Originally known as "Where in the World is Meghan Sandiego?" (a play off the old Carmen Sandiego game/show), I started sending out a regular newsletter after I moved to the Netherlands to study Physiotherapy. I arrived in late spring so that I would have time to learn enough Dutch before school started in September, but knew practically no one. Regula, the one close friend I had there at the time was from Switzerland and she took off shortly after my arrival to spend her summer holidays back home with her family. Luckily for me she let me live in her apartment!

In the beginning, knowing no one (and not knowing their language if I did) strengthened my desire to connect with people back home. Also, being a foreigner without a working visa forced me to operate on a very strict budget and since emailing was by far the most cost effective way to communicate simultaneously with a large number of people overseas, the newsletter was born. Expecting to be there for 4 years, my intention for it was to simply tell stories about the adventures I was engaging in while exploring a new country and to allow me to keep in touch with people I couldn't afford to call long distance. It turned into something much bigger than I had expected. I loved writing those issues and took a lot of pride in my new found ability to write, what I thought were, witty stories. The stories started getting longer and friends started replying regularly to tell me how much they enjoyed the accounts and to ask for more details. I guess you could say I had 'subscribers' even back then.

Thankfully, Regula introduced me to some of her friends before she left. They became good friends of mine over the summer and helped me speed up my learning of the Dutch language (Daan, I can't think of the Netherlands without thinking of you and the pannekoekenhuis).

A week before school was to start, however, I learned that I wasn't actually eligible for the international student funding the school told me I would be receiving... I couldn't afford to stay without it and I wasn't willing to work under the table, risking being caught and deported later on into my program (which would have legal implications, let alone a waste of course credits and tuition fees) and with only 3 days left on my visitors visa, I decided to invest my savings on a backpack and soul search around Europe for a few months instead.

During the couple of months I spent traveling on my own, songs started coming to me like wildfire. So much so that I created a separate section in my travel journal just for songs. I was embarrassed by it though and wouldn't let anyone read that part of the book. At this point I was still very much a closet singer and definitely did not consider myself to be a songwriter, having only written (unintentionally) one song (Jack & Jill) that no one would even come to hear until the summer of 2006 and didn't become a part of my set list until I recorded it for the Dara's Wedding Tour Souvenir Album in 2009. At that time, I suppose I was just doing what my instincts told me to. I didn't have the job, school, volunteer commitments, sports training, or family obligations that had always kept me busy (aka distracted ... by my choosing, mind you). I just had me, the journal in my backpack, Europe ... and my newsletter, which I would send out any chance I had time and access to an internet cafe.

In the end, I returned to Canada, the newsletters stopped, and after settling back into real life, I decided to finish the Bachelor of Physical Education and transferred to Brock University in Ontario to do it. At the end of those studies my brother and I started our band, Purl of Surf. We moved to Hamilton that summer, where the band really formed, and the personal struggles I dealt with while pursuing my Masters degree (also at Brock University) led me deeper into music and later to the life of 'independent artist' I have now. When I made the decision to give myself permission to commit to music full time (fall of 2009) I started writing my newsletters again, under the same title, but with a new adventure in mind ... and hoped I could be sending them from Europe again.

You never know, right?

Giggles,

Meghan