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Home. / Paris.
Sept. 4 – Oct. 30, 2025
Happy New Year
Hey there, it’s been a minute. Sorry, my bad. When I started up my travels again, I had every intention of keeping the blog going, but the further I went without writing an entry, the more it felt like I would never be able to catch up. So I decided to concentrate on doing the traveling part and handle the blogging part later. Well, now it’s later.
I’ve left Europe behind. I used up 86 of the 90 days I was allowed to remain in the EU. I write to you now from my apartment in Bangkok, Thailand, where I’m looking forward to taking a break from traveling for the next month or so. And now that I’ve got some time to myself to sit and think, I figured I should let you know what I’ve been up to.
Home. — Devon/Edmonton/Calgary — Sept. 4 – Oct. 26
To start off, a quick update on my mom. She’s doing well, considering the circumstances. She’s responded well to the chemotherapy and the leukemia has officially been in remission since October. However, she still has a long road to go. She’s currently in the intensification phase of the chemo process. Her doses have been higher and the impacts on her day to day life are greater. Despite this, she holds a positive outlook and is proceeding through her treatment with as much strength and optimism as she can muster.
I returned home from the first portion of my trip in early September, while Mom was still in the hospital and the path forward was not quite as clear. It’s hard to remember exactly what I was feeling in those times. I do remember seeing the ups and downs that Mom was experiencing. How she could have so much strength and energy one day, only to be completely drained the following day. I, also, remember that things started to feel less scary once I was back home and could see what exactly was going on, hear what her doctors and nurses had to say, and especially when the outline of her treatment began to clarify. I can’t fathom how my imagination would have run away with me if I continued to travel through this period. I don’t regret coming home even a little bit.
Once Mom returned from the hospital in mid-September, September and October were relatively quiet months. I settled in to routines and more normal life. Walking the dog, driving Mom in to Edmonton for her appointments, running errands. We were waiting to understand what Mom’s outpatient treatment would look like, how hard it would impact her and how her and Shawn would be able to adjust to the schedule if I weren’t around to help out. So in the meantime, we just waited while time passed.
For my part, I spent some time exploring Edmonton, especially around the river valley and the Whitemud Ravine. I made a trip back home to Calgary for a few days to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday and catch up with some friends. I also spent a lot of time in the forested ravine in Devon, particularly in the early evening and oftentimes in the dark, as the sun started to set earlier and earlier. As you’ll see from my photos, I spent plenty of time outdoors, watching the summer fade into fall.
I also spent October participating in Inktober, with my friends Amy and Nikki. Each day of October, we drew a picture based on that day’s prompt word. I added an additional challenge for myself in that I wanted each drawing to feature ants (the insects) in some way or another (it’s a long story, suffice it to say they’d been on my mind a lot).
Mom handled the first few of outpatient treatments relatively well, despite a fairly rigorous schedule necessitating a lumbar puncture once every five days, as well as IV and oral chemo treatments. And soon, we got what appeared to be good news, she would be moving schedule that would only require treatment at the hospital once every three weeks. This was a schedule that her and Shawn would be able to manage on their own. We would soon come to learn that this was actually the beginning of the intensification phase, but for the time being it appeared that this was good news and that I would be able to return to my travels.
And so, I booked a flight. Swapped out some items in my bags where necessary (I was still living out of the same two backpacks as when I was traveling, as all of my other possessions were locked away in storage in Calgary). Before I knew it, I was back on my way. Reversing the trip that I had made a month and a half earlier, Edmonton to Calgary, Calgary to Paris.
Paris. — Oct. 27 – Oct. 30
Paris is the one city on my trip that I had visited before. Albeit, it was only a day trip, while I was visiting London back in 2012. That day had not left a good impression of Paris in mind, though that was largely my own fault. I planned to see too many things for the time that I had. The day was overcast and smoggy and I spent half of the morning with a contact lens stuck under my eyelid after rubbing my eye, absentmindedly. Oh, and I got scammed out of some €13 in two completely separate events (a clipboard charity scam and a friendship bracelet scam, IYKYK). I was naive and much more inexperienced, both in life and travel.
