Tag: The Bahamas

Back on track. Hello, Switzerland!

Posted on by Benjamin Gunst

It took me a few phone calls to make the decision. The hardest part was lifting my mood. What made me decide on going to Switzerland was: 1. I cannot stay longer in the Schengen Area, so I had to choose wisely what could be my last region for the next 3 months, and 2. Jessica was there, and God knows when I will see her again since she has to depart from the Schengen area.

I think I am crazy for this Bahamian girl. Am I following in my uncle’s footsteps?

My grandma would be amazed knowing that their grandchild and possible great-grandchild had Bahamian blood.

I didn’t want to ask Jessica about Pietro, just for me to feel valuable, expecting that Jessica would read my mind. I was genuinely jealous and overthought a lot if he would be around. But in the end, I managed to ask her about him.

“I don’t know why you care, but he is in Italy,” she texted back. That message left me with more questions than answers. Are they polyamorists or something? However, it felt good not to deal with my insecurities during my stance in Switzerland. I’ll try to understand this better when I see her.

So, I took a bus and a train to reach Bologna and then another 9-hour bus until Geneva.

I stayed 24 hours in Bologna. I didn’t do much there. A guy who met me in San Marino mentioned that Bologna was the city full of the three “T”: Towers, Tortellini and Tits. The first one wasn’t difficult to notice; the town holds many medieval towers. My hostel was a few blocks away from Le Due Torri, the city’s main tourist attraction.

Next, I went to a trattoria to have good tortellini. But, I couldn’t find any particular taste in the dish I got at the place where I went. Nothing different from Montreal’s trattorias. Next time I am in Bologna, I will try to go with an Italian friend to guide me better. It was interesting to learn that there is an ongoing political and religious fight in Italy about the filling of tortellini: pork vs chicken. Some claim chicken tortellini are not traditional and they are just to please Muslims. From a Canadian prospective sounded quite silly.

The third T was difficult to notice on girls, and I wasn’t focusing but thinking in Jessica. Later on, I learned from a guy that shared a vino della casa with me at the trattoria that the third “T” might have come after the Nereids of the Neptune’s Fountain. So I went there and didn’t find it attractive at all. It reminded me of Katy Perry at the end of the California Gurls’ video.

It was precious to come by Flixbus to Geneva as I could see the beauty of the Italian and Swiss highways and appreciate the landscape surrounding them. I arrived at the Geneva Central Bus Station and hoped that Jessica was waiting for me, but no. She didn’t even ask how I was supposed to come. This Bahamian girl really makes me feel insecure.

So I walked around the station and started listening to French again. Since I was in Québec a few months ago, I haven’t listened to French on the streets. It was nice to hear the Swiss accent.

I stopped in a Starbucks and ordered a classic macchiato. The guys behind the desk asked me where I had learned French “nice accent, bro.” I didn’t have an answer. I wanted to say “at home,” but I assume people are not used to Quebecoise here. I swear I tried to fake the Metropolitan accent the best I could.

A few minutes after my first sip of the macchiato, Jessica arrived.

“Let’s unpack your stuff at the hotel and have a nice conversation, Benjamin Gunst,” she said.

This weekend is going to be exciting.

Greenland from Nunavut! My first impressions

Posted on by Benjamin Gunst

After 4 days in Grise Fiord, Maurice managed to get documentation to dock the ship in Qaanaaq, Greenland. Jessica and I wanted to continue our individual trips around Greenland; we checked our passports with the Canadian Immigration Authorities before going on the boat. 

The trip was shorter than expected. I couldn’t believe that Greenland was so close. However, it was scary as the conditions outside were super severe, and the currents didn’t help us a lot. Maurice was about to turn the boat back a couple of times.

Jessica has to leave her bike in Grise Fiord as it didn’t make any sense for her to bring her to Greenland. From Qaanaaq, it is impossible to get to another city by land. So Jessica kind of performed a goodbye ritual and gave the bike away to a 12-old kid who promised that he would use it to go to The Andes when he was an adult. 

 

Jessica cried and smiled. I was marvelled watching her.

