And if you ventured outside, you probably have noticed how un-hot it was. Cool. Bordering on cold.

One can never really rely on Toronto’s weather to be consistent.

Never fear though, I was on the water in a kayak all summer.

And on Monday October 25, I’ll tell you about the lessons and how it all worked.

Then the following week I’ll give you insight to a couple tourism-related educational programs that I’m pursuing as well.

Until then … travel safely.

So many summers have passed and I’ve always escaped to get to an ocean. This year, I’m planning to do that in November, maybe in Europe.

So until then, I’m going to try kayaking on good ol’ Lake Ontario.

My first lesson is on Monday and I’ll be updating this blog regularly with my progress.

Today, I ask you to write to me and let me know if you’ve been kayaking. Are you a beginner? Or a pro? Do you do it here in Toronto or take off up north or somewhere else?

Let me know.

And Monday before my lesson, I’ll give you all the details on where I’m going for the lesson and how it works.

I figure this is like travelling in my very own city. If I were in Venice, I’d get on a gondola. When I was in Rio, I jumped off a mountain on a hang-glider. When I was in Mexico, I wind-surfed. When I was in Egypt, I snorkeled.

So this summer, I’m doing an activity I’d usually save for my travels abroad to do in my own backyard.

“Talk” to you Monday!

I recently had to attempt purchasing a last-minute ticket to Portugal via a website, less than 24 hours away from when the flight left Pearson.

I tried and tried and tried. Using three different credit cards. Each time, the website rejected me. Did I have enough money available on these cards? Yes. I’m not maxed out.

I thought the site was down, so I called the airline. They said the website was fine and that I wasn’t registered on any flight and advised me to call my credit card companies to see whether they put a block on my accounts.

The credit card company that I called (the one I had used the most) told me they actually approved the transaction five times. FIVE times.

I then called back the airline and spoke to someone different. This time, she told me that the airline charges a $1-fee each time a credit card is used, and that is what the approval from my credit card was and that it would be refunded.

But why couldn’t I book a ticket? The question still stood. I had tried over and over again and was thoroughly frustrated. Broken technology is my biggest pet peeve, that in end doesn’t really matter, but in the moment makes me want to scream and hurl my mouse against the computer monitor and head to a job baking cookies or walking through parks or eating ice cream or dancing. You get what I’m saying.

End of story, the airline representative told me that the problem was not with any of the credit cards (even though the message on the site was “there is a problem with your payment method” or some such nonsense). The problem was that I was trying to book a flight within 24 hours of its departure, and apparently that can’t be done online or on the phone. The only way to purchase a ticket at that hour was in person at an airline counter.

Well, that information would have been useful before I wasted hours on that airline’s website. I told them they should tell their internet team to advise users of that information, but of course the rep said they have told them already and there is apparently nothing they can do.

I think to change a message that says “blah blah blah your payment” to “you’re too late, we’re losing your business” shouldn’t be that hard, but I digress. What do I know, I only work on the internet five days a week.

Happy travels!

I’m back from the Big Apple and I’m happy I went … using the bare minimum my financial planner would allow. Okay, I don’t have a financial planner, but I should.

On Friday March 6, I’ll be telling you all about how I got to NYC on my Air Miles and how some other steps helped me save some much-needed-to-save money along the way.

There go my air miles.

A few weeks ago I told you I’d upate you on my exploration into air miles and where it’ll take me. I don’t know how long it took me to accumulate 3800 points, but they’re mostly gone. Oh yes, that’s right. I have 450 left. I managed to spend 3350 points in the last few weeks.

I didn’t do a major getaway for Thanksgiving like I told you I had hoped. Instead, my mom and I spent a day in Waterloo, St. Jacob’s and in Kitchener at Oktoberfest. More about that in another post.

Back to how I blew my air miles.

First, I bought a $100 gift card for the Best Western line of hotels for 750 points.

My boyfriend and I went up to Rattlesnake Point, a conservation area, for an evening to celebrate his birthday and stayed in the Best Western in Milton. We drove from the hotel to Rattlesnake and took a four-hour hike in the woods, which I definitely recommend if you’re very “city” like I am. It was amazing. The air felt so much cleaner - I could feel my nose seize and dry up once we were back in Toronto only two days later.

The funniest thing was conducting an interview via phone to New Jersey under a tree at Rattlesnake. I called an interviewee for a travel Q&A article I write for The Globe and Mail’s travel section on a freelance basis and did the entire interview while lying on a big sarong/thin blanket I bought in Rio earlier this year. It was just funny. Who needs the office when you can do some work in the forest?

