Five Hours Behind,

Day 1 – Departure

My brother lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with his family. They also own a home in Greece, and this summer they decided to spend a month there together.

As wonderful as that sounds, leaving a house behind isn't as simple as locking the front door. Pets need looking after, the garden keeps growing, mail continues to arrive, and there are always countless little responsibilities waiting at home.

A week away is manageable.

A month is a different story.

Since I had the time, I offered to look after the house. Before I knew it, I had a ticket to Canada in my pocket.

On Friday, June 26, I boarded the intercity train in Assen for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Less than two hours later I was standing in the departure hall, and just like that, my holiday had begun.

I was travelling with nothing more than a backpack and a carry-on suitcase. To my surprise, the airline offered to check my carry-on free of charge.

I didn't have to think twice.

Travelling light somehow makes you feel as if your holiday has already started before you've even left the ground.

While waiting in line at the check-in counter, I struck up a conversation with an older couple. Originally from the Netherlands, they had emigrated to Canada many years ago and now owned six farms.

It's something you hear more often these days. Dutch farmers leaving their country because regulations and bureaucracy have made farming increasingly difficult. Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Australia have become attractive alternatives for many of them.

After checking in, we disappeared into the airport crowd, each heading in a different direction.

That's one of the things I enjoy about airports.

You sometimes share ten minutes with a complete stranger, only to lose sight of them forever moments later.

With time to spare, I wandered through the duty-free shops. It was my niece Sophia's birthday, so naturally I wanted to bring her a small gift. My oldest niece, Laura Melina, had recently graduated with honours, and I wanted to find something for her as well—something small enough to fit inside my backpack.

I already had a present for my brother, and after a bit of browsing I found something for my favourite sister-in-law too.

Mission accomplished.

Now there was nothing left to do but wait.

Like so many people these days, I filled the time with a coffee, a slow walk through the terminal and my daily Spanish lesson on Duolingo.

After a slight delay, boarding finally began.

On the flight to Toronto, I found myself sitting next to a man travelling with his young son.

His name was Herman.

Once we were in the air, conversation came naturally.

Herman told me that he had moved to Canada with his parents when he was four years old. Today he owns two farms that practically run themselves, which gave him the freedom to fly to the Netherlands to attend a family wedding with his son.

What surprised me most was his Dutch.

It was almost flawless.

In fact, he spoke with barely any Canadian accent at all.

The hours passed surprisingly quickly. We talked, watched a film, read our books and caught a little sleep in between.

I finally started reading the book by Noraly Schoenmaker, better known for her YouTube channel Itchy Boots. It had been sitting on my shelf for far too long.

At one point I told Herman about my work in test-based nutrition and network marketing. He listened with genuine interest, and before landing we exchanged contact details so I could send him some additional information later.

Once we arrived in Toronto, we quickly lost sight of one another.

His wife was waiting to pick him up, and I had no doubt she had missed him just as much as he had missed her.

Maybe it was coincidence, but during that first day in Canada something struck me. Family seemed to occupy a very natural place in people's lives here.

There was a warmth about it that is difficult to explain, yet easy to recognize.

Day 1 – Part 2

Midnight Arrival

I had a two-hour layover at Toronto Pearson Airport before boarding my connecting flight to Halifax. Just before midnight, I finally landed at Halifax Stanfield International Airport.

The airport is surprisingly small. A few hallways, an escalator, and you're already in the arrivals hall.

For some reason, I assumed it would take a while before my suitcase appeared on the baggage carousel. That assumption seemed perfectly reasonable when I noticed that the airport had just one baggage belt—and it wasn't moving.

Perfect, I thought.

That gives me some time to connect to the airport's free Wi-Fi.

I sent my brother a quick message to let him know I had arrived safely and that I was waiting for my luggage.

As I looked up, something caught my eye.

In the distance, sitting quietly on the motionless conveyor belt, was a small green carry-on suitcase.

It looked remarkably familiar.

Surely not...

I walked over.

It was mine.

Just as I reached out to grab it, the conveyor belt suddenly jolted to life.

Slowly it began to move, carrying my suitcase away from me as if it had decided to play one last joke after a long day of travelling.

Within seconds it disappeared behind the black rubber curtains.

I couldn't help but laugh.

A few moments later it emerged exactly where it was supposed to, on the other side of the carousel, as though nothing unusual had happened.

This time I picked it up without any resistance.

Mostly, I was relieved that my brother wouldn't have to wait any longer.

At first I headed in the wrong direction. The last time I visited Halifax, in 2023, he had picked me up upstairs. This time he was waiting downstairs.

As I walked down the stairs, I immediately spotted the silver Toyota 4Runner.

My brother stepped out with a broad smile.

In one hand he was holding a cup of hot tea.

That says everything about him.

After a long journey, it was exactly what I needed, even though I hadn't realised it myself.

We loaded my luggage into the back of the SUV and drove off into the quiet Nova Scotia night.

