Fall around the world

Fall started off with a short visit to Montreal in order to celebrate the marriage of my dear university friend, Rob, and his lovely, Canadian wife, Valerie. Rob has now also made the permanent move to Canada although is still working on the Quebecois lingo!

I made the most of my quick trip by stocking up on Montreal bagels and checking out the World Press Photo exhibit as well as taking in the amazing fall colours that had just reached their peak in the city.

Shortly thereafter, I set off on what was to be almost six weeks of travel, most of it business-related. My first stop was Kazakhstan and I spent a few days in both Almaty and Astana, both of which I have visited before. Here, I discovered a new meaning to having a cup of tea...this 'tea' was slightly more alcoholic in nature than that which I'm used to. Still, for some of my colleagues, it helped wash down the horsemeat entree.

Next stop was a fleeting visit to St Petersburg and a chance to catch up with a couple of friends who also happened to be in town on business. St Pete's is one of my favourite cities and I have seen it transition back from being a Soviet city to one of Europe's finest. I truly fall in love with it a little bit more every time I visit.

I left Russia and headed south to Barcelona where I got my fix of Gaudi, tapas and Spanish warmth. Again, I was only there a couple of days but it was lovely to have the chance to stroll around the Parc Guell and take in the rooftop views.

I left Barcelona and almost retraced my steps flying over Kazakhstan to Mongolia and the city of Ulaan Bataar. This was my second visit but I approached it somewhat cautiously having experienced my worst ever bout of food poisoning in the hotel I stayed in last year. This time, I decided to play it safe and stayed in a German-managed hotel which gave me more confidence that the kitchen would be spotless. Fortunately, I remained healthy throughout this visit and even managed to see a few of the sights.

Most impressive was the enormous Genghis Khan statue that has been built in the countryside about a half hour from the capital. Made of stainless steel the Mongol leader and his horse dominated the landscape.

My next pitstop was Istanbul for a working weekend so I didn't get to see much other than the inside of my hotel but did manage a quick wander down Istiklal Cadessi to get my mum and dad some baklava.

My parents seemed to appreciate the sweet Turkish delights when we met up the following week in Rome. I had a week off work and when I had suggested to my parents I could visit them in Leeds before my next stop in Rome, they replied that actually they'd prefer to join me in Rome. We therefore rented a very cute and compact apartment in the Trastevere area and enjoyed a wonderful week touring the ancient and modern sights. We even saw the Pope! I must admit we truly were blessed with incredible weather and Rome looked at its very best in the sunshine. We even managed to meet up with our friend, Lynn, and her sister. We were lucky that they were able to join us for one of the fabulous Italian dinners we inhaled that week.

My parents left me and I spent a few more days In Rome working before heading to Lisbon for my final business stop on the trip. I managed to squeeze in a quick cooking lesson from Cooking Lisbon learning how to make Portuguese custard tarts - delicious!

Eventually, though, it was time to head home although not for long.

The following week I flew south to Florida to escape the -18C temperatures that hit Toronto but, most importantly, to attend the wedding of my friends, Alix and Carlo, at DisneyWorld. Mickey Mouse was truly present throughout the weekend and we had a lot of fun at both the Disney-themed wedding and visiting a couple of Disney theme parks.

So, this fall/autumn really has been a whirlwind of non-stop travel and I will end the year in a similar way by using one of my two passports to visit the UK and spend Christmas and New Year in Leeds with family and friends. This will be my first Christmas as a true Canadian and I won't even be staying in Canada...ooops!

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2015!

Canadian Summer

Summer finally arrived in Toronto and although it's not been as hot and steamy as usual, it's been a very pleasant one.

In May, I completed the Sporting Life 10k for the third time. Thanks to everyone who sponsored me.  I raised $775 in honour of my friend Sue, who died from cancer earlier this year.  The money raised will go towards helping kids with cancer benefit from a Camp Ooch experience.

Shortly after, I jumped on a plane and headed out west to Vancouver.  I had a few meetings there and then extended my stay over the
weekend.  Vancouver is a lovely city and you can smell the ocean and forests as you sit watching float planes come and go in the harbour with the mountains ahead of you.  My counterpart at UBC gave me a gourmet tour of the city and I had a lovely relaxing couple of days.

