Month: June 2016

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One Major Itinerary Decision Made

For months now, I’ve been trying to find the cheapest way to get myself to Europe. I knew there had to be a city that would be insanely inexpensive to get to even from Regina and from which I could get to my next destination for very little. I thought that Frankfurt might be that city and, indeed, there are great deals there, but it’s not the best deal.

As it turns out, the best deal is… London! Actually, both London and Glasgow are very close in price, but if you’re going on to Central and Eastern Europe, then you might as well go directly into London since you’d have to go through there from Glasgow anyway. I am finally ready to book a flight as soon as my passport gets here. I should be spending the last week of June (this month!) or the first week of July in London!

I have three options to get to London:

  1. I can pay out of pocket for the whole trip and do the Regina-Calgary-London route in 13 hours door-to-door. Rates for that are between $400 and $450, but I’m seeing deals as low as $325 on less desirable routes.
  2. I can use my travel reward points and pay only about $100 in taxes and fees, to do Regina to several different Canadian destinations to London, with super long layovers in 30 to 45 hours… If I had a job that I could literally do anywhere, that option would probably be a no brainer, but since I don’t I think I will save my points for the trip home and just pay out of pocket this time around since I’m not on a super tight budget.
  3. I’m going to keep monitoring deals from Toronto since I can get to Toronto for free with my points. If I find something under $300 from Toronto, it would be worth doing the trip this way.

From London, I am sitting on three different possibilities. From least to most likely:

  1. I am waiting to hear back about a housesitting assignment in London for July. I know that I would very likely never get another opportunity to spend a month so very near central London for very little cost, hence why I am considering such a twist in my travel plans. But I find this to be a very unlikely outcome and it’s not one I’m counting on.
  2. I am also waiting to hear back about another housesitting assignment in a mountain resort town outside of Prague, Czech Republic. I would really love for this to work out, but the family is having trouble confirming their travel plans even though we have been talking about this for over four months! I won’t know for another two weeks and so I’m not going to make any plans beyond London at this time. London to Prague, or just about anywhere else in Europe, is so inexpensive that I’ll be fine to book at the last minute.
  3. Just do a few days in London and then fly to Bulgaria or to some other destinations and take my time getting to Bulgaria.

London is one of the most expensive cities in the world and was never on my radar of places for me to visit. When I was in Scotland 18 years ago, a lot of folks told me I should take the train to London for a few days and even then I did not see the point when there was so much to see and do in Scotland. I never regretted my decision. So other than the British Museum, I had absolutely no idea until a couple of weeks ago what I would want to see or do in London, but I did know that I would regret not spending at least a few days there. Now, I have a bit of an itinerary sorted out and I’m beyond ready to get there! 🙂

So if option one doesn’t pan out, which would give me a lot of time to explore the city, I found surprisingly decent Airbnb rates for private rooms. So as long as the accommodation doesn’t all disappear before my passport gets here, I can treat myself to a holiday in London for four or five nights. It will give me time to get over the worst of the jet lag and to see a bit of that huge city. However, I may not have that much time if the Czech gig works out since at the rate my passport is taking, I won’t get to London till the very end of June and I would be needed near Prague on July 1st.

But if option one does out, I would be in London till August 12th, and then in Bulgaria through the rest of August, September, and as far into October as I can stand the weather. I will then need to find somewhere warmish and out of the Schengen Area to hole up until the end of December, when I would head to Portugal and/or southern Spain for three months.

If option two works out, I would be in the Czech Republic to the start of August. I wouldn’t have had time to visit Prague at the beginning of my stay, so I would spend some time there, then go to Poland for a week and then start working my way down to Bulgaria. I have a detailed itinerary for that planned where I’d be able to see Budapest, Bucharest, Belgrade, Athens, and a host of other cities and countries before arriving in Bulgaria at the start of September. I would then be there as long as I can stand the weather, up through the end of November, and then my itinerary would line up with the first option.

If neither of the first two options works out, I’m probably going straight to Bulgaria.

But, really, I’m not ready at this time to commit to anything beyond getting to London other than being certain that I will end up in Bulgaria at some point (I have not learned to say, “Beer, please,” and “thank you” for nothing!) and that I want to spend the dead of winter (January through March) in Portugal. The Schengen Area rules are making things complicated and I have to make up my mind about Turkey.

Things are going to move very quickly in the next couple of weeks! Soon as the passport’s here, I’ll book a flight and at least a couple of nights’ accommodation in London. Once I know what date I’m leaving, I can plan to terminate my vehicle insurance, my power, and my cell service, all of which will reduce my budget significantly and help me pay for things like my worldwide health insurance and a special commercial policy for my electronics.