I still remembered the drive from my previous visit three years earlier.

It's funny how certain roads stay with you.

Sometimes a place settles quietly somewhere in your memory, waiting patiently until you return.

Day 1 – Part 3

The Road to Purcells Cove

We left the airport behind and merged onto the highway. Within minutes, the lights of the terminal had faded into the rear-view mirror.

Although it was dark, I recognised the route almost immediately. I had driven these roads once before, three years earlier. Some places quietly settle into your memory. All they need is one familiar bend in the road to come back to life.

For anyone driving from Halifax Stanfield International Airport to Purcells Cove for the first time, this is their introduction to Nova Scotia.

Don't expect towering mountain ranges or endless open plains.

Instead, the landscape rolls gently across the horizon. Forests give way to granite outcrops, lakes appear unexpectedly between the trees, and every now and then the Atlantic Ocean briefly reveals itself before disappearing behind another hillside.

The forests seem endless.

Spruce, pine and hardwoods stretch in every direction, interrupted only by massive slabs of weathered granite pushing their way through the earth. It almost feels as though the land never quite managed to cover its ancient foundation.

Yet life is everywhere.

Moss clings stubbornly to the rock. Ferns fill every crack they can find. Small birch trees somehow manage to grow where, at first glance, nothing should survive.

Nova Scotia carries its geological history in plain sight.

Much of the province rests on granite, slate and quartzite that formed hundreds of millions of years ago as ancient continents collided. During the last Ice Age, enormous glaciers scraped across the landscape, polishing the rock and leaving behind countless lakes, valleys and scattered boulders.

In many ways, you're still looking at the work of the ice.

As we drew closer to Halifax, glimpses of sheltered coves and quiet inlets became more frequent.

Water would suddenly appear between the trees, shimmer for a few seconds, and disappear again around the next corner.

The transition from forest to coastline is so gradual that you hardly notice it.

What struck me most wasn't the grandeur of the landscape.

It was its calmness.

Nova Scotia doesn't try to impress you.

It simply exists.

And somehow, that's exactly what makes it so beautiful.

Eventually we turned off the main road onto Purcells Cove Road.

The road narrowed almost immediately.

The asphalt had clearly seen better days. It felt as though someone had paved it decades ago and then simply allowed nature to reclaim it at its own pace.

Granite walls rose on either side of us.

At times it felt as though we were driving through a natural corridor carved straight through the rock.

Stone everywhere.

And yet, between those enormous slabs of granite, nature always managed to find another foothold.

A lone pine tree growing from what looked like solid rock.

A birch leaning at an impossible angle.

Shrubs clinging to cracks no wider than a hand.

It never stopped amazing me.

Nothing here seemed perfectly level.

The rocks leaned.

The gardens leaned.

Even the houses appeared to adapt to the landscape instead of forcing the landscape to adapt to them.

It felt as though people here had learned to live with nature rather than trying to conquer it.

The final stretch climbed steeply uphill.

The automatic transmission shifted down into first gear, and the four-litre V6 of the 4Runner responded with a deep, determined growl as we slowly made our way up the hill.

Driving here is nothing like driving in the Netherlands.

Back home, roads are built to flatten the landscape.

Here, the roads simply follow it.

Day 1 – Part 4

Home for a While

The 4Runner continued its steady climb.

One more bend to the left.

Another to the right.

Then my brother carefully reversed up the gravel driveway.

There it was.

The familiar pale green house.

It looked exactly as I remembered it, quietly waiting on the hillside as if no time had passed at all.

I stepped out of the car and took a deep breath.

The air felt different here.

Cooler.

Fresher.

It carried the scent of pine trees, the nearby ocean and the damp earth that seems to define Nova Scotia.

I picked up my bags and followed the familiar path to the house.

Even here, the landscape reminds you that Nova Scotia is anything but flat.

Five wooden steps lead up to a small deck, one of the house's three entrances.

Waiting inside was my favourite sister-in-law, Angela.

Some places surprise you when you return.

Others welcome you back as though you had only been away for the weekend.

This was one of those places.

Of course, a few things had changed.

The new kitchen immediately caught my attention.

Part of the old one was still visible, making it easy to see how the house had evolved over the years.

I've noticed that's quite common here.

Homes in Nova Scotia rarely seem completely finished.

Instead, they grow alongside the families who live in them.

An extra room here.

A new deck there.

Another extension a few years later.

I like that.

These houses don't pretend to be perfect.

They simply tell the story of the people who call them home.

We sat together for a while, talking about the journey, life back in the Netherlands and the weeks ahead.

My brother poured us each a whisky.

It didn't stay in the glass for very long.

The journey was finally beginning to catch up with me.

Around half past one, I climbed into the very same bed I had slept in three years earlier.

Some places never really leave you.

They simply wait for your return.

As the quiet of Purcells Cove slowly settled around the house, I closed my eyes.

It felt good to be back.