15. How to Beat the Post-Travel Blues

Jet lag, like hangovers, worsens with age. But the pounding head and sleepless nights don’t compare to the pit of depression that is the post travel blues.

It’s now been a whole week since we’ve been back from our six-week-long honeymoon in Europe, and I’ve got it bad. We spent the first few days walking around in a trance, dazed and confused to be back at work, back at home. Happy but overwhelmed to be surrounded once again by friends and family. Well-rested but exhausted with the real world. Yes, our sleep cycles have finally returned to normal – but something still isn’t quite right. I’ve got to cure these blues. Continue reading

14. Eurotrip, an Itinerary

8 hours to go and it still feels so surreal.

The last week has been riddled with so much stress that we haven’t had a chance to feel the buzz of anticipation. Are we really jumping on a plane tonight? Will I really not have to look at another project schedule or budget for six glorious weeks? Can we really escape reality and just remember what it is to be us?

Here’s a reality check: The Itinerary


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Destination: Prague, Czech Republic

Day trip: The Bone Church, Kutna Hora (two hours outside of Prague)

Destination: Cologne, Germany
Random fact: Cologne Cathedral has the second-tallest spires, and the largest facade, of any church in the world.

Destination: Paris, France
Most looking forward to: Dinner at 58 Eiffel, thanks to a very generous wedding gift from Terry and Robin!
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13. Packing Tips for Thirty Kilos Plus a Carry-On

It is now only 11 days ’til we leave – unable to contain the butterflies in my belly any longer, I decide to attempt the trial pack.

We drag the suitcases out of storage; a ripe, stacked babushka for those more inclined to airplanes than dolls. I open the suitcases after too many (long) years of hibernation… and it hits me. The heady musk of travel. I reel at that familiar, favourite scent, the unzippered bag grinning at me as the memories flood back; one whiff and I’m back in Oslo, hauling the stuffed red cases onto a jolting tram and trying to no avail to keep them upright; in Chiba, unpacking them on tatami mats at a Ryokan near the black shores of the North Pacific; and in Koh Yao Noi, desperately rummaging through them for mosquito repellant in the tropical Thai heat. Continue reading

12. A Departure Checklist

If you’re anything like me, the excitement of a holiday either hits you hard at the very last minute, as leave work on a Friday afternoon at 6pm before you board a 10pm flight — or you spend six months counting down to it, crossing off the calendar days, triple-checking the weather forecast, picking out movies on the in-flight entertainment program in advance. There is no happy medium, no sliding comfortably into the warm knowledge of an upcoming trip. It’s butterflies-in-the-belly one way or the other. It’s silly, really, to get so worked up over a holiday, but I can’t help it. I have the travel bug bad.

I find the only way to combat the mind-churning, heart-pounding, sleepless nights, is to do a brain-dump, and make a checklist. With just a few weeks to go, these are a few things that I need to tick off – perhaps you should add these to your list as well? Continue reading

02. Wings; or, My Obsession with Travel

I’m one of the lucky ones, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Travel, for me, is a life-long love-affair. Something I was born with, something that was bred into me. It is a family tradition and a birthright, a gift bestowed upon me by my parents from a very young age (and for that, I will be eternally grateful). Of course, everyone has a right to choose their own priorities, but I’ve not known life without it, and for me, an existence without the promise of travel, is not worthy of living at all.

So, you can imagine the bewilderment I experience when I hear someone utter the words, “Oh, I’ve done Europe already“, or ” I’ve gotten travel out of my system“. I can’t help but wonder; were these poor souls born without wings, or are they simply ignorant? Do they live in a turvy-topsy world? Have they attached themselves to a turvy-topsy drip in a turvy-topsy hospital, siphoned the passion for life out of their beating veins and fastened the padlocks on their caged spirits? On second thoughts, perhaps I do not want to know how these automatons tick, what dreams – if any – their mechanical cogs may conjure. It frightens me to imagine a world without wonder, without discovery, without the many exquisite pleasures that travel brings.

What I love most about it, is the phenomenon of air-travel. I boarded my first plane before I had taken my first step, and seen the interior of a cock-pit before I started school. Soon, the dreams began – always the same – I would run and jump and bound into flight, soaring through the skies, feeling the wind wrap around my bare limbs. Carried by the currents, I would float like an eagle on the undulating tides. I felt like Superman, invincible, free. I was five or six, and ever since, I have been drawn to the musty smell of old suitcases, the buzz and clinic-clean of airports, the functional routine of airplanes. The scent of the international terminal is electric, exciting, pure adrenalin. There is adventure within those air-conditioned walls; I love to watch people greet and farewell each other with open arms and free-flowing tears at both Departures and Arrivals, I love the chocolate shop that promises hours of indulgence for the long flight ahead, the bad coffee, and the expensive last-minute bookshop. I love the anticipation while I wait, sitting amongst the rows of identical seats, listening for my flight to be called. I muse on the adventures to come, savouring every memory before I’ve made them.
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