Kingston sits roughly between Ottawa and Toronto. And is in fact the reason why we’re here in Canada in the first place. Claire is a Maid of Honour at a school friend’s wedding who now resides in Kingston.

It’s nice having an apartment instead of a hotel room. Today I finally got the chance to make my own interpretation of a Canadian breakfast, without the lashings of maple syrup, and used the half kilo of bacon I bought yesterday. I thought I’d need oil in the pan, but so much came off the bacon at one point I’m sure it was floating. Some giant bread, a bit of cheese and I was done. I’m not sure how Canadian it really was, but it certainly seemed to fit the size and fat requirements.

Upon arrival in our accommodation for the next few days, I had a few concerns about the bed. The mattress was particularly soft, one of those that you sink into when you sit on it and with my back problems of the last year and even a few hip problems before we left, I was dreading waking up in the morning with some part of my body feeling sore. I was pleasantly surprised, body felt fine and instead of Claire having to listen to me waffle on about things aching (to which her usual reply is, you are old you know) I had to listen to her tell me that I’d been snoring for the fifth consecutive night running. Having come from a king bed in Ottawa to what we’d consider a double bed, there was absolutely no escape either.

I’ve had a good wander around Kingston over the last few days; first we headed out to the military college on an island you reach via a road bridge. The college was pretty deserted but it was a pleasant walk. The next stop was a brewery, the Stone City brewery on the main street. We’re noticing most of the breweries here follow a slightly different model than their Australian cousins in that they tend to be shop fronts, the staff don’t seem that knowledgeable about the beers and there is never a brewer in sight. The Stone City brewery however did have a brewery in the back of the shop, but I doubt it really serviced more than the 8 taps they ran (of which I sampled all). The other brewery here is straight across the road from our accommodation. I can actually see people sitting outside it from the windows in the lounge. We got round to visiting this one on the day before we left. It definitely modelled itself on an English pub and even served a couple of hand pumped ales. I’m still unsure whether they’re made for this hot weather (25c-35c at the moment), but it’s nice to taste something a bit different.

What has surprised me so far, is that we have been in a number of breweries but absolutely no-one has commented on my Prancing Pony brewery hat that I’m wearing. I’m sure in Australia if I could visit all these breweries, someone at some point would comment on it. My guessing is as above, the people we’re chatting too aren’t the real beer experts, but rather there to serve us, not engage us in conversation. Saying that though all our interactions have been very friendly and nice throughout both Kingston and Ottawa.

Another thing in Kingston that intrigues me is the wind turbines just off the coastline. I remember the debate raging in the UK when I left about whether they were an eyesore or not and the decision was made over there to position them out at sea rather than viewable from the shore. My own take here in that they enhance the coastline rather than take away from it and provide something else to view on the horizon.

I decided to bite the bullet and pop into Starbucks for a coffee, and apart from them completely not understanding what I was ordering (how is a Latte that hard?), the service was quick, efficient and the coffee that came out the other side was quite delicious and I didn’t have any complaints about it. I wonder if we taste-tested coffees, where they’d come on the list. Probably not as far down as we think I reckon. I think we form opinions about the size of the organisation and in our minds think that detracts from the quality.

Saturday was the big day. It’s great nowadays that the world is so small, we can just jump on a plane and endure a slightly boring journey and arrive the other side of the world to help old friends celebrate these occasions.

For me though, some of the lead up and the day itself was, at times, extremely hard. The last real wedding I’d been to was my own and the majority of you will know how quickly and suddenly that union ended. Weddings follow the same linear structure the world over and every step of the way, brought a memory back for me. There were parts that were harder than others and lots of parts that were fine. Claire in her own amazing way was outstanding throughout (this is the woman who decided on my wedding anniversary to take me out to dinner in case I felt sad). She didn’t really push me but provided support where she could. It’s hard, because really it’s just my battle and I completely comprehend that it’s not a nice thing for other people to have to deal with, especially Claire. I guess with more exposure to these events, things get easier in the future.

I did as usual tear up the dance floor later on in the night though. I guess because I still haven’t run this holiday, we could consider this exercise and in fact the only exercise I’m going to get. The wedding was beautiful; I’d say especially Claire’s speech, which was related to how the bride and Claire used to watch Dawson’s Creek when they were kids and how everything in life can be related to Dawson’s Creek. I just wish I’d watched it…. well maybe not. And it was nice listening to the speech with the perspective of not knowing what it was really about. It’s always nice to see people happy, it doesn’t always have to be all about your own happiness eh? And the bride and groom certainly looked that.

As we were walking back to our apartment, we both couldn’t remember the last time we wandered home post midnight. I resisted the urge to get another beer out of the fridge. I get wiser as I get older.

The day after the night before. It’s never a stunningly productive one eh? Having gone to bed at 3am, after watching Claire strangely wipe make-up off her face with olive oil, I wasn’t in a particularly exploratory mood. More of a lie on the sofa and complain about how my feet were hurting kind of mood. We of course managed to wander out for our now daily ice cream, but that was about the sum of the whole day really.

Toronto was approaching fast!

IJS 24/07/2017

An early wake up call to listen to my collaboration session at 5.30 am with my tutor and classmates. I managed to reveal where I was by saying to everybody good morning instead of good evening. Lots of suggestions that I should go and get a coffee. The session was good and helpful in giving me some guidance on how I should be writing my essay which is due next week.

After the hour I popped back into bed for a few hours and finally arose at 9.30am. Claire went out to do a bit of shopping or rather something in particular that she had her eye on. I sat back at the desk and continued working on what I hope is a masterpiece. But in reality will probably be a very average essay after 20 years out of the game. Claire returned with a coffee and the morning ritual had begun. Who doesn’t have a coffee as part of their morning ritual eh?

This was out last morning in Ottawa and we quickly packed up the suitcases and checked out. An Uber was booked to take us to the train station where we’d catch a train to Kingston for the next leg of our trip. This leg really is the reason we came, Claire is Matron of Honour for a school friend who lives in Kingston. The Uber driver was interesting to say the least, for one he had a skateboard in the boot (trunk), he dressed like a skater too! I reckon when he isn’t getting uber jobs he is doing half pipes down the local skate park. Once he figured out we were Australian, he seemed to have a morbid fascination with the dangerous animals of Australia. I tried to move him off the topic three of four times but it kept coming back to sharks and how many people they ate a year. He then went into listing sharks and asking if we had them. Luckily I’ve watched Shark Week one or two times on Animal Planet so was able to answer the majority of his questions. I’ve probably done a disservice to ever Aussie that will get in his cab going forward because he will expect them to have a conversational understanding of sharks of Australia. Interestingly he asked me if we have any Megalodon sharks which have been extinct for over 2 million years. I said ‘yes of course’. He seemed impressed.

The train station seemed very efficient, it must have been built and operated by Germans. They loaded the train at least 30 minutes before we were due to go, weighed our cases. And had a few laughs with us. I know what your thinking….had a few laughs with us, they can’t be German! The train itself was large and comfortable and sold beer. They are a bit like a plane with full internet connectivity and movies/tv shows. Unfortunately I couldn’t find Sharknado.

