Upcoming Blog Posts

I have not written much lately, quite a bit going on in life and I really have a lot of ideas to write about, but at this point, I think I will focus on some of the really cool places that I want to go see. There are so many wonders in this world that it is hard to decide which to see. I have so many pictures and so many ideas that I want to share with everyone that I don't know where to begin, so I will start at the beginning of my list. I will post as much information as I can about particular sights and things to see and feel free to comment or ask questions about any of them. Also if there is something in particular you are curious about, please message me and I will hopefully be able to help and will write a post about it.
thanks for reading
Brittney
travelntuition@gmail.com

Becoming a Travel Agent

I really looked forward to becoming a travel agent, and it is quite exciting, but it is overwhelming as well. There is so much to learn and at times it just seems like you will never learn everything... which is so entirely true. I joined into the travel agent position because I love travel and I would love to be a part of helping people discover their dreams. My goal is to help people discover their dreams in travel but being able to do so in a more affordable manner, that would make me happy. I have many friends that just can not afford to go away because of life circumstances, and I was in the same place, I still am in the same place, but for me, this is about uncovering my dreams, finding who I am and just living life. I wanted to go to Europe and do a trip there, and I want many more to come. For me, this was so important that out of every paycheck I made on my meagre salary at Tim Hortons, I saved as much as I could after paying my bills. within a year, I was able to make my trip come true and it was so worth scrounging around for a year to get there. I want to really start making affordable trips for people who are in my position and I really love Europe and would focus there, but would love to do mini trips of maybe north America, and about 10 day trips of places like South America or central America. I love travel and it is my excitement to travel the world. I have a Facebook page of all the wonderful places that I want to visit, uploading really cool pictures of places and writing where they are. Please feel free to join and add places you might be interested in!

Travel Inspirations Facebook page:   https://www.facebook.com/travelinspirationch

thanks for reading,
Brittney

A trip with the Girls

I have been debating on what to write about, I have many ideas, but for some I would like to gain more experience before writing about them. Yesterday two friends and I decided to go shopping in Port Huron/Fort Gratiot Michigan, which is about an hour away from where I live, so it is quite easy to just drive down and do some shopping, and we find a lot of our groceries are much cheaper there: Milk is almost half price, same with butter, and we can only get my mom's favorite coffee flavouring there. So off we go, we made it in good time and were coming over the Bluewater bridge trying to decide which lane to get into, my friend suggested lane 13 because you go through an area and it splits into 3 stations, it seemed that lane 12 was moving quicker and there was no one behind us, so we switched to lane 12, and then lane 13 started moving much quicker and we almost stopped at the border to wait for our lane. Lucky us, by the time we got there we realized we were in the lane with the woman, now since I am a woman myself, I have nothing against it on a normal day... except for women who are border patrol or cops. For these women, they always have something to prove, I am sorry you have a crappy job and need to prove yourself over all the men that work there, but you do not have to be a jerk at the border, there is no need! I am being polite and coming through the border you work at where I pay $3.00 to 3:50 so you can have a job, and so you can get all lippy at me... nooo thank you. Needless to say, the lady at the border was not a gem, but we brushed it off and enjoyed the rest of our day. We headed to Birchwood mall, Hobby Lobby(where we spent some time playing with the feather boas and decorating hats), then to Hollywood Pizza for lunch (and if you have never been there, I highly recommend it!) then we headed off to Walmart and finished our shopping. Time to head home, so we did the same, picked our lane and waited our turn. Well Whadda ya know... another Sargent lady at the booth, what luck for us. This woman was an absolute prize.. Her: how much did you spend?
Me: we were all under .......$
Her: how much exactly did you spend
Me: going through the vehicle sharing how much we spent
Her: so you all spent less than you said
Me: yes
Her: why didn't you tell me you spent this much?
Me: I did not take time to figure out exact numbers and rounded my estimate, would you like to see the receipts
Her: NO! you know that is considered lying to an officer and you could be arrested
Me: No I did not realize that
Her: you need to know what you spent exactly

now this was quite wonderful.... first off, I did not lie to the officer, I clearly stated that we were all under said amount. If I should pay duty, I will pay duty. but lady, you do not need to be so rude, I am sorry I did not pull into the closest Mc donalds or gas station to pull out my calculator and count down to the exact penny of what I spent, next time I will create an excel sheet for you......... ooh and I will just swim across the river so I don't have to pay your wages so that you can be rude to me thank you very much!

