Last year and the year before, I took my family on an epic vacation and when I returned, I did a short mail-it-in blog that reflected some thoughts I had on where we had been and how moving around the world outside of our little bubble that is Calgary can offer some pretty cool perspective on the truisms that define our lives.

As I said then and will cut and paste now, perspective is everything and sometimes it is worthwhile to take yourself out of your comfort zone and look at things from the other side and you will find that things that you assumed to be true are not, things you held to be fundamental are not and the people you thought were telling it like it is? They most assuredly are not.

It’s an unnecessarily cryptic opening paragraph, but hey, that’s what I do.

Two years ago, I dragged the family on a post-COVID sojourn to Europe and we had a full-on immersion course in crowds, culture and, of course because it’s me, energy. Our trip was an oddly shaped quadrilateral: Paris-Athens-Naxos-London-Paris. The intent here was to hit culture, antiquities, beachtime fun and some epic shows. Success!

Last year, we did the classic triangle. Calgary to New York, New York to Cancun. Cancun home. Because who doesn’t right? We had great food and shows in the Big Apple then left the city that doesn’t sleep for a resort that serves free booze and buffet food. Along with a nightly show. Success!

This year, we tried something different. It was a bit of a last minute booking because we were dealing with some family issues on the home front but we persevered. The forst part of the trip was a bucket list for my wife who really wanted to go to Amsterdam, so we went there. The next part was a long overdue visit to the Emerald Isle and a journey across the bottom half of Ireland. Finally, it was requested by half the family that we find a beach somewhere to park our weary asses and soak up some rays and just relax. So we hauled ass down to Portugal and the Algarve and stayed in a town called Quartiera – not your typical Algarvean tourist haven (Portimaio being the main destination) but a wonderful and relaxing spot regardless, with the added bonus of not being overrun by tourists.  Then back home again through Amsterdam. As per previous years, success!

Before I get into my observations, I just want to say that I am forever grateful for the circumstances in my personal and professional life that allows us as a family to experience these times together. The privilege that accompanies a three year span of trips of this nature is not to be denied – I am acutely aware that in a world where housing and groceries are often becoming luxury items for whole swaths of society that my observations might grate on a few. But rest assured my lens on the world comes not from a peak, but more from peaking my head over the hedge to see what is going on. And while we do what we can to shelter our kids from the realities of inflation, economic insecurity and income inequality, I know that they take in everything they see and compare it to their own lives, even if they are reluctant to fess up to it when we ask.

At any rate, true to previous years, here are 10 (or more) pithy observations from my journey.

