The thing is — for what is probably a typical Canadian situation where family distribution is measured in hours, even days — my grandparents were the happy glue of the family. We’d only have the larger get-togethers on special occasions; Christmas being the main event. If it wasn’t for Nick & Vera driving the course between their six children, I’m certain we would have lost touch. We certainly wouldn’t have a sense of “family.” Read the rest of this entry »
I’ll skip the bits about how cool it is to have my brothers with me here in Slovenia; it’s been a blast. In the short time they’ve been here, we’ve gone through at least a life time’s of adventure. As proof of this, I present the following video shot just a few hours ago.
Carbonite!
They have this tradition here in Slovenia where carbonite is placed in a barrel, soaked in water, and then tapped with something hot; a stick-on-fire is apropos. The explosion is something akin to a canon. Now, normally all goes on without a hitch. Until a Canadian shows up. If you haven’t already guessed it, this is not what’s supposed to happen.
It was our first trip to Canada as a family. Nataša and I were a bit nervous. Travelling overseas with a one year old is not for the faint of heart. But! It was necessary: my family hadn’t yet met our daughter Nyree and it had been years since I myself had been back. As it turned out the trip was a little-more-than extraordinary. It was something you’d almost expect to see on an American Soap Opera.
My daughter and I have recently been infected with Lyme disease compliments of some neighbourhood ticks. We were (hopefully) fortunate to detect the infections before they became too severe. In any case …
This morning we had the pleasure of taking our 20 month old daughter to the emergency to have what seemed like a tick bite examined by a doctor. We’re not fans of the Slovene medical community. In fact, we sort of hate it. So much so that we shed tears before we hit the road. Yes, it’s bad. But, we learned a valuable lesson …