I’ve got my packing list pretty much locked down and am awaiting just a few more online orders to be able to start packing trials. You can look forward to a detailed packing list post when I get to that point, something I’m sure the ladies will enjoy more than the men. 😉

And, of course, I want to keep working as much as I possibly can before I go! I’m starting to refill the coffers a little and I have as big a client load as I can juggle right now, so I am leaving with no concerns on the work end of things.

I just have to remind myself that I’m not heading on a year-long vacation and that my focus should be on staying long-term in a couple of locations (my preferred mode of travel anyway) than trying to hit as many countries as I can since, surely, this won’t be my last time across the pond…

So London! Last time I was in the UK, a pint in Scotland averaged about £1.25. I have a feeling I’m going to get severe sticker shock the first time I walk into a pub in a few weeks! 😀

 

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Why I Am Fighting for My Haven

I started this blog to record all aspects of my life, including my ferocious love for this little slice of Canada that seems so distant, in the best of ways, from the rest of the country. To the many of you who have told me to stop whining about the internet situation here and move, I feel so sorry for you. I feel sorry that you have never lived somewhere that you love as much as I love my Haven and I feel sorry that you have been brainwashed by this country’s government to believe that status quo is best and that nothing can or should change. I need to record this fight against the ultimate Goliath as I use links to posts in my missives to various companies, politicians, lawyers, and media outlets. I invite you to use your back button if you don’t want to read these posts.

For those of you who want to keep reading, this is my fourth summer at Haven, so it’s time to do a recap of why there is nowhere else in Canada for me to be.

In no particular order here are the things I love about my Haven.

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My cosy little homestead. I might have started off camping at Haven, but now it’s a proper home.

It’s right on the US border. There is nowhere else left along the Canada/US border but southern Saskatchewan where properties are still affordable. I lived near the US border nearly my whole life and that was important to me when began to look for a place to buy. I save a ton on shipping fees by having things sent to my parcel service in Montana and the proximity to inexpensive US fuel is a perk when heading south.

Haven is also right smack in the middle of the continent. All roads converge here, really. I’m never more than half a continent away from anything. I can get to BC and to Montreal in about the same amount of time. When I go Mexico, I don’t have to travel very far in Canada and I save a ton on fuel. Roads to Haven are really good and I’m close enough to the more traveled highways, like the TransCanada, that it’s not a huge detour for friends traveling between the eastern and western parts of the country to visit.

Most of the people in my community are likeminded non-conformists. They are self-sufficient people with a lot of common sense who don’t think I’m peculiar for living in my RV or wanting to travel. Conformists would ask me why I do these things. Non-conformists just ask how they can make my unusual lifestyle easier. We’re having trouble with our RM (rural municipality) management trying to bring in stupid rules like building permits (when we don’t even have building codes) or that we can’t have RVs on our lots or that we have to mow our lawns to certain standards. My neighbours’ and my response to that was laughter and resistance. If we wanted that kind of nonsense, we would have bought “in town.”

These are salt of the Earth people who measure their wealth as I do, by the joy they get out of their lives, not by the things they buy. There is no “keeping up with the Joneses” here. Nowhere else in all my travels have I landed somewhere with such a motley group of folks, not all of whom I like or like me, who so fiercely make me believe that I have found my people. I can be myself here without censorship and when people make fun of me, there is such affection in their tone that I cannot do anything but feel protected and nurtured, something I haven’t felt very often in my life.

Internet notwithstanding, Haven is a really great place to stop and work. There are so few distractions here. It is super quiet and town is just far enough away to not be an option most days, but close enough if I need a change of scenery. This is by far my favourite place I’ve parked the RV and worked. I have an amazing view of both the sunset and the sunrise. I enjoy watching birds and bunnies and gophers all day. Other than the odd lawn mowing during the day, I can count on quiet to do my transcription work. I wake up to the song of the mourning dove, fall asleep to the soothing howl of the coyote, and in between, the mooing of cows is a joyful melody.

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I was amused this morning by this bird sitting right on top of my internet antenna pole.

Haven has a post office. As long as I can get folks to ship through Canada Post or USPS to a PO box, I can get almost anything delivered here and I can ship things out.