The other 2600 points have been spent on NYC… which I’ll tell you about in my next post, on Tuesday January 27.

Until then, happy travels!

Yes, there’s been a delay in my blog posts. Why? Idea-block (kinda like writer’s block). Haven’t done any travelling since returning from Spain last month. Anyway, it won’t happen again, you’re going to hear from me every week. I’m hoping to travel all the time in one way or another. Right now, I’m actually looking for a free trip.

Yes, a free trip. Isn’t that what everyone wants?

Since I’ve nearly broken the bank with my recent travels (Since February 2007: Cuba, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Brazil, Argentina, Spain and smaller trips to New York, Montreal (twice) and Ottawa), I *need* a free trip.

This weekend I’m going to spend some time exploring options with Air Miles.

And on Monday, I’ll give you the 101 on booking travel with Air Miles. I’m looking for a Thanksgiving long weekend getaway. Maybe Quebec City, Maybe New York City. A trip for two with my mom, we’re hoping for a mother-daughter weekend. We’re looking for an Air Miles-funded flight or a train ride (I don’t want to drive and pay for gas) and accommodation, either at a hotel or B&B.

Check back next week and I’ll give you the 411. Also, if you write and let me know your experiences, good and bad, with Air Miles, I’ll be grateful. I’d love to get a discussion going.

Have a fun weekend!

Books, books and more books.

I love ‘em. They’re everywhere in my home. Books on my bookshelf, nighttable, computer desk, coffee table on both levels, my magazine rack (yes, it has books in it).

But after my days of reading and writing all day at work, I don’t go home and read. So I end up buying a ton of books and then don’t read as much as I’d like. While my sister-in-law reads four books a week, I think I match her number but books, but shamefully that’s per year! I say I’m going to try to read more, but until the non-stop BBQs and summer weddings, baptisms, showers and parties end, I won’t make the time.

The good thing is I do find that travel allows me to read at a pace I’d love to maintain when I’m home. When I was in the Middle East last year, I read four books in two weeks. There are so many plane, train and bus rides that one has no other choice than to either sleep or read. And when travelling with two other women in the Middle East as I was, there was plenty of time between showers to catch a few more chapters.

I’m not sure if I’ll have time to read on this short jaunt (eight nights) to Barcelona — but I’ll let you know on the 11th.

Also, I’ll fill you in on what I’ve found in my recent web-surfing, a site called bookcrossing.com.

Until then, happy reading and happy travels!

At the bottom of Rio’s towering mountains, among flickering candles, millions of men and women dressed all in white make music and toss flowers into the ocean of Copacabana Beach under a multi-coloured display of fireworks.

On new year’s eve in Rio and many other places in Brazil, millions (2-million in 2007) gather on the beach to celebrate the end of the year and a beginning of a new one. In addition, the people are also on the beach celebrating the Festa de Yemanjá.

Those in Brazil who seriously worship the goddess named Yemanjá generally belong to either the Umbanda or Candomblé religion. The other predominant religions in Brazil are Roman Catholic, Protestant, Mormor and Espiritismo. Candomblé originated from Africa and was brought over to Salvador, Brazil by slaves.

In both Umbanda and Candomblé, Yemanjá is the goddess of the water and the mother of all the gods. Often people will place a statue of her, always wearing blue and white, on the sand to protect the water. People on the beach offer flowers to her by tossing them into the ocean on new year’s eve. They also dig bowls in the sand that hold lit candles as an offering and an honour to her, also asking her for a blessing in turn.

Yemanjá is one of the deities, called orixás in Portuguese, which represent elements of nature that include fire, wind, thunder, stones, marshes, and rivers. Worship of orixás goes back further than Christianity by thousands of years but it was forbidden in Brazil until recently. Making offerings to Yemanjá on new year’s even was even illegal until the 1950s.

Although I highly recommend seeing the ceremonies of Yemanjá along the Atlantic Ocean in Brazil itself, the dance of Yemanjá can be seen along Lake Ontario in Toronto.

A weekend-long water carnival called Luminat’eau will take place on the weekend of June 14 as the finale of Luminato, an arts and creativity festival in Toronto.

On June 15 at 6 p.m., Adrianna Yanuziello of The Dance Migration will be perform the dance of Yemanjá. It will take place at the Aquatica – The Pond at the Harbourfront and is a free event.

The Dance Migration is a dance company owned by Yanuziello that brings international dance, namely Brazilian, to Toronto by hosting classes and events all over the city.

And six months ago, as the fireworks ended and the vibe on Copacabana beach quieted down, my friends and I walked back to our hostel, each of us wearing different colured unmentionables. Apparently tradition is to wear a pair of undies representing what your wish for the coming year is. Pink is love, red is passion, yellow is health, green is money. I wore a multi-coloured pair.

