Category Archives: Travel

Could-Not-Stand-It!

Posted in Fun, Life, Travel by

Something strange has come over me, something that has never really happened before. Upon arriving to Hungary, after about 22 hours of travelling, Zsolt and I first visited his sister in Budapest where we stayed the night, then travelled onward to Lake Balaton. At the lake (a lake that holds a big piece of my heart, as many of you know, but where the cottage also gives me crazy allergies after about two nights of sleeping in the big room) we met up with his parents for the weekend. Six of us in the small cottage: Zsolt’s sister, brother-in-law, parents and us. When we pulled up in the car his parents had already arrived; Anna (mother-in-law) came running towards us with her hands waving and say, “Hello, hello!”, then gave us careful and restrained kisses on each cheek. Zsolt followed that up by giving her a hug (even though they normally only kiss on the cheek) and I think she appreciated the affection.

Where was I going with this? Oh, right. . .

Something strange has come over me. I think it’s a combination of last year’s adventure where we moved A-to-Z every half a week visiting friends and family, plus this past week before leaving when we were at a cottage with my family in Canada, then added to by moving from location to location once arriving in Hungary.  Somewhere in there a switch has flipped. Suddenly, without warning, I have developed an extreme need to unpack my suitcase.

Never do I unpack the suitcase, unless we’ve finally arrived home . . . and even then, it takes me a week to bother. But upon leaving Balaton (see you later, you big blue water . . . and allergenic reactions of itchy eyes and throat) and arriving in Zsolt’s beautiful home town of Pecs – I HAD to empty that suitcase.

Didn’t matter if the clothes had to be piled neatly on the floor, the shelves, the desk . . . the only thing I could really think about was taking everything out so I didn’t have to root through the case one more time for a spare sock, or bra (or boob!), or whatever. Thankfully, Anna had made some room on the shelves, so there was the perfect amount of space for my stuff. It’s all out now. The t-shirts, the dresses, the sweaters, the underwear, the vitamins, the beauty stuff.

And what’s even crazier, is that today I TIDIED. Couldn’t stand the growing mess of two days in the same room – had to put everything away where it belonged. Could Not Stand the mess!

What, I ask, has come over me? Back when I was a little girl, I used to push the toys and clothes under my bed (hidden by the dust ruffle) whenever instructed to clean. Even today I don’t love pulling out the gloves and attacking grime and/or dust . . . but an untidied bedroom? No. No. No. No.

So, clearly someone has secretly hypnotized me into a compulsion for order. I have my suspects – you know who you are (mother, father, or husband. Most likely husband. . . Zsolt probably whispers in my ear at night, “clean your side of the bedroom, pick up the mess.”)

Lesson Learned: Apparently some things do change – like patience, temperament, and preferences for having an essentially clutter-free room.

I don’t know how it happened, but it has happened.

Maybe soon I’ll feel a compulsion to clean the bathroom, scrub the floors, vacuum the house, dust the shelves and clean out the fridge. Maybe. But that would take some really strong hypnosis . . .

Stroke-Stroke Glide-Glide

Posted in Bumpboobs, Canada, Finding Home, Fun, Life, Travel, Writing by

We are at the cottage (rental) and I don’t have my drawing pad with me. If I did have the drawing pad, I’d sketch you a doodle of the view from this window. There’s the lake in the background and the green forest of Tar Island, and here just in the foreground are a sparse layering of trees – their trunks are thin at the top (this cottage is set upon a cliff face, and so I’m looking through the tops of these trees), and the branches are tapering to a point, like a very tall Christmas tree or something. Reminds me of a painting I did for my grade six art project. It was a tree trunk, with a branch, and a lake behind with blue sky above.

This is the cottage. We arrived here Thursday evening, and are able to come and go as we like. Tomorrow I’ll be back in town for Canada day. But today we are here. And today it is nice.

Zsolt and I have been making many decisions lately – several of which I am not allowed to talk about. (Which is really, really difficult.) Let’s just say sometimes stuff works and other times stuff really doesn’t work. However, we’re fine and eventually we’ll manage this whole ‘career’ thing. In the meanwhile something good has come from a series of infuriating events, which is (cause I can talk about this, thank freaking goodness) a trip.

Soon Zsolt and I will fly to Hungary for a month. Following that we’ll fly to England and visit friends. After this we’ll take a boat to New York from Southampton (7 night cruise) and hang with family and visit the city. Then we’ll take the train up to Montreal (12 hour trip), where we’ll finally catch a bus back to Ottawa. We’re leaving mid (ish) July and returning September.