Not long after, I headed south to the beautiful city of San Diego for a conference.  Again, I added on a few days and had a super time exploring this border town.  I loved the laid-back California feel and had fun shopping, exploring the Mexican sites, seeing the animals at the world-famous zoo, visiting the Coranado Island Beach (where Some Like it Hot was filmed), reliving my Top Gun-obsessed youth on the USS Midway and checking out the seals along the shore.  I was also lucky enough to
be invited to join some Canadian government colleagues on an evening sail around San Diego harbour.  We sailed past the huge aircraft carriers, submarines and hospital ships stationed there whilst enjoying the perfect evening weather.

After the conference, I headed north by train to Los Angeles and spent a few days exploring this huge, sprawling city.  I particularly enjoyed Santa Monica, seeing the space shuttle Endeavour and having a VIP tour of Paramount Studios.  I didn't spot any famous movie stars but it was great to be walking in their footsteps almost everywhere I went in the city.  Having said that, walking is no easy task in LA...it really is car central!

Back in Toronto my summer has meant quite a lot of theatrical adventures.  I enjoyed a couple of plays at the Toronto Fringe although a few others was not so great!  I also discovered Stratford in southern Ontario - home to Justin Bieber and an excellent theatre festival.  Naturally, given the town's name, there is Shakespeare on tap and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing King Lear but also the musical, The Man of La Mancha.  Another highlight was seeing Cirque du Soleil again.  This time they were performing their new show, Kurios.

In early August, I had a super day watching the Rogers Cup tennis once again and was lucky enough to see my hero, Roger Federer, win in straight sets.

Later in August my friend, Janet, and I flew out to Newfoundland for a two-week road trip.  We landed in St John's amid a torrential downpour which set the tone for the next couple of weeks.  Despite the fact, Newfoundland had enjoyed a scorcher of a July, we had dreadful weather with cold temperatures, rain, fog and grey skies.  We tried to make the best of things and had a few enjoyable experiences but it really put a dampener on things and meant we didn't really see the island at its best.  We managed to see puffins, whales, a moose and icebergs though so not all was bad! Oh, and we ate A LOT of cod!

Just after my return from Newfoundland, I was called to attend my Canadian Citizenship Ceremony having passed the Citizenship test in July with flying colours.  The ceremony itself was lovely and along with about 95 others from all over the world I swore my oath to the Queen of Canada (in English and French, which sounded awful!), received my certificate from an Order of Canada recipient and sang O Canada.  I am now a proud Canadian and Brit - a good feeling!  My friends helped me celebrate in style at a Canadian-themed "Citizen Becky" party held in my honour.  Given the amount of travelling I do, I have to say it's quite useful having two passports!

Emerging from the Ice

It's been a few months since I last wrote and what a busy few months it's been!

Just before Christmas, my parents arrived for a visit and Toronto greeted them in true Canadian style.  We experienced an ice storm.  None of us had ever seen anything like it.  Rain falls but freezes upon impact.  The result was that layer upon layer of ice built up on every surface.  The walkways and roads were treacherous, tree branches bent with the weight of the ice and many eventually cam crashing down onto power lines leaving vast areas of the city without power when it was 15 below.  We lost power for about 24 hours and we were the lucky ones as many friends didn't get it switched back on until after Christmas.  The Dunkirk spirit kicked in and it was quite fun hosting a small group of friends for a party by candlelight.

Breaking into the rental car through the ice that hard turned to what was almost thick sheets of glass, however, took over an hour and resulted in sore bleeding hands!  As I was doing this a huge tree came down just across the street from me.

A drive around the area later showed us what the real damage was - the streets looked like a hurricane had swept through with trees and tree branches down everywhere.  No wind though, just ice.  It is estimated 20% of Toronto's tree canopy was lost during the ice storm.  At night, the twinkling branches looked very pretty and Christmassy though!

Despite my mum having a nasty flu during Christmas week, we had a nice time and I cooked my first ever Christmas Dinner.  We also enjoyed watching festive movies such as It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas and The Polar Express to get us more in the mood.  Afternoon tea at the Ritz and a visit to the new Ripleys Aquarium were other highlights.