Over a decade later, I was ready for Paris to redeem itself. The City of Lights and Love must have such a reputation for a reason, after all. That said, I also wasn’t giving it much of an opportunity. Paris was just a way station for my ultimate destination in Stuttgart, Germany. I was intending to visit my new friend, Rosa, and Paris was just a place to work off my jet-leg and readjust to travel/European living.
I hoped to spend a least a day at the Louvre. I was determined not to miss it as I had when I booked my first trip. The first time around, I didn’t know that the Louvre is, famously, closed on Tuesdays. And so booked my train to Paris for a Tuesday. Of course, now I know this was a kind of blessing given how frantic that day turned out to be.
However, fate seems to have decided that it’s probably better if I didn’t enter the Louvre. You see, the week prior to my short time in Paris, the Louvre was robbed. I’m sure you’ve heard about the brazen, daylight theft of eight of the French Crown Jewels. As a result, the museum was closed for the week following the heist. My first full day in Paris was a Tuesday, so I already knew that was out of the question. But I had hoped Wednesday would be my day. It even could have been my day, as it was also the day that the Louvre would reopen to the public. But, now there was an entire city full of tourists that had been denied entry to one of the major attractions for over 10 days. Visitation was to be by reservation only, and, to no one’s surprise, tickets evaporated immediately. So, it seems, I’m just not meant for the Louvre. Maybe next decade.
Without the Louvre to occupy a day, I still managed to find plenty to do. I spent a day revisiting some of the sights that I saw on my trip — Sacre-Coeur Basilica, the Opera Garnier, the courtyard of the Louvre, the Jardin Tuileries, several Ponts (bridges) over the Seine, and Notre Dame Cathedral). I wandered freely through the centre of the city, stopping at a boulangerie for lunch.
I remember feeling a little melancholy, though I don’t think I could really tell you why. Maybe the jetlag, maybe a bit of anxiety about being back on the road after a couple of months of relative comfort. Maybe a bit Paris itself. I found the parts of the city not immediately adjacent to the river to be suffocating. Tall buildings surrounded narrow streets, blocking the already sparse sunlight and reducing the sky to thin strips above my head. A huge contrast to a few days prior when the wholeness of the sky stretched out over Albertan prairies.
My next day was spent exploring a couple of museums: the National Picasso Museum and the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art (not to be confused with the National Museum of Modern Art at Centre Pompidou). Picasso became one of my favorite artists when I visited London in 2012 and saw the Vollard Suite, as it was display for the first time in the British Museum. He always seems to make an appearance in some way or another when I travel. A testament to his prolificity, to be sure. But, I also feel a connection to his strange mind, the way that he saw and represented the world with simple lines and colors. I always enjoy my time with his works, wherever I find them.
The Picasso Museum is located in the Marais district, known for its art galleries and clothing boutiques. It was a very cool area to walk around. And really opened my eyes to how diverse the different arrondisments of Paris could be. Marais was a complete change from where I was staying in Montmartre. In fact, my overall impression of Paris from this trip is just how big of a city it really is. In my mind, because I was able to walk between all the big sights, it felt relatively compact. But in reality, using the metro to get around, I started to feel more of the size of Paris. And understanding that it’s not really a place that can be taken in at a single glance. It would take a real depth of exploration to find the good and the bad and the in between. So, I resolved that Paris is simply too big to be any single thing. Which I’m sure is true of every place, but it’s especially noticeable in the bigger cities that I’ve visited, Paris, Berlin, Athens, Bangkok.
I enjoyed my time with the museums and left them as I usually do, exhausted and hungry. The Museum of Modern Art was directly across the river from the Eiffel Tower, so I made a quick trip to the foot of the tower before a tidal wave of tourists, punters, peddlers and scammers had me quickly on my way. Off to find another boulangerie and the croque monsieur and mille feuille that were waiting for me.
The following day, I set off to Stuttgart aboard a high speed train that carried me away from France and into Germany. And that’s where I’ll leave you for you now.
What’s Next?
As I mentioned, I’m in Bangkok for the majority of January. So I’m going to try to get caught up on these blogs over the course of those few weeks. And I’ll also try to get out and enjoy Bangkok a little too, I guess. Though honestly, it’s been nice over the past week to not feel like a tourist all of the time.
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Lille & Normandy.
