Before I had children, I was everywhere – not as much as I would have liked though. Discovering a new country or city is exciting but to get there you must have some money. My daughter recently asked me “How did you get the money to do all the travelling you did?” Well, I was young and single and had a pretty good career which allowed me to save and travel to where I wanted to. Some of my travels, the trip to Beijing, China, was a once in a lifetime opportunity, sponsored through my work as an advertising and marketing manager for the Ghana Postal Services. I had the opportunity to travel to the China Post Headquarters in Beijing. That corporation was beautiful. Everything was digitized. I was very impressed. I was also impressed with Beijing. Somehow, I imagined it to be cold, as we went in September, but it was so hot, I had to literally go to the market and buy new sets of clothing because I travelled with warm clothes. Beijing was beautiful. We visited Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, Temple of the Moon, Temple of Confucius, climbed the Great Wall of China, rode in Rickshaw’s, bargained in the market and ate the most delicious dishes in the most beautiful Regent Beijing hotel. Infact it was during this trip, while walking across the gorgeous lobby of the Regent Beijing that I heard on the big screen tele that Princess Diana had been in an accident in France and was being taken to the hospital. I stopped dead in my tracks, sat down and with the rest of the world, heard of her shocking passing.
Enough reminiscing about China!
I grew up in the Greater Accra region, the capital of Ghana. I have been to a few cities and regions in my motherland – Tamale, in the Northern Region where we visited my cousins often; Winneba in the Central Region where my brother and I grew up because my mother was an educator in Home Economics (Clothing & Textiles and Food & Nutrition) at the Specialists Training College there; Cape Coast in the Central Region, where my stepmom is from and where the large whitewashed fort built by the Swedish stands, and which was later used by the British as a holding prison for slaves; Kumasi in the Ashanti Region where I went to Uni, Peki and Ho in the Volta Region where my mother is from.
I have visited and lived in many cities in my motherland and have also ventured out to a couple of Countries in Africa – Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) where my stepfather had a home and we’d visit in the summer to learn French; Nigeria, where my Aunt Gina lives. Then out of Africa to the United Kingdom – West Dulwich growing up as a child, a short stay in Manchester (Go Reds!), a long stay in Croydon in South London, Cardiff in Wales, Crawley in West Sussex, and then on to the United States of America, starting off visiting New York and New Jersey, living in California visiting Berkley, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, then to Virginia and now in North Carolina where I reside with my family.
In my dreams I have a great many places I would like to visit and on my bucket list is Salzburg in Austria of course where the Sound of Music was filmed, Germany, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Thailand, and Canada (Nova Scotia, Vancouver, Ontario). Brian, my other half, thinks I will enjoy visiting New Orleans because of its French influence and quaint little eateries.
But it is one trip at a time and until the last trip is paid for, we are not going anywhere!