In an effort to escape the polar vortex, we headed south to Mexico and spent the next two weeks in Tulum on the Riviera Maya.  We had a bit of a rental car nightmare initially but after that got sorted out and we eventually acquired some wheels, we enjoyed pootling back and forth to the beautiful beach as well as seeing some of the Mayan ruins.  We had a few days of rain but were just thankful to be away from the snow and ice!  It was a lovely break.

Not long after I was somewhat, although not entirely, incapacitated following a minor operation on my big toe.  I was not a happy bunny for a week as I trudged through the snow in my sandals as I couldn't get my shoes on properly without being in agony.  Still, I improved my bandage-tying techniques and it is on the mend now!

In February, I was supposed to be going to Ukraine on a three-city tour to Kiev, Donetsk and Odessa.  All three cities have been in the news over the past few weeks but at the time, the unrest was mainly centred on Kiev.  In the end, the Canadian Ambassador took the decision to call off our tour and, as a consequence, my follow-on trip to the UK also got cancelled.  Sometimes you have to play it safe and we were all relieved not to go in the end as the day we were due to arrive was the day many lost their lives in Kiev.  Protestors also sought refuge in the Canadian Embassy, where we had been due to have some of our events.  Fortunately, the staff I know there and other people I work with regularly in Ukraine are all safe.

My Plan B was instead to move house...again!  So, at the beginning of March, I moved from the East End of Toronto back to the centre and an area of the city called Little Italy.  It's about a 40 minute walk to work and right in the heart of the action.  My new apartment is on the top floor of a century-old house and has a fabulous view across the roof-tops to the CN Tower from my large balcony.  The move itself was quite entertaining as my rather large church pew had to be hauled up outside the house in the snow in order to get it in.  Thankfully, one of the movers was originally from the Netherlands so had experience of this type of thing! I love my new pad in the loft and am enjoying being surrounded by little Italian bakeries, delis and even a second-run cinema.  It's great to be able to walk places and when summer eventually arrives, I will break my bicycle out again.

Talking of transport (!), I was 'over the moon' to win tickets to see the Canadian astronaut and former Commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield, give a talk at the University of Toronto.  He shared his amusing tales of life getting to, from and being in space as well as inspiring us all to 'reach for the stars' in our own lives.  He's an amazing guy who has done so much to educate and inspire a whole generation of fellow stargazers.

At the end of March, I was asked to fly down to Brazil on short notice and attend a very interesting conference in Sao Paulo on student mobility between Canada and Brazil.  I then went on to spend about a week in Rio in order to do a couple of education fairs and visit one of the universities there.  My hotel was overlooking Copacabana Beach and I enjoyed my free time sitting by the rooftop pool taking in the view when the sun shone.  Rio is gearing up for both the World Cup and Olympics although, like the IOC, I am not sure all will be ready in time.  There is a huge amount of construction going on and it is quite chaotic in some parts of the city. I hope I am proved wrong.  I flew south to Porto Alegre for another fair and then home.

I was back for just a week before jetting off again.  This time it was on holiday though rather than for work.  I went to Cuba with some of the ladies from my yoga studio.  We went on a yoga retreat...I say that in the loosest terms possible as it was more like a "girls week" with a bit of yoga thrown in in the early morning and evenings.  The weather was fabulous and I thoroughly enjoyed the yoga and beach.  The downside to a vacation in Cuba is that everything is a bit crumbly and the food is not great...but it's no surprise as to why with all the blockades they face.  The people are very friendly and our day trip to Havana was enlightening as there has been a lot of investment here since my last visit.  It's a beautiful city with a fascinating history.

The past month has seen the last of the snow melt as we emerge from the harshest winter in Toronto since the mid-1970s.  Summer is just around the corner but we've still got to get to spring yet!  I'm hopeful though as if you look carefully you can see the buds appearing on the trees and the odd daffodil sprouting.

