It’s been quite a while since we checked your blog … but you have obviously been keeping it up to date. It is wonderful to read, so full of enthusiasm and enjoyment of life.

I can empathize with your feelings about returning to a former home. I guess things change around us constantly, but we don’t necessarily notice them. When you have been away from somewhere for a while and then come back, the changes are so obvious and overwhelming that they “hit you right in the face” or in the wallet or some other tender part of the anatomy. Every time I go back to England, I really enjoy some aspects of it, but there are so many features that I could not endure on a daily basis that I am always glad to come home.

Keep up the blog writing. It is a delight to read.

Hope to see you guys again at some point in time.

Paul and Donna

Its hard. Its hard when you return home (for me the USA) and everything there thats turned on turns you off. While we cant blame anyone for not giving themselves the gift of travel, it a shame that its not a law to do so and leave your country to see whats out there. Why are all these people saying hello to me as i walk down the street? Why are they smiling at me? Why arent they drinking out of plastic bottles? Why are peoples parents living with them in thier houses till they are 100? When you have less, you have more. I dont hate the USA (or Canada!) but after spending even just a short time travelling where the values are different, and time is more precious than things, its hard not to bring the truth into the foreground. Some folks will just never know, and that is a little sad. Travel, grow, live and love. You will never look at the world the same if you give yourself this gift. Actually I dont think EVERYONE should travel,…someone needs to stay behind to keep making that Maple Syrup…

O Canada who is going to pay the cancelation fees?? These people work very hard for their money.

It is amazing how people and their lives change … certainly a different point of view.

The life you are living here is so different to the life we are living here.

I think the comparison is a good one.

Returning home is strange. You see it differently. Your perspective is changed. I have seen the same things. For what a simple tank of gas costs in Canada, I can eat for 2 weeks at restaurants in China. I don’t need a car. A typical taxi ride is 1 to 2$. I am too scarred to get a bicycle. A friend had a root canal done for about 150$ after getting a 5000$ estimate in Canada.

The environmental foot print is so different. Cars are tiny, food is local, and everything is recycled. You learn that you really don’t need very much.

Canada is polite, clean, orderly, natural and cold. – All things I miss.

Canada also, is and most probably will always be home. Take every opportunity to travel, see the world.