I was born here. I grew up here. I met my wife here. And I left here almost three years ago.

“Here” is Vancouver, British Columbia (,Canada, Earth, the Milky Way, the universe). In my three years away, I traveled in Europe by campervan, rode the Trans-Siberian rails across Russia and Mongolia, wandered around China, and explored Vietnam. Yvonne and I set up shop in Melbourne, got proper jobs, drank lots of wonderful coffee, and just…lived. For two years to be exact. We then spent five weeks cycling around Cuba prior to the big return.

Sunset Beach and the Olympic spotlights

Before leaving Australia, I was anxious to return to the city I called home for 30 years. What awaited me? What had changed? What hadn’t changed? (Previous experience led me to believe that nothing changes — which ultimately turned out to be true.) Most importantly, what will I feel?

First of all, I felt disoriented. Disturbingly disoriented. I know this place, or, I should know this place. Like the back of my hand, I should know this place. But I didn’t. I had forgotten. The street names downtown were all the same, but I couldn’t remember which way they ran. The houses and buildings looked familiar, yet seemed strange. I remember being driven home from the airport at night, staring out the passenger side window, gawking at the passing city like an awestruck child, reflections of my past moving like a slideshow across the glass.

We’ve always maintained that in all likelihood, we wouldn’t again live in Vancouver. But in my heart, I always held on to the notion of one day returning and strolling the beaches of Kitsilano on a daily basis again. Coming home, I just needed to make sure. One way or the other. I was a bit surprised at my reaction because, in all honesty, I thought nostalgia would have overwhelmed me and left me longing to go apartment hunting for an ocean view flat. That didn’t happen at all. Like how a protégé must feel after surpassing his mentor, I felt like I’d outgrown Vancouver.

This isn’t to say that I don’t love this city. I do. And it will always be my ‘home’. The Vancouver Canucks will always be my hockey team and I will forever be proud of the amazing things Canada did in the 2010 Olympics here. Friendships and family will remain, and I will take comfort in knowing that we will always be welcomed.

But it’s time to make a new home. The only question that remains is, where?

If anyone cares to notice, I will be noticeably absent for most of January and February. Why? Traveling of course. I posted a few details of my upcoming plans in From the Editor: What’s Around the Corner at Matador Trips.

I just spent the evening making about 20 trips back and forth from my flat on the first floor (second floor for you North Americans) to my van, loading it up with things to sell tomorrow morning at the Camberwell Sunday market. The past several weekends have been spent mostly building up S.A.M., our van.

We’ve been selling a lot of our possessions, mostly to newly arrived migrants from Germany, India, New Zealand. Today we got rid of our fridge (yes, most flats do not come with one) so we’re living out of our little campervan fridge for the next week. We have no couches so I’m writing this on the floor with my laptop perched on top of a Tupperware box.

Our TV and DVD player left us shortly after Christmas, same with our stereo. All the wall hangings are off with patchy stucco marking where things used to be. Someone came to look at our bed. Our prize possession. You really can’t invest enough in something that you spend around a third of your life in. And now we’ll spend the next year and a half searching for that perfect sleep.

We got to take a small break between Christmas and New Years. We drove 2000 kms round trip to Sydney to camp on Cockatoo Island for a night to watch 12 minutes of fireworks. It was brilliant. Worth every tick of the odometer.

It’s bedtime now, quite possibly the last night in my bed. The alarm is set for 5 AM tomorrow. Have to be at the market bright and early to set up for the rabid bargain hunters to pounce once it opens. I wish you all a Happy 2010 and hope you have a great start to the new decade!

*Photo: Victor Bezrukov

About a year ago I acquired a domain name. At the time, the .com version was, disappointingly, taken. I settled for .net.

I received an email* the other day:

Exciting news indeed! Since I haven’t yet launched the website, I could get the .com address and move everything over. I hurried over to their link to purchase it. As I was filling out the form, a very rational thought occurred to me: Google traderdomains.net.