Speaking of looking carefully, I've enjoyed taking part in a couple of scavenger hunts over the past few weeks.  The first one was organized in an area of the city known as Liberty Village.  Along with my two team-mates, we had two hours to solve clues and track down various treasures such as dogs in clothing as well as undertake a number of challenges such as singing nursery rhymes on street corners and going down a playground slide!  It was all good fun and ended in a brunch for all the participants.  The second hunt by Urban Capers took place at the Royal Ontario Museum.  Again, we had two hours but this time the clues helped us to solve a murder.  Our team, the Raiders of the Lost Artifact, came in second!

The past week, I've once again been enjoying my favourite Toronto film festival, the Hot Docs documentary film festival.  Highlights have been seeing the man behind Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street as well as George Takei aka Captain Sulu from Star Trek and now a social media icon.

Next week, I will once again be taking part in the Sporting Life 10k along with my colleagues in order to raise funds for Camp Ooch, which provides a camp experience for children suffering from cancer.  This is the third year I have participated and holds special significance as once again I am running in honour of another friend to be taken away from us all too soon by cancer.  Sue Hicks was a fellow adventurer and we travelled to many wonderful places together.  Her cheery "Hallo" and wicked laugh will stay with me always.  Sadly, Sue died at the end of January from Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  On that note I shall finish and say that if you would like to support me in my 10k and raising funds for Camp Ooch, I would be very grateful: http://www.ooch.org/10KforSue Thank you.

Christmas Missive

Hard to believe that Christmas is almost upon us and as I look out of the window the first major snowstorm of the year has just dumped almost 20cm of snow on my back yard!  Needless to say both of these events have forced me to put finger to keypad and reflect on the last few months as I realized it's been quite a while since my last blog update.

I seem to have clocked up a fair few air miles since my last missive in August having hardly been in Toronto until the past month.

My first stop was Brazil, where I once again was promoting the University on a three-city tour organized by the Canadian embassy.  This time, however, due to the fact the University of Toronto is now the world's biggest receiver of Science without Borders scholars, I was no longer doing this alone and was accompanied by three other colleagues.  It was great to have company for a change although, to be honest, I know many of the other reps from the other institutions so am rarely short of company on these trips these days!  Somewhat dramatically, however, one of my fellow U of T colleagues had to be admitted to hospital and undergo an appendectomy due a burst appendix.  Fortunately, he was OK and received top notch care at one of Brazil's English-speaking hospitals, where the president gets treated no less.  Thankfully, he's now almost fully recovered having been flown home.

I came back without hospitalization but with a rather nasty respiratory illness and it was a bit touch and go as to whether my boss would allow me to go on the next business trip a few days later but I eventually did having got the all clear from the doctors back here in Toronto.  I flew on to Istanbul for a few days and stayed close to Taksim Square and Gezi Park, scene of the recent protests in Turkey.  All was peaceful during my stay but there was a heavy police presence and noticeable removal of Ataturk's image having been replaced by the Turkish flag.  I was literally only there a couple of days so hardly got chance to go beyond the hotel, where our meetings were being held, before we flew on to Almaty in Kazakhstan.

I've been to Almaty a couple of times before and although this was a very short trip of only a couple of days, I managed to spend one evening exploring the city a bit.  A small group of us ventured up the mountain to check out the view and try on a few crazy hats!

After a few weeks of non-stop work, it was great to be able to spend a few days with my family and friends in Leeds on my way back through to Toronto.  I always feel the time is too short but it was lovely to see former colleagues, some of my friends, the Yorkshire Dales and also squeeze in a trip to the Scottish borders to visit my Granny and aunts.

No sooner had I returned to Toronto than I was off again but in the opposite direction.  This time heading West to Asia and a new country on my checklist; Mongolia.  I arrived at night at Genghis Khan International Airport and so didn't see much on my way in to Ulaan Bataar other than the odd pile of snow and one yurt tent by the side of the road.  The city itself looked like many of the Chinese or Russian cities I've been to.  That's to say, quite plain and currently undergoing construction.  It was also very cold so my few short wanderings around town only scratched the surface.  The people I came across, however, were delightful.  Very warm, friendly and stunningly beautiful.  Sadly, though, my stay in Mongolia was somewhat marred by a very bad case of food poisoning that I contracted from something I ate in the hotel.  I experienced "the night from hell" that left me rather wiped out and totally off my food for the next few days prior to leaving the country.  I will just have to go back and see Mongolia another time!

