Graeme and I have never been to Pemberton, so decided to go for a one night stay. We found an amazing AirBnB micro cabin and went for an awesome hike to the Pebble Creek hot springs. Amazing!!!!

It got quite busy as we were leaving.

Such a a gorgeous spot. 

This weekend we celebrated Robyn’s 29^th birthday. Inspired by friends and stories we had heard about acts of kindness, we decided to celebrate by giving. The goal was to do simple, sometimes small, acts that help give back to the community or help brighten someone’s day. We had to get all 29 things done in one day. It was a long day, with the first act starting at 9:00 am and the last act coming in at 9:00 pm. We had a blast, and it was a great way to spend time around the city with a loved one. Here’s our list:

1. Take home made muffins to a neighbor. One of my father’s childhood friends lives just a few blocks from us. He is a caretaker for a small park, and lives in a humble single room building in the park. He’s one of the most talkative guys I have ever met, and is always up for a chat. We left him a couple apple streusel muffins with a note.

2. Put loonies in a playground. This may sound a bit odd, but when Robyn and I were kids on Gabriola Island, someone once did this at our elementary school. I still remember the excitement of finding money at the playground.
3. Pick up garbage in a park. We even found a bag in the park to collect the other garbage in. If you use a park, help take care of it!

4. Put up a thoughtful quote. We selected: “When we take things for granted, we forget to want what we already have.” We’re currently digging this quote as it keeps us in check from being ungrateful for everything we have.

5. Take out someone’s recycling. We took out the junk mail recycling from our mail area. Hopefully that will make the caretaker’s day a little easier.

6. Leave bottles on the side of the recycling bin instead of in it. We also put a quarter under each one.

7. Put money in someone’s parking meter. When we left in the morning, I grabbed all the change that we had in a jar by the door. We were able to top up several parking meters that were just about to run out.

8. Smile and say hello to 10 strangers. This is such an easy one, but I normally don’t do it. After making a point of doing it all day, you begin to notice how infectious it is. I was feeling great.

9. Compliment someone. Walking past a stranger, I blurted out “Nice scarf.” He seemed surprised, but said thanks. It was a nice scarf, so I figure that counts.

10. Spend time with friends and give some advice. This feels like a pretty sweet deal for us, as we were treated to an amazing Danish breakfast by some friends. But, while there, we did chat about someone’s work, and Robyn and I gave some legal/accounting advice. He said it counted as an act of kindness, so that works for us.

11. Call a family member we haven’t spoken to in a while. Robyn nailed this one, calling her mom, my mom, and her grandma. She had a nice chat with each of them.

12. Donate a book. Donating things to charitable causes is a great way to combine an act of kindness with an act of recycling. We chose to donate some of our favorite books to a book drive: http://agoodbookdrive.com/ The idea behind this particular book drive is to give a book that you really liked. You can even write inside the book why you really liked it. Age groups for the books are 5-18.

13. Send a nice letter to someone. Tellingly, Robyn had already written a nice letter to someone, but just needed to drop it in the mail.

14. Give balloons to kids. This was easily the best thing we did all day. As Robyn put it “If you’re ever having a bad day, buy some balloons and give them to kids on the street.” Two of the kids literally jumped with excitement after getting the balloon. We could hear one boy’s giddy roars of laughter for a block as we walked away. Total cost was $5.30. Worth every penny.

15. Become an organ donor. BC Transplant has made it super easy to become an organ donor by moving the entire process online. All you need is your care card number. I encourage everyone from British Columbia to do it. The website will even tell you if you have already registered. https://transplant.bc.ca/OnlineReg/bcts.asp

16. Convince someone else to become an organ donor. Robyn’s good friend Simone was easy to convince. Thanks Simone! Everyone else reading this follow her lead! We’d love to see a comment on the post for everyone who does. It’s easy.

17. Guerrilla garden. We were fortunate to be right in the middle of daffodil bulb planting season, so we planted some bulbs near a park.

18. Attend a community event. We picked Vancouver Celebrates Diwali. It was awesome. Great food, great live music, and Robyn even learned to dance like a Bollywood movie star.

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19. Support a local business. Robyn and I have been meaning to check out Save on Meats. The business has a great local story, recently featured on the reality TV show, Gastown Gamble. Here’s a clip of business owner Mark Brand:

20. Clean leaves from a storm drain. I noticed the other day, when Vancouver got a good rain, how many massive puddles formed because of the leaves clogging up the storm drains. This in turn slowed down traffic, and got a lot of people soaked. This one just takes a second, but watch out for cars. It’s really satisfying!

21. Donate a tool to the Vancouver Tool Library. The VTL is a co-op set up in Vancouver to allow people to access power tools without having to rent or buy them. It relies on people donating their power tools. We have a great wet tile saw that we bought when we needed to cut slate to go into a bathroom renovation years ago. It has gone unused since. The VTL was really excited to get it.

22. Join the Vancouver Tool Library. Hey, if they have my tile saw, I might as well be able to borrow it. Membership is easy, and the annual membership fee is only $30 ($15 for students/low income). Anyone who has rented a tool knows that $30 is less than the average rental cost for most tools even for a single day. With the VTL, I can take a tool out for 5 days at a time for free. Plus, the $30 goes towards supporting a great community project.

