Hope for the Future
I just returned from grocery shopping at Sobeys and bumped into a nice lady that books our winter tire appointments at Fountain Tire. She also is my hook up for Ukrainian dinner and dance tickets that are sold every year that support the local dancing group (Ukrainian New Years).
Usually conversations with people I know that I bump into while grocery shopping start with something like, "This is so crazy. How are you doing?"
Knowing that the theater community is pausing efforts until at least 2021 for shows and concerts both in small towns and in Edmonton, I said something to the tune of, hopefully we can still have the dinner and dance for January 2021 but groups are going to have to get creative about raising funds, especially ones that typically use one big event (hockey, dance, rotary dinner theater, etc).
Turns out, this was her daughter's last year of dancing, at least in Westlock, as she is graduating and moving on to other things. The past year or two they had been saving up for the older dancers to travel to the Ukraine in August and of course all intentional travel, at this time is paused.
Many people I have chatted with, be it friends or family, had trips planned internationally this year, all of which have been cancelled.
My take away from all of this is: we need to continue on wards cautiously, but with optimism. For those that have planned or were planning a major trip, don't give up hope. Continue researching, planning and salivating for that dream trip. It may take a year, two or five to get to that point again. Traveling may be different, with health security measures on the rise, but the tourism industry will prevail, there are way too many jobs that depend on it.
Our dream European trip would be to fly to London, stay there for 4/5 days, take the train to Paris, stay for a 4/5 days and then go to the South of France for a week. That's the dream. And I am not giving up on it.
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