Wild Places and Open Spaces

Leaving Toronto

Day 1

Well, the trip that has been a dream for a year (and longer!!) became a reality once we were on the plane. The weather in Toronto cooperated; so did customs. Our luggage was not weighed, nor were our ‘liquids’ examined; however, we did have to remove our shoes and belts. It was an overnight flight with Air Canada, and we were awed at the lights we were able to see as we crossed Canada, most specifically New Brunswick and Newfoundland….we actually saw the flashing light of a lighthouse! The flight was uneventful, and we watched the sun rise as we headed east.

Day 2

We arrived in Paris at the Charles de Gaulle airport to snow and on the tarmac, literally. We disembarked the plane on the tarmac – which is normal at this airport – and stood on a bus for 20min, freezing with the door open, until a passenger complained and the driver looked up from whatever device he was using and hurriedly sped off to the terminal.

Customs at the Paris airport was a joke – the customs police officer did not even look at either of us as he stamped our passports to allow us in. Perhaps it was because they figured that the military dudes in full garb with machine guns (nope, not joking) would keep us in line if anything went awry. The airport itself is shockingly unaesthetic; made Pearson look beautiful and classy. A driver holding a sign with our name picked us up and whisked us (in a black, beautiful Mercedes Benz) to our rented studio apartment where we met Joel.

Joel, owns a few studios in Paris (Paris At Home), and we are so happy that we rented this one: Studio La Cerisaie. Very small (12ft x 12ft) and quaint…. picture a bachelor apt (only smaller) with all IKEA furnishings – it is all we need and more for $100euros/night. A major bargain in Paris, and only 4 metro stops to the Louvre. Because we arrived prior to ‘check in’, we dropped off our luggage at the studio, and went to get some groceries (and more importantly WINE) before the shops closed – they close by 1pm on Sundays (so nice to see that people still do this).

Oh yes, and the wine…..we bought three bottles of French wine for less than $9 euros. Yes, you read correctly…3 bottles for under $9 euros!

We didn’t want to waste our day by waiting until 2pm for our studio to be cleaned, so we took off for the Louvre. First impressions of the transit system – easy peasee. First impressions of Paris – absolutely beautiful. The Louvre is massive, and to be honest . it took us a while to find where to go inside! We headed to probably what most people head towards first – the Mona Lisa. Hoards of people were surrounding her, and even though there are signs everywhere stating ‘no flash photography’ they certainly don’t enforce this rule – there were flashes going off every few seconds. She is under glass, and actually larger than I thought she would be. And yes, I did get shivers being there, looking at her.

We walked around one wing of the Louvre, and quickly jet lag began to set in….we became wandering zombie-like creatures who desperately needed to sleep. We left, and made our way back quite easily on the transit system. We hit the sack by 7pm, after only having a couple of hours of sleep in a 24hr period.

Pics to come!

Wow, feels good to be back writing this blog! It has been 6 years since our year long adventure, and although we have travelled a few places since then (Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Washington D.C., Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Moose Factory/Moosonee), and had amazing fun together with family and friends, no place has quite the allure as our next adventure….SOUTH AFRICA!!!!

So you are probably wondering how all this came about for us. Well, it was a surprise to us! It is quite an incredible story…..

Last year, we were invited to Jim’s friend’s home for dinner. Per and Jim have been friends since they were 6 years old. Per and his wife Jacquie have 2 boys, Dylan (grade 9) and Kyle (grade 6). It had been a while since we had last seen them – you know how life gets busy – and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner together that Jacquie had prepared. Right after dinner, Jacquie and the boys excitedly asked Jim to open up his birthday present that had been sitting wrapped on the table since we had got there. Jim opened up the card first, and after reading the message, he blurted out, “I’m not 50 yet!!” Per said, “I know, I know, but you’ll understand later when you figure out the gift. The card actually gives the gift away, so try to figure it out before you open it!”  Well, the card had a cartoon character on the front, saying something about turning 50, and on the inside there was a punch line with a picture of a globe and an arrow pointing to Africa. After some discussion and seeing that the wrapped gift looked like a book, Kristin said, “I know, it is a Fodor’s guide to Africa!” Per gave Kristin a high five, and Jim opened the gift – it was a guide book to Safaris of Southern Africa. Jim thanked them, saying this is great, someday we’ll get to Africa. It was then that the family was all smiles and Per said, “Well….that is not the only gift. We’d like to take you to South Africa!” Dumbfounded, Jim looked at Kristin and then back at Per, and said, “WHAT?” Per said, “Yeah, we’re going to take you to South Africa….we’ve been there and we know you’d love it there, and we’d love to go with you….you only turn 5o once!” Well, needless to say we were speechless.

The year to follow was full of excitement and planning. Per looked after booking our flights and since we are able to take more time off at the moment than what Per’s family can, we extended our trip an extra couple of weeks (you only live once, right?). We’ve never been to Paris or London, so we factored in 4 days in both on the way to S. Africa. We’ll meet Per and family in London and fly over together.  We’ll spend 5 days in Cape Town, separate for a couple of days ’til we meet up again in Sabi Sand Reserve. Here we’ll stay in an absolutely gorgeous resort (way different from the tent that Jim and I usually travel in!!) spending dawn and dusk doing safaris for 4 days. After this luxurious retreat, we’ll say goodbye to our friends and head out on the road spending the next 6 days at camps through the well known Kruger National Park.

How can we ever thank our friends enough for this incredible opportunity?! When we tell people of this trip, most often the first thing out of their mouths is, “How do we get friends like that?” We are so very fortunate. We are so excited to go on this adventure with them – the memories we’ll have together will be incredible and forever ingrained in our hearts.

A bonus to all of this (yes, it is amazing that it can even get better!!) is that while in London, we’ll be staying with a couple (Sue and Rob) that we met while on our year-long adventure while we were in Fiji! We haven’t seen them since 2007, and when we contacted them to let them know we’d be in town, they immediately invited us to stay with them. We are so looking forward to seeing them again and rekindling the fun we had when we first met.

So, all in all, we are the luckiest people in the world.

Depending on internet connections and overall exhaustion (we plan to make the most out of each day!!) we’ll do our best to keep our blog updated and add a few pics too  – no doubt we’ll take thousands.

See you in Paris!

We’ll post photos here.