As we travelled across this beautiful country it got me wondering, why can’t planes be like this train. Its got plenty of room between seats, you sit in twos and some people go backwards. Why exactly are planes so uncomfortable? I presume its a cost thing and they attempt to heard as many people in as possible. But for 20% extra would you be willing to pay for an extra bit of comfort? Trains feel like a mode of transport from a bygone era but what better way to traverse a country. Our internal trips in Canada are both by train and if this one is anything to go by I think it will be a most pleasant experience.

We were nicely picked up at Kingston station by the bride to be before being dropped at our Air B&B accommodation in the middle of Kingston. After having a brief walk around Kingston I would relate it to somewhere like Williamstown in Victoria. Its on the water (in this case Lake Ontario) has a bit of seaside vibe and is full of tourists. What did surprise me and surprised me in Ottawa was the amount of homeless people on the street. I sometimes walk round Melbourne and think we have a problem but it is a greater one over here.

Its nice finally having a kitchen and being able to cook for ourselves, so off we went to the local supermarket. The supermarket resembled a large IGA and was pleasantly familiar. This is one of the shopping expeditions when the tables are finally turned and I get the opportunity to go a little crazy. I wandered off, such is my way and when Claire finally caught me (in the crisps section), I’d already got in the basket, half a kilo of bacon, a giant lump of Monterey jack cheese, a half loaf of white bread and a large two litre bottle of Canadian Dry. This sort of shopping explains why we always go and do the main shop together at home. After I assured Claire this was just my way of soaking up the Canadian culture and was as important as visiting galleries and museums ( I don’t think she believed me for a second) we headed to the tills to pay.

As we walked out the supermarket, my eyes picked out the bottle shop over the road. In we went and upon a first look around found no craft beer. As we tried to walk out, this girl who worked there stopped us and asked what we were looking for and why we hadn’t found it. We told her we couldn’t find any craft beer and which point she yelled at the top of her lungs for an assistant to come over and take us to the craft beer section. We weren’t going to be allowed to escape the shop without buying something it seemed. Luckily enough we’d missed the craft beer selection completely and once lead by the shouted out assistant, I happily purchased a couple of cans that were local to the area. I should at this point explain, that cans over here aren’t Australian size. Most beer cans appear to be 473ml.

A quick down of one of those beers and then onto a BBQ at the pre-martial couples apartment that overlooks Lake Ontario. We Looked into the horizon as the sunset (the other side of the building) and I even got to try yet another new beer. The 2 minutes back to our Air B&B certainly beat the 20-25 minutes we were walking from anywhere in Ottawa.

Tomorrow I might finally don my running gear and get to put some kilometres in my legs. Its been a couple of weeks since I have and a lot of beer and bad food has been drunk in the meanwhile so I’m not sure how I’ll go but its better than the alternative of doing nothing I suppose.

IJS 20/07/2017

Well what has this week been missing so far? In my humble opinion its sport. I’m not sure Claire would agree but she is lovely enough to sign up for the races, the baseball and the soccer in Toronto. I was slightly disappointed I couldn’t find any sport these first five days in Ottawa, but today we got as close as we’re going to. An Ice Hockey exhibition at the Natural History Museum.

Although I don’t know an awful lot about the sport, I do have a basic knowledge from many years ago when a friend and myself went to an ice hockey introduction at a Laneway Learning class in Melbourne. From that it evolved, I went to watching the Melbourne teams playing at the Icehouse to a small but vocal crowd. I suppose though sport has always interested me. In fact its been part of me nearly my whole life, as long as I can remember, I have memories of sitting around in front of the TV on a Saturday evening waiting for the football scores. I went to watch the team in the village that I grew up and then the team in my university town. I’ve watched numerous sport games over the year on TV, and definitely align with the opinion that sport is a theatre for the masses. I mean it has all the drama, it can move you to tears, it can build you up and tear you down again, and it is at times pure passion.

The exhibition was good, if a bit short. We were probably through it in about 20 minutes, it was very visual but not that informative. I should imagine it scratched the surface of what was an interesting history. The whole museum was a little interesting in that way considering the size of it, we managed to get round it in around three hours. Admittedly we flicked quickly through sections but I wouldn’t say unnecessarily.

We finally also got a chance to go to MosaiCanada, which is a series of sculptures to reflect Canada and its society in a park not far from the National History Museum. When I say sculptures you may think these tiny little things showing a few ice hockey players and some birds. But the sculptures were all made of vegetation and were built on a giant scale. It was quite impressive and the gardens were full of people. The free admission probably helped this and It formed part of the 150^th year anniversary of Canada.

We wandered back to the museum for a bite to eat. We’ve found at least in Ottawa, the museums and galleries have been good places to eat. The food is of a relatively high standard whilst the prices are incredibly cheap, at least to our comparisons back in Australia. The museum we finished off in an hour and then we split up again today so I could come back and study and Claire could continue on her shopping expeditions.

My first essay is due in a week and a half, and having not been at university for twenty years now, I am struggling a bit with the way they seemingly want me to write things. It is quite a formal style and I must admit I struggle, and to a certain extent rebel against this notion. I love the way I write, I love my conversational styles and I don’t want to lose it. Claire is trying her hardest to convince me that if I want good marks, I need to write in a certain way, but I find something quite exclusive about the whole idea, like to be part of this club you have to write and present in a certain way. The style and especially the referencing is as hard to get your head round as the information in the essay itself and I wonder how many people get put off by this and how many good potential teachers they lose.

Anyway I continue to struggle to get my head around it and part of me, can’t wait to actually be on my practicals in schools rather than sitting at a desk writing essays! Saying that I am only a week and a half into my course and I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

Tonight of course is our final night in Ottawa and we decided to head out for dinner at a local Japanese round the corner. The menu was very familiar and my usual order of edamame, gyoza and katsu don was placed. Just like being back at home in Australia. The food was just alright, nothing special really but it was a good meal to end our time here. We then wandered down to an ice cream shop with a giant queue outside. For those of you that know my tendency to exaggeration, there must have been 15 people in the queue. I had the worst nightmare for an Australian overseas, the girl behind the counter thought I was a Kiwi after she heard Claire’s accent. I hastily explained that I definitely wasn’t and proceeded to sing Advance Australia Fair in the shop (please see my tendency to exaggerate above).

We wandered home in the humidity of the night. We leave tomorrow for Kingston, but not before a 5.30am wake up call for my visual/video conference with my class for one of the subjects I’m studying. There really is no compulsion to get up and do it and in fact my tutor has confirmed I don’t need to and I can listen to the recording afterwards, but I figure if I want to make a success of a new career at the very least I should be motivated at the start. And I certainly am.

After our initial disappointment with the hotel room, I have to say I will miss it. It’s been my home for the last 5 days.

IJS 19/07/2017

It seems like the jet lag is finally going, although waking up about 2.30 am every morning and not going back to sleep for a couple of hours and then getting out of bed might explain otherwise.

Today’s plan was simple and hopefully involved a lot less exertion than the last two days. Quite simple it was, go to the National Gallery of Canada and have a look round, then go shopping for some singlets because I only packed particularly warm stuff and it is 30c + and finally find somewhere for dinner.

Simple eh? Well we hoped it would be.