The two nearby communities, Willow Bunch and Assiniboia, provide the essentials. Willow Bunch is less than 15 minutes away and has a bigger post office, a small food store, a great thrift shop, a good pub, and an awesome museum, to which I have a lifetime membership. Assiniboia is 35 minutes away and has a bigger food store, a CIBC (my main bank), an art gallery, a liquor store, and many other services, including a small cinema. Movies are a little slow to come here, but main ones do and a viewing is inexpensive. I don’t go to our cinema often, but I also never feel a need to figure out how to schedule myself around showings in Moose Jaw.

Which brings me to the fact that bigger stores, while 150KM away, are easily accessible from Haven. It’s a boring (but scenic) drive to Moose Jaw, but an easy one. There’s no such thing as traffic out here. I hate driving in cities like Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and their suburbs. Here, driving is a pleasure over long flat stretches of mostly good roads.

Haven is in a proper community with streetlights and all services but internet and cable television. I could have had a lot of the things I like about Haven itself, maybe even the price of the property, on an acreage in another province, but there are advantages to living in a proper community. I have neighbours to watch over my place when I’m gone, I have fire service, and it’s not insanely expensive to get hooked up to utilities since everything is to my property line. This is the only proper community that I found that would let me use my lot as an RV pad with no promise of building a house within a certain amount of time, and then add in the piddly amount I paid for my lot.

Keeping Haven even if I’m not here a lot isn’t a huge financial burden. The property is paid for and I have $450 a year in property taxes as well as a token amount for water and garbage pickup. Even if I had been able to find another community that would let me have an RV as a residence, I would have had to take out a mortgage to buy it and pay much higher property taxes and service fees.

The climate here is the best in Canada by my standards, mostly dry and sunny, with very little humidity and bugs. A winter here at 50 below with sun beat a winter in BC at 5 above with intense humidity and no sun for six months. Our little valley is in a microclimate of its own and our weather is always better than Assiniboia, Moose Jaw, and Regina. While we do get horrible wind and hail storms, our valley protects us from tornados.

This part of Saskatchewan is incredibly scenic. I know that rolling olive green hills and bright blue skies are not to everyone’s taste, but they are to mine. I walk daily to the post office and I alway pause both ways to fill my soul with the beauty of our hills. I cannot take the views here for granted because I never had such a profound sense of “coming home” as I did the first time I arrived on the Prairies.

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This is the view from my picture window at the rear of my office. The sky is ever changing. The grass won’t be that lush and green for long!

This is what I wrote about this area my first time through here, nearly eight years ago, when I hadn’t even yet seen the BC coast, Vancouver Island, or Yukon. I already knew where I was going to land one day and I got shivers rereading this:

Being out here on the prairie fills me with such peace. There is something about the plains that has always made sense to me. When I first encountered them in North Dakota back in 2005 I found myself wondering if it’s possible to come home to a place you’ve never been before. Everything out here is amplified: the blue of the sky, the warmth of the sun, the sound of the wind… Mornings and evenings are bitterly cold in the fall, but the days are hot. Yesterday in Moose Jaw, I could have have closed my eyes and sworn I was in Las Vegas in June, it was that dryly hot out.

Regina is a nice little city, comparable to Winnipeg. It confirmed to me what it is exactly that makes Winnipeg so special to me as Regina has all the same criteria but one, no strong French community.

The ideal year, it would seem, would be a summer spent in the Prairies, an early fall spent on the Shield, and then a winter somewhere warm and dry.

Which reminds of one final thing about Haven that makes it so remarkable: I have a French community here. While we French-Canadians (them fransaskois, me québécoise) tend to do business in English, if there’s something weighing on us or we’re tired or we’re frustrated or we’re angry, we know we can offload in our mother tongue.

Haven does have four disadvantages. Two would not be an issue if I was here pretty much year round. One is only an inconvenience. And one would be a deal breaker if everything else about Haven wasn’t just about perfect.

The first disadvantage is that the food store in Assiniboia is absolutely terrible. If I was here year round, I would do like my neighbours and grow a garden. I’d have Charles fill a freezer with deer meat. I’d befriend the neighbour who sells organic chickens. I’d do quarterly supply runs to Moose Jaw or maybe Regina, which has a Costco. And I’d stock up in Assiniboia when there are good sales.

The second disadvantage is that while I can get mail addressed to a PO box, I can’t get anything else. A lot of businesses won’t ship to a PO box and insist on using a courier service, with no courier companies currently servicing my hamlet. Purolator is examining the possibility of changing its Assiniboia to Willow Bunch route to go through the hamlet as that would actually be a cost savings for them. But for right now, when I absolutely cannot avoid dealing with a supplier who won’t ship to a PO box, I have things shipped to a neighbour’s place of work in Assiniboia. If I was here year round, I’d make a deal with a business in Willow Bunch.

