Uh…oh… I think we’ve created a monster…

Hubby and moi love to travel. It’s a big world out there, and we would love to see lots of it. Unfortunately, our budget and schedules don’t allow us to go off as much as we’d like. We are fortunate enough to travel nonetheless.

We’ve been to Barbados twice, Jamaica, Antigua, Portugal (the Acores), Japan (mostly Tokyo), Hawaii (the islands of Oahu, Maui, Big Island and Kauai), Greece (where we visited the islands of Rhodos and Santorini and the capital Athens). We’ve also taken many roads trips, some shorts and some long, which took us places like P.E.I., Québec City, New York City, Charlevoix, Saguenay to name a few. We just love to explore, and discover new places, new food and mostly new people.

Some people envy us, like I envy our friends living in Zurich who are travelling all over Europe since they’ve moved there. In the thirteen hours it took us to drive down to P.E.I., they would have covered at least 4 countries, while we only went through two provinces. That’s the thing with living in a big country; it’s big.

Hubby wants to take me to Hungary – where his parents are from. I’d love to see it. We will go; I know we will, I just don’t know when. This year, because of our tenth wedding anniversary we are going back to Hawaii, where we got married. It will be our sixth visit to paradise. Mom will be coming along as well. We’ll make her discover the Big Island and Kauai.

Last week, while the daughter of a friend came over for dinner we talked about vacation time. She wanted to know what we thought of certain places, since she’s never travelled before. While talking I sort of invited her to tag along for our trip to Hawaii (I said it, you know, like that). She recently moved out of her parents, and is living on a tight budget. She seemed surprised about it all, but didn’t say too much out of it. The following night, we had a message on our answering machine, from her mother, telling us we might have a travelling pet with us for our next trip. A day or so later, the daughter called. She wanted to make sure we had really invited her along. We offered because we didn’t mind.

I hadn't thought of my mother's reaction so Saturday morning I spoke with my mother and verify with her how she felt about having another travelling companion, which she doesn’t know. Mom was fine with it. (Phew!) Later that evening we get a phone call and a lot of questions are being asked. Hubby suggested getting together for dinner and discussing the different options. We did, on Sunday. By the time they all left our place, the daughter had reserved her flight and she’s coming to Hawaii. She was so excited. It was refreshing to see a twenty-five year old girl so thrilled. Since we’ll be staying in condos (timeshare), the boarding aspect of it all isn’t bad (besides the “tourists taxes, and AC fees” – yep, they now charge you if you use the AC – their way of going green or something…), we’ll split the costs for food, etc.

I think it will make this trip more interesting in a way. Travelling more is fun, but in doing so we’ve become somewhat blasé, which isn’t good, but it’s a fact. It will be fun to see things through her eyes in a way.

While I was sitting at the dinning room table and she was making her list of things to bring, I couldn’t help but think this must be how parents feel when they say they get to rediscover the world through their kids eyes… it’s a nice feeling to see so much joy in one person. She looked like she was about to burst with excitement. She always wanted to travel but never really had the opportunity nor the funds.

Now, I just hope she won’t build up her expectations too much. I wouldn’t want to disappoint her…

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Image: Travel Bug