The morning started, as it seems every morning will do from now on with study. A couple of hours work done before we headed out of the door around midday. Our attempts to find a coffee shop are always pretty long winded but today we settled on the Canadian chain, Tim Horton. It was surprisingly alright, we don’t tend to visit the chains if we can avoid it, but under a new theory I have of trying not to spend too long finding somewhere for a coffee that tastes exactly the same as anywhere else this was the choice. The service was quick, the coffee was the most normal one I’d tasted to date so no complaints there from me. Oh and the size was largish but not quite as large as yesterday.

The National Gallery is a short walk away from our hotel and after barely finishing our coffees before arriving we headed into the gallery. We had three floors to explore and a café that I know promised me one beer I’d never tried before. And what a surprise that was, but I’ll cover that in a bit.

The gallery was over three floors with sections for Photography, European artists and Canadian and Indigenous artists. This is quite a lot to get through in a half day really. But we eagerly set off for the photography section, which is always a nice place to start, and I never find it too taxing. As I was wandering through the gallery and looking at the photos of normal scenes but from 30-40 years ago, I started wondering whether if I took a picture of a car outside a shop today, how many years it would be before we considered it art. I think the photos give us a glimpse into the past and probably are more intriguing for people who weren’t even born in those times.

The next move was into European Art of which we’ve seen quite a lot between us in various galleries. There were some nice pieces by Monet, Cezanne, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollack. It is always nice to see an original rather than something you’ve just seen on a computer screen as well.

The gallery had these two big atriums that spanned the three floors, in one was a square plot planted with various greenery whilst church music played in the background. I didn’t look for the description of it but it was quite a peaceful place and sometimes I like to take my own interpretation of the art rather than listen to what the artist wants me to see. The other atrium was again a square but this time filled with water. Two oases in the middle of the National Gallery.

We popped to the cafeteria, which we visited the other day where I’d tried a new beer to add to my extensive list. I picked one off the shelf this time that I thought was a new one. Ordered a very delicious and reasonably priced Bacon Cheeseburger (these are the types of art galleries I like to go to) and sat down to consume these with Claire. I get my phone out to log my beer only to find out, the screen is telling me it’s a non-alcoholic beer. I thought that’s silly, who would create such a thing. Upon checking the can, it was confirmed! I still drank it though. It tasted a bit like beer and I wonder how much psychology would play if I’d drunk it and thought it was beer. Would I have been staggering around?

After the disappointing beer we headed back in to look at the Canadian art, which I found quite refreshing. A mix of different pieces, from paintings, sculptures to giant piece of art (a whole bedroom for example). It’s always nice to see something different and a different perspective on things. This was probably my favourite section of the gallery and probably, so it should have been. The shop was quite disappointing and seem to stock a lot of postcards and fridge magnets of art that wasn’t actually in the gallery.

After that we wandered on what should have been a quick adventure to buy the aforementioned singlets. After about an hour and a trip to H&M we got there and I dangerously left Claire in a shopping district with our visa card to continue whilst I went back to the hotel to begin work on my first assignment, I failed to mention the couple of beers I had in the fridge! But we’ve both got to have some fun eh?

Dinner was booked on the basis that there was jazz playing at the establishment we were going too. We didn’t hold out much hope that the place would be that great considering it was in the Bytown Market area of the city which appeared to be full of plastic pubs and absolutely full of tourists eating seemingly terrible food there.

We wandered down stairs into the cellar expected the worse of Vineyards but we couldn’t have been more mistaken. The place was quiet, we were given a booth right opposite the two jazz musicians who were playing and the menu included an item, which is often referred to as food of the gods (in my mind anyway). Although saying that I had never seen a chicken parma served on top of a bed of pasta before. But you know what we’re on holiday and sometimes you have to be a bit adventurous and head out of your comfort zone. So, I avoided the two pages of fish on the menu and went for the parma. I wish I could tell you it was disappointing and not up to Australian standards, but if I did, I’d be lying. It was a delight, the linguini underneath the parma went down a treat and unlike chips when they put them under the parma, it didn’t matter if the linguini was soggy. The parma itself was amazing, good piece of chicken, well cooked breadcrumb and the sauce was delicious! I will be cooking these at home from now on (when I went to have a meal that compromises as many calories as I should eat in two days!). The bar also served flights of beer and interestingly flights of wine. This place was a find, I will create my own treasure map and bury it so if I ever find myself in Ottawa again I’d dig up the map and go back.

Our plan was to stay out later tonight to watch the light display on the Canadian Parliament building. Previous nights we’ve failed because we just got tired and went to bed. We were happily strolling up to the Parliament building tonight giving ourselves a good old pat on the back for managing to stay out late. Our understanding was this light show went on all night and would repeat every so many minutes. We arrived, joined the massive crowd and watched the show. After 5 minutes it ended and everyone went home. Little did we know the show only happens once a night and lasts 30 minutes. So now we are faced with one last night in Ottawa and a crucial decision on what we do at 10pm. Will it be devour chicken parmas on beds of linguini, will it be drinking alcohol at a local venue, will it be going to bed or could it be returning for the light show and watching the whole 30 minutes.

I suppose as always tomorrow will tell.

On an interesting side note we are currently experiencing a milk shortage in our hotel room. In our fridge on the first day were about 8 little tiny plastic pots of milk. We drunk them, they got refilled. Yesterday they didn’t get refilled. Today we left a note asking for the to be refilled. They weren’t refilled! Who will win this standoff?

I’ll leave with the following, on the way back to the hotel, I saw one of the best pub A-frames I’ve seen in a while. It simply said ‘buy two drinks, pay for both’.

IJS 18/7/2017

Well our second full day in Ottawa. I had big plans to wake up early this morning and set the alarm for a very early (when you’re on holiday), 7.50 am. Unfortunately I then decided as it went off to change it to 9am due to the incredible sense of tiredness I felt. Isn’t this always the same though? The best sleep you ever feel like you have is between alarms and not during the middle of the night.

At 9am I arose and commenced my study for the day whilst Claire snoozed away in bed. I might have been the tiniest bit jealous but to be fair to her it wasn’t very long before she got up. A couple of hours of study were followed up by us developing the plan for the day. The War Museum was meant to be the best museum in Ottawa so that was on our list, followed by Les Brasseurs du Temps (a brewery we’d spotted in a tourist book) and then a nice restaurant in the evening, Beckta.

Heading out and having found a fairly decent coffee chain (Bridgehead) yesterday we found the one nearest and headed there for a morning/lunch coffee. Unfortunately I fell into a trap though of ordering the largest coffee under the belief they only served two sizes. What I got instead would have been over half a litre of coffee in a giantish takeaway cup. It took me nearly all the 30 or so minute walk to the War Museum to finish it off. The walk to the War Museum was slightly off the beaten track and along a lot of big roads, which isn’t our favourite thing to do but it was a means to an end.

The War Museum was impressive but we both got to a point where we just couldn’t read about wars anymore after a couple of hours. The history part was pretty interesting especially about the establishment of early Canada, the conflict between the First People and the French and then the French and the English. I quite liked the way the term First people is used. The history of World Wars I&II, I pretty much knew, but this expanded into Canadian involvement and their dilemmas about providing troops to the Allies. The later part of the museum was around the Cold War and conflicts in Korea and the Congo.