So I did. I found this. And this. My heart sank. A scam? But after reading the posts and the comments left on those sites, I realized that, although traderdomains.net is a scam, they’re partially telling the truth. The .com of my domain has become available. These scumbags were just trying to get me to buy it from them to make a profit.

So I popped over to my web host DreamHost.com, did an availability search for the .com name, and five minutes later I’m the proud owner of it (for three years anyway). A quick Google search saved me $40 and kept the cash out of these greedy bastards’ hands.

But I can’t get too mad. They do provide a valued service. At least they alerted me that the .com was free now.

*Domain name removed as I am not quite ready to release it. In due time folks, in due time.

Why must I feel compelled to write about everything that happens to me or my family that is even remotely out of the ordinary? For example, my wife called me at work the other morning and the first words out of her mouth were, “I had an accident.” Being that we cycle to work, I immediately thought the worst.

My mind sprinted to visions of a mangled Bike Friday and Yvonne lying in a hospital bed in a body cast (I do realize she probably wouldn’t be able to talk on a phone in this state, but you’re not really rational at that point, are you?).

Luckily her next sentence was, “I slipped coming out of the shower, landed on my elbow, and had to go to the doctor to get some stitches.” Disaster averted (not that this isn’t a disaster in its own right).

So, this barely warrants anything worth writing about, right? People slip in the shower and get stitches all the time. So why did my thoughts turn to trying to figure out what kind of angle I could take and what profoundness I could tease out of it?

It reminds me of a sentence David Miller wrote in a blog post a while back called I want to write short stories. It starts off like this: “Even when it gets wall-punching or wineglass-throwing bad I’ll think how things we’re screaming would sound in a story.”

Writer’s curse. That’s what I’m calling it. Every goddam thing that happens I feel like I have to find the deeper meaning in it and write about it. Sometimes — probably most times — things are exactly as they seem. There is no hidden meaning. Nothing esoteric. Can I live a normal life again where things just happen and that’s that? Or am I doomed to constantly wonder how this or that “would sound in a story?”

(Oh, by the way…Merry Christmas everyone!)

A while back I posted “You know it’s time to move on when…” on my Matador blog. Most of the reasons I listed centered around daily routine. For example:

You know it’s time to move on when…

• the neighbour puts his dogs out at the same moment you’re chopping the apple for your cereal every morning.
• you feel like you’re auditioning for the sequel to either Groundhog Day or The Truman Show.

This was posted in August, when our plans to move on from Melbourne were just taking shape. I was wide eyed and full of dreams.

Now, with our outgoing flights only a few weeks away and with all the I-don’t-want-to-do-it-but-it’s-gotta-be-done activity that accompanies a move like this, I’ve been reflecting, rather fondly, on some of the daily things that I will miss.

1. Coffee break bagel. There’s a Jewish bakery in town called Glick’s that make some killer poppy seed bagels. I love bagels. I love natural peanut butter (ground freshly at the South Melbourne Market). I will miss this.
2. Bike ride through Albert Park to and from work (see photo).
3. Sleeping in the most comfortable bed I’ve ever had (extra firm, pocket coils.)
4. Walking in that door everyday after work, plopping myself on the couch and watching some evening news (yes, even though much of it is pure BS).
5. Having a dedicated container to put my toothbrush and floss after brushing, as opposed to a shaving kit.

As much as I love to move around and have new experiences, there is a lot to be said about routine. It’s comfortable, and comfort is necessary once in a while.

Or…is this just my mind wanting what it knows it can’t get?

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. It’s a cliche we’re all familiar with, and probably all strongly believe in, but in many aspects of life we* don’t apply it.

There are lots of things I admire about my wife. She’s polar opposite to me so I learn a lot from her. One of those things is her tenacity, the way she doesn’t quit when she wants something and knows it can be done.

Where most people will pack it in, she pushes on. I can’t count how many times I would have given up on something if not for her, and in the end, she’s almost always right. Here’s an example. We just picked up our Bike Friday bicycles and she wanted to replace the stock bell with a funky horn. The bike mechanic disappeared to the back room where they were setting up our bikes and then returned five minutes later.