23. Donate $20 to charity. Robyn donated to Qmunity: “BC’s leading queer resource centre. Located on Bute Street in Vancouver’s West End we are a hub for the lesbian, gay, trans, bi and queer community.”

24. Fill out a community questionnaire. Vancouver is currently seeking feedback on what to do with the Robson Square area. Ideas include permanently closing off one block of Robson Street to traffic to create a pedestrian zone. Every city we visited in Europe had a central square with a pedestrian zone, and it really created a community feeling. Vancouver needs to catch up. You can fill out the questionnaire too: http://fluidsurveys.com/s/Block51/

25. Give a jacket to a homeless person. With this weekend marking the first real drop in the temperature (down to 2 degrees), we figured one of our warm winter coats currently sitting in the closet could be put to better use.

26. Buy dinner for some one on the street. Outside the Shoppers Drug Mart in Yaletown we met Kirk. Kirk happily offers to watch people’s dogs while they go shopping. We had a nice chat, and offered to buy him a sub from Subway. He was the nicest person we met all day.

27. Donate money to the food bank. Always a good thing to do. The food bank has more purchasing power with financial contributions, so donating money rather than food goes a lot further.

28. Donate clothing to a clothing drive. Again, this is always a good thing to do, but especially this time of year.

29. Sign up for a car-sharing program. Robyn and I have been proud to stay car free in this city for 7 years. We are currently members of Modo (formerly the Car Co-op), but we also wanted to support a newer car-sharing program, Car2Go. Car sharing programs are a real luxury for residents of Vancouver, and supporting them means fewer cars in the city. By having a second means of using a car, it also means Robyn and I are more likely to stay car free in the years to come.

So there you have it: 29 good things to celebrate 29 great years.

Our final week consisted of making the trek back towards Maastricht. The drive was an incredible one, taking us through gorges, valleys, and mountain passes. We were hit with a rain storm, found an abandoned highway tunnel for shelter, and camped on the side of a mountain. At some points, we saw as many cows on the roads as cars. We swam in lakes, ate good food, and enjoyed the last sights of many countries we have come to love.

Along our route, we made a point of stopping in a particular small German town: Rockenhausen. Rockenhausen has a public natural swimming pool (a pool that doesn’t use any chemicals; plants naturally clean the water). Given that my father and I built a natural swimming pool, I was keen to see how a larger scale version worked. It was amazing. Clean water, great layout, and well used.

We arrived back in Maastricht on Friday, completing our 6 week road trip. We traveled 6,000 km in 6 weeks, visiting 12 countries. Here’s a simplified version of the route.

Once settled in Maastricht, we did some packing and tying up of loose ends. It was bitter-sweet to be back. Being in Maastricht means we are closer to coming home to Canada, but it also means we are closer to leaving the home we have come to love in the Netherlands. Nonetheless, we are ready to be back in Canada. The past 7 and a half months have been an amazing adventure. I am so grateful to have been able to share the many experiences with my best friend.

While here, we visited 19 countries, most of Western Europe’s largest cities, countless towns, villages, and hamlets, and traveled over 19,000 km. It was a dream come true. As we prepare to return to Canada, here are just a few of our many memories of Europe:

Two more days, and we’re home!

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We continued our stay at Casa Turchetti in Tuscany for a few days this past week. On Monday, we took a trip down to the coast and hiked through Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is a national park on the Italian Riviera that consists of 5 small coastal villages, linked by a hiking trail. We did our best to jog the 13 kms of trail, though the final leg of the trip required that we take a significant detour into the mountains, exhausting both of us. The views were incredible, and the towns themselves were beautiful to walk through.

After Cinque Terre, we took it easy for a few days. We were staying in the Lunigiani region of Tuscany, known for two traditional dishes: Testarolli and Pesto. While we’ve had pesto many times, testarolli was new. The dish consists of a large crepe, baked in a terracotta dish, sliced into squares, and served with lots of pesto and Parmesan. The dish has been suggested to be the forefather of modern Italian pastas. We sampled the dish first at a restaurant, and second at a food fair for half the price of the restaurant. The food fair was better.

While at the fair, we also watched a local version of focacce bread being baked. The focacce was a flatter version of what we’re accustomed to, resulting in something closer to a pita. It is sliced open and filled with prosciutto, cheese, mushrooms, or other fillings.

After saying our goodbyes at Casa Turchetti, we headed north to Lake Garda, stopping for a ride in Parma, home of Parmesan cheese.

Once at Lake Garda, we camped out at Torbole, at the northern tip of the lake. While there, we cycled up to one of the mountains to the most stunning lake we’ve ever swam in: Lake Tenno. The lake was created during a landslide in 1100 ACE, and has incredible bright blue water coloured by minerals from the surrounding mountains. When you’re in the water and look down, you can only see a metre or so in front of you before everything disappears into a blanket of bright turquoise. It was like swimming in Kool-Aid.

We also rode back to Malcesine.

On our final day of the week, we drove into the Dolomites, probably Italy’s best known mountain range. We were welcome to find something we haven’t seen much of on this road trip: temperatures anywhere under 30 degrees. After the past 5 weeks of 35 degrees and up, we were happy to reintroduce ourselves to layering. I think we’re ready to come back to Canada. We cycled and hiked around the mountain towns, getting some amazing views.

We have a couple more days in the Dolomites, and then we begin the trek back towards the Netherlands. 9 more days and we’re back in Canada!

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