I ain't no Mary Poppins...

My! How things have moved on! Since my last post, life has included a lot of these... 

 and these can be found everywhere...

because we have a date!

and even more excitingly,

we've booked a flight!!!

Although life has thrown us some of it's curve balls of late, we have finally made some progress and committed to leaving the UK on Tuesday 6th September for a short holiday with friends in California, before boarding a Greyhound bus to take us over the border and up to Vancouver a few weeks later.

You may remember me mentioning on a previous post how happy I was to find Icelandair - and how useful ( and realistic!) I thought their baggage allowance was. This was a major factor for us as we will need to take summer/winter/ski and work wear with us in addition to our snowboards, for a reasonable price and as we wanted to fly to the US first, it really was hard to find an airline that would encompass all of this without breaking the bank. So after much debate, we decided a 2 hour layover in Reykjavik more than made up for all the money we would save trying to ship our stuff over or paying the extortionate excess baggage fees. On top of this everyone I have spoken to from the company in various departments have been so helpful and friendly - I would definitely recommend them to my friends!

So what's next? Well as you can see from our list -  a lot!

The pink lines are things that are done, and that's not many. Especially when extra items are getting added on a daily basis.

Most tasks are quite simple and wont take very long: ie: 'phone bank to tell them I will be overseas', however, these are followed on the irritate-o-meter by the median jobs such as 'fill out tax forms' , which are followed in turn by the jobs we really really don't want to do, like 'empty the garage' or the dreaded 'sort through the tupperware'

Unfortunately, it all has to be completed in some sort of order - with a lot being left until the last minute as we gradually palm things off to unsuspecting family members (my nan received 2 lovely Gothic black candelabras when she last visited, accompanied by the ever present warning of"careful - I might want that back in 12 months!") or as we sell what we can on eBay.

So, 9 weeks to go. Where are we at? Well, we have...

• informed the landlady of our intention to leave
• sold most of our furniture to the new tenant
• booked our flight and started looking at things we want to do in California
• sold ~ £300 worth of clothes and DVD's on eBay on our first attempt
• started moving non everyday items to the other half's mother's loft
• errrrrr....read books on Canada?!

So were not that organised, but we are getting there. Over the next 9 weeks I'll try and keep you all updated on how its going until....my first Canadian blog!

I cant tell if I'm excited or terrified!

Aimée L’amour x

www.twitter.com/aimeelamour

Oh Canada!

I hold my hands up! I've been neglecting my blogging duties of late. Like many of us, I got caught up in a spiral of festive buying, eating and visiting. Christmas and New Year came and went and before I knew it I was into February, with nothing to show for all my well wrapped presents and carefully planned outfits but a bit of festive weight gain!

 I started to write many a time, honest, but the truth is I just didn't know what I wanted to say.

I started a blog so that I would have something to create, a project to nurture. The trouble is that until recently, I didn't really know what I wanted it to become.

Those that know me will know that travelling is a pretty big part of who I am. The importance of understanding and appreciating different cultures was instilled in me by my parents and is something that has always stayed with me. To me, the value of travel is not about ranking destinations in the order you like best, but in understanding the ideas and community that creates both the good and bad in your guide book.

I was lucky enough to recently visit British Columbia in Canada whilst on a trip to Whistler. Now I know what you're thinking, ski holidays aren't known for their diverse culture and eye opening experiences, but this holiday re-acquainted me with ambitions I held as a youngster, and forced me to ask myself why I had let the aspirations of a 14 year old Aimée fade into the shadows?

10 years ago I spent a summer travelling north along the west coast of North America with my parents and younger brother. We started in Las Vegas and continued through the Utah desert to the Grand Canyon before winding our way through the Rockies and up through British Columbia, culminating at the top of Whistler mountain. As a know-it-all teen I took it all in my stride, Vegas one day, Vancouver Island the next, whatever... but something about that trip inspired us all. Upon our return my parents hastily looked into a move to Canada. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, it was not a feasible decision and their ambitions, as well as my own, were shelved.

Over the next 10 years we would share our pipe dreams of spending our summers sailing and mountain biking and winters snowboarding amongst the picturesque backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, with Downtown Vancouver being the destination of choice. Discussions, often prompted by newspaper cuttings and text book photocopies my grandad would send in the post detailing the booming Canadian economy, low greenhouse effect and Vancouver's 4th place in worldwide quality of life polls (with handwritten comments such as "You have to go now, they will close the doors!"  scrawled along the edges) would ignite the light behind my eyes and my mind would wander. But its not that easy, is it?

As the coach steadily made its way down the boisterous Sea to Sky Highway, which as the name suggests, stretches from the coast all the way up to the mountain resorts, I felt myself well up. It had taken me 10 years to return,  and I damn well wasn't ready to leave. Every street we turned into took us one step closer to the familiarity of home, yet I felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under me and each lurch of the coach was taking another opportunity away - an opportunity that I was yet to explore and had my name written all over it. By the time we arrived at check in I was more than emotional.

I decided there and then that I was not not going to let any more ambitions get the better of me, and so I sat in the departure lounge using the free wi-fi to look into visa's and flight information. This was all a bit of a shock for my boyfriend to say the least, but he has, at least so far, been more understanding than I could have hoped for. I'm lucky that he shares my sense of adventure and knows me well enough to know when I'm serious about something and when I'm not.

I've been back less than a week, but I have already made visa enquiries and have found that I can, in the first instance apply for a years working visa, which can then be extended for a second year if I am accepted. I'm not thinking that far ahead. I will go with one year in mind and see where life takes me. I'm lucky enough that Vancouver offers a metropolitan city which means I will have a greater chance of furthering my career than if I stayed in England, and I am hoping this will satisfy the other ambition in me - to be a success.


So there we have it - I finally have a reason to blog. My blog is about achieving my ambitions, how and why. I would like to think that I will make a concerted effort not to let dreams slip away. You cant do everything in life, but I'll give it a go....

Here is a little of what inspires me:

  

Whats your ambition?

Aimée L’amour x

www.twitter.com/aimeelamour