Category: Uncategorized

Viva Las Vegas

On By thestampsinmypassportIn Uncategorized1 Comment

A few years ago, at a previous company, our team moved to a new building and we now shared space with other teams. We were asked to fill out this little ‘get to know’ you form that would be attached to your cubicle as a conversation starter.

The questions to answer were:

Name:

Department:

How you like your coffee?

Tell us something about yourself:

My answer to the last question was – I have been to Las Vegas 19 times. Boy oh boy was that a conversation starter. Everyone wanted to know why would I go to Las Vegas 19 times. Off the cuff I would say, why not, or I would go more if I could afford to go now, or I want to stay in every hotel on the strip and beyond.

My very first time to Vegas was for my 21st birthday. The friend I was supposed to go with had to change her plans at the last minute, and I had to find someone to replace her. I did, but she wasn’t really a friend of mine, the trip was okay but nothing memorable.

Thankfully I was working in a travel agency, and Las Vegas used to be a very reasonable three night trip. I do remember a time when you could eat three meals a day there for under $20. You could also find $1 Blackjack, which was a bonus. I remember reading ‘the book’ on the plane to Vegas and sitting at the table and trying to remember all of the rules. Everyone is a professional when they play for a $1 so I was always getting great advice (insert eye roll here).

Over the years, it was always fun to go to Las Vegas with people who had never been before. Walking through the themed hotels, on the strip, in and out, pennies in the slot machines. I always loved watching friends faces while we were on final approach when they looked out the window and saw this larger than life scene appear in the dessert. You had the pyramid of Luxor, the New York City Skyline, and at the time the worlds largest hotel MGM with its huge lion and green windows taking over the view. The excitement was palpable.

I do remember a certain night (October 23, 1993) sitting in the sports book at Caesers Palace beside a Phillies fan who got up to leave in top of the 9th inning because her team had already won the game. When Joe Carter hit the home run and the whole bar was screaming and I was jumping up and down all I wanted to do was find that lady and torture her with my enthusiasm. On the flight home the next day, the flight crew left out all the local Toronto papers for us to see how the celebration looked at home.

It wasn’t until years and many trips after that, that was I were during another world series. This time it was October 2003 and it was Florida Marlins vs. New York Yankees. This story I have shared many times, but yes, in search of $1 black jack and found a friend for life. Funny how that happened, but it did.

It has now been nine years since I have been to Las Vegas. The urge is there, but not in the current state that it is in. Many serious gamblers that sit at the tables could care less if they talk to anyone, but for those who are there for fun, there is something to be said for sitting with Plexiglas in between the spots that just doesn’t do it for me.

For now it will be all of the great memories of the past trips that will need to keep me going until we can return to travelling.

Birthdays

On By thestampsinmypassportIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Birthdays, love them or dislike them? I happen to like birthdays, mine and celebrating others. I know it is not something everyone enjoys doing, and as we are getting older it could be a reason to not want to celebrate, but I would argue that we should always want to celebrate the day we arrived into the world.

I wonder what age one changes from loving the celebration to dreading the day each year. When we are young, we want a theme that is a current trend or fad, book a venue, party supplies, loot bags, the cake. What about the cake? Probably the most exciting, chocolate or vanilla, cupcakes or sheet cake, pink or purple (and of course now no more candles).

At some point I decided to combine by love of birthdays and my passion for travel and start to celebrate my birthday with a trip. The first time was in 2006, for my 35th birthday to Paris. I am sure I have written about it before, but on my birthday we went up the Eiffel Tower during the day and the Moulin Rouge at night for my birthday. I will never forget that birthday. I was reminded of our Eiffel Tower experience over the weekend.

Other birthday trips that followed were a couple of birthdays in Los Angeles, one of them at at spectacular chocolate afternoon tea at the Langham hotel in Pasadena, New Orleans, Savannah and last year Jamaica. Savannah was fun, eating at Paula Deen’s restaurant as part of my birthday request. Each experience was memorable and I am reminded how grateful I am for having the opportunities I have had over the years to travel and how much I have seen and how much more there is to see.

You may be asking why I am writing about birthdays today? Well, today is September 8th, which is Heath’s birthday. The night before he passed away we had a few conversations, and one of them was our birthday plans for our 50th birthdays, which are in 2021. I told him that I found the trip we would take, and we would be able to put a deposit on it in the coming months. It is CRAZY to think that if we had put the money down on the trip, that it wouldn’t actually even be happening, after booking it more than three years in advance. It was a two week cruise to Australia and New Zealand.

