Greetings, long-abandoned internet folk! It is I, Sarah, checking in after a nearly six month-long absence. Since I last updated, I moved safely back home to live with my family outside Vancouver. I will say this: it's a lot easier to get Western food in Korea than it is to get Korean food in Vancouver. I'd kill for some really good kimchi jigae right now, especially the kind with little chunks of Spam. Mmmmmm.
But that's not the point. A few weeks ago I started to get itchy feet to travel again - perfectly sensible, given that since I graduated high school the longest I've ever gone without boarding a plane is five months. Yet I have obligations both financial and familial, making catching a last-minute red eye to Serbia and hoping I find a job rather unfeasible. Plus, as my friend Sam puts it, I'm so po' I can't even afford the "-or" to be poor.
So I gathered myself together and thought of my options: where I could stay and who I wanted to see and the places I've always wanted to see. I knew I wanted to visit my family and friends in Ottawa, and once you're at Ottawa you're more than halfway across the country. It'd be foolish to not keep going, right? Right?
And now here's the plan.

Red for flying, blue for busing. Shut up, Paint is perfectly serviceable.I'm flying from Vancouver to Halifax, then busing to Amherst and Charlottetown, where I'm staying with friends and family. After gorging myself on Anne of Green Gables and potatoes until I'm sick of them (speaking theoretically; this will not happen), I bus to Halifax, staying in a university dorm room. (People, you have
got to check this option out. It's almost a third of the price of a hotel room.)
After that, it's back over to Ottawa for a month with my family, and then waaaaaay back west homewards. Total time on vacation: almost six weeks. Total cost for travel and accommodations: very, very low. Very low. Super low. Go seat sales!
And I get to see the east! I was born in Halifax but haven't been east of Quebec City for almost twenty years. PEI and Nova Scotia and the harbours and water and Green Gables and
Road to motherlovin' Avonlea. I can almost hear the Joel Plaskett music now.
My older brother said to me, "I guess when you've done what you've done, it's pretty easy to pick up like that." I never thought of it like that, but I guess he's right. He's married with two kids and a mortgage, something I pretty much dread. I don't think of myself as the adventurous type, but travelling on a whim like this really doesn't frighten me. Yes, I've got no memories of these places and I'm staying with third cousins (my dad's family is labyrinthine), but what's the worst that could happen? I could be assaulted? Probably more likely in Vancouver. I lose all my money and have to come home early? I can't be deported and I speak the language.
I am so ahead of the game on this one. Give me your best shot, Maritimes. Korea was here first and they were better at it than you.
Wow, that got dark quickly. Long story short: this is still a travel blog. Even though I'll be in my home and native land, I am going to travel this region's brains out. I leave in less than a week.