DawnO – Page 4 – robodawno.com

May 7, 2023May 10, 2023

Gems

Our time in Tunisia has continued to surpass our expectations, mostly because of our interactions with Tunisians. We took a train to the industrial city of Sfax. It’s not a big tourist destination, but we used it as a jumping off point to visit El Jem, which is one of the best preserved Roman amphitheatres in the world. What a gem it was. Of course we concluded our visit with the ‘tourist tax’ camel ride.

In Sfax we stayed in one of my favourite AirBnB experiences in the world thus far. Mohamed and his family hosted us in their home. We were surprised when they cooked breakfasts and dinners for us and how much time we spent talking over tea and coffee. It was a true cultural exchange and a connection that can be difficult to achieve in a short time in a different country. We talked about life goals and challenges and could see how alike we are, despite completely different lives. If you ever come to Tunisia let me know and I will connect you with this gem of an AirBnB. We were delighted when before we left Mohamed agreed to try one of RockyB’s classic ‘jump shots’.

We said goodbye to Mohamed and his family and headed to Djerba, which is an island off the coast of Tunisia. We opted to take a mini-bus, which was a pretty fun system to figure out. We paid for a ticket and found the corresponding van, then waited about an hour for it to fill with passengers so we could set off.

Almost every time I looked out the front window of the van I could see the driver giving me what I perceived to be the stink eye.

We passed by hours and hours of olive trees.

We saw a sign for camels crossing, then actually saw some camels crossing!

When we stopped at a gas station, I asked 2 of our bus mates who spoke some English if the driver didn’t like us. They said that no, in fact he was quite chuffed that he had 2 Canadians on board. After that we had a couple of interactions where he told us, through gestures and broken French, that he wished that we could communicate but felt that we were still able to get our points across. He even made 2 extra stops to try to buy a new traditional cd for us to listen to, much to the annoyance of the other passengers.

Another gem of a story: One of our fellow passengers also chatted with us at a rest stop and let us know that he is the member of parliament from Djerba Island. He was proud to be the youngest member of parliament and told us that he will be the president of Tunisia one day. When we got to the ferry terminal he decided to use his pull to get us to the front of the line. It took so much time that 2 of our passengers bailed and opted to walk on to the ferry, but he indeed succeeded and our little bus was first on the ferry for the next crossing!

Now on Djerba Island we’ve done a Rock-Awn 1st… we’re staying at an all-inclusive resort. Hopefully our gem experiences will continue.

May 2, 2023May 4, 2023

Look for the helpers

This latest adventure started with a full day layover in Amsterdam. I wasn’t thinking much about it until the day before when I realized that it is the perfect timing for the tulip fields. A long walk on a sunny day was a sure jet-lag buster.

I arrived in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, close to midnight and made my way to the guesthouse where RockyB was waiting. That’s right… this trip is Rock-Awn 6.0!!! Our guesthouse guy looked at me and told me I looked sporty, then proceeded to lead me up this crazy spiral staircase to our room. After a good sleep and no water in the morning (water restriction due to a countrywide drought), we headed out for day 1 of exploring.

The medina (old city) of Tunis is a Unesco World Heritage site and it was fun to explore the tiny pathways and eclectic shops.

We spent the afternoon in the town of Sidi Boussaïd which has ocean views and classic blue and white buildings.

This morning we felt ready to ‘dial up our adventure’ and try to figure out the Louage system, which is Tunisia’s version of mini-buses. We amazingly happened to wander our way to what seemed to be a Louage hangout. A very helpful Tunisian guy wrote down our instructions in Arabic and flagged down a cab to take us a very long way to the correct station. On the way RockyB used Google translate pictures to try to read what he had written and it said something about dying or crawling or something. I’m choosing to believe he had poor penmanship.

At the Louage station there was some commotion with a few drivers (maybe fighting over us?) and then we were off. It took about 90 minutes and another cab ride to get to El Dougga, which is ’the best preserved Roman small town in North Africa’.

We were celebrating our travel prowess while exploring the ruins. It was not until we got back to the closest town that we found out that the public transportation to Tunis stops running at 4:00. We cleared our heads with a delicious sandwich from a street vendor, where we held out a handful of change and he picked through to find the correct amount. This has occurred a few times because we haven’t figured out the coins yet.
With full tummies we felt ready to make a plan. Armed with Google translate, we chose a person to ask for help and immediately a kind man took charge. Our hero marched over to a taxi and a mini-bus and bartered for a quite reasonable price to get back to Tunis. He even included two Tunisian women he found who were heading part of the way to sweeten the deal. Like a mother hen he settled us both into the front seat of the mini-bus and waived us away.

On the ride home it was fitting that there was a rainbow, with the pot of gold landing in the direction of Tunis.

