Well, I’m back.

I’ve had a busy month since moving back to Canada so I grabbed a last minute flight to Florida on the 28th to visit a friend and then try my luck at the last Cecchin family vacation. Risky business!

The trip started out great. I rented a Chevy HHR which looks like something a cartoon character might drive. Which I guess was appropriate as I found myself driving it into Disneyworld later in the week.

My first stop was 2hrs south of Orlando to visit a good friend of mine in the city of Vero Beach. Though the area was beautiful, essentially a retirement community for Canadians, this town rivals most cemeteries in terms of its fun factor. But luckily this was just what the doctor ordered, a little r&r at the beach.

Before getting there I told my buddy that since I arrived on a Thursday night, I had no problem hanging out by myself on Friday while he went to work. I mentioned that I could use a day on the beach just reading and lying around solo. Little did I know that I was giving these instructions on opposite day. As soon as I arrived he introduced me to his friend Scott- who was nicknamed Jersey- that would be my tour guide all day Friday. Neat. Not only had my plans of a day alone been successful thwarted, but Jersey just happened to be a 36 year old ex-con who had just been released from prison 6 months prior. Neat. Neat.

One point in his corner is when Jersey described to me his perspective on his own personality. “Listen Mike, I”m not rude, but I’m not pleasant”. Shakespeare could not have phrased it any better. Convicts aside the weekend was great, filled with endless amounts of joking, laughter, euro dance classics, and a pull out sofa that I’m fairly certain shortened my lifespan and dislocated my L4 vertebrae.

Oh, and if I can impart some wise words…never take sun tanning advice from a ex-con whose skin looks like it should be removed and use to make Louis Vuitton handbags. I ended Friday with the worse front torso burn in all my years of sun exposure. If it was December I would have been set, because it looked like I was wearing a seasonal Christmas sweater. Nothing like going to Vero Beach for a weekend to pick up some good times and some melanoma.

On Sunday I joined my family on what is likely the final chapter in the Cecchin Family Vacation Chronicles, I didn’t expect my reunion with Mickey Mouse would be as enjoyable as it was.

On Day One I saw Cinderella’s castle from the ferry boat to The Magic Kingdom and I felt something I haven’t felt in quite a while; at the time I thought it was just a muscle spasm from having to share a pullout sofa with my brother, but I later found it was the unearthing of much more.

Each day began as the one before; we all woke up later than scheduled, argued through breakfast and pushed one another into the car where I amazingly watched as though my hands were on the wheel my mother drove from the back seat.

As it was Mama Cecchin’s first trip to the land of Mickey Mouse I made sure to equip my patience patrol with riot gear. But surprisingly enough I enjoyed her enthusiasm for everything Disney (even the merry-go-round she made us wait in line for). I don’t know if it was spending the day at Disney with my family, or just the whole environment itself but by the end of the day I felt like I was 11 years old again. It was 8pm and the 3 of us stood amongst a crowd of thousands, awe-struck by the fireworks display exploding around Cinderella’s castle.

It was then that I realized what I felt on the ferry boat on my way in that morning. The feeling had been building steam all day and I could finally put my finger on it as the “When you wish upon a star…” song began to round out the fireworks show. For lack of a better term, I think that feeling was my childhood, an innocent joy.

To give you an idea of what I mean; my room was littered with Disney books when I was a kid. Stories with Donald, Goofy, Scamp, and my favourite, Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. Even when I got older my family and I used to sit down together at 6pm most Sunday nights and watch movies sponsored and made by, The Wonderful World of Disney. And after spending close to 9 hours walking around The Magic Kingdom seeing boys and girls being dressed as princesses and pirates to spend the day in costume and live in a land of make believe, it really made me smile (in a non-sex offender kind of way).

Imagination is an incredible thing and is essentially what Disneyland and Disneyworld are based on. One man’s dream to transform unoccupied Florida SWAMPLAND into the world’s most beloved and visited attraction.

I find when we get older and our minds make the permanent move into reality, the majority of our time is consumed with making sense of that reality. We live in a constant state of management. Managing the opportunities and setbacks of the moment, managing our own expectations, and taking joys in the pleasures reality has to offer. But its a different dynamic when you’re in that state of make believe. Because nothing matters. Everything has a happy ending. The prince rescues the princess, the evil forces are defeated, and Dorothy makes it back home.

I look around and I see a lot of people have stopped dreaming. We forget what it was like to live in the land of make believe and sometimes it gets so far out of reach we don’t even know how to begin again.

