Top Ten Tuesday - Places Visited

My love of travelling was instilled early - when I was ten my father took a position with a university in Heidelberg, Germany for a year and we went travelling almost every weekend during that year.

Top Ten Places I Have Visited

10 - Prince Edward Island. I only spent three days (including travel days) there at the annual general meeting of Friends of the Earth taking minutes (I was the secretary/admin assitant there for six months). It was gorgeous. The meeting was at a hotel on the beach (red sand!) and Charlottetown is a very pretty little city. My main regret aside from not having more time there was not being able to go see the Anne of Green Gables house.

9 - Montreal. Does it count as visiting if you lived there? I'm going to count it because I have been back several times as a tourist. Montreal is gorgeous. It feels very European between the french and all the immigrants. It's got an amazing old town - stuff from the first settlers still standing. Mount Royal is gorgeous. There's a street full of ethnic stores and restaurants. Poutine, Steak Frites and smoked meat add yum to it.

8 - Denmark. My mother is Danish and we visited several times while living in Germany. My favorite was the summer we went to Jutland to visit her uncle. Jutland is the tip of Denmark where two different oceans meet, which is amazing to see and even more so to straddle in the water. My sister and I don't speak Danish and my Uncle spoke very little English. That didn't stop him from taking the two of us alone one morning to see the sights and with his tiny bit of English and our tiny bit of Danish and a LOT of gesturing, he showed us the sights, the history etc. And then we went to the store and he filled an entire cart with chips, candy and other junk food. We each had two grocery bags to ourselves worth of stuff.

7 - Russia, especially St. Petersburg. It was Leningrad when I was there from Dec 26 to early January. It was a university trip put on by the language department and I did two semesters of Russian. St Petersberg was beautiful and I discovered Opera (that I liked, as well as Opera that I didn't) while there. Moscow and Kiev were also great, but I liked Leningrad the best.

6 - Paris. The city of love. There's so much history there and tons of places to eat in little alleys as well as the main roads. It's a beautiful city. It's a delicious city. I would love to go back as an adult (I visited while we were living in Germany.)

5 - Nova Scotia. This is the province (in Canada) where I was born. It's rugged and beautiful. I love the beaches - there is something about waves that soothes me deep down. The water is cold on the Atlantic, but totally awesome. I could see myself living in the middle of nowhere there on the beach. As long as I could get wifi ;)

4 - New Mexico. Yes, this one gets this close to number 1 on the list because it's where my BFF and her wife live. But I get to go every year and admire the Sanditas mountains, visit old town in Albuquerque, and some years go to Santa Fe. It's bright and beautiful.

3 - Heidelberg, Germany. Maybe it's cheating because we lived there for a year. We lived in Schlierbach, a suburb of Heidelberg. School was from 8am - 1pm and in the afternoons we used to go and walk along the side of the mountain to the castle, which was deserted but for locals during the fall and winter months. When spring came along, we were totally unimpressed with all the tourists in our castle.

2 - Australia. Turned 25 in Melbourne, spent it driving along the Great Ocean Road to see the 12 apostles and other amazing views. Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef, Bondi Beach in Sydney, Hyde Park in Sydney, the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains, Canberra, tons of beach. The only thing I didn't like was the heat and humidity combo which sucked, but I was there at the worst time of year for it.

1 - New Zealand. I was there when I was 24 for about two months and loved everything about my trip to New Zealand. From going to the northern tip and watching the oceans come together, to going bungy jumping on the South Island. The people are wonderful and the scenery is gorgeous. I would go back on a regular basis if I could.

This post has made me very nostalgic!!

Sean
smut fixes everything