The third disadvantage is that I’m 2.5 hours away from the airport and there’s really no way for me to get there and back under my own steam. I’m always going to have to find someone to at the very least drive me to Assiniboia to grab a bus or to pick me up in Assiniboia. That’s not a huge deal when I have friends who work in town every day. And for my upcoming trip, C&C offered to drive me right to Regina! So the airport isn’t convenient, but it’s not a huge pain to get to.

The fourth disadvantage is, of course, the lack of internet access. When I add everything up, it makes more sense to me to fight for internet access than to start all over somewhere else where I will be unhappy and have even more to complain about. I know I will get this figured out. It won’t happen overnight, not when we have been totally forgotten in all technology development plans in this province, but I’ll find the key to getting it done.

My Haven is a truly special place. As I have said many times, it is a well of infinite energy from which I can draw when I feel drained. It is the only place on this planet that is mine. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t put down solid roots very often. I tend to be happy somewhere for a few months, maybe even a few years, and then I’m ready to move on to that greener pasture around the bend. Well, I’ve traveled enough of this country to know that there is no greener pasture around the bend. This is it for me in Canada. So if I can’t work here, of course I’ll go somewhere else, but it won’t be in this country. And yet, no matter where I go, however many sunsets I enjoy in foreign lands, I will always know that I can come back here to rest and be renewed.

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This is the view to the west on my way to my water hydrant. I catch the beautiful sunsets over these hills from the passenger side window in my office.

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CMDA vs GMS: Why Your US Cell Phone Probably Doesn’t Work Well in the Rest of the World/Your Non-US Phone Doesn’t Work Well in the US

I got another email from reader Dean looking for cell phone help last night and a bit of research helped me elucidate a great mystery: why US phones tend not to work well outside of the US and non-US phones tend not to work well in the US. I’ve never seen this info laid out plainly so I thought it would warrant a blog post. Please note that this information is very general and personal user experience may vary.

The first thing you need to know is that there are basically two types of cellular networks, CDMA and GMS. Explaining the difference is far beyond the scope of this post. You just need to know that the two don’t play nice with each other.

The second thing you need to know is that GSM is the most prevalent type of network in the world while the US uses CDMA on its two major networks, Verizon and Sprint. AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM. This is why you get poor Verizon service in an AT&T service area and vice-versa.

This is also why my old Verizon phone worked great when I was in the US but was basically useless in Canada, even though I had a plan to use it there. It explains why RV park and motel guests up in Dawson City who were on T-Mobile had no trouble getting service, but the Verizon customers usually had no service. And it also explains why I have trouble getting service in some parts of the US with my phone with both my AT&T and TelCel SIM cards.

Back to Dean’s question. He’s a Verizon customer about to move to Mexico permanently and he wanted to buy a new phone now that would work in Mexico. Mexico’s cellular providers are all on GSM. I was able to ascertain that the phone Dean wants is only available for the Verizon network and is therefore not GSM network friendly. So he needs to instead look for a phone that can run on the AT&T and T-Mobile networks and that is, of course unlocked.

What all this boils down to is:

  1. To have great coverage across most of the US, you need to be with Verizon or Sprint, but your phone likely won’t work well, if at all, in most of the rest of the world (other countries do have CMDA, but, again, GSM is by far the most prevalent);
  2. If you’re coming into the US from anywhere else in the world or are in the US on AT&T or T-Mobile, prepare to have poor service outside of AT&T and T-Mobile network areas.
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I Need to Plan Better for Impromptu Mini Road Trips

Work was really slow today, so, on a whim, I took off for Moose Jaw at 11:00 this morning. The plan was to get sushi for lunch and then find jeans and a couple of skirts for my upcoming grand adventure, as well as possibly get a new nose stud, just for a change of colour. I’ve been doing a lot of online shopping for bits of my travel wardrobe, but it’s so hard to find jeans that fit me properly that I wanted to buy them in person and shipping on the skirts I wanted was outrageous, so I hoped to find something locally. I wasn’t optimistic on the skirt front, though, since it seems that no one wears skirts anymore, especially not out in my rural area, so choice is poor in stores.