It is time to go cottaging

Yesterday we packed up the whole family, and I mean all of us.  We have my parents, siblings, in laws, nieces and nephews, uncle Jim and aunt jean and their kids, so all together the count is at....21. We left home yesterday at about 11 am and headed out. I was able to drive up with Lisa because I have to leave early to go back to work, but that is not until Wednesday, and we had to stop in Woodstock to drop off some paperwork. Our journey lasted about 4 hours, and the drive through Toronto was a mess for a while, but it cleared up after Oshawa. Because we left a little bit before out family and had to take an alternate route to get to Toronto, we kept in touch using Voxer and texting each other. We were ahead of the group by about 10 minutes, when we got a text from Dad and Mom, asking if we were planning to stop before we arrived. We had planned to keep going but when they said they wanted to stop in Port Hope, we were really close and decided to get off the Highway. We went into the fairly new rest stop and it was BUSY!!! there were people everywhere and lines to use the washrooms, dad was thinking about getting a coffee, but decided he could wait till we got to the cottages, and off we were again! This time Dad sped off ahead of us... I am wondering if it wasn't his plan all along to get ahead of us, well Lisa and I are always up for a challenge, so off we go booking it onto the highway and after about 20 minutes, we caught up to him and drove up beside him in the passing lane with a smirk of Victory on our faces. Then we decided to pull back because we were not quite sure if we were supposed to take the first exit or the second. (turns out it is the second) We arrived at Sandy Bay cottages and parked our vehicles, started unloading our gear and off we went to relaxing! slowly other people started pulling, first Tom and Alida, followed by U. Jim and A. Jean, and then Bob and Candias. finally we were all together and we were all ready to get this vacation started. The kids could not wait to get the tube out and start blowing it up. The rest of us all pulled out our lawn chairs and sat our behinds down for the rest of the day. We did go tubing the next day, it started off with the three girls going in the tube; Nichole, Jessie and Sarah, they were bouncing around in the tube hitting every wave and all the wake, but kept hold of the handles. Then it was Lisa, Jon and my turn in the tube. Bob went easier on us because Jon is a little guy and doesn't have the strength to hold on through all of the waves. Lisa and I each had a hand through one of the straps on his life jacket and holding onto the tube at the same time. We were getting up to a good speed and about to hit a Huge and I mean HUGE wave. We saw ourselves coming towards it and this one was gonna hurt! all of a sudden *snap* there goes the tow rope and we got engulfed in the middle of a big wave, thankfully the water around us was able to stop the rope from snapping back at us, and that the rope snapped near the beginning of the rope and we could use it again... NOT a smart idea. This time it was Lisa, Steve and I in the tube going for the ride of our lives, since we are all older and experienced in tubing, Bob likes to try and get us out of the tube and into the water. So he is giving the boat all he has got, and the water is getting choppy from the other boats going buy and the wind picking up. Bob takes this opportunity to do circle eights in the water to make more waves. We hit a big wave once again, and once again *snap* there goes the toe rope, this time we were above the water so the rope came back and smacked us up. Lisa and I had lots of bruises from the rope and I had a cut on my leg where the end hit, but that was one of the best rides of my life. (not so much the day after... I was hurting for a few days) We only went tubing once after that, and my hand started to act up where I had a previous break. We were in the water and the tube was not picking up, it was taking in water instead. We realized that there was a rip on the bottom and we couldn't use the tube anymore :( . The main use of the boat was for fishing this summer, I am not a fisher in any way shape or form, so I was able to sleep in, and just get a good sun tan. The day arrives for me to head home, my mom decides she wants a picture of all her kids together on the slide. we have a picture from when we were all little doing the same thing and I think she wanted a grown up version. So off we get onto this big slide, piling one on top of the other, and we are not little people, but we did it, mom Got her picture and we all said goodbye. Time to head home, and what a nice quiet few days were had after that.