Aug. 30 – Sept. 4, 2025
Recollections of Lille
It’s been about a month and a half since I left Lille now. Needless to say, it’s a bit of a hazy blur at this point. Which according my to foggy memory, feels roughly apropos. Lille was my last stop in Europe before I came home to Canada, though I wasn’t quite sure that it would be when I first arrived. I was still waiting to talk to my mom who was going through her first intensive rounds of chemo in hospital before I made my decision.
The Calm Appart Hôtel is conveniently located directly across the street from Lille’s main regional train station. This turns out to be both a blessing and a curse. The train station abuts on a incredibly busy mall and the gateway into the old city centre. It’s an incredibly high traffic area, which provides a ton of options for food, shopping, and people watching. However, it also comes with a slightly seedy underbelly that occupies just a couple of the side streets, precisely where the hostel itself sits.
Despite the surroundings, Calm is relatively well acquitted. It largely operates as a standard hotel, but it has a small hostel run out of its basement. Boasting maybe 18 beds across three rooms, a small, slightly dank common room and kitchen, the hostel was surprisingly cozy and comfortable.
The nearby shopping center had something that I had missed since having left Canada, a full-size supermarket. After a month in The Netherlands and Belgium, I had resigned myself to the smaller markets. But, here in Lille, the Carrefour supermarket was a godsend. No more running between three different stores because I needed food, shampoo and razors. I honestly teared up a little when I first walked into it.
However, despite its long aisles and various departments, the Carrefour does not have a pharmacy. Which didn’t matter to me in the least on Saturday while I was picking up groceries, but it would be immediately relevant when I woke early Sunday morning with a head-splitting migraine. It was 2am and a quick Google showed that there was nothing that was open, not even the night shop around the corner. In fact, because it was Sunday basically nothing would be open even when it wasn’t an ungodly morning hour.
I debated going to reception on the off-chance that the night watchman had a loose Tylenol or ibuprofen, but I eventually managed to ride it out and fall lightly asleep. When I got up later in the morning, my headache had receded but was still feeling some lingering after-effects. At reception, the attendant helped me find one of the only pharmacies open in the city, thankfully only a quick fifteen minute walk away.
The walk took me through the old city centre and through a quiet shopping district on a drizzly Sunday morning. The streets and squares were pleasant despite the lingering pain in my head. Arriving at the pharmacy, I found a line that extended out the door.
It was taken aback, but not surprised. After all, people needed medicine on Sundays and this was the only pharmacy open for miles. I was, however, shocked to find out that I would need to wait in this line for what I expected to be an over the counter purchase. It turns out that in France, you need to speak to a pharmacist even for basic medicine like paracetamol.
So I waited for about an hour to get to the front of the line. Practicing saying in my head “Désolé, je parle Anglais seulement” (Sorry, I only speak English). When I finally arrived at the front of the line, my pharmacist had a look of panic on his face, and turned to a colleague for assistance. He was much relieved when I said “paracetamol” and grabbed me a pack of 8 pills for €3, the maximum amount he could sell me at once. A far cry from the bottle of 100 extra-strength Tylenol that I could buy from a gas station in Canada for $12 (ok, maybe more like $18 given gas station mark-ups).
With my paracetamol now in hand, I spent a bit of time wandering Lille before heading back to the hostel to rest. Later, I finally got to talk to my mom. She was still in hospital, having rested for a couple of days after three days in a row of chemo. She was look tired, but otherwise well. She still had the energy and attitude that I expected from her, which was heartening. Also heartening was the fact that she had changed her view on me returning to help out while she was in hospital and transitioning back home. I was expecting more of a fight from her, but she understood my worry and wish to be closer and to help however I could. So it was decided that I would return home after my booking in Lille, on Thursday.
That left me with three days to enjoy Europe before my trip was paused for an indefinite period of time.
Day One: Biking the Canal
Having brought The Bike with No Name on the train with me to Lille, I felt it was only appropriate that I gave him one last good ride before I passed him along to whoever his new owner would be.
I set my sights on the Parc de la Canteraine, a large park on the outskirts of Lille (actually it’s about two different suburbs away, but I didn’t realize that at the time). It was a beautiful morning and after my work in Brussels, the bike was running great. I made it to the park in good time and was expecting to spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon looking for birds and shooting photos. But, once I arrived my body had something else in mind for me.