Well, I hit a snag in my plans immediately after a very delicious and satisfying sushi lunch (DK Sushi is as great as ever!): I managed to leave home without my wallet!!!! OMG. There I was 150KM from home with about 75 cents in cash on me. I thought I had a US 20 buried at the bottom of the purse, but only just discovered that I had taken it out and put it in my foreign currency bucket at home. So yup, I had about 75 cents on me and an $18 lunch bill…

The CIBC is at the opposite end of the same block as DK, so I thought that I would see if I could make a cash withdrawal with just what I had on me for ID, which was my phone, which would give me account numbers and balances. I asked the cashier at the restaurant if she would let me try in exchange for leaving my truck keys. Yes.

So off I went to the bank, where I was greeted with the usual, “How can I help you?” and I replied, “I don’t think you can, but here goes, I left my wallet at home, south of Assiniboia.” The woman burst out laughing and said, “You just need some cash?” “Yes,” I replied meekly. “Not a problem!” she replied to my immense surprise. I had to give her the phone number on the account, the account number, the balance to the penny, my full name, and my date of birth (not in that order) to make a withdrawal that would, hopefully, cover all my purchases for the day. I mean, I was already in town so I might as well pursue my plans, but be extra careful with my driving!

I settled the restaurant bill and burst out laughing at the fortune I got with my cookie:

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Little did I know, Passport Canada inefficiency notwithstanding, the cookie fortune would prophetic.

First stop was the Salvation Army Thrift store, where I found the exact model of jeans I wanted, in my size, and with a tag still on them. They were a lighter wash than I wanted, but at less than $2.50 (half off special!), I knew I would regret not buying them.

Then, I went to the jean store, whatever it’s called, in the Town and Country Mall, where my piercer is situated. They didn’t have darker jeans in the same style I’d just bought, but, get this, I found my skirt! It was exactly what I wanted in terms of fabric and cut. And it was buy one, get one half off! I ideally wanted two skirts to go with me since I knew I’d live in them, so that was an incredible deal. Less than $50 for both!

Unfortunately, my piercer was off on maternity leave, something I would have known if I had checked her Facebook page before leaving. I could have bought a new stud, but would have had to put it in myself. I’m not able to do that without a lot of pain because my fingers are so big and clumsy, so I passed. I don’t mind the one I have now; it would have just been nice to have something different since I can actually see my stud when I look down at my nose.

I was at a loss at this point about where else to try for jeans since I’ve never bought clothes in Moose Jaw except at the thrift store when I had a brilliant epiphany: Reitmans moves to summer stock about this time of year and the fall/winter stuff goes on sale. I hoofed it up to the store on Thatcher Drive and learned that I was right: all jeans were 50% off, so $24 instead of $48! They had exactly what I wanted, so I was out of there very quickly! I’m not sure I’ll have room for both pairs in my suitcase, but it would be nice to have the lighter pair for casual things so I can keep the darker ones for when I want to be a bit dressier.

I was beat by this point and still had work due tonight, so I headed home, not bothering to get any groceries. Prices aren’t really that much better than in Assiniboia and I’m trying not to keep too much in the house since I’ll be leaving withing the next three to four weeks.

I took the scenic route home and enjoyed blazing fast internet (by Saskatchewan rural standards) at a stop I made to enjoy the view, more than 30KM in any direction from any settlement bigger than a farmstead. Meanwhile, my hamlet, a proper community with all other services (except cable TV) is half that distance from a proper town with broadband and we’re too far from civilization to get service. Got to love SaskTel’s logic!

Thank you to CIBC for saving the day! I’ll be better at putting my wallet back in my purse from now on! 😀

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Passport Canada Processing Times Are Optimistic

Thank goodness I have a healthy dose of cynicism when it comes to getting anything done in this country and didn’t buy a plane ticket before receiving my new passport.

I sent my passport renewal the 13th of May, a Friday, and they received it first thing the following Tuesday morning. Their site said to allow up to 20 business days to process, plus mailing time each way. That meant that they should have my passport processed by the end of the day on Tuesday June 14th and I would expect it by that Friday, the 17th.

I put on my application that I was traveling June 25th, but, of course, wasn’t stupid enough to buy a ticket for that date even though I gave them an extra five business days as a buffer.

Friday last week, I requested an update on my application and received it today by email. My passport renewal will be processed the week of the 20th and can be expected the week of the 27th.

If I had made any travel arrangements I would be scrambling right now. Of course, there is the odd chance that they will process it on the 20th and it will arrive at the eleventh hour by the 24th, but I’m not holding my breath and I don’t dare buy a ticket for the week of the 27th.

So at this point, it looks like I’m leaving the first week in July. Right when ticket prices go up for the summer rush. Thanks, Passport Canada!