A 25 minute walk was all it took to get to the nice brewery on the river. Although again walking down pretty busy truck routes. The brewery was a little oasis in the industrial landscape. And to our mind must have been in the French side of the city. We should have guessed via the name really but everyone when they spoke to you spoke French until they realised we spoke English. I know basic schoolboy French, but it wouldn’t have helped me much more than to order a beer or say hello, thank you and good-bye. And I got to try the dish everyone is meant to try in Canada, Poutine! Basically a mix of chips, gravy and lumps of soft cheese. It felt like a typical meal after a night out of 7 pints. Although very delicious. They did do a beer tasting tray, however they called it the clock. 12 beers all set out in a circle and numbered like the positions on a clock. The menu they took you through all the beer ranging many different styles from Ales, Weizens, Stouts, Dopplebocks and Imperial IPAs. The sample size was 80ml and it cost only $17. I mean in Australia that might be the cost of a tasting paddle of 5 beers in some places and you probably wouldn’t get such big samples.

I decided to be good and not drink all of everything, rather try everything and then go back to the ones I liked. This worked well and meant I wasn’t rolling out of there after having the equivalent of three pints in an hour. The beer was just okay, I felt they maybe tried to produce as many different styles as possible rather than focusing on one or two and making a superb job of those one or two. The bar itself had over 20 beers on tap, all of them, they made themselves.

We had a nicer walk back through towards the Natural History Museum and across the Alexandra Bridge back towards our hotel. The day so far had been very humid and an afternoon trying to knock back 3 pints of beer in the sun certainly leaves you feeling drained. Luckily we had an hour and a half back at our hotel before we headed out again. I needed to finish off a bit of study so I set myself to doing that before heading out for our dinner at Beckta. The most recommended restaurant in the Lonely Planet.

We had a booking in the wine room setting instead of the main restaurant; the only difference I could really ascertain was there weren’t any white tablecloths. The food was nice and reasonably priced and as everywhere does when your exploring a new country they had a couple of beers I hadn’t tried. I was significantly flagging after dinner so we ordered dessert to keep me going a little bit longer.

After dessert, as tends to happen in a country where a tip is expected, the waiter will suddenly make conversation, even if they have seemingly ignored you all the way through dinner. The waiter picked up we were from overseas, asked how long we were in Ottawa and what we’d done today. We mentioned we’d been to Les Brasseurs du Temps and he was curious how we ended up there. I mentioned my love of craft beer and that we’d seen it in a magazine. We then got onto talking about everyone speaking French to us, regardless of whether it was the first, second or third time they’d spoken to us. He then told us something that amazed us, we’d actually walked into Quebec province (the brewery is in Gatineau) and the majority of the people in the province speak French. He told us even though he had a working knowledge of French (most people are bi-lingual here in Ottawa), he wouldn’t be able to get a job in Quebec because his French isn’t good enough. We had a good chuckle because we’d been considering going into Quebec, but didn’t realise we’d managed to walk there.

We wandered home. An early night was needed after two full on days.

IJS 17/07/2017

Well, the sleep was deep and it was a bit of an effort to get up. But get up we did. Due to having started my Masters I unfortunately have to dedicate some of this holiday to studying. Hence the first two hours of our day I spent busily studying away whilst Claire indulged in a bit of reading. The view out of the window of a couple of office blocks, whilst not the most attractive did distract me momentarily whilst I got lost in my thoughts around theories to understand child’s behaviour.

Midday hit and we headed out to explore. Unlike us we didn’t have too many plans and decided to wander up into the Parliament district of the city, just 10 minutes up the street from where we are staying. The parliament building was nothing like I expected, having seen the redesigned Reichstag last year in Berlin, I expected something new and modern, when in fact it was an old gothic looking building so on top of a hill with beautiful views down towards the river. Originally developed in 1859 he has gone through a bit of rebuilding and adding of sections but it generally keeps with the style.

We were both in need of a café and we’ve found that art gallery or museum cafes tend to be relatively empty, serve good coffee and of a pretty high standard so off we set for what we thought was such a café across the water from the parliament. On the way we saw the impressive lock system of 40 or so locks taking boats through the middle of Ottawa. Its quite a tourist attraction. Not so much for me, having come from the canal boating capital of the UK and having grown up with locks from a child, whilst beautiful to watch the boats come up through them, I wasn’t exactly going to buy an ‘I love Ottawa’s locks’ t-shirt.

We wandered up to what we thought was the café only to find out it was a fair size wooden shack selling hot dogs. On the plus side, it did have nice views down the river. However, it wasn’t really what we were looking for so we moved on. The National Gallery of Canada kind of fulfilled our lunchtime need, if only they had coffee though. That had some sort of jug coffee which you then added water, all I could think of was mugs of Nescafe, so instead I helped myself to one of two craft beers in their fridges. That and a yoghurt and fruit went down nicely and seemed to balance out my calorific intake from last night.

We continued to explore this district and crossed the Alexandra bridge, with amazing views down the wide expanse of the Ottawa river and over to the Museum of Canadian history. Our plan today wasn’t really to go into any of these, rather just to check them out and decide what we wanted to come back to in the next few days. We noticed though as we walked down giant plant like sculptures just the other side of the museum and wander across there to check it out. This year being the 150^th year of confederation of Canada there is a lot going on and what we stumbled across was Mosaicanada, which was in fact giant plant sculptures. However the queue was so long that we decided to go back on a week day in the hope there would be less people about.

Our last trip of the afternoon was to ByWard Market, in fact it was a bit like the Queen Vic markets in Melbourne but probably not as big really. Lots of shops surrounded the market and we managed to hone in on the Rocky Mountain Chocolate shop to finally get that ice cream that we hadn’t been able to manage the night before. A stroll back to the hotel and a couple more hours of study before the start of the evenings festivities with tonight being Claire’s choice of restaurant.

Fauna, if I’m honest, wasn’t that bad. Its one of those restaurants that has just five items on each section of the menu and if you don’t like any, that’s your problem. Luckily enough I liked one of them. I mean, I’ve never tried Bison and I don’t know what a bavette is (its ribbon pasta and I got three whole bits). So me being the adventurous type (I’d try most types of burger apart from chicken), I decided to give it a go. The meat was delicious, it was served with parsnips and they had this herb stuffing coating in breadcrumbs. I mean, what is not to like. I fail to mention of course they served me two beers I’d never tried as well. But then again, if they served me Canada’s third most popular beer, I’ve probably never tried it.

Our plan was to wander up to the Parliament precinct after dinner to watch the light display, which is superimposed onto the parliament. However a little sprinkling of rain and we are easily put off. So back to our hotel room and planning our day tomorrow. I’ve decided we need to try some uniquely Canadian foods, such as Poutine or Beaver Tails. Poutine just sounds delicious to my English background, it involves chips, cheese curd and gravy. Sounds like my Uni years all over again (just wish they had that deep fried battered hamburger over here). Beavertails are a completely other beast, they are a pastry, rolled out like an oval shaped pizza and then covered in a sweet topping like chocolate hazelnut and peanut butter pieces.

I go to bed dreaming of that deliciousness!

IJS 16/07/2017

Well here we go again. Another couple of weeks of bad spelling mistakes, awful grammar and lost of apostrophes in the wrong places!

