Well helloooooooooo! You may or may not have noticed that I’ve been away. Not only from this blog, or from work, but from the country. I feel as if I’ve been gone for ages, largely because I went to a lot of places, and far flung ones at that.

 

This isn’t going to be a travelogue, complete with a carousel slide projector. Remember those? Oh my GOD how stupefyingly boring those were. Kids, try to imagine being forced to go through someone’s entire Instagram feed in slow motion, complete with commentary. You can’t imagine the horror. In any case, it was a very cool trip, planned long in advance: John and I spent a week sailing in Croatia as guests of lovely English friends, then I went on to Istanbul for four days to meet my sister, finishing off with four days in London with another set of lovely friends. Maybe the most remarkable aspect of this trip is that I did it all with only carry-on luggage. That’s right, rubberduckers. Just one small suitcase and a duffel bag, with enough clothes to get me through three entirely different situations and climates, not to mention a wedding I crashed in London. Behold my packing skills, and bow down before them. I challenge you to do the same.

 

I did not bring a Raptors jersey or T-shirt, although I wish I had. Almost the entire final series took place while I was away. Undeterred, John and I watched the last two games on his iPad, at 3AM. Here we are snuggled up on board our boat in Croatia as the sun came up:

 

I LIED. THERE WAS NO SNUGGLING. WE WERE FAR TOO TENSE. IT WAS MORE LIKE GRIPPING.

 

Of course we won, as you may have heard, but we missed the celebrations and general mania. I managed to bring up our victory as often as possible, often while ordering in restaurants, as in “I’ll have the octopus and by the way, we’re from Toronto? Home of NBA Champions the Raptors?” until everyone shushed me.

 

I was less forthcoming in Turkey, largely because I was with my sister, who has as much interest in basketball as she has in Greco Roman wrestling (which is to say not at all). Instead, we shopped, and went to the hammam, and walked along the Bosporus. The hammam experience is worth a blog post onto itself. Let me just say I’ve never been cleaner. Everywhere.

 

LUCY AND ETHEL GO TO THE TURKISH BATHS.

 

As mentioned, the Traveling Mo Show ended in London, with a side trip to Oxford to visit Ronan’s smartypants girlfriend, who is a visiting student there. She’s coming home this week, but I wanted to see her in her natural habitat, and also to be able to say I went to Oxford.

 

OXFORD. COME FOR THE SHOES, STAY FOR THE EDUCATION.

 

So there you have it. My slide show is over, for the moment. The best part of going away is coming home, and summer is just getting started.

 

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