It feels strange to be back in Canada after four weeks on the road. So much has happened during that time.

I’m actually writing those words while traveling on a train in Germany. I’m scheduling for them to be posted the morning after my return flight, when I expect to be a little jet-lagged and perhaps not yet ready to form a coherent thought. But I already know being back in Canada is going to feel strange. And hope travel glitches were minor and I’m not lying as to my whereabouts.

The trip was a mix of business and pleasure. So much so that the line between the two was a little blurred.

In Egypt there was family to visit. That was the primary purpose of the trip. (There was also a lunch with former colleagues. Was that business or pleasure?) The idea was to enjoy family, so the amount of traditional tourism was limited. I think I have also reached the point in life where I want to relax between tourist sites. The old days of being on the go from dawn to dark don’t appeal.

Still, I did visit the pyramids, which means I have now been to five of the ten most-visited tourist attractions on the planet. I’ll definitely be posting about that experience. My sister told me I could cross them off my bucket list. I didn’t know I had a bucket list. It must have been misplaced somewhere.

In the UK it was strictly business. First in-person staff meeting in three years for the NGO I give a lot of time to. A lot of work (I led a workshop), but time spent with colleagues as well. We are a small organization, and I had never met some of the people I work with daily. They joined the organization in the past two years and the pandemic has prevented face-to-face contact until now. I may have snapped a photo of a country road on an early morning walk, but I doubt I’ll be posting much, if anything, about that leg of the trip.

In Germany there was also family to visit, but as much time was spent with colleagues and others I met while living there from 2017 to 2019. I didn’t do anything that I would describe as “touristy” but there will be a few posts from the time spent there. Among other things, I snapped a couple of photos to illustrate an unpublished post I wrotebefore leaving Germany in 2021. Now I just have to remember where I saved those words.

All this travel came while staying in touch with colleagues in Canada. The work goes on and I usually had internet, except when I was flying. Which means the trip wasn’t really vacation, and wasn’t always relaxing.

At the end of any trip, I have no desire to travel again, ever. I say that knowing that I’ve already got flights scheduled for Canada and Europe later this year, and another couple in the discussion stages. Add to that a couple of visits to the US by car and I’m already feeling tired.  

But not too tired to feel excited by what I will be posting here in the days and weeks to come. Some of my thoughts will be standard tourist experiences. Some will have more in-depth analysis of places and experiences. Over the next month or so, I’ll be looking at the notes I jotted down at the moment and fleshing them out. I’ll also be catching up on some Canadian and world events and giving my thoughts on those.

If we had seatbelts here I’d tell you to buckle them for the ride. Which is silly, I don’t think there’s much likelihood of crashing. (This train may be running at 148 km/hr, but my writing isn’t.) It does feel good to be home.