As I rolled through the parc looking for a shooting location, I just kept rolling. Eventually, I found myself riding along the Canal de la Deûle. And I just kept riding. And riding. Soon, I was fully out in the countryside. Both sides of the canal have pathways that running for tens of kilometers out of the city, connecting a variety of nearby towns and villages. With flat and easy riding, without much wind to speak of, I rode along the canal for about two hours before deciding that I would need to turn around.
Given the option, I always choose a different route back to my starting place than the one that took me there. I crossed the canal at a bridge that took me into the village of Hantay. I spent forty five minutes riding up and down, exploring the village. It was quite tiny and charming, a really nice diversion after a few hours of constant riding.
The rest of the ride home was as delightful as the ride out. I stopped and had a quick, late lunch by the canal. Got lost once or twice. And eventually made my way back into Lille, which was impressive in its own right as I rode through its winding streets back to the hostel. All in all, this was one of my favorite days over the course of the entire trip. Gorgeous weather and scenery, a carefree freedom and new sights around every corner.
Day Two: Trouville et Deauville
On Tuesday, I rented a car and drove from Lille to Normandy. Prior to leaving for this trip, I had imagined visiting the French coast at Normandy or Calais. But on arriving, I learned that the route by train would be long, expensive and out of the way of my other intended destinations. As luck would have it, however, my new friend Rosa, who I’d met in Brussels, was now vacationing with her parents and brother in a little resort town in Normandy, called Trouville-sur-Mer. Her family has vacationed their all her life, so she was quite familiar with the area. Wishing to make the most of my remaining time in France, I’d asked if she would show me around, which she graciously agreed to do.
So, early Tuesday morning, I picked up my rented car and hit the road. It was about a three hour drive out to the coast, and I was keen to see French countryside along the way. It was an absolutely gorgeous drive, passing over hills and valleys, through fields and forests. The 130km/h speed limit on the highway was also pretty nifty. Less nifty were the multiple toll gates that I hit along the way. All in all, it cost about €50 to use the highways from Lille to Trouville.
The drive time passed fairly easily. For a lifelong European, like Rosa, the idea of a three hour drive for a day trip was almost inconceivable. For an Albertan like myself, that’s just the price of a quick visit to Edmonton or a hike buried deep in the mountains.
Arriving in Trouville, I met Rosa not too far from the apartment she was sharing with her family, only a five minute walk from the beach. We spent the day roving through Trouville and it’s twin Deauville, just on the other side of the River Toques which runs between the two towns. Deauville is considered the slightly more high-end destination of the two, but I can confidently say that both are incredibly charming and gorgeous. We wandered from end of one town to the far end of the next and enjoyed a lovely sunset on the beach before turning back.
It was fully dark by the time we made it back to my car, and pouring rain. We got absolutely soaked on the walk back through town. I thanked Rosa for her hospitality and waved goodbye, setting off on my journey back to Lille.
On the drive back home, I learned a lesson. French truck drivers have absolutely zero tolerance for high beam headlights pointed in their direction. My side of the road was more or less empty for the entirety of the drive and the night was close to pitch black. So, naturally, as long as the opposing lane was vacant, I turned on the high beams for a better view. But, if a truck came around a corner or crested a hill and I didn’t switch off the high beams within a quarter of a second, they were more than happy to blast with the full glory of their highs, which made mine look like a dollar store flashlight.
Day Three: Saying Goodbye
My final day in Lille was largely devoted to resting and preparing to return home to Canada early the next morning. But, I did have one task to perform. I had to set the Bike with No Name free. Tristan’s original plan for the bike was simply to leave the bike on the streets of Brussels for the first person that came across him, and out of respect for his intentions, I would do the same in Lille. I wrote up a note that read “Free Bike” in English, French and Dutch, along with the combination for the bike’s small chain lock and Tristan’s Instagram handle (also per his wishes).
I walked the bike over to Lille’s main square which was buzzing with activity even on a random Wednesday afternoon. I found a bike rack with an open space, left the note on the pannier rack where it could be easily read and walked away.
I wandered around the square and the surrounding streets for about half an hour before returning to see if anyone had taken up the offer of a free bicycle. Alas, no. He was still sitting at the rack. Not enough time had passed and a watched pot never boils. I decided to unlock the chain for good measure and walked away. I hope he found himself a good home. He was certainly a delight for the short time that I had him.
