TurnofPhraseBlog

Tag: travel

  • India Won’t Leave my Mind

    Even though India is in my rear-view mirror as I am now immersed back into my west-coast Canadian routines, I find it is on my mind every day. Have you noticed how you get asked, or you ask yourself, “what were the highlights?” of recent trips?  I have done that myself in the last couple […]

  • OMGOMGOMG

    How incredibly stupid.  The pink scarf’s “esteemed” standing is now in serious jeopardy.  But I am getting ahead of myself. Our last stop on this fast-paced vacation is to get-up-at-3:30am to leave Mussoorie and catch our 7:20 flight to Varanasi in the eastern part of India.  The mood in the darkened van as we wind our […]

  • Highways, Goat Tracks, and Perspective

    So the patterns on my scarf are Sanskrit, I learned from my sister-in-law.  And apparently my scarf has “come home”.  A guide told me the writing was about one of the three “main” gods in the Hindu religion Shiva the destroyer…as in the destroyer of bad things.  If you’re wondering, the other two are Rama […]

  • Grab the Bull by the Horns

    (co-edited by the one in the blue scarf…aka my daughter) The versatile pink scarf is acquiring some new purposes on this trip.  On safari to the “jungle” (which just looked too dry and sparse to allow my brain to categorize it as “jungle”) it was a bug screen. We were out there looking for tigers […]

  • Traveling with Brad and Angelina

    How much do human beings actually value being different? Turns out, not too much.

  • When Something is All Things to All People. Or at least 7 million per year.

    One way Canada and India are different is that for millennials, a university degree from abroad means they stay abroad.  Most Canadian kids go to undergraduate school in Canada.  Even if they go away for school, they tend to come back.  Our guide’s only child, a son, studied in France.  Now he lives in Amsterdam […]

  • Was Ghandi’s pocket watch a useful tool or a rare favourite posession?

    Soft and thin.  Airy.  Yet warm.  A shield when needed.  Shade sometimes.  It changes my mood.  And it’s traveled the world.  It can make a t shirt and pants feel more special.  Occasionally it’s a pillow or a blanket.  It’s one of my favourite things. What’s yours?  It could be a sweater or a t […]

  • Boston: It Could Still be a Great Canadian City

    Boston. It should be part of Canada. I don’t think Bostonians would really mind. They like hockey. They have snow. They use “sorry” like we do. They’d assimilate quickly. Have you ever noticed that? To me, “sorry” should be reserved for when an apology is required. A real apology…one that conveys sincere regret, an intention […]

  • Time Travel: Cape Cod Style

    Twenty years, at least, is the length of time this part of Massachusetts has been on my radar. A bucket list item. The trouble with bucket lists is that with anticipation like that, it’s hard to separate out expectations. It’s not that Boston and Cape Cod are “less than” or “more than” I expected. Just […]

  • Have you Ever Noticed How Much People Wear on Themselves?

    Boston. Wicked Smaht. A few fun facts to illustrate the point…back in the day of the thirteen colonies. You know… pre-1776 and all that, Massachusetts literacy rate was 88%. Too bad today’s fashion wasn’t in fashion in 1761…they could have read each other’s chests. We’re visiting in the summer, but during the academic year here […]