The Road to Calgary

Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

If you saw my Instagram story recently, you would have seen that I was just in Canada. Now, let me tell you, that was not the original plan at all. This trip originally started as a trip to Peru and involved 4 different trip changes before I officially went anywhere. 

Machu Picchu, Peru

About a year ago, me and my boyfriend planned a trip to Peru through a travel company we have used in the past. We booked this trip in May, and we were really excited about going. It would be his first time in South America, and both of our first times to Peru. Several months go by and our excitement is growing, we’re getting more and more excited the closer it gets. I’m already thinking about packing and things I need to get that I don’t have yet, like hiking boots (we were going to go to Machu Picchu).

One thing I was slightly worried about going to Peru was the food selection. I had been looking at their cuisine, and I was concerned about what there would be that was PKU friendly. Their most popular dish that I could find was ceviche, which is a seafood dish, which as we all know, won’t work for me. And it also just didn’t seem like it was going to be my favorite style of food, but I guess I won’t know until I try it.

But I didn’t have to worry about this for too long. Why, you ask? Well, the company we booked through (which I’ve had zero problems with on my 3 previous trips with them) sent us an email in the end of October saying they had to cancel our trip because not enough people had signed up. They gave us a week to reschedule our trip. So my boyfriend and I brainstormed and looked at other trips we could do with them. We settled on a trip to Germany, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland.

Venice, Italy

It took us a little time to adjust our excitement from going to Peru to going to Europe. We were obviously upset that we couldn’t go to Peru, but we both love Europe and quickly started thinking about all the things we would do on our new trip. Mostly, we were excited about all the food. In Italy, we wanted gelato, pizza, and pasta. In Germany we were excited for beer and pretzels (my boyfriend was also excited about the brats). And in Switzerland we wanted the chocolate.

This trip seemed like it was locked in and that we were going. By February, I was seriously thinking about what I needed to bring. I had even gone to the currency exchange to take out Euros for our trip. We’ve got our countdown going, we have our flight and hotel information, and we are very excited and ready for our trip.

Now it’s the end of February and the Coronavirus is starting to spread outside of China. A week before the trip, we get another email stating the COVID-19 situation and how we are all independently choosing to do this trip. They also told us they were changing their rebooking policy so we could rebook our trip if we so choosed (COVID-19 was in Italy at this point, mostly near Milan). Our trip was going to Venice, and my and my boyfriend decided not to change our trip (US media wasn’t making the virus seem like a huge deal at this point). But by the end of that week, we got another email cancelling the trip because after many people rebooked their trip, only 5 people were left in our group. So, another trip cancelled due to not enough people on the trip.

London Eye, Big Ben — from my trip to London in 2016

At this point, we were within a week of when we were supposed to fly out the states. When they cancelled our trip, we took a little time (but not too much) to think about if we wanted to try to go for another trip in such a short time or try for later. We tried to rebook our trip to go to London, Amsterdam, and Paris for that same week. Of course, rebooking a trip takes a little bit of time, so we weren’t able to get an answer to whether we could get on the trip right away. We called to rebook on Friday, and we had to leave for this flight the following Friday. We were told that we’d know by Monday night. Monday comes and we still don’t know if we’re on the trip. At this point, we’re both getting frustrated about not knowing where we are going. Tuesday comes, and they still don’t have a yes or no answer for us. That night we talked and agreed that tomorrow we would rebook our trip for later because it was too stressful waiting for an answer this close to when we were supposed to leave. 

On Wednesday, my boyfriend calls and tells them we don’t want to go to London, Paris, Amsterdam. We rebooked our trip for this winter to go to Peru like we originally planned. Fingers crossed that there will be no issues with this trip, and that the Coronavirus stops spreading and people recover from it.

But we were still eager to travel. We had been planning on traveling this week for almost a year. Since we decided not to book a trip through this company right now, we decided to book a smaller trip on our own. We decided to plan our own little trip to Canada. We picked Calgary as a destination, but actually stayed in the mountains in Banff National Park.

Me in Golden, B.C., Canada

As much stress as it was to get to this trip, I actually had a really good time. And I’m also really glad that we avoided Europe altogether, especially seeing how much the Coronavirus has spread in Europe, particularly in Italy. I hope that everyone stays safe and away from other people (at least for the time being).

TL;DR: Basically, I started out planning a trip to Peru that got cancelled. I switched it to Italy, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, which ultimately got cancelled because of the Coronavirus. I tried changing that trip to London, Amsterdam, and Paris, but it was too stressful waiting for an answer about getting on the trip that me and my boyfriend just cancelled it and decided to go to Canada. We still have plans to go to Peru this winter.

If you want to hear more about what I did and ate in Canada, let me know and I will do another post just on that!