I’m going to simplify things a little this year, and get right into it. Most of my new things happened in the early part of the year and related to travel. It was a great year of travel (my favourite thing).
1. Boated on the Nile
We went to visit our friends Charles and Audra while they were living in a suburb of Cairo and they took us on a felucca (kind of boat) ride. People often take a picnic out and float around for a couple of hours taking in the river.
2. Visited the Pyramids (including my first camel ride)
We hired a driver and tour guide to take us to the pyramids in Cairo and down to see some others south of the city in Saqqara. It was awesome having a private tour and also safer. We really enjoyed learning about life in Cairo from a local.
3. Hiked Mount Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula
We took a midnight hike up to the top of Mount Sinai to see the sun rise. Our Bedouin guide Khalid needed no light, so the four of us tripped along behind him using one headlamp and trying as best possible to jump out of the way of camels roaming the opposite direction down the path in the dark. Dave was the crazy fool who wore shorts.
4. Visited Petra, Jordan
We took one quick day tour over to Jordan to see Petra for about 3hrs. It was a couple kilometre walk down a narrow path, filled with people and horses and carts just to get into the historic site. You first see the famous Indiana Jones scene of the Treasury, then you head around the corner into an open area with many more buildings built into the mountain walls.
5. Swam in the Dead Sea
The Dead Sea is not what you expect when you get to it. You just see clumps of floating salt everywhere. You really wonder why people would go in and how there was a beach to enter from, but then you come to the tourist areas with a man made beach and not giant clumps of salt and walk into the warm water and float around. It was a pretty fun and memorable experience.
6. Visited many historical sites in Jerusalem and Israel
There was so much to see in beautiful Jerusalem and what a complicated place. We had an excellent tour with a PhD in Archaeology and Religious Studies who took Dave and I around for 7hrs. We learned so much. My favourite place was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where you could walk through several stages of the cross. At one point is was the largest church on Earth and one of the first. Interestingly is is almost entirely underground. Below are pictures of the Dome of the Rock where it is said the Prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven. Below that is the Sea of Galilee in Northern Israel.
7. Wine toured in the Hunter Valley, Australia
Girls weekend in the Hunter. I’ve been to the Yarra Valley and the Mornington Peninsula and love the beautiful countryside and wineries of Australia, so why not get a group of Aussie friends and some visiting Canadians to take a road trip while I visited.
8. First hike in Australia to the top of Pigeon House Mountain
I stayed with my lovely friend Christen in Wollongong again, but this time we went a couple hours south to do a hike with some of her friends. I had never hiked in Australia so it was fun to see some different vegetation and get a view from the top…after climbing many, many steep stairs. It was foggy at the top at first, but cleared up okay just before we came back down.
9. Got my Project Management Professional (PMP) designation
Sorry, no pictures of me jumping for joy after a soul crushingly hard four hour exam I prepared a month for, but I passed and that is all that matters. I had been planning to take this after I left my job at Yellow Pages at the end of March and returned from Australia at the end of April. I taught myself the material, took a crash exam course, and studied hard, but I enjoyed all of that (except the exam part). Now I am a full fledged PMP and rocking it in my new job at Covenant House Vancouver. Finally feels like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.
10. Traveled to Sooke, Vancouver Island
Dave and I took a long weekend vacation in September to Sooke on Vancouver Island. We had never been to that area, and it was a chill, relaxing place to go for a weekend. This is the view from the Mystic Beach hike we did. Very typical BC scenery, but very lovely.
Extras!
Ate pigeon and honey dripping from the comb in Egypt, drank Turkish coffee, significantly improved my sauce game at dinner time, read up on how to improve my decision making abilities (Decisive by Dan and Chip Heath), completed Type Coach through work to understand myself better (I’m a ISTJ), also figured out my Enneagram (Perfectionist), ate a three metre long pizza (with some help), heard Alan Cross speak, saw Lo Moon and Chvrches perform (Lo Moon has since become one of my favs), started a new job at a not-for-profit that I really care about and finally went on a harbour cruise of Vancouver.
Some of my favourite pictures:
Drinking the sludge called Turkish Coffee.
Attempting to make this delicious aish baladi bread in Egypt with some lovely ladies. (Mine was a disaster!)
Learning how to weave some beautiful carpets. I was a natural.
Some of the most delicious Za’atar bread in Tel Aviv. One happy girl!
The beautiful Jordan River. Not the exact location of Christ’s baptism, but somewhere close. What a tropical location.
Next year already involves a trip to a Hawaiian Island I haven’t been to (Kauai) and will hopefully also include a South Pacific adventure to an Asian country we haven’t been to yet that I’m guaranteed will include some incredibly delicious food. Yay, for 2020!
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