Around the World

For this instalment of Around the World, it only made sense – Christmas! While perhaps not everyone reading this celebrates Christmas, and even my celebration of it is more about spending time with loved ones and eating a lot of chocolate than anything else, I love seeing how different cultures celebrate around the world. I usually spend Christmas in Canada, but this year I’m in Nicaragua, surrounded by palm trees instead of pine, by blue ocean instead of white snow. Before I left London, I spent quite a few nights wandering around the city, taking in all of the colourful lights and Christmas spirit. Here are a few other Christmases I’ve spent in other countries.

I sometimes set strange goals for myself when I travel. One of them is to go on a boat in every country I visit; another is to ride a bicycle in every country I visit. It hasn’t always been the case, but there’s something about riding a bike through a new place that can’t be beat: the bumps in the road, the sights whizzing by, the wind in your hair.

I’ve been extremely lucky to see wild animals up close. I’m not a huge fan of most zoos, and prefer to see animals in their natural habitats. My dream, ever since I was a little girl, has been to see an African elephant in the wild; that’s why, on the eve of my 30th birthday, I’m flying to South Africa so that I can start a tour through Botswana where, hopefully, I’ll be surrounded by animals.

There are probably a lot of you who are not going to click this link, and that’s okay. I understand that not everybody else shares my sick fascination with all of the weird and wonderful bugs we encounter along our travels. And while the following stories come from faraway lands, I have just as many stories from home. Hell, I just found a giant spider in my room in London last night.

Other creepy crawlies (I feel like my kindergarten teacher saying that) like snakes, rats, mice, leeches, frogs, and so on, will be saved for later stories (and yes, I do have stories about all of them, sadly). If you are offended by the killing of bugs, I suggest you stop reading now.

Here are, in no particular order and not necessarily with accompanying photographs, some of the grossest, weirdest, cutest (they exist), scariest, most annoying bugs I have ever encountered… Part One.

I was all set to do something completely different for this instalment of Around the World: beer, books, hot dogs, (all my favourites in life) but I realized I still had a lot of photo of dogs, and dogs always win.

For this instalment of the Around the World series, I chose something that is very near and dear to me: coffee. Surprisingly, I only started drinking coffee after university; I’d have the odd cappuccino or two, but it was only when I started spending more time in Europe that it became normal to duck into a coffee shop and grab something, or to enjoy an hour spent with a latte and a book. Now it’s unusual if I go a day without drinking some form of coffee – my favourite is a good espresso or americano.