I moved on to Thailand and a city I've visited many times; Bangkok.  It was a case of going from one extreme to the other in terms of the weather and here it was sweltering hot with high humidity.  I spent my first few days working but then took a few days off to enjoy the city and its sights.  I moved from my business hotel to a boutique hotel.  It was lovely to hang out, enjoy a Thai massage, sample some great cuisine, catch up with a friend (Kim), and check out some old haunts.  All too soon, work beckoned again and I jumped back on my flight home, narrowly avoiding Typhoon Haiyan as it passed through the region.

Since being back in Toronto, I've been trying to catch up with friends here that I haven't seen for a while and also get my feet back on the ground as I feel they've hardly been here for much of the past few months.  I had a fun night out the other week seeing Eddie Izzard, the British comedian planning to be Mayor of London.  Many of us here feel he could also apply for the job here in Toronto...he'd certainly do a better job than the current incumbent!

Anyway, I shall sign off here and wish you all the very best for Christmas and the New Year!  I'm looking forward to having my parents here over Christmas and then, hopefully, a bit of sunshine and relaxation in Mexico for New Year!

Summery Antics

I seem to have been very busy since April with one thing another...mostly enjoyable!

One of my annual favourite festivals in Toronto, HotDocs kicked off in the spring celebrating its 25th anniversary.  I always find the documentaries screened to be interesting and engaging.  This year was no exception and I appeared to chose well with many of selections making it into the Top 10 audience picks.  One of my favourites was called "Good Ol' Freda" and told the hitherto unpublished story of Freda Kelly, who was plucked from the many screaming Beatles fans that used to hang out in The Cavern nightclub in Liverpool to become their fan club secretary.  I was lucky enough to be sitting next to Freda herself at the screening and her story was really delightful as she stayed with The Beatles throughout the band's lifespan and has remained loyal ever since.

The start of summer in Canada is traditionally what's known as the May Two-Four weekend.  Named because its a long weekend close to May 24th and also becuase a two-four is a crate of beer, often taken on a trip and drunk to celebrate the start of summer!

This year the sun came out to play on time and along with two friends, Darlene and Giulia, we embarked on something of a watery adventure along the Trent-Severn waterways here in Ontario.  We rented a houseboat for the weekend and had great fun sailing through the lakes, rivers, canals and locks of the water system.  I was appointed captain as I had some sailing background.  To be honest, being in charge of a boat full of fuel plus crew and knowing the hazards yet not feeling the most confident about my navigational techniques was quite stressful!  Still, we managed to avoid any major incidents and it was a lovely weekend full of sun, sailing and barbecues.

Not long after I headed south across the border to attend the NAFSA Conference in St.Louis.  This is the third time I've been to this conference and although St.Louis didn't grab me that much I was very impressed by the key-note speaker they chose this year, Kofi Annan.  He spoke about the importance of education globally and reflected on his time as Head of the UN.  I found him to be as inspirational in the flesh as I have always considered him to be and it was a real privilege to be in the same room as one of The Elders, an organization that I admire greatly for the work they do.

I had quite an interesting journey home from St.Louis, in the US mid-west.  This region, particularly Oklahoma, was hit quite badly by tornadoes this year and I narrowly escaped one as well.  I flew out of St.Louis Airport just twenty minutes before the airport was hit.  As we took off, we skirted around the incoming storm and you could see it was going to be bad.  Business associates I know who were still at the airport awaiting departure had to go into the tornado shelters and were stuck for a few days until the airport re-opened.

Not long after, Mother Nature decided to again show her full force and, just two days before my friend and I were due to depart for Alberta, inflicted the ravaging floods that caused such havoc on the region.  Darlene and I debated whether we should still attempt to go on our vacation amid the state of emergency but, in the end, having weighed up the risks we decided to go as a) we wanted our holiday but b) we didn't want the businesses we had made bookings with to suffer and they all seemed to be in areas that were not affected.  Luckily, as we landed in Calgary the roads we needed to travel on re-opened.  We drove around the centre of Calgary itself but still saw the raging river that had burst its banks and was flooding the zoo and numerous homes.  What was even scarier was, as we drove down the earily empty Highway 2, seeing the town of High River that had been completely inundated and where lives were lost.  Access to the town was blocked by military tanks  and as we drove past we saw TV crews llined up along the hard-shoulder.  You could see the devastation with water up to the second floor of homes and trucks submerged completely apart from their roofs.

