Happy Holidays, world!

“Maybe Christmas,” he [the Grinch] thought, “doesn’t come from a store.
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

Neither am I the Grinch, not even Grinch-like, nor do I despise the Holiday Season, just to make it clear! But I love Dr Seuss and I thought those lines are quite appropriate.

My intention was to post this way earlier (during Christmas time, actually), but then I got slapped right in the face by a stomach bug. 😦 I am seriously considering naming that bastard, cause that’s been the third time since March (you might remember, I already whined about it before). Unfortunately, I got hit by it while I was away at a friends house and we had to drive through half the country yesterday. I am very thankful that N agreed to drive my car so I could stay in the same position for like two hours. Not moving really helps! I am also very thankful for the existence of the pharmaceutical industry for providing us with such splendid little colorful pills. 😉 Now back to the holiday season!

Happy Holidays, indeed. Why not Merry Christmas? Well, to include people of all origins and religious backgrounds, no matter what holiday they are celebrating, we in retail wish people Happy Holidays. It’d be rather awkward to ask of the customer’s religion first, and then wishing them Happy Hanukkah or Merry Christmas, or whatever other festivities there are… What about New Year’s then…? I mean, everybody automatically wishes everybody else a Happy New Year pretty much right after Christmas, but what about the Chinese New Year? I guess, nobody really feels offended because one wishes him a Happy New Year, even though their new year only starts in February. But in the western world, it is still holidays, cause all the schools are closed and many people get a few days off, right? Right!

So what is it all about the Holidays? What’s all the fuss about? I mean, not all the stressed-out people who were violently running around the city last week, looking for last minute presents and over-stuffing their fridge with food celebrate the birth of Christ or some other religious happening. Those people going nuts at the grocery store reminded me of the time in the early ’90’s when people were filling their cabinets with essentials because of the Gulf War. No kidding, my granny was one of them.
In my family, we don’t do the big gift-giving thing anymore. We have dinner (actually, it was lunch this year) with my granddad. We have a tree and some candles and vague decoration. Not forgetting the Christmas cookies. But that’s it. We give the money to those who really need it, because it is not only the people in the third world who don’t get enough food, but also those among us. I realized that if you’re not in that hassle, one can enjoy the season of lights much more.

It has been snowing like crazy for the last, dunno, three weeks or so. And guess what: a week before Christmas it started raining and on Christmas Eve we had like 20°C! So much for White Christmas… There’s still hope for next year, though, since we all survived the apocalypse of December 21, 2012. Sorry, I just couldn’t help it… 😀

I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas (since I’m Christian bred) and a most prosperous Happy New Year.
Also, I want to thank all my readers for reading and coming back to ginatravelstheworld and I hope you’ll do this as well in 2013. My virtual door is always open for suggestions and comments!
xoxo, J

Fashion faux-pas and environmentalism

“How on earth will she get those two topics into one post?!” It’s easier than you think! Read and be surprised – or not 😉

Last year, Vancouverites have won the bronze medal for being one of the world’s worst dressed cities and apparently have to thank yoga pants for this classification (google it!). Well, thank fashiongoddess that this is not true anymore! (Maybe it still is, but what I observed changed at least my mind)
So this is what happened last week: Me, currently living in Europe, walking down the street and – spotting various girls wearing yoga pants! I seriously could not believe my eyes! Another no-go apparently is wearing leggings without a skirt or shorts to cover your bum. Totally had uncovered legging-asses in my face all afternoon long! I mean, wasn’t Europe supposed to be the fashionista-continent?
After the yoga pant incident, I swapped into fashion-police-mode and started observing people at our University. Like everywhere, there’s all sorts of followers there: the “normalos” who just wear whatever they feel up to and don’t really care because they’re only at school anyways (like me), the hard rockers, the hipsters, the business people (probably all lawyers or economists to-be) and the dressed-up people that look like if they’re just on their way to some posh event rather than the next lecture… I have to admit, I missed sporty-spice… 🙂 All in all, people here don’t really look much different than anywhere else – there’s good and terrible dressed people everywhere 😉

Another interesting thing I observed was that there is only a handful of people bringing their own travel mug or tumbler. I never really realized until lately that I’m the only one with a tumbler sitting before me in the study area – I wouldn’t be “ginatravelstheworld” without a travel mug, right? And the ones who are actually carrying a travel mug own one that says “S-bux New Zealand” or something like that. So they basically imported the idea of not using paper cups or are international students. What I like about the cafeterias here is that you can choose between a real cup and a paper cup. Since you’ll hardly find any S-bux or other coffee shops here, one might think people bring their coffee or tea from home (because everything’s so friggin expensive here), but nope, apparently nobody’s doing that. Unless they’re all hiding their travel mugs in their bags, of course.

Even though I’m on break now and I’m going back to good old Canada in a couple weeks time, I won’t stop eavesdropping and secretly observing the human being’s behavior in 2013. 😉

I’ll be back for a Christmas-special so I won’t wish you happy holidays yet. Until then: stay well-dressed and be friendly to the environment by using re-usable mugs you guys!
xoxo