Dave Life Adventures

So I started this post just as I took off from Greece. I have now arrived in Istanbul, Turkey spent a looooong night in the airport waiting for delayed friends and a groggy day in the city experiencing it from the point of view of Canadians living there to learn language and culture. Today I’ll be playing the tourist so watch good ole insta for my pics (#davelife). It’s already proven to be a beautiful city with incredible people, I can not wait to dive deeper. Istanbul, Turkey I started this journey a month ago relatively unsure that I was making a correct decision but excited for the adventure.   On the outside I maintained confidence and verbally rationalized my decision with ease, on the inside I was far less secure. I can without reservation now state that it was the correct decision. My time on Lesvos was some of the most heart wrenching, exhausting, awesomeness that I have ever experienced. The opportunity to work along side the team at EuroRelief is one tha...

Well friends and fam, I am three days into my Greek adventure and down with a chest cold/jet lag. I am by no means incapacitated but having a good number of staff today, my scheduler took pity on this poor soul and gave a day of rest. Hopefully this bonus of sleep will do my body good enough that I can hit the ground running again tomorrow. I am not a fan of running on low. How's Camp? I have loved my first experiences here though at times they can be intense. You learn quick and Euro Relief is staffed by an incredible army of voluteers, many of them are young and few fairly inexperienced but you would never guess it for a moment when you are on the ground. Countless times I have asked the question to the "veteran" staff, "how long have you been here?" only to be shocked by the answer... "Oh about 2 weeks" WOW Seriously! Anyone who quips a negative about todays generation of young people needs to come check these kids out. Seriously, I am so ...

Well folks after 24ish hours of flights and layovers I have arrived at my final destination in the town of Mytilene  an absolutely beautiful little town on the Island of Lesbos. The flights were fairly uneventful, luggage arrived with me which anyone who travels often knows that is a definite praise report! Already fighting the language barrier haha the people who run the hotel I am staying at are this lovely old greek couple but they don't seem to speak any english. So this could be an adventure in itself. Thankfully the my new friend Elton from Euro Relief was there to help me get set up. All of my interactions with their organization have been top notch thus far. It was beautiful and sunny when I arrived but after the sun went down it got quite cold. The app on my phone says that it is -2. I am lucky that the place I am staying has some awesome heaters so its not so bad. It does make me feel for the refugees though and I understand now why there has been such a huge call for...

May 2, 2012 the moment I got frustrated enough with carrying a huge debt load that I made a critical decision.... ITS TIME TO SELL! My taxes came due ,you see, and while I had done so well to manage and plan ahead and not take on new debt, somehow I over looked/chose not to see the freight train of a bill I was about to receive. Faced with losing all the gains in my debt fight thus far it was time to do something drastic. It was time to sell my home. I tried not to. I really didn't want to. I liked my little pad and have spent the past 6 years that I owned it refinishing it completely to be exactly as I liked it and it was finally to a point that it felt finished. And so I avoided it, tried to refinance and get rid of my consumer debt and tax bill by sliding it into my mortgage. DIDNT WORK. Turns out there's a rule against using your house to pay your taxes. GRRRR! It was possible to work around it but I just didn't have any peace about it and so I listed my place. I ...

I believe that too often Regina gets a bad rap. So often it is criticized for its appearance. BUt anyone who has looked out over the city from Douglas Park Hill. This is my favourite spot of the entire city. From the top of the hill you can basically look out over the entire city. For a time I got up everyday and went to the top of it and pray. Prayers for our city, for our people, for our University, for our arts, and our sciences, for our government and for our businesses because representations of each can seen from here.