yes, it's that time already. Bon Voyage in reverse.

I'm returning to Canada after my little vacay in Trinidad and Tobago. Taking home the red eye to Toronto, stopping in at Venezuela... looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.

The bats are making noise in the corner of the room right now.

That is not a euphemism.

There is a nest of bats outside the house and at certain times in the evening they screech and scratch under the eaves. Aryn took to keeping a field hockey stick in the room in order to reach up high enough to smack the wall next to the little flying rodents.

I've finally returned from my week in Tobago. The majority of the time was spent at the beach... but of course I was sans internet the entire time which was moderately disconcerting for me. Thankfully I survived. I will now resume blogging my trip... if the interweb allows me.

I had been a bit concerned about bring my camera with me to Trindad and Tobago. I was worried how heavy it might be, but I had it in my mind that we were going to be doing a lot of strolling around. That has not been the case. While Tobago proved to be a bit more accessible than Trinidad for pedestrian traffic (at least where we were staying, we could walk into the village, walk to the airport, walk to a few different beaches), neither island is really one that you navigate by foot. We are always within a reasonable distance from a vehicle so it is quite easy to carry around a load of camera equipment. Europe might be another story... I would need a better camera bag to be sure... Regarding my camera though. Nearly everyone on the trip brought a camera with them. I've been downloading the photos to my computer, and so far we've taken a collection 12GB of still images and video clips. That's rather ridiculous, this has to be one of the better documented vacations I have ever taken. I have no idea when I'm going to find the time to go through all of the images and pull out the best ones to make into a 90 second recap and commemorative photo book. I suppose it will be my summer project. By the time I get back it will be June already... and then shortly there after it will be my July and my birthday. Then winter will be back again... Arrggghhh (my new saying I've just coined... argghhhyle socks)

I don't really feel like recapping my Tobago trip just now... as I'm fairly exhausted from my day touring around another part of the island with Aryn, my uncle Stephen, and my two brothers. We visited three different beaches, but I didn't go and bathe in any of them (trini slang... bathe=swim, sit in the ocean). It was a really picturesque coastline... classic shots of curving palm trees and miles and miles of sandy beach. If only my photo club had been with me... we would have had a riot of a time.

My posts have nothing of substance in them these days. I must have just got out of the habit of blogging I suppose. Time to step it up.

ahh vacation... how wonderful it is.

so far I've accomplished very little, but I really don't care. This vacation is not about seeing the sights, but to relax... and relax I have.

After arriving on Saturday evening... I sat up with my family then went to bed. Sounds uneventful, but it was late and I was tired after a day of travel. Sunday was more exciting, all of my relatives from around the island came for a party of sorts. We ate delicious roti and partied in the pool. This will turn out to be a bit of a routine I think. Monday was more of the same... My sister, sister-in-law and I hung out in the pool, indulging in the copious amounts of vitamin D available in the Caribbean. As I have the tendency to suffer from heat stroke I did my best to stay cool. However, despite my best efforts the head started to ache... and after a few hours in the sun I had to spend the rest in the shade.

Today was not much more eventful... some shopping, some driving, more eating of delicious food, more time in the pool. And the painful uploading of photos to flickr on a very sluggish internet connection. So far, I'm really enjoying the break. I have all the comforts of home, but better weather.

I just realized it's after midnight though... and I should really sleep. My younger brother and sister are watching The Shining and I don't feel like going to sleep disturbed. Funny story though, during one portion of the freaky music where the caretaker realizes that the little boy is telephathic, there was a violent banging on the doors from the outside patio. All three of us were freaked out beyond belief (ehhhhh... no eloquence tonight), but thankfully it turned out to be my cousins who were locked out of the house. It was a lot funnier than I just described it. I think I must be tired. I was hoping to write an interesting update, but instead it has turned out to be pretty dull.

you'll just have to take my word that my trip so far is awesome.

Aryn and I have found yet another free WiFi spot (thanks to AirCanada's datavalet service) and we're sitting in sunny gate 172 waiting to board our plane to Port of Spain. Our proverbial dogs are barking. The above photo is meant to illustrate this feeling. Aryn told me that my last post was looking at bit web 1.0. I don't think he knows what that means... or how that hurts me. He's wrong anyhow. I'll explain it to him later.