Eventually, however, we arrived at our destination near the US border close to a place called Cardston, one of the original Mormon settlements outside the US.  We spent two wonderful days pretending to be cowgirls at Rangeview Ranch.  The ranch is a real working red angus cattle ranch and also manages land for the Nature Conservancy Council here in Canada.  I loved getting back in the saddle and we rode out twice with Roger, the ranch owner, to check up on the cattle and the many newly-born calves.  We got involved rounding the cattle up and driving them to new pasture, and watched as Roger lassoed and treated a sickly calf and mother.  A truly wonderful experience and a great introduction to Alberta.



Next, we headed to Waterton Lakes National Park, also part of the joint US-Canada International Peace Park.  We thoroughly enjoyed hiking in the mountains here, seeing the views from the lakes and observing the wildlife, including catching a glimpse of a mother bear and her cubs.

We followed the Mormon Trail and ended up in an area called the Badlands, where we got to see some great geological features called Hoodoos and checked out the Royal Tyrrell Museum and its amazing collection of dinosaur fossils in Drumheller.  Perhaps my favourite stop in this area, however, was in a tiny place called Torrington, which has set up a wonderful little museum called the Gopher Hole Museum featuring dioramas of taxidermied gophers.  This made a very quirky and entertaining pit-stop on our journey north-west towards the Rockies.

In a moment of madness, I had declared that I wanted to camp out in a teepee.  Unfortunately, the floods had washed the teepee we'd booked away pretty much so instead we opted to spend the night sleeping on a rather manky buffalo-skin mat in a trapper's tent at Rocky Mountain House National Historic Site.   Given the amount of stagnant water lying around, this was perhaps not one of my better ideas.  Put it this way, not much sleep was had as we spent most of the night fighting off mosquitoes before eventually retreating to the nearest Tim Horton's coffee shop at 6am!  Our campfire was fun though and we impressed ourselves with our ability to cook hot dogs, corn and s'mores in true Canadian-style.

We headed on to Jasper, which I loved, and stayed in the same cabins that Marilynn Monroe and Joe Di'maggio had frequented during her filming of River of No Return.  We had a super time driving through the mountains and past lakes as well as climbing to the top of one only to be beaten back by a hailstorm but then getting to see a spectacular rainbow in the Athabasca Valley below.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the drive along the spectacular Icefields Parkway past the glaciers to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake.  We ended up in Banff and had a wonderful few days staying at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel over the Canada Day national holiday period.

Our journey ended back in Calgary and we'd timed our visit to coincide with the Calgary Stampede.  After an enormous clean-up effort, the organizers had decided to go ahead with the Stampede despite the damage caused by the floods, which had totally inundated the Stampede grounds.  We had a fantastic few days in the city watching the parade, attending free Stampede Breakfasts, flirting with the cowboys and checking out the rodeo action.  I threw myself into the whole 'western' thing with my cowboy hat, checked shirt, jeans and cowboy boots - I even became a fan of country music!



Not long after returning back to Toronto, it seemed as if the Alberta floods followed us as on my first day back in the office, the heavens opened and Toronto was also submerged in floodwater with the biggest downpour in 50 years taking place in just a few short hours.  The valley close to my house flooded with commuters trapped on a train and needing the marine rescue service to help them get to safety, and all the classrooms in my department were flooded as pipes burst due to the sheer volume of water.  Being forced to shutdown due to flooding was not quite what we expected on the second  day of our busiest term!

Nevertheless, the sun eventually came out again and I've had a few very enjoyable weekends away since.  I headed up to Lake Simcoe in July for a very relaxing and fun yoga retreat and last weekend I spent a super few days in Montreal watching the Rogers Cup Men's Tennis Championship and exploring the city.