I’ll let your imagination create the reasons for our booking this massive, non-refundable trip when neither of us has full-time employment, and then say that while plans can change beyond our control, it is not the case with non-refundable bookings. So the silver lining in all this crappiness is that my husband and I are going on an adventure. And that’s a really awesome silver lining.

When we return, we are 100% determine to move out of my parent’s house – even if it means living in someone else’s basement (hopefully with a separate entrance), and working on getting my man Zsolt into the intellectual property field. He’s got a talent for it. He’ll be even better when working for a company full-time.  (If you know anyone looking for a patent agent trainee, please do let me know.)

And I think everything will be alright. We’re at the cottage today. I’m going to have the first draft of my book finished before we leave for Hungary. (Really I am, I’ve only got like 3000 words left to write before that’s done.) Zsolt is planning to help me turn my Bumpyboobs adventures into mini e-books (woohoo! So then I can make myself a large button to wear that says, “Self-Published Author!”).

And everything is going to be alright.

Everything is going to be alright.

Maybe I should tattoo it onto my forehead, just a reminder. 🙂

As support to this assertion, my mammogram checkout A-Okay. I’m still totally annoyed with the screening situation, but hey – no cancer. Woohooo! Nooooooo Cancer!!

AND, I turn 30 next week.

Plus, the canoe we bought is turning out beautifully. Another big purchase we may never have made  . . . but was inevitably done. (Because I said to Zsolt, if not now, when?) And so we’ve been paddling around this lake at the cottage and the rivers near Ottawa – enjoying the beauty of the area and just stupid happy with every stroke. You know, back in the land of chemotherapy day-dreams, one of my musings was to buy a canoe and just forget about the bullshit. That’s what happens whenever we take it out – it’s not about looking for work, surviving cancer, growing up, staying healthy . . . it’s about stroke-stroke-stroke, and glide-glide-glide.

Right now, for our lives in general, I think we’ll just have to focus on the present. Just stroke-stroke-stroke, and glide-glide-glide.

 

P.S. kudos to Zsolt who is circling me as I post this outside the cottage, killing black flies and keeping me bug-bite free!

 

Even lovers need a holiday

Posted in Canada, Life, Love, Travel by

Sitting here on the red chaise in my parents room with the front windows cracked open. Outside there’s are two crows calling (squawking) to one another. One of them is picking around on the front yard where we had throw some seeds over the winter, but it can’t see me staring at it from inside. This morning I woke up, exercised on the elliptical, read the news, made a cup of tea, and now I am here writing this out.

Last night we took Zsolt to the airport and he flew off to Hungary. Actually, he’s still in the process of flying to Hungary and I can only imagine his state of exhaustion. By the time he makes it to his sister’s home in Erd, he’ll have been travelling for about 24 hours on very little sleep.

This morning I woke up, exercised, made a cup of tea . . . had some yogurt, fixed the bed, read the news . . . and now I’m here writing.

Make a plan: so this is my plan. Morning will be for writing, as it should always be but often is not, and this afternoon I’ll be reading up on NLP in order to better write around the topic of coaching, mentoring and leadership. This evening I’ll gorge myself on reality television and maybe help my dad with making dinner.

Zsolt and I often separate for long periods of time. He’s from Hungary, I’m from Canada . . . so when the holidays roll around, (and considering we currently have no children) one of us generally takes off to visit family for three to four weeks at a time. And when I say, ‘one of us’ that really means I take off to visit family, and leave Zsolt alone to fend for himself.

So I cannot hold a grudge against his going away for so long this time. Particularly since he’ll be attending his grandmother’s funeral and, I imagine, helping sort out things that need sorting.

But I guess it’s been a while since we split like this . . . about 14 months since our last separation (Christmas to Canada, which lasted for five weeks.)

Zsolt is a man full of wise words. This is largely because as a child he had a book of proverbs, and tried to memorize as many as possible. And while they don’t always make sense after he translated the Hungarian version to English, this particularl expression (something, I think, that came from a movie) works well. He says to me, “Even lovers need a holiday.”

And so he is right.

This month will be focused on my world, and my projects, and my wonderful work. It’s nice to have this time, even if being away from Zsolt does feel rather bizarre.

Even lovers need a holiday. It’s okay to be away from one another, and turn the focus onto yourself. And I like that that’s okay.

But geez, I do miss him. After being together so long, I think I may have forgotten how to be alone. However, I reckon it starts with routine.

This morning I woke up, fixed the bed, made tea, had some yogurt, checked my emails, read the news, and now I’m here writing . . . and it’s going to be a lovely day.