Our Dutch visitor adventures

In the past few weeks, we were so fortunate to have relatives from the Netherlands down for 2 weeks. We had an absolute blast! Our visitors were my fathers cousins son and his girlfriend, or as we know them Mark and Kiki. The day they arrived I unfortunately had to work, so as soon as I was done I headed home ready to meet our guests. Dad and Steve went to pick them up in Toronto and the plane was delayed, so I was able to make it home before them and shower. So we had our dutch flag flying, house cleaned, and ready to have a great time.
2 days after they arrived, we had a majority of the Canadian relatives over for a family reunion to celebrate their arrival, and also our uncle and aunts 40th wedding anniversary. We knew it was going to be a great day when Mark and Brad headed out to fill up water balloons, and Kiki and I started making jello shooters. What a hoot! There were water balloon fights and kids running through the sprinkler, volleyball nets and swimming. It was an awesome day even though it was soooo stinkin' hot!
Mark and Kiki decided to head out for a few days to Algonquin park, I think they had a good time, they saw moose and other animals.
They headed back this way and we spent a day at st. Jacobs farmers market where we saw so many things, from fudge to cowboy boots, kitchen gadgets to apple fritters, so many different things to see and try there. We found some fresh strawberries for a dollar and just ate them as we walked around the market. We all bought the Q-ray bracelets... more for looks. We joked around that we didn't feel depressed anymore after putting them on.
Our next trip was heading off to Niagara falls! Some of my siblings and I all headed out together with Mark and Kiki. The falls were amazing to see this time of year. We got settled into our hotel and headed out to Kelseys for dinner. by the way... terrible service, terrible food and all around not good. After dinner we headed to the falls, it was still light and we walked along as it was turning dark, we were able to see all aspects. regular day light turning to dark and finally  seeing the lights turn on and shining onto the falls. We got soaked when we were close to the falls, it was so fun, and on our way back to the hotel we stopped in the rain forest café. we were talking about stopping, but their menus didn't have prices and we were all on a budget.... so we knew the café was out, but walking around it was incredible. The next day we were able to go to the Ripleys museum, that was so fun and so worth the adventure. once we were finished at the museum we still had about 3 hours to kill, we thought since we had time we would cross the bridge into the USA since they had never been there. We looked online and it said they shouldn't have a problem getting over the border... not true, we waited on the Rainbow bridge for half an hour and then were told by the border guard that we needed to go get a stamp, we thought okay, no problem we will go and get this stamp... in and out, no more than 5 minutes right? WRONG, we waited in this room for what must have been an hour and a half to two hours. So once we were done, we had half an hour, so we ate some lunch and headed back to Canada... totally not worth it, should have spent a night or something, but all worth the experience to be able to tell my readers about it, hopefully I can save you some trouble in the future. And then it was time to head home and say goodbye to our company. we had great times with you Mark and Kiki, and we hope to have you and a lot of our

 other family over to visit again!

The importance of travel insurance

I was at a travel seminar and learned that we really do take our travel insurance for granted. First of all you want to make sure you have both cancellation and Interruption insurance.


Cancellation insurance is if anything happens up until the time you lock your door.

Interruption insurance is if anything happens after you lock your door.

always always book insurance as soon as you book your trip. You can always cancel the insurance later. Also as soon as you know there is cause to cancel, cancel immediately so there is no penalty to you, if you do not cancel at this point, your claim becomes void. Also, if you book your insurance when you are 74, you will get the package for someone in that package, as long as you book in full while you are 74, it wont matter if you turn 75 on your trip, and if you don't book in full, and if the rates were to go up, you have to pay the difference as well you are best to lock it in before you leave, and like I said you can always cancel.

If anything is to happen on your trip, your insurance will only cover an Economy class seat.

Also look into baggage insurance, if your bag goes missing for more than 12 hours, you are covered for up to $1000 with RBC anyways.

If you are filling out insurance papers, do not ask your agent to help you, if you are are having troubles call your insurance company directly, if anything on your form is wrong, it is null and void immediately.

With RBC you must be 90 days stable health before you book, with most other companies, you have to be stable for 12 MONTHS. Definitely always compare rates equally for every package you look into. Make sure you are comparing apples to apples!!! any questions please feel free to ask. Some secrets of the trade, hope it helps!

Last day in Europe

Catching up on the rest of my trip, the end of the journey, the feelings were bitter-sweet. I was excited to go home, but sad to see Europe go. In retrospect, I feel like it was such a short trip, and while I was there, it felt like I was there a long time. On our last day, we hopped a train to Amsterdam and met up with dad's cousin, who works with the Royal Concertgebow Hall in Amsterdam, rated the best acoustics in the world. Steve and I both got a private tour, and got to see the whole hall. The hall was incredible, with two concert halls and beautiful architecture, the size and the beauty of the hall was magnificent. After this, we went for a drink and then we decided to walk to Amsterdam Centraal station. Heading on the way there, we picked up family souvenirs and had a nice walk. We were fairly early to Centraal station and found some wifi to find a hotel for the night. We met up with Jelly and had a drink together with lots of good conversation, it was getting late and Jelly had an early morning so we said our goodbyes and off to the hotel we went. We had to re organize our bags to accommodate the souvenirs that we brought home for our families. By the time we went to bed, we were going to get a maximum of 4 hours of sleep. We were up at 5:40 am and getting ready to catch our plane. We were able to say hello and goodbye to Mom in Canada who was just heading to bed. Off to the airport we go, we reserved a shuttle the night before for 6:30 am. We checked in and went for some breakfast, then it was pretty much time to get on the plane. It was an 8 hour plane ride and we were greeted by Dad, Mom and Brad at the airport and headed homeward bound.