Would You Rather: Travel Edition

Shane, over at Sea Salt Secrets has posted a couple of "Would You Rather: Travel Edition"s and I decided to try it out! I'm about to go on a pretty incredible trip (more on that later), so it seemed appropriate to do a travel quiz! I'm taking her question from her fourth edition and you're welcome to try it out as well!

Would you rather...
Visit Hogwarts OR Narnia?
Hogwarts. No hesitation. I mean, Narnia is cool and all.... but I'm way too much of a Harry Potter fan to not go to Hogwarts, even if it's just for an hour!

Get dumped and eat the cost of your ex's trip OR spend an entire 2-week vacation with someone you can't stand?
I would much, much rather spend the extra money than deal with someone for two weeks... Even if it means not having a single penny on my trip. Nothing can ruin a vacation more than a terrible travel-"buddy."

Live in Africa OR in Antartica for a year?
Africa! It's such a vast continent with amazing people and culture that I would love to discover and be a part of. Although.... I'm not sure if I would be able to deal with the lack of snow...

Be captured by a wild tribe in the jungle or by pirates at sea?
I would totally pull a Elizabeth Swan and get along with the pirates. Plus, pirates are usually found in some pretty gorgeous places of the world, so the landscape would be a big plus!

Live in extreme luxury for a bit with no freedom to do what you want OR on the lowest travel budget imaginable, with the freedom to travel anywhere you like?
Considering I survived perfectly fine with absolutely no money in Munich for about 4 days and still had a great time, I think I'll take freedom over money. That should be an automatic choice for everyone, anyway... but our society is a capitalist one, so it's not so obvious.

Attend the Royal Wedding OR the Olympic Games?
Hands down, the Olympics. Rio 2016? Pyeong Chang 2018? Tokyo 2020? Beijing 2022? All amazing places I would love to visit, let alone be part of this incredible sports event!

Dine at the hottest new restaurant before it gets big OR a hole in the wall ethnic restaurant with amazing food OR a familiar classic with grandma's comfort food?
The small ethnic restaurant. The best food I had in Thailand was the street food, which was not only extremely cheap, but unbeatable, and impossible to replicate.

Live one life that lasts 1,000 years OR live 10 lives that last 100 years each?
I would much rather live 10 completely different, full lives with amazing people around me than 1,000 years of roaming the world alone. I could be a travel photographer, an athlete, a doctor, a marine biologist, a musician, a pilot.... so many things I could be!

Wake up with a regrettable tattoo on your butt OR with a random stranger in your bed?
Hmm.... If it was a tasteful tattoo.... No. Scratch that. Tattoos are forever and there's no way I would go through the pain of laser removal on my butt. I'll take a stranger any day! Doesn't mean anything happened between us either!

Travel wide or travel deep?
That's a tough one. As much as I would love to see every corner of the world, I think that experiencing the culture and the people is more important to me. Living like a local, learning the language... That's what I want.

There it is! Of course, there isn't one "right" way to travel. Go out and explore the world! It's beautiful out there.

New Blog in the Works!

I just thought I would share this pretty exciting news! I will be launching a new blog pretty soon so keep an eye out for the announcement!

I've been using WordPress, which is totally new and alien to me since I'm so used to Blogger, but I've working really hard for it to be a beautiful blog that people will love to follow!

That's all I'm going to say about it for now, though!

:)

Buddha Board

The art of letting go.... Something many of us have no idea how to even imagine. I've had my eye on this thing called a Buddha Board for a few months now and finally decided to buy it.
This is one of the coolest artsy things I've bought in a while - it's an infinite canvas. It's a very simple concept; this is a canvas that uses water as ink and once the water evaporates or dries, the canvas goes back to blank. This way, you can have endless of fun on one single space.

This idea of a drawing or painting that fades, that isn't permanent is a brilliant idea. It's this idea of living in the moment and letting go of the beauty in order to give way to more, and of course, of always having the ability to have a clean slate. This Buddha Board is also a really simple way to meditate; painting lines or words and watching them fade while your mind goes peacefully blank is wonderful.

It's not an expensive board either! It's about $30 for the board, or $15 for the Mini Board, which is a travel-size type board in multiple colours. It's barely an investment for something that will last a long time. I bought mine at the Human Rights Museum, but I'm sure you can find it pretty easily. It's a lot of fun and something I definitely recommend!

**Disclosure: these are my personal opinions and have not been sponsored or paid to say any of this.**

Running During the Summer

Summer is the time when you see all the runners come out of hiding. You can't go a day, if not an hour without seeing someone braving the heat to go for a jog. For most of the summer, I wasn't part of those brave souls. Mostly due to an injury, but also because well, I hate running during the summer. In Winnipeg, the temperature can rise up to 35 degrees Celsius and running in that heat, with the sun glaring down on you is a recipe for a heat stroke/disaster. The obvious solution would be early mornings or late evenings... but I'm not a morning person and I work evenings... So what solution could there be?
I did my best. But hey, having an injury definitely helped with the excuse of not running! I still managed to get a few good runs in this summer and honestly? Some of them really weren't so bad. It also means all kinds of new running gear (always a win), and the landscape is pretty amazing.
You wouldn't believe it, but every single one of these pictures was taken within the city limits. We have some beautiful paths and I loved getting to discover them.

Sometimes you can find all kinds of little treasures, like this chess table in Assiniboine Park.

 

Sometimes during a long run, you can admire the gorgeous dance of colours that are our prairie sunsets.

The thing with summer is finding a way to stay cool during the harsh heat... Sometimes it's shade, or water, or just toughing it out. Some (crazy) people like to wear layers! Or sometimes, it's the clothes themselves that keep you cool.  - Yes, there's another blog post about this! Stay tuned!

Now it's time for some cooler weather.... Perfect for running, sweaters and cuddling. Just a few of my favourite things.

Mud Hero and Dirty Donkey

This summer, not only have I been running a lot of half-marathons, I have also been running a few 5km runs, including Mud Hero and Dirty Donkey. Both of these include a lot of mud and some pretty great obstacles! The end result is always the best part, when you're covered in mud. The courses are 5 and 6 km but it definitely doesn't feel that way! With friends music and obstacles, the run goes by so quickly!
Most of these types of races travel and also give all their proceeds to a charity, like Mud Hero travels throughout Canada, and with each city, the company picks a new charity. This year, Mud Hero Winnipeg gave to CancerCare Manitoba, so it makes you feel a little better about the registration prices.
As you can see, you are literally covered in mud from head to toe! Some obstacles were designed specifically to get you as dirty as possible! And in some cases, the mud is so thick, you feel like a zombie stuck in quicksand!

Now here are some pictures of the dirty races!

Thank you to Cam, Pat and my sister Nat for running with me!

Until next year!