Undeterred by our travel mistakes, we opted to try our hand at public transport again to get to our guesthouse. Again a lovely man stopped and ‘hunt and peck’ typed into our translation app how to get where we needed to be.
Our assessment of Tunisian people has been very positive. They seem to be genuinely helpful and sincere, even despite our apparent stupidity with currency and language. I also have to give a shout out to Tunisian food.

Looks like Rock-Awn is doing what we do best… having great adventures that sometimes end up with even better stories.

February 16, 2023February 20, 2023

Jakarta Start

Back in August I was itching to book some travel. I asked RobO if I could pull the trigger on the next cheap deal that lit me up and hoped it would be somewhere in Asia. The very next day a seat sale to Indonesia came up and I pounced.

Having travelled as much as we have, we have strong preferences on the types and timings of the flights that we book, so I was less than enthusiastic when United made some major changes to our booking. We ended up with an overnight layover in Houston, which is a great excuse to visit our cousin Byron and hit up our favourite Tex-Mex place, Manny’s. This time we also got to meet one of Byron’s friends Troy, who travels a lot for work. As luck would have it, Troy had expiring United points and upgraded our first flight to business class. Total game changer.

Our schedule change also gave us a couple of days in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. I wasn’t all that jazzed about time in a sprawling Asian capital city and it delivered as anticipated.
We stayed in Glodok, which is the Chinatown area. The sights and smells were like any Chinatown market we’ve visited around the world.

We reacquainted ourselves with the terrifying act of crossing a busy street. The key is to start walking and without changing pace as the drivers accommodate. To me every time feels like it will be my last street crossing and I have to strongly resist the urge to sprint to safety.

We visited the Old Town area which has Dutch colonial architecture. I could imagine how beautiful it would have been in it’s prime.

We were struck by the genuine helpfulness of some Indonesian people including:

a bus driver who drove us to another place, got out of the bus to show us how to buy tickets and where to catch the correct bus.
a guy who came sprinting across the subway station with bills to change our money to the ones that would go in the ticket machines.
many smiling and welcoming faces.

First peanut sauce, but also first Bali-belly

After 2 days in the city we were thrilled to fly to paradise. Here’s a sneak peak.

July 14, 2022July 25, 2022

Budapest Manifest

From the very beginning of this trip we have had countless situations where we seem to be thinking something into reality. There have been big examples like believing that we can be at Wimbledon Centre Court and small examples like wanting a bike coffee break and all of a sudden, in the middle of nowhere, a coffee stand appears. I can think of at least 10 other situations where we have seemingly manifested something.

One of the best/worst examples (depending on who you talk to) is the story of RobO’s swim trunks. Way back at Wimbledon RobO realized that he had forgotten his swimsuit. As we were walking in our neighbourhood we noticed a charity thrift shop. Upon entry there was little hope as it was mostly racks of women’s clothing. When Rob asked the clerk she told him he could try to look through the bargain bin. He dug around and found only one set of men’s swim trunks, which were … PERFECT*.

RobO says ”eyes up here”. *Well maybe one size up would have been better.

Our first day in Budapest we treated our weary bodies to a couple of hours at the Széchenyi Baths. If you ever wanted to feel like you’re soaking, steaming, and sauna-ing in the middle of an oil painting this is your place.

There is also a ’beer spa’ on site, where we soaked in a tub of hops, malt, and salt beside our own unlimited beer spigot (or numerous alcoholic seltzers if you’re gluten free!). It was weird, but a fun experience nonetheless.

The city is divided by the Danube river. On the west side of the river is the ’Buda’ side, which has lots of hills and monuments that feel really regal. On the east side is ’Pest’, which also has a lot of sites, but feels a bit more trendy. We easily got the hang of the metro and trams and ended up crossing the river a couple of times during the day.

Throughout our trip we’ve seen lots of flags and posters in support of the Ukraine. I couldn’t help but think of those when we were at the ’Shoes at the Danube’ memorial.

We spent the late afternoon in the golden sunshine at the Fisherman’s Bastion. Do not miss this spot when you visit Budapest.

Some of our favourite shots from our wanders:

Another great Olson holiday is in the books. I have to give a big shout out to RobO on this one. This trip we relied on a lot of teamwork and positive encouragement and I couldn’t have asked for a better person to share it with.

We have a few potential trip plans in the works, so we’ll keep working on manifesting something!

July 8, 2022July 13, 2022

Castle on the Hill

Still riding the Wimbledon high we boarded a flight to Vienna, Austria. The buildings are so inspiring it’s no wonder so much classical music was composed here.

We spent the day wandering and in the evening we went to a string quartet concert in St. Peter’s church. Of course there was also good beer, food, and coffee along the way.

We had missed climbing the tower or St. Stephen’s church (337 stairs up!) so headed there first thing in the morning.