International travel isn’t sexy is it? Take this morning, we got up a time that I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen on the clock before, I know the first number was 4, the rest was just a blur. Claire rose first as is the custom in our house. If we had an alarm clock I could hit, I would have hit the snooze button. Instead I clicked the clock icon, put 15 more minutes on the alarm and drifted back to sleep. It’s funny how it seems the best sleep you get is between alarms. And off it went again, I dragged my body from bed, showered, got dressed and we headed out the door and on our way to the airport.

I hadn’t slept that well but do you ever when you know you have to get up at some ungodly hour of the morning? The drive to the airport was uneventful. We were a little anxious, upon checking our flight we noticed there was only an hour and twenty difference between landing at Brisbane domestic and transiting to Brisbane international, through Customs and onto our Canadian bound flight.

The heat as we entered the aerobridge at Brisbane was a relief compared to the cold Melbourne winter, it’s always a holiday thought but we spoke briefly about moving to a hotter climate but then quickly decided we liked Melbourne too much. Getting through the airport was quick and apart from a slight delay at immigration where of course my epassport failed once more, we made the gate just as the plane boarded.

We were lucky enough to have an extra legroom seat against the bulkhead. The last few trips have taught me to seek comfort on the longer legs and pay the extra for it. We learnt from our Berlin trip and didn’t book the outside seat, knowing the trolley constantly hits it on the way down. As usual the stewardesses gave me funny looks as I refused the meals, telling me how long it was till the next meal, I politely declined with “I don’t eat on planes”. Only afterwards did Claire let me know that they were probably making a comment about me ordering beers whilst not eating, but I wasn’t going for Boony’s record or anything. A couple of cans of Coors Lights and a Molson Canadian Lager aren’t gonna get anywhere close and hey, how do I make my money back for not eating.

The trip passed quickly for me. My idea was to try and do at least half my weeks study on the plane and I achieved this by completing all my reading for my course. I could see for poor Claire though the time dragged and a part of me felt guilty about that. I dislike seeing her sad and as soon as I finished my study we plugged in our little joint earphone connector and watched the same movies and shows.

We thought coming into Vancouver we’d have very little time to play with but in fact the opposite was true. Having initially been told by Qantas we would need to collect our bags and re-check them in we were told that they would go straight through to our final destination, Ottawa. We had some unintentional fun at the immigration gate where a machine takes a scan of your passport and then asks you to pose for a picture and prints it out and gives it you. Neither of us could get it right and I was quite embarrassed to take it up and show the officers there this wide eyed crazed grinning face I’d managed to pull.

Vancouver airport was empty and we sailed through and after wandering up and down the shops we decided our breakfast (it was now 8am in our new destination) would be taken at the first one we saw. Pretty sure they were much of a muchness but after not eating for 24 hours I’m not sure anything would have tasted bad. The bacon, egg and cheese croissant went down a treat as well as the regular coffee, which in Australia will be classified jumbo.

I’m finding Air Canada staff different, they don’t really fit the model of Australian air stewards and stewardesses. No blonde hair and tans, more just normal looking people who don’t lay on the pleasantries too much but seem to be very genuine. The descent into Vancouver was impressive over a series of islands, as we first descended through the clouds. Mountains were just poking their heads above the cloud cover, looking like peaks rising through the snow, of course though it is in the low mid twenties so no chance of snow where we are at the moment.

I’m a keen watcher of the flight path on planes, it certainly teaches you a few things. Today I learnt there was a place called Chilliwack! Strangely and luckily enough our only late arriving plane was the one into Ottawa on our final leg requiring no transfer apart from to our hotel. The flight was fairly uneventful. We’d checked ahead and uber was available from the airport so the nice Vladmir came up to pick us up. He wasn’t talkative, which after 27 hours travelling sort of suited us.

Arriving at hotels after long journeys is always a disappointment I find. You form in your mind this picture of a giant room with spas and dressing rooms and when you arrive it’s the size of a large broom cupboard. I think we both felt a little disappointed but that soon cleared and we headed out for a small supermarket shop at Sobey’s Urban Fresh (a bit like a Woolworths metro to us Aussies). It interestingly served a whole counter of hot foods, like a buffet, where you filled your tub with pasta, rice or other dinner treat and pay via the amount of grams you have. Cool idea eh? If we had this in Australia, when Claire was away, I’d never cook. The beer selection as you can imagine was wonderful to me. I hadn’t had 98.7% of it. And the rest were variations of Guiness.

After a quick pop back to the hotel to fill the fridge with our goodies we headed out to a restaurant of my choice. I fancied a burger and I noticed in our Lonely Planet a burger joint called ‘The Works’ closeby. We walked 20 minutes down a road filled with all sorts of restaurants and plastic pubs before reaching it. I’ve never been to an American diner but I imagine if you hipstered one up it would look like this. Lots of wood and industrial piping painted onto the walls. Our waitress came over, introduced herself, like you see on those American movies and asked if we’d been before. I told her not only had I never been before, it was my first night in Canada. She seemed excited. I ordered The Tragically Maple burger, thinking I might as well try a Canadian creation. I ordered their smallest beer, which turned out still to be 600ml, I supped away on a couple until my burger and Claire’s salad turned up. I’m not sure what the chef thought when the order for salad with chicken came through but I can imagine he was disgusted!

As I bit into the burger and stared lovingly at the bucket of fries they’d bought me, I realised why it was called the Tragically Maple burger, everything was sweet, the bacon, the potato bits, the few leaves, the bun and the burger. I think they dipped the whole thing in Maple Syrup before bringing it out to me. I quickly came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to finish my first massive burger meal in Canada and for once in my life instead of ordering the fries as a side, I should have taken up the offer of the steamed broccoli.

We wandered back to the hotel in the humid 26c degree heat at 10pm at night, thinking about an ice cream but I reckon that would have knocked me out for a couple of days. I live to see another day and maybe another burger. We start the beginning of 4 full days in Ottawa from tomorrow.

IJS 15/7/2017

So why Adelaide you might be asking. And probably with that somewhat biased Melbourne view that Adelaide is just some sort of backwater. A country town like city where nothing goes on. Well I’ve been to South Australia many time before. Mainly to the Adelaide Hills and the very kitsch village of Hahndorf but I have spent a little time in Adelaide back when the Ashes were here last time and have day tripped in from the Hills.

Well the answer this time was that I was lucky enough to leapfrog onto a conference Claire was at in Adelaide. She flew up Sunday and I joined her on the Tuesday night for the remainder of the week. I suppose were both planners so from originally wondering what we were going to do within a day of arriving in Adelaide we’d already managed to sort out 3 out of the 4 remaining evenings. A play, a comedian and finally a band. The classic trinity.
Claire’s conference took her to the Adelaide Convention Centre and our base on North Terrace ensured she could roll out of bed at 8.45 and be at her conference at 9. But also it proved to be a very handy launchpad for other attractions in Adelaide. It sits right next to the Festival precinct, the Adelaide oval and is only a short walk from North Adelaide, where I’d previously spent my time in the city. The draw was too much and I indulged my walk down memory lane into North Adelaide, past the Adelaide oval. As with most memories, the reality is not quite as good as the memory. Of course I was here with an old school friend of mine then and our lives revolved around beers and sport for four days. The drinking venues in North Adelaide hadn’t changed much but in truth it wasn’t that kind of trip.