I came back to Toronto this week to attend and present a paper on MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) at the International Hybrid Learning Conference.  My colleague Min and I were delighted to have our first paper published in the conference proceedings book this week - it's a great feeling to have something you've written published in a real book!

On that note, I shall finish as I look forward to a busy autumn with many more travels and adventures to be had.

Winter Wanderings

Everyone asked when I first moved to Canada, "Ooh, how will you cope with the Canadian winters?" and, to be honest, up until this past year they've actually been pretty much the same as those experienced in Europe apart from the occasional sub-zero blast.  This year, however, was perhaps a taste of what Canada really can offer in terms of her full-force of winter harshness.

It started around Boxing Day with a full-on snow dump and so I hunkered down for much of the Christmas break catching up on past episodes of Downton Abbey and enjoying the cosy warmth of my sofa.  I also invited a bunch of friends over to finish off our matryoshka (Russian) dolls and we had a lovely afternoon painting outfits for "our gals".

Compared to last year when we had temperatures hitting the high 20s from March onwards, spring has felt very late coming this year and as I write this in late April I'm still seeing flutterings of snowflakes outside my window in what is, I hope, winter's last wave goodbye.  We had a couple of huge snowstorms making for a lot of 'fun', as a pedestrian cutting through six-foot high 'snowbanks' at the side of the road, and entertainment, as you see the odd cyclist nosedive straight into them.

My philosophy is, as much as possible, to embrace winter and just layer on the right clothing and get out there although I must admit there are days when the biting wind and cold does get to you and all you want to do is bury yourself under the covers!  My friends and I bit the bullet this year with a 'winter activity weekend' adventure to Arrowhead Provincial Park close to the town of Huntsville.  We had a great time learning how to cross-country ski in the beautiful forest and, although some of us may have ended up on our bums a few times, having a bit of difficulty switching downhill technique to cross-country skis it was a huge amount of fun and kept us very warm amid the -20 degree temperatures.

Inspired by some of the local creativity we saw, we also decided to have a bit of a snowlady building competition but sadly, our creations, Elizabeth and Frida, were destroyed overnight.  We were devastated and spent the next day hunting down 'Jack the Frost, snowlady murderer of Hunstville".

My friend Darlene and I enjoyed our cross-country skiing taster so much that we decided to head out again and joined up with the Trakkers ski club and had another superb day up at the Wasaga Nordic Centre skiing through the trails around the lakeside beach area a few weeks later.

Not long after, however, I was given a bit of a break from the winter cold when I headed over to Europe.  I was able to enjoy a long weekend in England en route to do some business in the Ukraine and Turkey.  This time I focused my visit in the south of England and stayed with my dear friend Annie and her family, including my godson Alex, in Windsor.  It was lovely to see the Bedford family and meet their latest addition, little Georgina.  We also enjoyed a delicious traditional pub meal of fish and chips at the rather delightful Belgian Arms pub in Holyport owned by Nick Parkinson, son of the celebrity TV chat show host, Michael Parkinson.

I also ventured to Brighton to catch up with another dear friend, Jo, and her family.  We had a fun 24 hours enjoying the sunshine, seaside and all things British!

I went back to Windsor and my parents then came down to join me for a couple of days.  We had a lovely time doing the tourist thing and exploring Windsor Castle, watching the changing of the guard, checking out the Queen's own farm shop, enjoying the sunset across the playing fields of Eton and spending a bit of quality time together.

We also went to the Cotswolds area to see my granny just before she moved out of her house in the village of Bishop's Cleeve into a residential home in the north of England close to my aunt in Alnwick.  She will be celebrating her 92nd birthday this coming week and was in remarkably good form all things considered.


I headed on to the Ukraine, which was a new country for me to check off on my list of countries visited, and started a hectic schedule of meetings and education fairs for the next few weeks.  I started off in Kiev where I was thrilled to sample real Chicken Kiev although, I have to say, we were actually very impressed by all the food offered up in Ukraine and I now understand why it was known as the former USSR's bread-basket.

