Nobody believes me when I say that the 80 days thing is a coincidence. But it is.
We leave the day after Isabel's last exam and return the day before the first full day of school. 80 days.
Actually from take off to touch down at Winnipeg International is 79 days and 20 hours, but door to door from our house... precisely 80 days.

And a bit about the backstory. In 1993 after three years in veterinary practice Lorraine and I quit our jobs and backpacked around the world for eight months, doing everything from living in a cave in Greece (a very nice cave mind you) to camel trekking across the Rajastani desert to celebrating Christmas in Hong Kong to island hopping in Thailand to volcano climbing in Indonesia to living with a family in Samoa to... well, the list does go on and on. Everyone said, "Wow, that was the trip of a lifetime!" To which we responded, "Nooo! It can't be the only time we do that! It just can't be." We swore we would do something similar again when we had kids. It's 22 years later. Isabel is 13. Alexander is 10.
It's time.

Monday, September 7, 2015

Day 79 A New York Minute

Central Park on Labor Day Monday. Mad beating sun. Brazilians and Chinese crowd the Imagine mosaic and purveyors of crap sketches of John Lennon and crystals and tie dye bandanas ring it. Down the hill a bicycle goes by, ridden by a tall thin black man dressed all in white and with long corn row hair. He has an enormous old boom box strapped to his bike with bungee cords. He is playing Edith Piaf. Loudly. And he is grinning like Christmas morning.
"Non, rien de rien,
Non, je ne regrette rien."

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