A good day to fly

Today is a special day. I'm excited. So excited that I got up at five in the morning. I will be flying via Iceland to Sweden and tomorrow I will be sipping champagne with my best friend. I have been doing the traditional January without alcohol and last time I had a glass, it was a glass of champagne. 
My friend told me she has put a bottle in the fridge, she does not have to tell me what brand. It's a given. It needs to be the orange bottle.

I realized yesterday when thinking about my trip, starting with a visit to my friend and continuing with a visit to see my parents, that I will be meeting the most important people in my life within a few days. I feel lucky. Lucky to have these people in my life and lucky to know and appreciate their value. 
The relationship with my best friend is by far the easiest relationship that I have ever had and it has lasted for more than 20 years. I'm proud of our accomplishment, it's impressive to me. I only remember one incident when we were annoyed with each other. I'm sure she has been annoyed with me more than that but it's the only close to an argument we have had. The day she was annoyed with me, was a day in Spain when I was being extremely annoying because I was hungry and disappointed in the city of Bilbao. How we dealt with the situation was to sit in silence and read books we both had with us. After 30 minutes or maybe 45, the tapas bar finally opened so we got a glass of wine and some snacks and the argument was over. I wish more arguments in my life would have been so pleasant. I learned a lot during that silence. I learned that I was being childish, annoying and disrespectful. Silence is golden and so is our friendship. 

She is a more social person than I. I'm neither her best nor her longest friendship. I don't care. As long as I'm important to her, it's enough. I have never honestly asked myself if she is being a good enough friend, if she is staying enough in touch with me. Never. I do however ask myself if I'm a good enough friend to her and feel bad if I haven't been keeping in touch and shown her my support. I'm sure I have failed several times but she has never complained. I call that pure. That is how we are supposed to love each other but in most relationship we fail. A bit more than a week ago, I realized that I had been a bad friend and wrote to her "Happy New Year!" and asked her how she was doing. We spoke a bit and then she told me to feel free to come and visit. The next day I booked flight tickets and tonight I'm off. I'm happy, I'm exited, today is a good day to fly.

Allergic reaction to the new year

We are already over two weeks into the new year. It has passed so fast. For me 2017 started on a bit of a sad note. On New Year's Eve both me and sweetie were under the weather and it continued for a few days. We were watching a lot of nice movies however and didn't step outside for a few days. Only enjoyed the beautiful white landscape from the window as we got a lot of snow to the city.

On the 4th of January we were both feeling energetic enough to go skiing and after the ski we went to pick up a furry little friend that was going to stay with us for a week. I had looked so much forward to his visit and planned lovely long walks outside and fun visits to the few restaurants and cafés in town, where you can bring these lovely little creatures.

Here he is, my friend Meo. One sweetheart of a dog.

Our first day together we were walking for 5 hours none stop. It was -10°c and sunny so wonderful winter weather. 

Up on Mont Royal people were skiing. They had made nice tracks for cross-country skiing. Beautiful indeed.

On our third day together, I got my first allergic reaction of my life. I have a had a feeling of nasal blockage and runny eyes in spring sometimes, but nothing remotely close to this. It affected my breathing and my voice and finally covered my entire body with read swollen blister looking things, that I wanted to scratch to death.
Our adventures were cut short, I had to bring Meo to a close friend of his, where I knew he would be in good hands. I'm having a hard time digesting this information as my love for dogs is an extremely strong and powerful one. In the dog park, I had a few dogs all over me. They most have sensed my desperate enthusiasm to finally get to hang around them. I felt like I had reached my heaven and I wonder if my body was just a bit overwhelmed by it and in fact I'm not at all allergic to these heavenly creatures. I wasn't for two years, when I had one myself, so I'm just going to put this in the unfortunate incidents of 2017 folder and continue my allergy free life.