We had a somewhat hilarious Saturday night train journey travelling on the new high-speed trains brought from Korea for the Euro 2012 soccer championships to Kharkiv.  It all started after a long day doing a fair in Kiev and then trundling 100 heavy bags up and down various flights of stairs at Kiev's railway station.  Having packed 30 Canadian recruiters and 20 diplomats and support staff into a first-class carriage the waiter came through with the beer trolley.  That's when things started to go downhill!  A number of the male members of the party decided to hit the Baltika beer quite hard and eventually were asked to move into the restaurant car for being a tad 'light-hearted'.  What ensued was a most entertaining evening of friendly inter-continental competitive arm-wrestling in the restaurant car between the Canucks and the Ukrainians.  The Ukrainians won.  And there were a lot of sore heads and arms among the male members of the Canadian party the next morning!  After Kharkiv, we moved on to Dnipropetrovsk where we stayed and held the education fair in the world's largest Jewish centre, at the Menorah Centre. Built in the shape of a menorah candelabrum, the centre was huge and had recently opened.

After a few days back in Kiev running between meetings on the world's deepest underground system, I then flew onto Turkey and joined a second tour, also organized by the Canadian government.  This five city tour took in Ankara, Izmir, Adana (near the Syrian border), Bursa and Istanbul.  It really was a bit of a whistle-stop tour and again I hardly had time to see much other than the inside of the hotels as I was attending meetings and the education fairs most of the time but I did manage to go for a bit of a wander in Bursa, where I was also staying in the rather lovely Celik Palas Spa Hotel that had been built on the orders of Kemal Ataturk and has been recently renovated.

Bursa is really the heart of the Ottoman Empire and although it was only very brief I was fascinated to wander around the old 'hans' or caravansaries, specialist markets where traders would come to exchange goods.  Possibly my favourite was Koza Han, the silk han.  Of course, I couldn't resist making some purchases of the local silk scarves and sampling a cup of traditional Turkish tea in the courtyard.  I also loved the nearby mosque, which had some amazing caligraphy samples decorating its interior.

I didn't have much time to explore my old haunts in Istanbul this time but I did manage to enjoy a cup
of tea in the famed Pera Palace Hotel, where Agatha Christie stayed when she wrote Murder on the Orient Express.  It, too, has been recently renovated and is really rather splendid compared to the dusty old relic I recall from the days when I lived in Istanbul.

As mentioned, this trip to Europe was really very busy with little time for sightseeing and, on top of that, I had a few disasters.  I managed to lose one of my credit cards and drop my smartphone down the loo, wiping out its functionality along with all my stored data (calendar and many of my contacts) so if you haven't updated me with your contact details, please do.

Unfortunately, on top of my mishaps (or perhaps it should be factoring towards them?), just before I set off for the UK, I had contracted a rather nasty ear infection that stayed with me throughout my European travels and meant that I actually lost my hearing completely in my right ear.  It was very frustrating but also quite worrying as well as uncomfortable and exhausting.  I was obviously anxious about flying but was deemed OK to fly by the doctors and dosed up on antibiotics but it turned out that this did not really sort the problem out.  It wasn't until after I got back to Toronto and had the medication adjusted after almost five weeks since the onset of the problem that it finally got resolved and my hearing returned.  Fortunately, everything seems to be OK now but I am still awaiting some test results to check that there has been no permanent damage.

So, all in all, although this trip was productive and enjoyable in many ways, it was also a bit of a trying one at times!

Since getting back, I have put my energies into recovering and sorting things out as well as working on my first ever academic conference paper, which has now been submitted.  Produced jointly with my colleague, we have looked into the topic of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and how they are impacting continuing education.  I undertook my first ever MOOC in February via Coursera so used this experience as a basis for my research.  It's been interesting and whether or not the paper is accepted and published, I've found the whole process a great 'brain stretch'.

Coming up soon, I will again be stretching myself but in a physical way by tackling the Toronto Sporting Life 10k in aid of Camp Ooch.  Along with my colleagues at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies we shall be raising funds to send kids suffering from cancer to camp this summer.  Last year, we were able to send two kids.  If we could top that this year, it would be amazing.  If you would like to help us in whatever way you can, we would love your support.  Please see: https://www.ooch.org/utorontoscs. Many thanks!