A Trip with a Plan

When people ask my how our last trip went, I have discovered that I am giving an unusual answer: “We were successful in all our objectives.”

Not the standard response, I suspect. Did we have good time? Of course. Was the weather good? Better than we had any right to expect. Will we go back? Well…

When you get to the stage in life when the list that used to need a bucket to carry can be itemized on the fingers of one hand, you have to be thoughtful about what those last trips are about. So, our recent six-week visit to Europe was a different kind of trip. We had objectives.

Ireland

Linda and I are both of Irish heritage, and we had both travelled to Ireland on our (separate) first visits to Europe in our early twenties. So Ireland was a great choice for what might be a finale as well.

Sure, we booked bus trips in Ireland, but it wasn’t to see castles and monuments. That was just an excuse to sit in Irish pubs and meet Irish people. To sing their songs and listen to their way of speaking. We talked to serving staff and taxi drivers and everyone you naturally run into on a holiday, and they all treated us with an Irish combination of familiarity and helpfulness. It was wonderful.

The standout part of our trip was a bus driver who was just so damned Irish  that he kept us in stitches for six days. He said a polite hello every time he saw a magpie. He wasn’t superstitious, but “you don’t want the fairies mad at you.” He came out with a constant natural flow of expressions, some of which I thought were stage jokes, some of which came straight from my father (who was third generation Canadian, but he still used those expressions). That’s what we went to Ireland for.

France

Likewise, our trip to the South of France and Paris was a nostalgic dip into a region and a way of life we had experienced many times. We took along a friend who had never travelled there, and our pleasure was increased through sharing her first-time enjoyment. France has always been our favourite country to visit, and if the circumstances were right, we would return.

Were we disappointed? A few times, but never seriously. Okay, so a loud kindergarten class spoiled the serenity of Monet’s “Water Lilies.” Yes, the “Lascaux 4” display was more high tech and less evocative than the old “Lascaux 2” where we took our kids in 1994. Sure, there wasn’t enough wind at the Dune de Pilat for the hang gliders to be soaring. We still have the old memories, strengthened by the new ones.

Last but not least

Our main objective? We proved ourselves equal to the task. So, our next trip might be somewhere new. Galapagos Islands, anyone?