We packed up our rented panniers and bikes to start our journey along the Danube River to Budapest. Perhaps now would be a good time to mention that our longest ’training ride’ was about 25kms and that the itinerary for Day 1 was 337 stairs up (and down), plus 74kms on the bike. Though there were times that saddle-ass was setting in, the route was flat and scenic. We lucked out with pleasant temperatures, overcast skies, and a tailwind most of the way.

Our bikes (Wolfgang and Ludwig) at a watering hole along the way

It was exciting when we got our first sight of Bratislava’s castle.

We have 2 nights in Bratislava to rest our butts and check out the sights. It’s one of Europe’s smallest capital cities but has big bang for our buck in tourist sights.

UFO bridge that we rode over to get into town

Next up: 4 consecutive days on the bike. Eep!

February 20, 2022February 20, 2022

O Yeah

Let me just back up to the inception of this trip. If you were bored enough to read our quarantine blogs from March 2020 you may remember that I won 2 free flights anywhere that Qatar Airways flies as a promotion for health care workers (thanks again Kerry for the info!). In the fall of 2020 I bought a fully refundable dream Maldives package for peanuts. Put those two things together, add a lot of luck, a few negative Covid tests, and, voila:

In the 3 weeks leading up to this holiday, as Covid cases were blowing up all around us, we were self quarantining to give ourselves the best chance of being able to do this holiday. This meant cancelling other adventures, isolating from friends and family, and drowning in the anxiety of every work interaction. There were many moments that I questioned if the holiday would be worth it. (Spoiler alert: it is always worth it!) I was also wondering if I was still someone who craves adventures. (A resounding yes.) Thank goodness for RobO’s unwavering optimism that we could do this.

I knew that I needed this holiday, but the scale of how much it was needed I had no idea. I can feel freedom and relaxation and deep breaths and joy without the buzz kill of the ‘vid creeping in. O yeah, this is a true holiday!

In typical Olson fashion we have mastered the mix of ‘relaction’. New to the activity list was to try scuba diving. RobO took to it well enough to be able to wield an underwater camera, while I spent the whole time clinging to our instructor trying not to have a panic attack and/or die. In my defence we both had crappy flippers and often felt like we were floating in outer space with no ability to direct our movements. In future I’ll stick with snorkelling, which, around here, is the best I’ve ever seen.

One morning we were lucky enough to find this guy sleeping outside of our overwater bungalow.

We also saw so many baby sharks that we started to forget to look for them.

We’ve now moved out of our over-water villa and to a beach villa, which is like the move from the Rose Video empire to Schitt’s Creek. We’ve jokingly nicknamed it ‘the slum’. I guess our infinity pool is now the open ocean. I know one thing for sure, we will be missing our outdoor shower when we leave.

Next up is 1 more idyllic day followed by 30 hours of travelling, 2 days in Houston, and the trip home. May the Gods be ever in our favour.

July 7, 2021July 7, 2021

Back in the ‘Hood

I put the small seaside town of Powell River on our itinerary for a specific reason: I lived here from ages 2-4 so I wanted to see if it might jog a childhood memory or two in my amnesiac brain.

Spoiler alert: no memories, but we did freak out the new owners of my old house when we were taking pictures of it (they said they thought their property taxes were being reevaluated!).

Almost a 40 year gap. The house looks a bit different without the front hedge and with some updates.

I also had the goal of hiking at least two sections of the Sunshine Coast Trail. Unfortunately it was cloudy/foggy at the top of Tin Hat so I missed the views, though I met some great company in 3 women who were spending 4 days on the trail. Usually when we’re on holiday I add more places to the list than I can check off and this time was no exception. Anyone want to hike a few days of this fantastic hut to hut trail with me?

Even without the ocean views it’s beautiful in its own way

Otherwise we filled our time with the usual Olson ‘relaction’, the perfect combo of adventure and relax time.

Doug: It was no golf-frolf-a-palooza, but we hit 5 different disc golf courses along the way

We saw so many bald eagles right over our heads that RobO thought it might be my spirit animal

We gave this family a wide berth when we met them on the disc golf course

Candied salmon in the mussels? Yes, please!

A sunset that cements the need to come back here

We rounded out our last couple of days back in Vancouver with family. We had a fab day sailing from Granville Island, did some beer tasting, and caught up after a long time between visits. It has been a West Coast holiday that gives us lots of reasons to come back. Can’t wait for the next one!

February 3, 2021

Winter Joy

Though we live in Canada we often spend our winter vacations getting away from the cold and snow. This year (for obvious reasons) RobO requested a few days in Canmore for his birthday. It’s pretty easy to find joy in the snow when we lucked out with above zero temperatures and sunshiny views.

On the first day we got up early to head to Lake Louise to skate on the lake without the crowds. Mother Nature must have been laughing at us when we arrived to more than a foot of fresh snow, making for impossible skating conditions. No problem for these Olsons – we strapped on our snowshoes and enjoyed an untouched powder route.

