alicia1982
Essential when abroad
So interesting news coming out of Ottawa this week. Hopefully Derek and I will not face any complications from it, but nonetheless, my eyebrows went up and an “oh dear” passed through my lips. ” OTTAWA – Canada’s foreign service officers began job action this week after their 1,350-member union declared it was in a […]
Leg stretching and gear testing
A friend of our’s has chased winter for years – bouncing between the northern and southern hemispheres to live in a near permenant of sub-sero temperatures for the better portion of a decade. [She’s a snowboard instructor, so if you are thinking this last sentence is a statement of insanity, it is actually grounded in reason.] […]
So many things crossed off the list!
Awesome week!!! We got a lot checked off the prep list: Mongolian visas acquired! Whoot Derek! Hotel in Beijing booked (Soluxe Sunshine Courtyard Hotel) Hotel in Vilnius booked (Dvaras Hotel) Invite to China asked for and received Research on booking for train from St Petersburg to Vilnius started On the issue of the last item, […]
Shopping Success
We went to Mountain Equipment Co-op to start kitting out. It was a very successful shop! Derek got long underware, I mean, a base-layer (new fancy word!) Look at his spiffy self (editted for public viewing) 😉 Derek is modeling a matching set of Patagonia Carilene 2 Crew and matching bottoms. When trying them on […]
Count down!
In exactly 8 weeks’ time Derek and I will be somewhere high in the air, above the north pacific. Hopefully sleeping, because we’ll be landing in Beijing in just under 5 hours (landing 4:05am EST). In 8 weeks’, we will make our way to Pearson International Airport in Toronto and leave this fair continent for a month long […]
Camera bags that don’t look like you’re a tourist
Christmas has come and gone, and I never wrote about my “Dear Santa” list. My main Santa Clause (ahem… Derek) knew that I really wanted / needed a new camera bag but the problem for dear old Santa is this: how to pick a camera bag to fit someone else’s needs. So, Santa did not bring […]
We Got a GoPro!
Today’s post is actually co-written by the both of us! I think this is the first. 🙂 Thanks to a very lovely pair of Santa Clauses, we got a GoPro (Hero2) camera for Christmas. I know I know, yet another camera (more on our camera gear later)! But really, until Christmas, we only had our […]
In which I am glad to be in Canada…
So today was brutally cold here. We have just come off a nice warm spell in our fair neck of the woods, with temperatures hovering around -1ºC to +9ºC. Lots of ice (which sucked) but it was a warm break. This morning I checked my phone weather app and it told me it was 0ºC. […]
Let’s learn about: Lake Baikal
So cruising videos over the last few weeks, and going to share a few. Today’s location: Lake Baikal… 1. Some of the wildlife around the lake 2. Ice we may see in May 3. Why we aren’t going in the winter (no matter how fun this looks) Next up… Go-Pro videos of the trip (we […]
Lake Baikal – deep depths!
So wow – Lake Baikal is insane!!! It holds an estimated 20-30% of the world’s fresh water. It is the same square kilometer surface area as Lake Superior but holds twice as much water. xkcd.com has the best comic showing just how deep this lake is. Random Factoids as I have learned from xkcd: Apart […]
Rails Across the Curtain 