I, along with plenty others, were laid off from a web production job for a media outlet when a large telecom company took over and re-organized departments.

My department was left with one person and it wasn’t me. I was job-less but at least had a few months severance pay. I was living at home at that point in my life, thankfully, and was hired three weeks later by the same company that let me go. But as luck would have it, my job was only to start in three months.

What to do with the money! If only I had that kind of problem now, with my mortgage and five international trips I took in 2007 (Cuba, Jordan, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Brazil) being paid off … slowly. But back then, I had no debt. I had my car payments and a couple phone bills. That was the extent of my financial worries. So I took the severance, paid off my car in full, opened a GIC and … took a trip. Surprise, surprise.

Since I felt like a bit of a failure for basically losing my job, I decided it couldn’t be an ordinary jaunt through Europe, sipping severence package-funded espressos and devouring fattening buttery croissants.

Instead, I decided to go to learn Spanish in Spain (I mean, where else would you want to learn Spanish?), along with a week in France, visiting Paris for the first time and staying in Dole for a few days with an old friend who was working there as a high school teacher.

Studying Spanish in Spain was a better experience than I had imagined. I stayed in an apartment with three Swedes. The apartment was on a quiet tree-lined street in Malaga, about a five-minute walk from the language school. The language school itself was about a five-minute walk from the beach. Yes, you read right. What a life.

So for two-and-a-half weeks, I studied beginner Spanish for three hours each morning from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in a white house by the sea. I met wonderful people from all over the world. I am still in touch with a few; one girl who lives in Vancouver who I have seen since and still intend to visit one day (I’ll bring popcorn, Erin! SO COOL!), a guy in Sweden and a girl in Greece.

What a trip it was! With classes ending at 11 a.m., I basically had all day to explore southern Spain. And Malaga is such an easy spot from which to travel. After classes I managed to take day trips all the time. In those two-and-a-half weeks alone, I went to Torremelinos, Marbella, Granada, Gibraltar, Seville and Morroco! Seville and Gibraltar stick out in my memory the most because I took the trips with my new friends.

The classes themselves were fun, but I was told I spoke Spanish with a Portuguese accent. Go figure. Aside from that, it was a perfect trip and I’d recommend it to anyone. The school in Malaga has great proximity to other beach towns and cities – one British! — and even a ferry-trip away from Africa!

It’s an incredible experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

The company I did the course with is called Languages Abroad. Click here for more information.

And if language-study is not your thing; Ryerson University offers courses that take place in other countries, such as:

• European Economic Development in Rome, Italy
• Philosophy of Love and Sex in Florence, Italy
• Photography Workshop in France in Paris, France
• Short Filmmaking: On Location in Chicago, Illinois

And if you don’t have the time or money to travel, Ryerson offers a few courses that let your mind wander to other places far from home, including:

• Creative Travel Writing
• The Travelling Camera
• Toronto: An Architectural History
• Cultural Traditions in the Caribbean

For more information, click here.

I’ve taken The Travelling Camera, a worthwhile travel photography course that included photographic field trips. I’m currently taking Creative Travel Writing. It only started a week ago, so I’ll let you know how it’s all going in future posts.

In the meantime, have fun exploring your study travel options. And if you have any stories to tell about your study trips or any suggestions for me in general, please e-mail me at diana.pereira@rci.rogers.com.

Happy studying!

I was in Olinda, a colonial town in northeastern Brazil in the state of Pernambuco, with two friends, wandering up and down the cobblestone streets in search of food.

Specifically, we were looking for a traditional northeastern Brazilian dish — moqueca — a flavourful fish (or mixed seafood) stew cooked in coconut milk.

We stumbled upon a restaurant sign in Portuguese that read “Oficina do Sabor” which literally translates into “Workshop of Flavour.” With a name like that and traditional dishes on the menu, we decided to stop our trek and get a seat on the roof-top patio.

We ordered the fish moqueca — a dish big enough to share, with a side of rice to soak up the stew — along with a huge salad covered in chunky magno slices.

The moqueca was, in one word, delicious. In two, delicious and hearty. More words? Flavourful, warm, creamy. The stew was served in a cooked pumpkin, so not only did we have chunks of pumpkin floating in the stew (amazing flavour and texture!) but once the contents of the pumpkin started dwindling, we grabbed our serving spoon and scraped the orange out of that pumpkin. It’s like we had never eaten before.

I will definitely be back to Olinda and my first stop, other than the airport and hotel, will be that restaurant.

The moqueca and I will meet again.