“I have some bad news for you. The horn doesn’t fit,” he told Yvonne.

Wrong answer. As you’ve probably gathered from above, she didn’t let it rest and sure enough, we walked out of there with Yvonne’s choice of horn on the bike. She was right, it did fit.

This is a relatively minor example, but I think it illustrates really well one of the things that separates her from me, and from many people. I would have shrugged my shoulders, said “oh, that’s too bad” and left it at that. I maybe would have even said “thanks anyway for trying.”

I’ll never live down the time my friend Chad and I were moving a couch into the flat that Yvonne and I just moved into in Vancouver. We struggled to get it up the stairs and through the door, only to get stopped by the narrow tight turn into the living room.

After much twisting, turning, and cursing, we gave up and started contemplating hauling it three floors up on a rope and over the balcony. That or chopping it up and gluing it back together.

Over came Yvonne who was adamant it would get through. We laughed and told her there was no way. Five minutes later we were all sitting on the couch in the living room, Yvonne gloating.

I feel like we’ve lost something. And I blame society. There’s a lot of laziness out there (me included) and we throw in the towel too easily. And so we become too understanding when someone else tells us something can’t be done. This is especially true when we’re dealing with professionals. We think “well, they’re the professional, they know what they’re talking about.” But in many cases it boils down to laziness, pure and simple. They couldn’t be bothered, tell us it’s impossible, and we buy it.

So they get away with it. Until Yvonne comes along.

* I use the term we although it might be just me. But from what I’ve seen around, I really don’t think so.

I think I’ve figured out what it is about traveling that I love so much; which is to say that somewhere down the line — a year, 6 months, maybe even next week — it will change and be something else.

But for now, it’s the fact that you can pick up and go somewhere just like that. When all of your possessions roll neatly into an efficiently packed rucksack it really doesn’t take much figuring out what you’re going to bring. But settle down somewhere, accumulate some things — like a dresser, a closet, shelves — and suddenly a weekend trip becomes a monumental journey, even if you’re just going 50 kms down the road.

You have the luxury of bringing things “just in case” you need them and even worse if you have a car (or, again, worse if you have a van, like us). A weekend trip shouldn’t take six trips up and down to load up the vehicle. Why is simplicity so hard to find when you’re not traveling?

I find it funny that the one thing I grew up feeling guilty about wasting was — not leftover dinner, not that “perfectly good sweater”, not the electronic gadget or pair of Nikes that were replaced the next year with the latest version — but alcohol. Up to this day, it literally hurts my soul when I see alcohol being wasted. Half drunk beer bottles scattered around the house after a party. Leftover red wine in the glass with my wife’s lip marks still gracing the rim.

Maybe it’s not funny. Maybe it’s a bit sad. Of course, I’m a different person now, I care a great deal about being wasteful of anything. But still. Wasting booze?

Last night I was out with a Canadian Meetup group. We try to get together once a month, usually the last Wednesday. It’s always a small group, the same four or five people — I don’t know, Canadians are kinda shy I guess. I ordered a beer from the tap, but the server came back with a bottle. Maybe it’s because we’re traveling soon and I’m getting sensitive with money, but I told him I actually ordered it from the tap. But the damage was done, the bottle was open, so I told him, in good Aussie fashion, “no worries. This is fine.”

He asked if I wanted a chilled glass and I said sure. In the meantime, I took a sip or two from the bottle, then he came back with a full glass of draught beer. Before I could muster a word, he took the bottle away, replaced it with the glass, then proceeded to dump the entire beer out into the sink.

I watched, helpless. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I think I was in shock. If anyone had been paying attention to me they probably would have seen my bottom lip quiver. All I could do was turn back around to my fellow Canadians and say, “Did you just see that? He just dumped that beer down the sink! Can you believe it?!” In fact, they could. And I don’t think they cared.

I’m cursed with a slow wit. I lose arguments all the time. I can never get the last word in. 20 minutes after an argument the perfect response always comes to me, leaving me to brood about it for the rest of the day, wishing I’d just said that.