In the evening, I strolled the areas around the hostel that I hadn’t really seen yet. It’s amazing what a difference turning left instead of right can make sometimes. Lille continued to impress me with its beauty, both old and new. I was sad to be leaving knowing that I had explored much less here than I had in my earlier cities. But, I was also feeling worn down and in need of a break. If things had gone differently, I had planned to take a two weeks in Paris to slow a bit a recuperate. Prior to hearing the news from home, I had booked an AirBnb in one of the further reaches of Paris where I could enjoy a room to myself, a nice treat after a month of hostels.
As it was, though, it was time for me to come home. Time to help my family through a difficult period. Europe and the world would continue to be there when I was ready to return to the journey. So at 5:30 the next morning, I rose and walked the short distance to the train station. The train would carry me to Paris, where I would catch my flight back to Calgary and another flight would bring to Edmonton, where I’d spend the better part of two months.
Bird Corner
Unfortunately, birds weren’t really much on my mind through my days in Lille. So, I have nothing to share for bird corner this time, but rest assured that it will be back for the next installment.
Where Next?
Well, now for the exciting news! My time in Edmonton is coming to an end. My mom has responded to her treatment exceedingly well and there hasn’t been much need of my help for the past couple of weeks. She has reached and surpassed the checkpoints that the doctors had defined. And more importantly, her and Shawn felt like they had everything easily under control. So it’s time for me to pick up where I left off!
I leave for Paris in just a couple of days, I’ll be staying there for three nights before making my way on to Germany.
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Brussels.
Aug. 26 – 30, 2025
Highs & Lows
Brussels brought two things that I hadn’t seen since I left Canada: hills and rain. When we go too long seeing only part of a duality, it can be easy to forget how one half is defined by its counterpart. Too long in the sun, and we begin to take it for granted, the umbrella is left buried deep in the closet, and there it lay when the clouds finally become so full they cannot but let loose. Too long without lifting ourselves up, when we finally meet a slope our muscles ache and cry out with each step.
Brussels is a city of highs and lows, with half the city literally elevated above the rest, and so it was for me. Before arriving in the city, I had already received mixed reports from fellow travelers. For most, it had not left a favorable impression. It seemed to lack a certain je ne sais quoi possessed by its cousins. Despite these reports, there were sites I knew I wanted to see, such as the Brussels Expo, site of the 1935 and 1958 World’s Fair. I was especially intrigued by the Atomium, a building composed of giant aluminum balls and tubes arranged to represent a crystal structure composed of atoms.
I Want To Ride My Bicycle
I made my way from Bruxelles-Midi station to my hostel, Meninger Hotel, by way of a tram station in a dank tunnel like structure with not just a hint of urine aroma. The tram would drop me off in an area that I had been warned by reviews would seem a little rough. Over my time there, I would find that its bark was worse than its bite, but my initial impression was that it was certainly rundown. Sitting alongside the canal, the buildings were old and grimy looking, graffiti covered most surfaces and a few vacant lots gave an unwelcoming demeanor.
The hostel itself was also a bit of an oddity. As its name suggest, Meninger Hotel operated mostly as a hotel, but offered some dorm-style accomodations, as well as a guest kitchen and such hostel ammenities. The oddity carried on to the rooms themselves, with a strange layout of two sets of bunk beds, in addition to two double beds that sat side by side. I selected a lower bunk that would have my head directly at the foot of another roommate. This turned out to be an unfortunate decision as it would lead me to have to ask said roommate to wash his feet, as their smell was eye-watering after a day of exploring the city.
Additionally, the room was equipped with an eco-friendly measure common in many hotels, wherein you need to place your room keycard into a slot to enable electricity for the room. While this setup works well when only one or two people are inhabiting a room, it works much less well when the room is occupied by six strangers. It was a constant stream of announcing our departures and warning that the power was about to be shut off. At least until I accidentally left my card in the slot when leaving the room, requiring me to get a second keycard from reception.