I took Claire up there for a walk and we popped into a very noisy pub for lunch. The food was okay, the music loud and I wasn’t in the mood for a beer so a lemon lime and bitters sufficed. I was saving myself though. Before I’d come up a friend had told me about The National Wine Centre which was a bit like a big cellar door with 120 wines to taste.

However the no drinking was only limited to that visit really, my first day when Claire was still on conference I visited an old haunt from last time I was here, The Wheatsheaf Hotel otherwise affectionately known as The Wheaty. I had vivid memories of going her last time whilst waiting for my old school friend to arrive, watching the cricket on some 1980s tv on the bar whilst talking to the owner about craft beer. I remember her mentioning they were setting up a brewery and upon my return it was now in full operation. After reading the full local paper cover to cover (and who does this these days), a chat to the owner again and four beers later I was ready to wander back to our apartment. A bit drunkenly I staggered the 20 mins back to be greeted by big smile as I walked in. Those little things mean so much. A smile, a kind word here or there.
Back to the National Wine Centre though. Our plan had always been to visit for an hour on one of days but it ended up being six hours over two days. I have to admit what pulled me in was knowing I could taste Penfold’s Grange there. I knew a taster would be expensive but I don’t think I thought it would be $37. We arrived I had a couple of wines and debated whether the Grange was worth it. I once told my dad I paid $50 for a beer, he nearly fainted. His very working class upbringing mentality saw it as a waste, so I can only imagine what he might say if I told him a spent $37 on about 5 sips of wine. But sip it I did. I debated a long while but came to the conclusion that this was the reason I came and Claire’s encouragement pushed me over the line. And I’m glad I tried, I mean I’m not exactly going to go out and buy a $850 bottle (2008 vintage for those who care). But it was different from anything I’d tasted. I went through about 10 different flavours as it passed through my palate. There was a lovely smooth richness to it, it sort of tasted a bit majestic although that could have been the news I was watching on Twitter that the royal household had been called in for an emergency meeting. I shared of course, so Claire could taste as well, we both thoroughly enjoyed it.
My view had initially been, one visit to the wine centre and one to Pirate Life Brewery in Hindmarsh but I changed that view after an afternoon enjoying 8 different wines, trying styles I had never tried before. From Barberas to Mataro and Fiano to Picpoul. The atmosphere there was very relaxed which I enjoyed too. You were given a card you then put into a machine and chose what pour of wine you’d like (sample, half glass or glass). On the second day we enjoyed a cheese platter and both days lounged in some easy chairs whilst reading papers and chatting. A perfect way to spend a couple of holiday afternoons.
The play we went to Mr Burns at the Space theatre in the festival precinct, as some might guess from the name was inspired by the Simpsons and was based in a post apocalyptic world with few survivors. This particular group of survivors were trying to recreate Simpsons episodes from memory and later filmed their episodes for people to watch. Not as strange as you might think. And well worth a watch if you get the chance.

The second of our nights of entertainment was watching Julia Morris at the Festival Theatre. Neither of us had seen her comedy before, although I had seen her on a couple of TV programmes. The theatre was quite old fashioned but incredibly spacious. For this performance we’d managed to get a seat in one of the boxes which from high up and on the side still had a rather good view of the stage. The crowd was very enthusiastic and in fact one of Julia’s first lines was about how supportive crowds were in Adelaide and we found this out in our two visits to this theatre. Events and performances are sometimes about the atmosphere the audience brings as well as the actual performance on stage and this was definitely one of those occasions. For my liking, the comedy had a bit too much pretend chatter to a production manager off stage as they pretended things weren’t working when of course the audience knows this is just an act. But overall I found it very funny and not really being a lover of live comedy that is praise indeed.

Our final full day in Adelaide was probably more of a day for me, but one of the things I love most about Claire is her willingness to come along to things I enjoy even though I know they aren’t really her thing. She never complains or gives me the feeling she never wants to be there and seems to genuinely give everything a go. I’d noticed in the run up to Adelaide that the South Australian Oaks was on at Morphettville, a track I’d never been too. I like a day at the horses as many of you will know and this was too good an opportunity to pass up. After a big breakfast we caught an Uber and headed out to the track. There was some debate about the Uber and whether the tram would be better (and cheaper) but my anxiety got the better of me and my reasoning came to the conclusion that the Uber would get us there quicker and give me time to figure out the lay of the land, pick up my members tickets and get to see the races I wanted without the risk of being delayed due to public transport.

Unfortunately my thinking didn’t take into account, the Uber driver’s map taking him to the wrong side of the course, the smallness of the track and the ease of getting about and how empty it was. We arrived very early but on the plus side it gave us chance to have a drink and explore the member’s areas.
Like most trips to the track lately however it turned very much into a losing affair and Claire (annoyingly) picked up the only winner of the day. It was however a good day for Victorian trainers picking up nearly all the big races and Claire overheard someone say that all the money was being taken out of the state to go to Victoria. That made me smile.We took the tram back, which was fast and not packed in the slightest. In fact the attendance at the races surprised me with no more people than a Friday night at Moonee Valley. I was imagining their Oaks might be as big as the Victorian one. A quick dinner was had and then we went to our final performance on the last night of our time away.

We’d both only just heard of The Whitlams in passing but never really heard any of their music but this has kinda been our thing in our time together, going to see bands we’d not really heard of before. Both being a little nerdy we listened to a few of The Whitlams top songs via Apple Music in the days coming up to the event. The crowd as the previous night were incredible, the music was amazing and will definitely form part of our numerous playlists going forward. The Whitlams played with the Adelaide pops orchestra supporting them and the addition of strings and brass brought the songs alive. In parts of the music you just imagined would be empty, you heard the orchestra rise up to fill the gap. Performances like that are visual as well as just vocal though and watching an orchestra conducted on stage is a sight to see in itself. It was the last night of their tour and there was a sense of good humour throughout and it seemed like they genuinely enjoyed playing as much as we genuinely enjoyed listening.

We returned to our hotel for our final nights sleep on our rather uncomfortable bed, or should I say beds. In fact they were two single beds attached together. Although this is not unusual, what was unusual was there was two individual mattresses together as well. So when one of us rolled over into the middle, we hit the ridge on the edge of the mattress which made it rather uncomfortable and unless we both squeezed onto one of the mattresses or stuck to our own it was hard to actually sleep. On the plus side it will make me appreciate my own bed so much more on my arrival back in Melbourne where I can cuddle Claire without feeling a ridge pressing into the side of my body.

And so I write this as I sit on the plane on our flight back into Melbourne. Lately I’ve learnt to use my time on planes more constructively. It was with mixed feelings we return, as everyone does from every holiday really. It’s always nice to take some time out from the daily routine and not always have jobs that could be done. But it’s nice also to return home also. We’ve both missed our independent little pussy cat who doesn’t appreciate cuddles and have missed his constant meowing everytime we go near his food bowl. I’m sure after a couple of days though this will be back to being annoying again.

Adelaide was fabulous. A great trip. I’d only been there 4 full days but it felt like a holiday and that’s what’s important. Let’s the holidays continue.