We just met up with our good friend Carina, who graciously came out all the way to the airport to hang out with us. We took the monorail from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3 and talked rather excitedly about all sorts of things, the recent NextGen Pecha Kucha night (perhaps I'll post about it during my vacation), Nuit Blanche, and other things that we three find to be particularly interesting. It was a really fantastic way to spend our layover at the airport. Had Aryn and I been left to our own devices we probably would have found some bench somewhere and dozed off. But that's particularly difficult to do in the Toronto airport. There are hardly any benches, and where there are places to sit, they are individual seats with rigid arms that prevent any sort of lounging. What do people have against weary travelers resting their barking dogs and tired bodies?

Aryn got bumped up to executive class on the flight to Toronto. Some woman and her two kids were going to be separated, and rather than arranging with the Air Canada staff to see if we wanted to switch one of our aisle seats so that they could sit together, the woman (on direction of one of the Air Canada staff) just took the seat. It was originally my seat, but I had switched sides with Aryn on account of my bum left knee. We walked up to our aisle and there was sort of an awkward pause... then this little exchange

The woman looked at Aryn and said, "Oh, is this your seat?"
says Aryn, "Umm, yes."
"Do you mind?" says the woman rather rudely, " because you'll have to sit by my kids."

Anyhow, there was a line building up behind Aryn so he switched to the woman's seat... but his new seat was really crappy. It had no adjustable arms, no tv (not that Aryn cared about that one), and it was behind one of the flight attendant jump seats so he had no leg room at all. Once the seatbelt sign was turned off all hell broke loose. Aryn approached the head steward (or whatever you might call him), let him know the situation. The guy realized he had an unhappy customer on his hands and he found Aryn a new seat at the front of executive class. Suddenly my life had become a Seinfeld episode.

This next flight our aisle seats have disappeared, but I'm going to see if I can work some magic and switch our seats around.

what is this? some kind of joke? Can it be really true that I am online at the airport with free internet? This is ridiculous.

What's more ridiculous of course is the really lame elevator music that's playing. It's a sort of soft saxophone medley... perfect for a hotel restaurant with a really ugly fountain.

Since I will be bringing my computer with me on this trip I will attempt to provide regular updates of my travels. I do have to spend a fair amount of time researching for a big paper that I have to write, but because this is also vacation time I am hoping to be able to spend some time doing things that I like... mainly the taking, editing, and posting of photos.

I have nothing of interest to report at the moment. It's 5:28 am, I've had less than an hour sleep. We had a number of friends come over to bid adieu... an old coworker of mine showed up next door and I gave him a tour, and subsequently gave my neighbours and their new dog a tour of our place... then our friends gave them a tour of their apartment one floor down. And of course, while all this was going on Aryn was installing backsplash panels to go behind the open shelving in the kitchen. It was a fairly ridiculous night. After everyone left I considered not going to sleep at all, but after watching an episode of 30 Rock I gave in and attempted to get some rest for until the alarm went off at 3:45am.

Right now Aryn is stretched out across three seats trying to sleep before we board the plane. He somehow got it into his head that he will be going on some sort of semi-rugged nature walk while we are in the caribbean and wanted to bring his hiking boots. Apparently, he has no footwear that is in-between his city shoes that he wears to work, or his bierkenstocks. And because his hiking boots are so heavy he has to wear them on the plane. I tried to dissuade him. I told him that hiking boots were a little inappropriate for the tropics... and that he would never be venturing off the beaten path because there are guerillas hiding in the bushes. I was particularly amsued by this statement... I had visions of guerillas in the mist, another film starring Sigourney Weaver.

Gawd, my back is sore. I think I loaded too much into my carry on and now I've pulled a muscle. I am not looking forward to hours of plane travel. Plus I see there will be a baby on this flight. I hope he is a good traveler and falls asleep. I would like to get some shuteye on this first section of the trip. We have about six hours to kill in Toronto once we get there, and we'll have to be alert. Our friend Carina is meeting up with us and taking us to the best Swiss Chalet in the world, which apparently is in Terminal 3 of the Toronto Airport. I haven't been to a Swiss Chalet since I was ten. I don't even think I had any chicken then.

45 minutes until we board our flight. We'll arrive in Trinidad by midnight. Perhaps there will be an update from Toronto if I can locate some more free WiFi.

almost ready to leave for Trinidad... it's been nearly ten years since I was there last. I'm really excited to go. I really can't wait.

It's going to be so nice to get away. I can't sleep I'm so excited.