I spent my first afternoon in the hostel relaxing, working on my blog, and killing time until it was time to meet Tristan, who expected to arrive in Brussels in the late afternoon, after biking from Ghent. When he arrived, I set out to meet him at his hostel and got my first real taste of Brussels. As it turned out, the path that Google Maps selected for me managed to avoid many of the interesting sights that I might have seen, in favor of backstreets. These streets continued much of the impression of the area around my hostel, though they were definitely cleaner and less marked by graffiti.
I managed to connect with Tristan without much trouble and we set out in search of dinner. Wandering through a busy shopping center near the center of the city, we overwhelmed with choices. We walked nearly the full length of the district before landing on a brasserie with a good selection of Belgian beers. What followed was a truly pleasant dinner and conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed Tristan’s company, he is a kind, considerate and bright young man and I consider myself lucky to have made his acquaintance.
After dinner, we set out in search of Tristan’s true goal in visiting Brussels: the chocolate truffles of Maison Pelicaen. Tristan bought a veritable mountain of truffles, which he intended to return home to Galway, Ireland, where he convinced women would instantly fall in love with him after a single taste. In his defense, they were some pretty tasty truffles.
We finished out the evening by accidentally stumbling upon the golden splendor of Brussel’s Grand Place. The wide square is surrounded by gilded Gothic and Baroque style buildings of many ages, including Town Hall, each denoting a period in Brussels’ long history. The discovery was a cherry on top of a lovely first evening in Brussels, all the better for being shared with a new friend.
Finally, we returned to Tristan’s hostel where he would gift me with the bicycle that had used to travel from Germany, through The Netherlands, and finally here to Brussels. The Bike with No Name, though distinctly a he according to Tristan, was a hardtail mountain bike that had put in some real work over Tristan’s journey. And now he was mine. Just like that. And so we both said goodbye to Tristan and headed out into the Belgian night, hopeful for a whole new world that had opened up for us.
Bad News
It was about 2:30 in the morning when my phone buzzed. I’d just been added to a new WhatsApp group. The group was consisted of me, my mom, and my step-dad, Shawn. No messages had been sent yet, but I already knew what it was. Early last year, my mother was diagnosed with gynecological cancer and then had a separate thyroid cancer scare later in the year. Both of those issues had been dealt with before I left and it seemed like everything was in the clear. But soon, a message arrived confirming that was no longer the case.
My mom had written me a letter from the hospital room that she had been in for a week already, as she was receiving her first chemotherapy treatment. She had been diagnosed with leukemia, and a particularly aggressive variant at that (T-ALL). What had started out looking like a flu that lasted a few days too long, turned out to be a need to get to an emergency room as soon as possible. The current outlook was that she would be hospitalized for at least a month before being released to complete outpatient therapy. She had waited a week to tell both my sister and myself because she didn’t want to interrupt my trip or my sister’s birthday, now recently past. And least surprising of all, for those that know my mother, she didn’t want me to come home because of this. She would rather that I continue my journey, so that could live vicariously through my adventures.
In the dead of the night, already calloused from her previous brush with cancer, I agreed with her. There was nothing that I would be able to do to help. Right now she needed professional medical care, that the hospital was already providing, and rest. And everything was still up in the air, and filled with unknowns. It would be more practical to wait for things to settle out, so I could see the lay of the land before making any decisions.
I read the letter, two, three times. Trying to soak up as much information as I could. Reading between the lines for what might not being said. My mom is one to want to put a positive spin on even the darkest of news, and this was some pretty bad news. I decided to try to sleep on it, and eventually managed to fall fitfully asleep.
Things Change
Unsurprisingly, the next two days in Brussels passed in a bit of a haze. The Bike with No Name needed some fixing up, with the wear and tear it had accumulated over its journey with Tristan. I found a Decathlon and was able to make the necessary repairs, without spending too much money, to get him running smoothly.
Now that the entire world was open to me and my wheels, I could barely see it as it whirled passed me. I spent an afternoon biking out to the Expo grounds and Atomium. I am a confident street cyclist, but Brussels is no Amsterdam (though it is still miles ahead of most North American cities for biking infrastructure). It took real focus to navigate the roads, some thick with competing vehicles. This sort of head-on-a-swivel pedaling offered some relief from the clouds circling me, but it didn’t make for a leisurely, sight-seeing ride.