1. If you think that the transition to electric vehicles is going to be some instantaneous smooth ride over the next five years you need to get out of your bubble. Cars are everywhere. Infrastructure is not. Has anyone who thinks EV’s are taking over the world actually been anywhere outside of their bubble? I would bet that maybe 10% of the cars we saw in our travels were EVs. Tesla is not in the majority. Range anxiety is not a thing. Access to charging is. We drove the Wild Atlantic Way and the Ring of Kerry in Ireland. Finding a charging statio is the last thing on your mind while you’re white-knuckling an 80 km/h 10 ft wide road on a 12% grade going uphill through a series of switchbacks in pea soup thick fog with an oncoming (Amazon) delivery truck while your family is frozen in fear and you are driving on the Irish side of the road. Gas? Diesel? Electric? Who gives a sh** as long as the brakes work!
2. Lack of knowledge about energy and where it comes from is not a uniquely Canadian or American thing.
3. No one knows where Calgary is. No one cares to know where Canada is. When you mention you are from Canada the city mentioned most often in reaction is … Vancouver. Sorry Toronto, you just aren’t top of mind. That said, some people know about Banff. Not where it it, just the name. “Where are you from?” “near Banff” “that’s cool”
4. Food in various locations across Europe can be awesome or it can be horrific. Nothing can prepare you for how pedestrian Dutch food is. The concierge at our hotel said it best: “dutch food, well, it’s not famous, or that good.” We ate some really good meals in unexpected places and some bad meals in places that should have been good. Steak in Europe is universally inferior. We broke our “no steak in Europe” rule twice. Once in Amsterdam at an Argentinian steakhouse (don’t ask, it’s a thing) and once in Portugal at our hotel restaurant (buffet lunch). Canadian agricultural products take a backseat to absolutely no one. I defy you to have an “Irish rib steak” for 45 euros at a steak joint in Killarney and tell me it’s better than the $12.99 steak sandwich special at Peanuts Pub at the Carriage House Inn in Calgary. In some things, we are very fortunate.
5. For some reason, Killarney Ireland was overrun with Americans. It was the only place where the Americans were the dominant vacationers. It may have been a roll of the dice with a whole bunch of golf trips descending on a single town
6. Galway, Ireland is awesome. Music everywhere. Such a great vibe. I despise most of Ed Sheeran’s music (I once called him the Billy Joel of the 2010s, but he’s more like late career money-hoarding Lionel Ritchie) but I can 100% see how he got his start there. The quality of the lowliest busker there is club level in Canada.
7. Spend 10 minutes in a legit Irish pub and you will, like me, legit have no idea how the Irish made it through COVID and lockdowns. Shoulder to shoulder, laughing, talking, singing. Irrepressible fun. How do you shut that down?
8. Air travel is awesome. We went from Calgary to Amsterdam to Dublin to Faro to Amsterdam to home in five relatively uneventful flights. Faro was the worst airport, it reminded me of Cancun last year – not a business travel airport, more just a launching pad for vacationers. Maybe it was the vacationers that made it the worst. People like us can be really annoying.
9. Calgary is small. I mean, it’s big for Canada. But it’s really small. Insular. Nothing wrong with that. But after visiting Paris, London, Athens, New York, Dublin and Amsterdam in the last two year, you realize how much more we need to turn our sights out.
10. Prices in Europe are eye-wateringly high. We can complain all we want about inflation but we don’t live in a relatively expensive society.
11. Canadians live in a ridiculous bubble of comfort and security. We are energy independent. We have glorious and copious amounts of cheap food. Our defence is provided by a militaristic behemoth superpower to the south and our politics are petty, parochial and, quite frankly, embarrassing. Our products cost less, we have no specific threats to our well being and yet we still manage to be a flaming dumpster fire.
12. People have asked me which part of my trip was my favourite. Tough question. I really enjoyed Ireland. Pubs, music, scenery, rain, Guiness, Parnell – what’s not to like? But I also enjoyed Amsterdam. Canals and psychopaths on bikes (cyclopaths?). Except the food was surprisingly bad. Portugal was great, although we didn’t get to see too much as our purpose there was to spend wind down relax time at the beach which was, conveniently, a mere 50 feet away from the patio at our hotel. I guess the answer is which country do I want to go back and explore more of and that would be, hands down, Portugal. There you have it.

OK – final point. Before I left, I made some bold predictions about what was going to happen while I was away so you would be prepared. Let’s go back and see what happened.

• I said that Joe Biden was going to resign and Kamala Harris was going to take over and have Gretchen Whitmer as her VP running mate. On this I was mostly right. Joe withdrew from the 2024 presidential race (but will serve out his term). And Harris is the successor. It was really the only choice and it seems for now to bge a good one for Dems. The high energy, boundless optimism couldn’t be a more stark contrast with the doom and gloom Trump/Vance crew. The choice of Tim Walz as the everyman generic gun-owning white guy sidekick at this point seems inspired. But 75 days is a long time and, as they say, things change.

• The price of oil will take a beating sometime while I’m away, because I won’t be able to trade. Ha! This is certainly what happened. On the day I left, WTI was about $78. When I landed back in Calgary, it was about $77. A miss, right? Except the price cratered in that 16 day window as much as $7. Just because. Like enough already. And I wisely traded nothing.

• The price of natural gas will continue to disappoint. I feel like this an evergreen statement. Short term, long term, medium term, hour to hour. Why do we even bother. $2.13 an MCF to $2.20 an MCF. Why do we even bother.

• Danielle Smith will do something crazy. Pronouns. While the health care system and the town of Jasper burn. She must be feeling a lot of heat for her upcoming leadership review. Note to Danielle – no one cares about this anymore.

• The CPC will extend their lead over the Liberals. This did not happen. Not because the Liberals are experiencing a comeback, simply because they have nowhere further to fall. Is there no Kamala in the LPC to exile Justin into the wilderness?

• Taiwan is safe for the next few weeks. Phew, right?

• Elon Musk and the South African billionaire takeover of the United States will fail. So far so good but not for lack of trying. Elon’s obvious excitement for being a Trump supporter notwithstanding and Peter Thiel’s insertion of his JD Vance mini-me into the campaign is NOT going as well as they6 thought it would. It turns out that the electorate is not as easily fooled as the broligarch class believes so I guess ne need to have an election. May the best… person… man… woman… television… camera… win.

• I will have fun on vacation. I did. So much. Family time can never be over-rated, even when we get on each others’ nerves. The kids are getting older and these opportunities to experience things together matter. Grab ‘em while you can. And I didn’t miss writing the blog. Sorry. I may actually need a few more weeks off…