they were just really comfortable to fly with.

From there it was New York where I panicked while standing in line at immigration but was distracted by a little Argentinian girl who smiled her missing tooth smile at me when I spoke to her in Spanish and then running around because I had already missed having my luggage loaded and needed to run to various counters in order to make sure I got on my flight, with my luggage. There was also that clarification that yes, this last $60 of mine would get my luggage all the way to Regina. (The question which made the chick I was asking do a double take and ask, “I’m sorry, where are you going?” before she doubled over in laughter when I repeated ‘Regina’. There’s something about being able to take the 30 seconds to make someone else laugh when you’re trying to get to your flight that reassures you that that person will make sure you get to your flight on time.) New York to Montreal where I practiced my French with a mother juggling a baby and a toddler and looking for Advil because, “Les hommes ne savant rien de crampes.” and her husband had forgotten to pack theirs. Montreal to Calgary where I flew over Regina and had 15 minutes to make the flight back, plus the Tim’s was closed and seriously people, this is the kind of welcome I get?

But, I finally made it to where I was supposed to be and my mom and I were wearing matching t-shirts (except mine was slightly better because it was this, my ‘leaving Madrid’ present to myself) and I started crying as I saw them standing there, to which my mom asked, when I finally made it down the escalator, “Oh, what’s wrong? Did they lose your bags?” Because apparently being away for two years isn’t reason enough. Mothers.

I spent a week at home doing very grown up feeling things such as: buying my first vehicle (and trying to remember how to drive), buying new shoes, getting a phone plan again, doing bank type things, lots of baking, taking my laptop to the Mac store just to make sure it was in tip top condition after which it subsequently started showing pink/green lines everywhere and I had to take it to Edmonton after I moved and

1. I had to use the ancient computer at the office to do work
2. is why I haven’t been blogging and
3. I realized I adore my current laptop and am refusing to let it die.

I took stupid amounts of photos of my brothers and tagged along with my parents everywhere, got to hang out with my Grandma and visit my aunt and uncle and guys: being home? It’s heavy. It’s deep. It’s full of things I’ll unpack later because they deserve their own blog post.

I then loaded up my new car with a dresser, my still not unpacked bags, my Grandma’s mincemeat pies and a typewriter in the front seat. I’m now in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, which is adorable and so small, prairie city where I work for the newspaper and sleep on a blow up mattress in my friend’s living room. (She’s also my boss at the paper. Whaaat?) I cook things like loaded baked potato soup, carrot and jalepeño soup, chili, dill mashed potatoes, French onion soup with Guinness, probably the best shephard’s pie. ever., and dill pickle soup which is a thing you guys and is delicious and I have some in the freezer and I’ll be making it again asap. Sarah and I watch Netflix at the end of the day (we’re into Psych and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Sleepy Hollow and  Downton Abbey, Ripper Street and Once Upon a Time). We play Monopoly Deal and she has a habit of kicking my butt, but I try and give as good as I get and it’s good.

It’s not Spain and it’s not France and going through photos guts me a little, as do other travellers’ blog posts and some days I feel like an emotional basket case, but it’s pretty and it’s Canadian and there are fall trees. We watch football (European) and football (American) and drink beer and buy hats (including an awesome Roughrider one I can’t find a photo of) and it’s good. I get to take photos of and write about a host of different things and it’s not where I want to be forever but it’s a good place for now and that I can be content with.

Things I’m Loving:

+ These outfits – (How perfect are they?)
+ Growing a minimalist wardrobe – (Something I’m hoping to aim for.)
+ This for breakfast – (I could do that every day for a week.)
+ This blog is my favourite – (And this post is calling me back to France.)