 

I was super excited being in Greenland. Everything was so similar to Nunavut, but at the same time so different. People there spoke a variation of the Inuit that was even harder for Amaruq to understand. Most of the people didn’t speak English, some of them tried to talk to us in Danish. Thank god we had Amaruq because not even Google Translate was working there.

The town was similar to Grise Fiord but with a larger minimarket and a different currency, the Danish krona. Jessica and I were rushed to take a flight to Kangerlussuaq the following day because the weather “would be fine.”

The rest of the crew stayed only a few hours in Greenland. It was terrific to see Charlie, the toddler, amidst this fabulous adventure. I think he will never forget, and I will never forget his smile. 

I thanked Martin a lot for introducing me to his friends, and we added each other on Facebook. I hope we will meet sometime. But in my experience, the travellers’ life is like this. You meet fantastic people, but you cannot bring them with you, so you have to enjoy them at the very time you are with them. 

At Kangerlussuaq, we hiked, saw the Russell Glacier, and kayaked on Lake Ferguson. We spent the nights together. They were three ridiculous days, and if they had been longer, I would have fallen in love with Jessica.

Thank god she decided to stay fat biking along the Arctic Circle; meanwhile, I took the first flight to Nuuk.

This was one of the first few times I wished to stay with a person. I think I was so proud of not being the guy who started another biking expedition with her. I am not. I am Benjamin Gunst, an independent traveller, graphic artist and writer. Maybe I should plan a trip to the Bahamas next year.

From The Bahamas to the North Pole Biking

Posted on by Benjamin Gunst

Well, I haven’t talked a lot about the crew members; everyone has fantastic stories. Most of them are fearless travellers that aren’t scared to bring a baby (that is so mature, though) to the trip.

Jessica arrive from The Bahamas Biking

There is one girl that I believe is fantastic, Jessica. She is from The Bahamas (I was also surprised when I discovered it) and she’s travelled here biking.

Jessica started her trip from Nassau two years ago. She was stuck in a Digital Marketing job that she hated. By the time her ex-boyfriend asked her to go on a trip together biking around the US.

 

She said “yes.” 

 

They took the ferry to Fort Lauderdale and started biking around the east coast, heading north. One of Jessica’s dreams was visiting Cinderella Castle in Disney, so they detoured and stayed a few days in Orlando. The guy proposed to Jessica in from of the Castle, and she cried in front of everyone. It was her happier day in life so far.

After Orlando, they continued to Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston, Charlotte and then Durham and Raleigh. 

Jessica’s best friend lived in Durham while doing a master’s degree in Duke University and her ex-fiancé’s “political uncle” in Raleigh. So they decided to split for a couple of weeks to visit their loved ones. Jessica thought it was kind of weird he chose to go solo for a while as he was overprotecting her the whole trip. In addition to that, he never mentioned that uncle in The Bahamas frequently. Maybe a couple of times, but she didn’t think he was too relevant to spend two weeks separated. 

 

Long story short, there wasn’t any uncle in Raleigh, and he was just staying in a hotel where Jessica’s former best friend sneaked to spend the night (and the weekend) with him. When Jessica found out, she was heartbroken and put all her anger into the bike’s pedals, and she biked for hours. When she noticed, she was in the middle of nowhere in Virginia. She spent the night in a cheap B&B and the next day was in DC.

 

She arrived there shocked. She locked herself in a hotel for a week “only to cry.” She had lost all of her strength biking to DC alone and didn’t have more energy to even take a cab to the airport and flight back home. She ordered room services the whole week. Her enlightenment came after the third day of crying. She determined to take therapy online and received enough energy after a couple of sessions to forgive herself for being in love with such a wicked guy and continue the trip by herself. 

Later on, she crossed the Niagara Falls border a few days before the first lockdown and the beginning of the Pandemic. She has been in Canada ever since. How? She has a Canadian passport since her mother was born in Montreal but never lived here or visited before. This trip has let her discover herself in the north. That is why she biked for such a long time, and now she doesn’t want to stop. There are more compelling details in this story, but I am not in position to reveal them.