Start 2023 Off Right and Set Your Travel Intentions!

The Sagrada Familia

To start 2023, I booked a flight to Spain and a Writers' Retreat in Barcelona in April (on my Bucket List). I plan to spend another 7 weeks traveling to Southern Spain, Marrakech in Morocco, and then hop over to the cities of Prague, and Vienna. Fingers crossed that there will be no more cancellations this year!

I head back to Puerto Vallarta in mid-January and leave the Canadian snow and cold behind to soak up the heat and humidity. Mexico is on my bucket list at least twice a year and it definitely kept me sane through the craziness of COVID. I know it is difficult for some people to get away but if you can, do it!

Travel puts me in a different headspace and opens me up to new, exciting places and languages and food and people and.....!!!! When I see something new my mind goes on a journey too. Right now I am working on my Spanish again. Even though I spend a lot of time in Mexico, I don't practice my Spanish as much as I should. One of the reasons for this is Puerto Vallarta caters to many English speakers and therefore using my English helps locals working in tourism. That's what I tell myself anyway. Some of the places I plan to visit in Spain will require me to be more fluent.

One of the things I do is set my intentions and then build my vision board at least twice a year. My vision board includes all the things I want to accomplish, including my travel. Our world only shut down completely for a short period of time because of COVID but many people decided not to travel and I don't blame them. I continued to go to my happy place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico but even that required much more planning than usual. I also had to be prepared to change flights, directions at the last minute. One of the positive things was I didn't have to quarantine or test for COVID going into Mexico. Leaving Mexico was a different story, of course.

I spent the summer months the last couple of years close to home with a couple of trips to Vancouver Island, a few trips trips to Vancouver to visit family and friends, and even a quick trip into Washington. I live in the Okanagan Valley so we usually have beautiful weather in the wine country but unfortunately during COVID we also dealt with horrendous forest fires and never-before experienced heat domes!

Getting off the continent of North America and going overseas was a challenge, one I tried to take on twice but the trips just didn't come together. I can't remember how many trips were changed or cancelled by the airlines. 

I managed to go on the Outlaw Country Cruise out of Miami last February with my daughter along with a great lineup of musicians. The headliner was Emmylou Harris, namesake of my granddaughter,  along with Rodney Crowell, Albert Lee, Lucinda Williams and many others. It was amazing that many of the musicians were still singing, considering many of them are older than me! In fact, Lucinda Williams beat the odds by coming back after a debilitating stroke 5 months before. She couldn't play guitar any more but her voice was strong. The old saying, 'Where there is a will, there is a way" was shown in her ability to sing again on stage.  We also spent some time in Miami and the Florida Keys and then I flew straight back to Mexico rather than returning to Canada first.

Even though I love my birth country, I'm excited about leaving Canada once again. If you can't escape this year, considering being an armchair traveler for a little while. Even that will open up your mind to new and exciting things. Buenos viajes!

Part 2 in Selchuk, Turkey

The Greek village of Sirinci was on our list today but not before I took in a couple of more landmarks in Selcuk, including the Basilica of St. John and the Isabey Mosque.

I started downtown Selcuk where a mother stork was feeding its 2 babies. There seems to be a stork nest on every corner!

Then I went into the Basilica of St. John which was built between 548 and 565 out of bricks and stone.  Like many ancient structures it is currently being worked on to save as much of the Basilica as possible.

Next I headed down the roadway to the Isabey Mosque, built in 1374.  I had my scarf with me but I found out there were scarves supplied if I'd forgotten it or didn't have one.  It is a simple, peaceful building with an imam (priest) who runs the local gift shop next to the mosque as well as doing the prayers and answering questions.  Some of the profits go toward keeping the mosque  in good repair.  He's quite a sales person and enjoys doing your name in Arabic.  His calligraphy is beautiful.

Before I left the peaceful little valley, I stopped by a seamstress shop and ended up buying a couple of cover ups after spending a half hour conversing, mainly with hand waving and nodding!

Shortly after my site seeing I met up with Judy and we headed out to get a dolmuses (pronounced dolmoosh) aka mini bus that would take us up to Sirinci. The schedule is supposedly every 20 minutes, ....give or take 15 or 20 minutes! There is normally no rush in this part of Turkey so we sat on a bench and waited.  Judy is slowing down too, for those who know her!

The townsite of Sirinci is at the end of a very twisty, winding highway, set amongst olive, orange, and fig trees. The area also has grapes but the quality of wine being produced is an ongoing question!

The village, built in the 15th century, has some very interesting history.  It was a Greek village until 1923 when the Greeks and Turks exchanged Greek Orthodox inhabitants of  Sirinci for Turkish Muslim inhabitants of Greece.

It is very much like a Greek village with the small whitewashed homes and cobbled, twisty lanes.  There is a daily market that sells anything including olive soaps and skin products as well as lots of neat little restaurants.

Judy tried 2 new dishes that she had never had before,  squash blossoms filled with rice and chocolate pancakes.  We also had her favourite dish, hand made filled pasta pinches (only way I can describe them) called manti.  The dessert was made by a lady in the village and brought to the restaurant.

 The bill was presented in a treasure box as some of the Turks still don't like to put money matters out in public.

After our supper I did some exploring in the twisty little laneways.  It wasn't long before I was lost!  Eventually I found my way back and after finishing our shopping we headed into Selcuk once again.