We chased the sunshine to Lake Minnewanka and checked the lake skate off the bucket list with unparalleled views and only a handful of other people.

We rounded out the day with a Banff coffee stop and pizza in bed.

Day 2 started off with blue skies. We enjoyed a winter hike at the Nordic Centre and walk along the river. We definitely earned our afternoon massages. Then an evening skate helped us earn our nightcap wine!

We woke up on Rob’s birthday to another pow-day, this time with a bonus bluebird sky. We headed into Kananaskis for an epic snowshoe to Troll Falls.

It was a winter wonderland adventure. It reminds us how lucky we are to live in this great country. Looks like we’ll have a Canadian summer adventure, so that will likely be our next blog.

September 5, 2020February 28, 2023

Rock-Awn Mini Pop

At the start of Covid I won 2 free flights with Qatar Airlines and Roxanne and I had big dreams of going to Armenia in October. As the fall drew nearer it became obvious that we should change tack.

The most obvious plan was to spend a week in the Okanagan, where she moved about a year ago. And so, the Rock-Awn Mini Pop vacation was born.

Of course there had to be some true adventure, so Rox booked us a night at a 125 year old hotel in Ymir, just outside of Nelson. It’s a maze of stairways and hallways covered with art, trinkets, and bad furniture from the 70s. She told me that there was a surprise (remember that the last accommodation surprise she had for me was no bathroom door in Mexico!). This time it was that our room had bunk beds! Awesome. My personal favourites were the 12” VHS TV combo in the common room and the fruit cups and Dad’s cookies for breakfast.

This town was definitely a people watching treat with a variety of ‘local yokles’.

Ymir Hotel Resort… we didn’t know how to say the town name and kept saying ‘ya-meer’ but it turns out it’s ‘why-mer’.

We spent the next day exploring Nelson and then had a couple of great pit stops on the drive to Kelowna.

We spent the next 5 days exploring the Kelowna area. One of the definite highlights was cycling the Myra Canyon Trestles.

Our days were filled with a lot of outdoor activity and delicious food.

Surf Side Taco truck: arguably the best in the world

I was lucky enough to catch up with 2 other Kelownite (Kelowner? Kelownian?) friends.

Jacky, who we volunteered with in Guyana

And finally, we did 2 different bracket competitions to determine our favourite plum and early apple.

I loved the Honey Crisp but was outvoted.

Another great holiday in the books. Thanks to Rocky and B Rod for the hospitality.

It was a great reminder that we have great travel destinations within Canada so there are lots of adventure possibilities, even in the time of Covid. Rock-Awn!

July 9, 2020February 28, 2023

Tiny House and Big Dreams

With a few vacation days to burn and a recommendation to stay within the province we decided to check off a couple of bucket list items in the Cochrane/Canmore area.

We started with a brief stop in Calgary to get some errands done. Nothing exciting, but it’s worth noting that the Apple store is leading the way with their COVID response. Anyone who says that people won’t go somewhere if there are mandatory symptom checks and mask usage should have a look at the lineup of people at the Apple stores.

I’ve always wanted to stay in a tiny house (well, tinier than our little condo) and I found the perfect Air BnB in Cochrane. If you’re looking for a cozy getaway with incredible breakfasts, check it out Hereabouts B&B.

img_2530-compressed — Port wine + tiny house = winning

I feel like I need to mention the breakfasts again in case you skimmed that last part. We had 2 choices each morning which accommodated our dietary needs, plus fresh garden produce and things like homemade ketchup. Wow.

We spent 1 day hiking Ha Ling Peak, which has been on my list for a while. It’s a lot of uphill on a well groomed track, then a scramble to the top. The views at the knife edge peak are a bit dizzy-making. When RobO arrived (after a lot of swearing, which he thought was only happening inside his head until I pointed out that I could hear it) he looked over the edge and said, “nope”.

img_0099-compressed — Freaky view, especially in the wind

We were lucky to have a wind free period of time before a rain cloud blew in, lowering the temperature by at least 10 degrees and making us feel a bit nervous with our footing.

The way down was slippery but uneventful and we celebrated with a treat on the empty Main Street of Canmore.

img_0100-compressed — Main Street is closed to traffic

The next day RobO had a visit with an old friend in Calgary while I headed back to Canmore, this time to hike the East End of Rundle with my friend Lyndsey. It was torrentially raining in Calgary and Cochrane, but we lucked out with mostly clear skies. It was cool to get views of Ha Ling from its neighbour.

img_3381-compressed — Ha Ling in the background

RobO and I pampered our weary legs at The Cave sauna in Cochrane, where we had 5 different types of saunas and 2 hours to try them all.

Top off the holiday with some tennis, Hamilton viewing, delicious takeaway suppers, port wine and it makes a pretty perfect Olson getaway.