Travel

Portugal – August/September 2019

Day 1: to Lisbon 

Not to be classified as the most interesting news, but we’ll be flying TAP Air Portugal for the first time. They give you a little treat on the flight. We’re a tad delayed starting out, but sure look. I grab a copy of Science Focus and read of our impending extinction to depress myself en route. I’m fairly certain I cop a lady discretely smoking an e-cigarette as we cruise the skies, despite the extremely obvious instructions not to do so. It sums up where the human race is situated, the direction we’re going and the fact we’ll never slow down or go back. Basically, we’re doomed to screw ourselves and everything else because as a race we can’t avoid our self-destructive behaviours, not even for two hours. 

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Myanmar (Burma) – November/December 2018

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Where do you begin with a trip like this? What reason could anyone possibly have to travel to a place where those in power are responsible for such terrible atrocities? For us, the motivation is fairly simple; to visit a friend. The logic, however, is probably slightly more opaque. Simply ignoring a country and expecting all our information to be fed through the TV can’t really get us very close to the truth. Not that I’m saying for a second we’ll have even the tiniest of inkling of what’s going on in a country so diverse as Myanmar but, even to get geographically closer to the reality will hopefully provide a different outlook to that which we see in the news every day. Not everyone in a country could ever be responsible for the actions of those who claim power.

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Dubai – November 2018

We’ll have a short stopover in Dubai on our way to Yangon. A couple of nights, with one clear day in the middle. I have no great expectations of Dubai, and anything I read or see just strengthens those thoughts. The vision presented on film and TV doesn’t really fit my idea of somewhere I’d like to go. But, I’m open to a different experience.

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Belgium – August/September 2018

Day 1 – to Brussels

It’s virtually impossible to think of Belgium without that most chief of Belgian exports flooding one’s mind. Yes, we’re all thinking of the same thing….Gotye (that fella who had that song once)! We will be seeking the lesser known Belgian joys however, and hoping to find the odd beer and maybe even some chocolate. Yes, Belgium does beer and chocolate too.

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Toronto – December 2017

After just over two weeks in Cuba we’ll be spending a couple of days in Toronto to ease us back into reality. With a differential of approximately twenty three degrees Celsius, it promises to be quite the jolt back into winter. Now if we can just navigate our way through José Marti International Airport we’ll be doing fine.

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Cuba – November/December 2017

Day 1: to Havana

A panic descends as we try to organise transport to the airport. The wonderful Ann Brennan has a bug and can’t provide us with a lift. MyTaxi tells me everything is booked up. Images of us pretending to have been in Cuba flash through our minds but in the end we snag a ride and make it in pretty good time with the border checks and controls going rather swimmingly.

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