The following day, I set out on foot to explore the city center of Brussels and the grayness followed with me. I saw everything through a fog. Every time I stopped to admire some building, statue, or view, my mind would begin drifting, wondering and worrying. After eating lunch in a quiet park square, all my worrying manifested a downpour that came out of nowhere. What were at first a few spare raindrops, soon became thick sheets of rain. Dumping what seemed like all of the rain that I had missed in my three weeks in Europe at once. I was lucky to be able to duck into an apartment buildings vestibule while the torrent fell, quickly becoming fast moving rivers overflowing the gutters as they ran down the hill. Ten minutes later, it was over. The sun once again shone through the clouds and within half an hour, you wouldn’t know that it had rained at all.
When I returned back to the hostel, I resolved to deal with my own rain cloud. I reached out to my best friend and told her the news. Which, in turn, led me to reach out to my step-father, Shawn to find out what else I could about the situation. After a video chat with Shawn and another with my father, I had made a decision. I would return to Canada, to do what I could to help out, and to assess the situation and its severity. At this point, we still didn’t know very much. We were just waiting for the medicine to do its work.
I wasn’t sure yet when I would return. I already had bookings for Lille and Paris, but those would take me all the way into the middle of September, which would be the most critical time during the early treatment phase. This point was to be left undecided until I had a chance to speak with my mom after her first rounds of chemo, which wouldn’t be for a couple more days, when I was in Lille.
Silver Linings
After my phone calls and big decisions, I headed down to the hostel kitchen and fixed myself dinner. I was still in my head, as I sat down to eat but my wallowing was interrupted by a comment saying that my food looked good. This was my introduction to Rosa, a kindergarten teacher from Stuttgart, Germany. Rosa had been eating dinner with David (?) from The Netherlands, and very quickly, our conversation attracted Nick, a financial analyst for the Canadian government from Toronto. David soon had to leave, but Rosa, Nick and myself spent the rest of the evening chatting and playing cards. It was just the distraction I needed after the past two days of hazy uncertainty. The simple kindnesses of strangers can be so meaningful when traveling, as I learned that day.
My final day in Brussels was spent following some of my dad’s advice. He said I should take some time to do what I love, walk in nature, and give my mind time to think things over, calmly. So I set out to the Woodpecker Bois de la Cambre, a large park in the south-east of Brussels. It was an overcast day, misty with sprinkling rain. The route to the park covered ground I hadn’t yet seen, and now that my head clearer, I was able to enjoy the sights along the way. The park itself was quiet and serene, exactly what I was looking for in my contemplative mood. As usual, I found some birds to keep me occupied, as well as another little treat that I hadn’t seen since leaving Canada, a chipmunk (Siberian chipmunks are, technically, an invasive species in Europe, but we’ll ignore that for this time).
I didn’t have any major revelations or changes of mind while in the Woodpecker Bois, but I did leave much more refreshed than I had been over the majority of my time in Brussels. Sitting under a tree while it rained, munching on a sandwich, waiting for the birds to come out again was a gentle balm for my mind.
Before I left Brussels, I did have one final decision to make. What would I do with the Bike with No Name? Originally, I had intended to take him on the train with me to Lille. But now, that I was returning home so soon, maybe it was better to follow through with Tristan’s original intentions of leaving him on the streets of Brussels for the first person that could use him? I was torn. And on the morning of my departure, I couldn’t let him go. I made a short test ride to ensure that I would be able to make it the couple of kilometers to the train station, while wearing a backpack on both the front and back of me. I decided it wouldn’t be comfortable, but I would be able to manage. And so my story with the Bike with No Name would go on a little while longer.
Bird Corner
The birds were a little scant in Brussels. Obviously, my mind was a bit occupied with other matters. Most of the birds that I did see were repeats of other cities (not that that’s completely stopped me in previous posts). But despite that, I did manage to spot a couple of new feathered friends.
Where Next?
As with my last post, I’m writing now from Devon, Alberta. It’s about a month after I left Brussels. I’m happy to report that my mom was released from the hospital a week ago. After a couple of slow days to readjust to being at home, she’s already almost completely returned to normal activity level, which is best described as hummingbird-esque. She will be starting outpatient chemotherapy next week, and we’ll see what sort of impact that has on her and the household. If all goes well, I may be returning to my travels in the next few weeks. But, there’s a road to go before then. So for now, it’s just one step at a time.