So, in this spirit, this is what I should have said to that guy who dumped the beer down the sink:

Hey man, what did you do that for? Do you know how wasteful that is? And I don’t just mean the beer. That bottle didn’t just magically appear here. Have you ever thought about how much energy goes into producing that? Making the beer, making the bottle, making the pretty label that goes on the bottle? The carton that that beer and all the other beers go into? And then storing it, transporting it, shipping it, delivering it here? You didn’t just pour beer down that sink. You poured down a hell of a lot of fossil fuels. Why didn’t you just give it to me if that’s what you were going to do? Hell, I would have paid for it before seeing you do that. Nice work man.

I might be biased a bit. Just a bit. Since joining the Matador editorial team the network has grown massively…adding editors to the existing blogs to get more and fresher content out there on a daily basis; adding sites to the network for topics like adventure sports and travel video.

MatadorU Travel Writing Course

And of course, we launched the online MatadorU Travel Writing Course which has already seen hundreds of students sign up in the first two months. When you read through the forums at MatadorU, there is a real sense of community, just the same as over at the Matador Community. And what’s even better, it’s just been announced that the discussion forums will remain accessible to all students for life, in addition to the curriculum content, so you can truly move through the course at your own pace.

We’re offering up this freebie: 15 Paying Travel Magazines That Want Your Money. All you have to do is subscribe (feel free to unsubscribe later, if you want). If you’re planning on signing up for the travel writing course, I wouldn’t mind if you used the MatadorU Registration link from here. I wouldn’t mind at all

More from Matador

We also launched a new Flickr group called Matador Photography where lovers of snapshots can congregate, share pics, and share the love. Keep your eyes peeled there for call-outs for shots for articles, like this one for wildlife images for a Photo Essay to be run at Trips.

And this is just for now, there are more exciting things coming very soon. Bonus modules at MatadorU. A new-look Community. A travel photography course. You know, just to mention a few.

What do the readers/contributors think?

Our communications guru makes sure to let us know when someone has sent us some praise. It’s feel good stuff, and we take it to heart and are truly proud when we see it. I thought I’d share some of these here:

“I’m not sure if every writer feels the way I do when getting published, but lately I’ve been finding myself in a constant state of shock and awe and profound gratefulness towards everyone at Matador.”

“It’s great to see my article up on my favorite site. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to contribute.”

“woweeee! I’ve only just discovered this gorgeous website and already I can feel myself falling in Love with everything you all are up to:) Had added your travel writing course to my list of lessons to learn and have just appended ‘and the photography course’ onto that list! Thank you for your sterling work!”

It’s a great team to work with. We really do put it all out there in plain English and in all honesty, and I think this is what our readers appreciate. Huge thanks to all of you that are active in the Community and to all you Matador readers and followers!

So yeah. I am biased, but I knew this all to be true before I even joined the team. Seeing it from the inside just confirms it. We’re just real people sharing real stories with passion.

I’ll leave you with this video, the first in a new series at Matador profiling travel writers. This is Robin Esrock (aka Modern Gonzo).

Last night Yvonne and I dismantled our wardrobe (aka closets in North America). It’s common for flats here to not come equipped with any (or, for that matter, heating and refrigerators too). We’re a bit of DIY-ers so we ended up building our own for the bedroom.

So why did we take it apart? Well, for one it had to be done eventually (as we’re leaving Australia in less than two months), but moreso we wanted to recycle the wood and screws into the bed for our campervan. It was a melancholic experience. Each screw I removed tugged at the heartstrings a little as little memories of our lives here flashed in my mind.

Each piece of timber that came off was like another piece of our lives here being torn down. To top it off, we sorted through our clothes too: what to keep, what to sell, what to ship, what to store, what to donate to Salvation Army. As the clock ticks down to our departure date we’ll be going through all sorts of these exercises, massively reducing what we’ve accumulated in two years.

But alongside the sadness we felt in disassembling the wardrobe was the excitement of what we would be doing with this recycled material. We are taking our past and reassembling it for another use in our future. We are rebuilding. We’re always rebuilding.