Irony

It's fairly ironic that the worst part of travel is, well, travel.

While it may sound glamourous to say I'm heading to Paris, London, Barcelona, Zurich, Prague all in the months of December and January....well ok, it is a bit better than Red Deer, Lacombe, and Edmonton, I'll grant you that . But the act of getting to each place is a little less enviable.

Where to begin? On the Eurostar from Paris to London, on a train made only for those under 5'6", I'm seated directly facing the world's most affectionate couple. I'm not sure what the Chinese word for Schmoopie is, but I'm pretty sure they said it every few seconds. I'm also not sure what happens when one of them has to go the bathroom, but it must be devastating. I don't think they did, actually. But after watching them, I sure had to.

Glamour also wears off quickly in places like the Paris Metro, when you're being packed like Twinkies into Oprah's mouth, and having someone cough directly into your cornea. Or on the famed London Underground, where at 8:45am on the 9-hour day back home (see newspaper headlines above), a 30-something guy, without sound or warning, expels the most massive amount of vomit since Britney Spears' last album. Had I been standing a foot closer, I would have been wearing it the rest of the day.

So next time someone tells you, whether they're bragging or just plainly recounting, that he/she is jet-setting around various overseas locales, take heart that you may actually be enjoying a much more pleasant ride while couch-surfing at home.