I think that’s why our imagination is something we all need to strive to hold on to, because having dreams is what makes life worthwhile sometimes. It makes our challenges not as steep, and our triumphs that much sweeter.

And if that’s not enough reason to head down to Orlando on your next vacation, Pleasure Island has a lot of booze.

So this past Saturday after a quick 12hr nap I awoke in a place that seemed, ironically, very foreign. Cold and foreign. Was I in Russia?

“Michael!?! are you STILL sleeping? You have jetlag, not mono. If you want to fix your internal clock I suggest you get out of bed and do something today. Besides, I need you shovel the driveway”

Ah yes, I’m back in Canada. The land of beavers, poutine, double-doubles & hopelessly delusional Maple Leaf fans.

For those of you quasi following this blog in between your thankless meetings at work and killing time until Heroes and Lost are on, let me fill you in on my return.

For the Spanish authorities to begin filing my work visa papers I need to be out of the country (mainly because as of mid-Dec I was there illegally). So now I’m back in the freezing rain, heavy snow, and -15 degree weather of my home land where visiting the beach in shorts and a t-shirt is only an option if I’m looking to end my life or build a snowman.

Oddly though, as much as the weather here has already started to steal my soul I couldn’t be happier to be home. Dorothy said it best as her yappy dog agreed, “There’s no place like home”.

The day after I arrived I had orchestrated a reverse surprise party for myself at the house of a close friend. As a group of my good friends sat around having a few drinks preparing for yet another booze-infused night in Toronto I walked out of a locked guest room and sprung my surprise. The true show of someone’s feelings I’ve always thought, is the split second reaction when they see something they were not expecting. After that split second the thought process begins and the barriers reappear. Its nice to have a warm welcome home that you know is genuine. These people are definitely what Spain was missing for me.  The snow however, I could do without.

I always wonder why my father couldn’t have emigrated to Australia in the 70s instead of Hamilton, Ontario. He must have come here in the summer for the first time, because if he would’ve landed in mid-January I doubt he would have left the airport.

So the return home for me is certainly far away from permanent but 60 days is a long time to spend in the mother country without the possibility of growing a few roots in the meantime.

Up until about a week ago I had 3 television shows that kept my insatiable desire to be entertained at bay. Those shows are Heroes and Smallville for the ultimate geek in me, and Scrubs for its genius humour. But recently, thanks to the miracle of video streaming, I’ve been watching various episodes of HOUSE, and its quickly jumped into being possibly my favourite show of all time.

“All time?!?! Mike are you insane? Do you not remember the Huxtibles? or Ross and Rachel? You must be drunk”

I think every person with a television, or in my case with an internet connection, should be watching this show.

Check out THIS link to watch online. Sometimes the quality isn’t fantastic, but its more than watchable.

Each episode I’m in awe of the complex plot sequences, outcomes and dialogue throughout the entire 40min, (watching online means never having to watch a commercial), not to mention the piles of medical jargon. Its truly rare to see a show on primetime with such true humanity. The 1001 flavours of emotions that take place in a hospital are evidently not lost on the writers of HOUSE. From suicide and depression, to tolerance and existentialism, HOUSE is definitely not without substance.

For those of you who have never seen HOUSE M.D. the show revolves around arguably the world’s best Diagnostician, Gregory House, his 3 person diagnostic team and select members of the hospital staff. But what makes this show so great, is Hugh Laurie, who plays Dr. House. House is a borderline depressed narcissistic genius, who sees disgust in the ignorant and irrational. He’s a man who believes only in numbers, facts and deductive logic. He’s an atheist but struggles with the existence of God, because though probability is on his side, its an impossible theorem to prove. That’s the Reader’s Digest version but you really have to watch the show for a number of episodes to realize what a well crafted character Laurie and the writers have created. Each episode usually forks in 2 directions; the main story line that typically revolves around a new patient and a mysterious affliction that eludes run of the mill diagnostic procedures. The subplot usually circles around House and his disruptive and abusive personality and its affect on those around him.

On a sidenote, as more and more shows like HOUSE hit the air it just reminds me… of how much I hate Greys Anatomy. I think Greys should be on during the day between All My Children and General Hospital. Although Greys is basically the same as General Hospital with higher paid actors in a better timeslot.

But I digress. For those of you already on the HOUSE bandwagon, I applaud you. And for those of you behind the curve, check it out for a few episodes, you will NOT be disappointed.