  
I should start by saying, this blog like all of mine are about me. About how events have made me feel. At the end of the day, I can only comment on events from my perspective, I can’t hope (or wish) to be in the mind of anyone else. Our feelings are our own and ours alone. Feelings though are transitional they change all the time. For example how I feel when I first start writing this may not be the way I feel when I finish. Just as my feelings at the beginning of this process are not the same as my feelings at the conclusion. I’ve always found writing quite therapeutic, it gives me a chance to almost stand back and look at the situation as though I’m writing a story about a third person rather than myself. It offers me some perspective and helps me challenge my feelings.

This blog is meant to give an insight into events last year, the breakdown of my marriage less than 3 months after the event and the aftermath.

I was reminded of this a few days ago, when I saw a Facebook memory about a Facebook post I’d made announcing that my ex and I had split up. At the time it caused a bit of furore because it seemed she hadn’t told some of her friends and I was announcing it to them. Some harsh things were said to me, but also some lovely things as well and I will forever remember fondly my friends who jumped into that discussion to defend me. The post was something I needed to do to make the situation real as well as begin the process of recovery. It was very much something for me and maybe satisfied a need in me to wrestle back some control of situation in which I felt I had none.

It worked in many ways, it allowed me to draw a line under things and to start to rebuild my life again. Rebuilding meant a lot of things to me, I’m acutely aware of my age and my past relationship failures. My life over the last few years has really been a pot of insecurity, feeling secure for a few months and then having things blown apart again. More than anything my decision to start dating again was really only to fill a bit of time and distract me a little. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined where it would lead me and I am forever grateful that I made that decision.

I’m sure I would have been the centre of everyone’s discussion at one point in time and especially my willingness to get back to dating so fast. I’m sure there would have been comments that I needed time to recover, to take stock before I got to that point. But in my defence I would say, people recover in different ways. There is no rulebook for how we get through these things, there are just opinions. It can be all too easy to criticise what we don’t truly understand. The only person who ever really understands is the man in the arena, fighting a myriad of emotions while attempting to function as normally as possible.

I was proactive in other ways, primarily probably my best action was to seek psychological therapy and quickly. And I lucked out in that respect. I found a psychologist I actually connected with. One who I felt, could understand my situation, who listened. She never led me to any conclusion, she just gave me food for thought, made me understand my repression of certain emotions was damaging and encouraged me not to be so hard on myself. To sit with anxiety, to imagine these feelings as waves crashing over me, to understand these feelings wouldn’t last forever, just like the waves themselves, they stop and the sea becomes calm again. We worked on proactively summoning the emotions and then concentrating on nothing else but them. To avoid my usual route of distraction and instead let this anxiety consume me. In retrospect unless you are used to this, it isn’t an easy route to go but in the long term its been very beneficial. I learnt how to self soothe. At one point in our therapy, she said something I have always remembered, “you’ve suffered more loss in the last few years, than many people have in their lives”. It made me see myself in a different light, to stop fighting and feel a little sad for myself. It was quite an insightful statement for me.

The breakup itself came as a shock. I’m not sure anybody would expect a relationship to fall apart only a couple of months after a marriage. One minute things seem to be flowing along nicely, a few arguments here or there but nothing earth shattering. I recently thought, maybe I’m kidding myself and there were signs it was coming so I flicked back through social media to try and find events close to the end. To my mind they all seemed normal events in some cases happy events. I’m not going to go into specifics because I don’t think that’s fair but I can’t really see how I could ever have seen it coming. That in itself should illustrate what a shock this was. One day I was sailing along thinking all was going well, the next, the future I was thinking of the day before was gone. The world quite literally collapsed, everything I held true suddenly was no longer.

In a strange way, in the aftermath, I didn’t have time to think. My thoughts were all about self-preservation, looking after number one. I did what needed to be done. Suddenly the one person I thought had my back, didn’t. There was such a feeling of loneliness and a hopelessness about the future. Layered on top of this was a fear that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, something that came out of a period of insomnia a couple of years before.

But sleep I did and for me that was reassuring. Next came the process of moving out. An emotionally charged process that speaks not just of the change of location but about the change of everything. I was lucky enough to find somewhere relatively fast and have some good friends who agreed to help me move. The day itself was all about excitement, about starting over, about camaraderie with people helping out. I distinctly remember going to the soccer after I’d moved all my belongings and actually enjoying the day. But then, I went home to this new house and in spite of having a new housemate, I was suddenly all alone in a strange place and a new area. The excitement faded and the worry began. Was this just a transitional phase or was this truly my lot for my lifetime. I tried to be pro-active, I tried to keep my social life going, my friends were amazing, they seemed to make an extraordinary amount of time for me. Time away from their families, which I appreciated and still do to this day.

Life evolved, I started to date but of course there were still things to sort out from my old life. All of those things that on paper look transactional (splitting of assets, post redirections etc) are all highly emotionally charged because they aren’t just about those things, they are about a former life and the mourning of that former life. Contact with an ex became ridiculously painful and provoked emotions that could continue for hours if not days at a time.

But changes come over time. The past is only the past we view at that point in time. I think the immediate view is a very black and white one, a very angry one. But as my therapist at one point explained, anger is very much about self-protection and is there for a reason. It can be a useful emotion. And perhaps one I’ve struggled with and find it hard to bring out. Much of our work was about bringing that emotion to the fore and admitting what the emotion was. What once was anger though turns into something different and over time realisations are made.

I don’t think there is any set time for these. I’m sure people stay angry about breakups for the rest of their lives. But gradually as time went on I came to different points. One of my first ones was I forgave my ex for what she had done. Even typing this sounds very self-important and even though I came to this conclusion at one point it took a big conversation with my therapist to get me to action it. My view was my ex wouldn’t necessarily think she had done anything that I needed to forgive her for. A long discussion was had around the reason I wanted to forgive, was it for me or was it for her. The conclusion reached was, it was for me, so did it really matter whether my ex thought she had something to be forgiven for? I promptly sent an email to her letting her know I’d forgiven her for the hurt I’d felt she’d caused with the breakup. On a side point, I’d actually had a discussion with a friend about exactly this and when I told them I had forgiven my ex, they actually shed a couple of tears and said what a fantastic thing to do it was. I found that quite touching and it certainly reinforced the gravity of the action of forgiveness.

The next stage was, I thought it was the right thing to do to tell my ex about my new partner. I didn’t really want her finding out about it via other people and I’d prefer if I can to try and do what I consider the right thing (it might not always be). Another email was sent off.

I suppose at this point you might be questioning why I favoured email correspondence. I suppose from my point of view its very factual and provides a good record of a conversation. It doesn’t tend to lead to emotional charged conversations and overall, although maybe some people would view this type of conversation as spineless, I believed it provided me the medium which suited my message the best. I couldn’t be interrupted and could make the point I wanted and not drawn off onto tangents.

The final realisation I’ve come to just recently came from a piece of music. One day as I sometimes do, I plugged my headphones in and found myself listening to ‘Fun’ by Coldplay. I find when I have headphone in I really listen to the words instead of just the sounds. The song is about a breakup but refelecting that ‘didn’t we have fun’. It got me thinking. I realised that sometimes in situations like this, we think of a break up and we attach in our minds that all experiences we had were bad ones because the breakup itself was traumatic However the more I pondered that the more I realised there were plenty of good times, in fact the majority of the relationship was full of good times and easily out-weighed the bad. I can now finally look back on the relationship with a bit of fondness.

