the commute

the commute

I have been commuting to work (in Midtown Toronto) for exactly two weeks now, and each and every time I find myself on the TTC subway, the same Ezra Pound poem, titled In a Station of the Metro, comes to mind: “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” I had an English teacher in Grade 12 who pulled up this poem during our poetry unit and she talked about how Pound meant to capture how fleeting the glimpses of the faces in the subway were, as each train rushed by him on the platform. I didn’t understand what the poem meant at the time, but now it is all coming back to me. I now think about it each time I commute. As each train comes roaring into the station, I would watch the faces in each car blur and blend together, to…

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why we travel

why we travel
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Arrivederci, Roma! (Summer Sailing 2018)

Arrivederci, Roma! (Summer Sailing 2018)

And before we knew it, it was our last day in Rome. And our last day of this adventure abroad. For us, the ending of a trip abroad has always been bittersweet; we look forward to being back home and falling back into our old routine, but we’re always sad to leave behind whichever beautiful place we are in. We have photos and memories to last a lifetime, but we only wish we could stay longer to make more. Bittersweet.             We wanted to spend our last morning in Rome taking a nice walk in the Villa Borghese, which is Rome’s 3rd largest park. I read on a blog somewhere before leaving that they recommend doing a nice picnic in the park. There’s plenty of places to sit, and plenty to watch while you’re eating. It’s such a great way to spend a nice quiet morning.             At one of…

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Roman Holiday Day 3 (Summer Sailing 2018)

Roman Holiday Day 3 (Summer Sailing 2018)

We woke up to a bright blue sky outside our window, and this was enough to get us out of bed and back onto the streets of Rome for another busy day of wandering, eating, photo taking, and sight-seeing.             From our hotel, we wandered down the Via Merulana to find ourselves standing in front of the Colosseum. Since we had already done a tour of the inside the last time we were in Rome, we chose to just take some photos outside to save time. There were an insane amount of people outside, waiting to go in or just lounging around, and it was all a bit overwhelming. But, that’s Rome I guess right?             What we did want to visit was the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, which was in the same vicinity as the Colosseum. There are always tons of workers selling tickets wandering around outside the…

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Between Heaven and Earth (Summer Sailing 2018)

Between Heaven and Earth (Summer Sailing 2018)

Today, we were headed out of the city on a special tour to Italy’s very tucked away places. We had booked the tour with a group online, and we were set to meet this morning at the train station in Rome, which was very close to our hotel.             After getting acquainted with our tour guide and our other tour mates, we piled into the car and got ready for the hour and a half drive to the special destination of the day: Civita di Bagnoregio. It’s about 120 kilometres north of Rome. Civita di Bagnoregio was founded more than 2,500 years ago and was the birthplace of Saint Bonaventure, who died in 1274.             Never heard of it before? That was me when it was first brought up while we were planning our itinerary. But then I googled it, and my first thought? We’re booking that tour. It looked…

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