My previous travels had been alone, with a backpack, and no plan whatsoever. I had hitchhiked out of town and eventually found myself on a flight without any idea where I was going; and that’s how I traveled. This time would be different because it wasn’t just me wandering aimlessly anymore. Would it work out?
The lead-up to this trip came out of a desire to live in a foreign country while I was still young enough to be eligible for programs that make this possible.
At the time, we weren’t living in the nicest neighbourhood and we wanted to move. In fact, it was the most questionable neighbourhood in Canada and it was especially inhospitable for my girlfriend. Canada’s first (and currently only) safe needle injection site was just outside our front window. And while I supported its purpose, I didn’t exactly want to live right in front of it. It was time to move far, far away.
While we had our reasons to leave, there were many things about our home that we enjoyed. The city had a plethora of amazingly diverse and cheap food places, the natural scenery was breathtaking, and we had friends there. While I was still relatively new to the city and had been moving around for the past few years, my girlfriend grew up there and had never moved away.
It would be a big step for her, but she took to the idea and we mulled over it while we were still working in Canada.
When nothing came up to make us change our minds, we pulled the trigger: Bought tickets, quit our jobs, ended our lease, told people we’d be going, and started selling our furniture and other household items. It’s when you start doing those things that it stops feeling like an idea and starts feeling like something that is actually happening.
With a Canadian passport, there isn’t much of anything complicated about the process of traveling; it’s actually quite simple: you pick up and go. The first time I had done it wasn’t so easy, but I was able to rationalize it: The whole world was out there waiting to be explored. The whole damn world. That had to be better than sitting at home, and it was. This time around, there would be no need to question it.
For me, leaving everything behind the first time was like jumping into a pool of freezing water. I didn’t want to do it. I knew I probably wasn’t going to get hurt, but I was anxious. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach. Eventually, I worked up the courage, told myself “fuck it”, and then jumped in. As I was floating through the air, I felt helpless. And by the time I hit the water, I had accepted what was happening. The freezing feeling of splashing into the water left my body in shock, but the longer I stayed there, the more I got used to it. Soon enough, the water felt warm.
That’s what it was like for me the first time I dropped everything and disappeared into the unknown alone, and without anyone’s footsteps to follow.
Things would be a lot less unknown this time, and far less dramatic. I had literally left my home with no destination the last time, no idea where I’d sleep, no idea what I was doing, and no possibility of going back. This time I was just going to Europe, I knew which country I was going to land in, and we would use AirBnb’s and hostels as we went.
We had purchased the most dirt cheap tickets available at the time, which involved four flights over the course of 36 hours. We’d take two red-eye’s, one small connecting flight, and two layovers of several hours a piece. The night before our departure, we bought tickets for a connecting flight from London to Amsterdam. It was going to be a relatively miserable 36 hours.
Our first layover was Halifax, Nova Scotia. The nice thing about visiting Halifax is knowing that you don’t have any reason to visit Halifax again. Suck it, Haligonians! :P
Second up: St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.
We didn’t have time to venture into St. John’s and opted to save this little gem for a time when we could give it more of our attention. Flying over, it seemed clear that there would be lots to explore. The coastal cliffs were gorgeous and the people had funny accents that didn’t match up with the rest of Canada; it sounded like a mix of Irish, Scottish, and English. And the weather was far better than Halifax. Suck it, Haligonians!
Our final 6 hour layover was in London Gatwick airport. We hope to never return there.
A friendly face was waiting for us at the gate when we finally arrived. One of my girlfriend’s Dutch coworkers helped arrange for her parents to meet us. They kindly drove us to an Airbnb that we had booked the day before and they held our luggage while we worked our way around the country. That was nice of them.
We had planned to arrive, apply for our one year visa, figure out where we’d like to live by traveling around and visiting cities, and then go south towards the Mediterranean Sea to travel for a month or so before going back to the Netherlands to settle in.
We found some food, had much needed showers, and then slept. And slept, and slept. We’d have to recuperate before we could explore.
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