The process has been a very valuable one in many ways and has taught me so many things. Its taught me how resilient I am and have been over the years. It’s made me realise that I am so much stronger than I think. Its taught me I’m very tough on myself at times (I still sometimes today think what I failure I am after two failed marriages and think there is so much stigma attached with that). I’ve become so much more reflective about my life and experiences and tried to understand why I feel a certain way instead of reacting to the that emotion or trying to distract myself from it. I’ve learnt that maybe it’s not my failure with relationships, it’s a failure in the dynamic between two people. I’ve very much learnt to check in more often, to use my therapist as a sounding board for things and not be concerned about asking for my needs to be met.

The friendships I’ve had have strengthened through this all, my close friends have surrounded me, checked in and been there when I needed them. My new relationship is built with a good solid base, potential problems are discussed and talked out before they become issues. Communication has very much become the key for me.

My world and hence myself have invariably changed. Getting through this all has not been easy at times. Its felt like I’m banging on a door trying to get someone to open it, only realising with time, that the key was in my pocket all the time and I just needed to open it when I was ready.

I’m sure the future holds great things. I’m forever hopeful.

IJS 19/04/2017

 
   
Well then. It’s been over 5 years of effort, commencing with a competition between a couple of friends to drink a different Australian beer every day of the year but morphing into drinking 2000 unique beers.

Its with mixed emotions that I finally reach this goal. There have been times along the way where I’ve enjoyed sampling so many different tastes, some I’ve liked, some I haven’t liked so much. Its confirmed what styles of beer I love, which I’m happy to drink and which I will going forward try to avoid. This comes with it downsides as well, as I’ve hit milestone number (1000, 1500, 2000) I’ve moved to reach each goal faster and that has meant at times drinking beers I knew I wouldn’t enjoy (although some have surprised me) and having a focus on the numbers rather than the beer itself.

I reached a conclusion recently that when I hit the 2000 figure, I would go back to beer purely for the enjoyment and nothing more. Also now my home brewing operation is regularly churning out beer, I’d like to finally reach the stage where I’m self sufficient at home instead of buying beer and just basically buying beers when I’m out and about.

In all truth I’m not really sure it’s a milestone to be proud of. 2000 beers in the last 5 years sounds a bit extreme really. But when you consider most of the beers i’ve drunk have been unique it doesn’t sound that bad. It’s not like I’ve been drinking slabs of beer and then individuals on top. I can’t honestly remember the last time I bought a six pack of the same beer or wandered into a bottle shop without my phone out checking Untappd to see whether I’ve had a certain beer before. It will certainly be nice not to hear after 5 minutes of me standing there looking, “do you need any help, can I recommend something?”. Because I will no longer be spending more time in bottle shops than I do book shops.

This drive has lead me to trying different beers not just here in Australia but in fact around the world. Throughout Vietnam, Berlin, New Zealand and Malaysia I’ve spent time tasting and recording new beers. One thing I’d wish I’d done more of was comment on them and rate them properly. Unfortunately over the last few years, I’ve seen Untappd as just a tool to record how many beers I’ve actually drunk instead of the quality of these beers. What would have been nice, would have been to finish up and then go back over the ratings and buy six packs of the ones I loved. Unfortunately that won’t be happening and instead I will probably focus on the styles I’ve come to love.

My taste for IPAs since the very popular days of IPAs have waned and I often think now, that bar maybe one or two IPAs you can get, these are very much one beer drinks that play havoc with your taste buds and anything drunk after doesn’t quite taste the same. I suppose in truth I like an old plain run of the mill Pale Ale, not too highly hopped but nicely balanced, a beer I can sit with a six pack on a lazy Sunday afternoon and just enjoy whilst reading a book in the afternoon sun in the backyard.

I do though enjoy a good dark ale as well. Browns, Porters and Stouts have formed much of my winter drinking for the last few years now and I think will continue to. I love the richness of them and the images they conjure in my mind, maybe I just think a lot of Guiness adverts when I think of dark beers. I definitely think of days gone by and the memories those tastes stir up. Sitting in pubs with friends drinking pints whilst the smell of stale pub carpets wafts up to your nostrils.

And of course there are some beers I’ve definitely grown not to like. Maybe I just have a rubbish palate and can’t appreciate them however people should drink what they enjoy eh? And not what they think they should be drinking because it’s the latest trend. On my list of not enjoyable beers is mainly Sours and Berlinweisses . I’ve even tried a Berlinweisse in Berlin and I still didn’t like it. I suppose for me the traditional taste of beer, the one I grew up with is the one I still like. In spite of my dad feeding me crisps (chips) in a beer garden when I was younger dipped in lager, I still appreciate that bitter taste and the Sours and Berlinweisses are just too sweet or not what I really consider a beer.

As for the whole craft vs mainstream argument, I’ve come to the conclusion after many years of being a beer snob that maybe people should just drink what they really enjoy. Whether that be cans of VB or bottles of Temple Bicycle beer it shouldn’t really matter. I suppose I resist the attitude to a degree that says I just drink one thing without trying anything else but if you’re happy you’re happy and who am I to tell you otherwise.

It’s a rather blurred line nowadays really on what is mainstream and what is craft. I’m sure people out there have a definition but with the larger beer companies buying up Mountain Goat and Little Creatures, two flagships of the craft industry, the question is about what are we being snobbish about? The ownership or the beer itself. I have to admit, I still enjoy a Carlton Dry or a Wild Yak when I go to the races and I’ve learnt a new found appreciation of them because that basically is all I can get but you know what, they aren’t bad options and for everyone who would turn their nose up at them there are probably five times the amount that would be happy to drink them.

I mean it’s not like I’m about to stop drinking beer. Its part of my cultural heritage really. I still very much do a lot of my socialising in pubs and generally enjoy that atmosphere because it is one I am intimately familiar with. But saying that it might be nice to start having more alcohol free days a week that alcohol days and indulge some other passions, such as running which has been sorely neglected lately. It might be nice when considering a venue for dinner, considering the food and not the beer list and it might be nice not getting my phone out every time I drink a beer to record the next one. I genuinely look forward to not have new beers be my driver in where I go and what I do. And I look forward to refocusing the efforts of the last few years into something new.

Its been a great effort to get to 2000 and I’m proud of getting there, its quite an achievement. Its nearly up there with running a marathon for me, but its time to focus on something else. It shouldn’t be about the numbers which is what it became it should be about the beers and the taste. I mean saying all this, I’m not going back to drinking cans of VB but instead of drinking individually different beers maybe I’ll spend an evening drinking the same one, or maybe just a couple instead of 6 or 7 different ones.

So what did I finish on, what were my last three beers. Well, they were all from New Zealand. I like to make pivotal moments relevant, and with my beautiful partner being a kiwi I decided to pay homage to that country in the best way I know. 1998 ….. Garage Project Venesian Pale Ale…. 1999…..Funk Estate Stacking Cash…… 2000 Epic ‘Eric the Red’.

Bring on a few alcohol free days…..I don’t think the last month has had hardly any. And look out for some proper reviews from me, once that speak about the beers I drink, what they say to me and what they mean.

2001 was a space odyssey….2000 has been a beer odyssey.

IJS