A lot of things aren’t as they once were before the pandemic but air travel is probably close to the top of that list. A friend (@luckyfellow) and I have been doing a buddy trip every year since the year 2000. In those 22 trips around the sun we’ve only skipped two vacations, once because of my friend’s heart transplant and the other one was in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Juan and I are traveling to Montreal in about a month and planning the trip this year is taking a little more work. The airline we booked with, Air Canada, has been in the news a lot lately because of canceled flights and lost luggage so we thought it was a good idea not to check any bags and just take carry-ons.
This seems simple enough on the surface, right? Except Air Canada happens to be one of the most strict of airlines when it comes to carry-on size requirements. Most of the carry-on luggage brands that I’ve researched varies just ever so slightly from the dimensions listed on their website.
From what I've learned, if the bag’s dimensions vary even slightly it depends on the mood of the airline employee who’s processing you through the airport if they make you check your bag or not. Both of our bags are slightly larger in one or more of their stated dimensions (by a fraction of an inch) so, basically, it’s going to be the luck of the draw. I’ll have an AirTag in mine so I can track it just in case.
Activities
We always have a great time in this city. People call it the Paris of North America and for good reason. French culture permeates every facet of Montreal. This year we decided to add a couple of Airbnb experiences into our itinerary.
Aside from these two things I’m going to be trying something I've always wanted to experience, the water circuit at a local Montreal spa. This water circuit is like the modern equivalent of a Russian Banya or sauna. It gives you a huge adrenaline boost and is also supposed to work wonders for your immune system.
We’ll also sample plenty of the local food, check out the live music scene, and some of the local farmer’s markets and festivals.
This annual trip has become very restorative for the both of us. It’s kind of like a “reset” in our busy lives and I feel very grateful to have been able to do this so long and with such a good friend.
This will be our fourth time back to Montreal (2017-19, 2022) and will likely be our last. Here are some videos of previous trips. Next year we’ll be trying a different destination.
It’s so very important to, every now and then, take a pause and celebrate life’s little victories and successes. Memories of moments like this will someday be all we have left so be sure you’re making lots of them. Oh and please wish us luck with Air Canada, I am afraid we might need it.
Poetry should move us, it should change us, it should glitch our brains, shift our moods to another frequency. Poetry should evoke feelings of melancholy, whimsy, it should remind us what it feels like to be in love, or cause us to think about something in a completely different way. I view poetry, and all art really, as a temporary and fragile bridge between our world and a more pure and refined one. This is a world we could bring into creation if enough of us believed in it. This book is ephemera, destined to end up forgotten, lingering on some dusty shelf or tucked away in a dark attic. Yet the words, they will live on in memory. I hope these words become a part of you, bubble up into your memory when you least expect them to and make you feel a little more alive.
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