I can’t end this birthday post without the mention of my #16plus30 birthday, which was the birthday that really changed my life. It is hard to imagine that a year before the party I thought of the idea, celebrating not 46 but the 30th anniversary of my Sweet 16. It was capped off by Heath being able to come in for the weekend and celebrate not just the party, but a really cool weekend of celebration. When he left, I knew I had a new friend for life.

Cheers to you, my friend. You are missed every single day, but you already know that.

Pressing Pause

On By thestampsinmypassportIn Uncategorized3 Comments

Think back to March 2020. If you have children, you have just been told that there will be an extra two weeks of March break just to ensure that there is enough time to be safe if anyone has travelled outside of the country for the break.

For those of us in the tourism industry we were already knee deep in the s**t that, at the time didn’t have the name covid-19.  Then came March 26th, when I was laid off, for the first time.

It was a brutal blow to me. I was having a great time being a travel artist. Each trip at Goway is a customized experience based on the clients requests and desires. Each inquiry a blank canvas to create the piece of art that would become their experience. I proved to myself once again that there is a reason why I survived thirty years in this industry. I may not have always liked what I have done, but I have always been in love with travel.

At the time of the initial lay off, everyone was deep undercover, in isolation, in their homes. Most people were not going anywhere, for any reason. It was the first time that the borders of every country were closed.

I found myself tuning in at 11am each day to listen to the Prime Minister speak to the country and try to provide updates on what the government was doing for its citizens. This is not a political post so I will end this with the thought that my Prime Minister was doing the best he could at the time with the information.

A few weeks later the PM announced the CEWS (Canada Employee Wage Subsidy) a benefit for employers to hire their staff back at 75% pay from the government. I got a call, telling me about this opportunity. I would be working on behind the scene projects helping benefit the company for when travel would open up again. The option was to stay laid off, or work from home on projects. I was home anyways, so why not?

I had put my work computer off to the side of my desk when I was laid off, so I moved the desk around and started to work on the project the following week. The project was to build an internal training manual that would be used for new staff and existing staff to have everything they would need/want to know about all the countries we sell to. I was very happy to be given the country of Italy. If it wasn’t already my passion country, it is now.

Week by week, region by region, city by city, I built training manuals for every major city in the country from Milan and the lakes in the north, to the stunning island of Sicily in the south, to the Apulia region in the East. Every time I finished a region I was left with the desire to travel there.

This project was supposed to take us to when the government money would end. It was extended until August 31st. We were given our second project. This was external, content writing destination guides that will live on the Goway.com website. I was very excited to write content that, when the world will be ready to travel again, people would read. I was tasked through July and August to learn, educate myself on Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Hungary.

The destination guides of these countries were very interesting to me. To learn about the Baltic States, their history and their connections to each other. Of course, having a Polish grandfather, and being Jewish I thought I knew a lot about Poland, but now I have a greater understanding of the country, the people and the history from where I came from.

There is a section in the destination guides with essential foods to try in the country. Again, as a child of Ashkenazi heritage, so many of the foods in the Baltic States are similar to those in our history. Different names, slight variations, cousins part of the large Eastern European family.

As each week moved on and the August 31st deadline neared, I felt that the end was coming. Again the CEWS program was extended, but with stricter restrictions making it harder for employers, especially those in tourism, to continue to pay their staff.

Last week, my education came to a close. I was laid off for the second time during the pandemic. This time, it is different. I don’t see a return to the career I have had for thirty years coming back for a very long time.

I have been asked so many times over the last ten years or more, what would you do if not travel? That has always been the impossible question. Travel Lisa and Lisa Lisa are conjoined twins. We are connected at the heart, by the love and passion for the world. What will one do without the other? I don’t have the answer for that, yet.

With this I am going to press pause for a few weeks. Pause on what’s next. I think I had been blocking out the thought of trying to find not just a new job, but a new career during a pandemic.

For the members of my Goway team that find themselves taking their own pause, you are not alone. Reach out, let’s have a coffee, or ice cream, or a double Caesar, extra spicy.  We need to lean on each other and rise each other up. I hope I can do that for any of you. I am only a call or message away.

But for now, I am pressing pause.

Stay safe everyone,