The Itinerary

Alright, all the steps are planned!  Well, all the big steps at least... the little ones are still up in the air.  At least I've got all my tickets paid for.

• 15 May: Wake up way earlier than I need to, triple check to make sure I don't forget anything, head to the airport, fly out, realize I forgot something.
• 17 May to 25 May: Arrival in Christchurch, chilling and travelling with bro and SIL.  They took the time to plan out what looks like a thoroughly enjoyable week for me; I'm not going to give you all the details until they happen, but I can tell you that there will be penguins involved at some point.
• 25 May to 27 May: Up to Auckland (which I always forget the "c" in) on the North Island.  Apparently they've got some cool volcanoes in the area.
• 27 May to 31 May: Sydney!  No real plans here, other than enjoying the Aussie life and taking pictures of myself in iconic locations to make you all jealous.
• 31 May to 2 June: Onward to Brisbane, to visit a friend and enjoy northern Australia.
• 2 June to 3 June: Flying back to Christchurch to get everything re-packed and make sure I'm ready for my flight back to the States.
• 3 June: Touchdown!  Fly back in fairly late, and crash immediately.
• 4 June: Sleep.
• 5 June: Probably sleep some more.
• 6 June: Return to work, unless they decide to be really nice and give me one more day off so I have the weekend to recover as well.  Fingers crossed!

Other than one more call for postcards this will probably be my last post before liftoff.  Until then, farewell!

Baby steps

Alright, got one more step out of the way... waiting for word from my friend in Brisbane to finish up the last little bit.  After spending a week with my brother and sister-in-law (hereafter referred to as SIL, because that's much quicker to type) I'll be flying up to Auckland on the north island for a couple days, and on to Sydney from there.  I'm not sure on the exact time frame, but after that I'm headed up to Brisbane to visit a friend for a couple days, then back to Christchurch for a day or two to recover before returning home.  On the one hand I wish I'd given myself a couple more days down there, but on the other hand I'm very glad I'll have those days to rest up before going back to work.

It's the Final Countdown!

Okay, not really.  With 51 days left until liftoff, there are actually quite a few countdowns to go.  But!  Sooner is definitely better than later if you want to put in a request for a postcard; just shoot me an email or Facebook message with your address and I'll add you to the list.  I have no idea how many different places I'll be stopping, but I'll make sure you get a postcard from at least one of them.  In the meantime, I'll leave you with this.

Back on the Road Again

Finally!  After far too long, I get to travel again.  This time I'll be headed down to New Zealand, partly to see a new part of the world, and partly to visit my brother and sister-in-law.  More details will follow as we get closer to the departure date, but I'll be down there from roughly May 17th to June 3... stupid travel time is cutting a couple days out.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm ready for teleporters.

The Final Post

Which is actually just more about the journal; it's fully typed out now, and available here. Next time you get bored, check it out. There's a bit of swearing, but otherwise I think it should be appropriate for pretty much any reading environment.

The Journal

As promised/threatened, I've been typing up my actual journal from the trip; it seemed like a semi-productive way to take a break from labeling pictures. Start with the Intro, then work your way up from the bottom. And check back fairly regularly, because I'll be trying to get more up at least every couple of days. Enjoy!

Home, Sweet Home

After a very long day of travel on October 15th--flying out of Rhodes at 07:00 EEST, being stuck in the airport at Athens for nine hours, and finally landing in London at 07:20 BST/GMT--and the better part of the 16th spent flying from London to Vancouver, and then Seattle, I finally made it back to the good old United States of America. I was really hoping to make it all the way back on the 15th, but couldn't get my flights lined up... stupid Olympic Air. I had attempted to buy a ticket out of Rhodes that lined up better with my other flights, but they didn't like my credit card. Or my debit card. Or my parents' credit cards. And then I found out that they won an award from the European Regional Airline Association as Regional Airline of the Year. The extra day in transit did have one bright side though: I was able to meet Robert Carlyle, who plays Dr. Nicholas Rush on Stargate Universe. He was on the same flight back to Vancouver, so I was able to shake his hand and chat with him for a bit before getting ready to board.

You can actually clear American customs in Vancouver--I guess to save time on the other end?--and it actually ended up being more of a pain to get there than it was to get through. I had to show my boarding pass to about 8 different people (just in case you somehow managed to make it through the previous seven people without showing it) and go through Canadian security (where my bag got searched... apparently the Guinness candle I got for mom freaked the scanner out). When I actually got to customs the guy asked me where I was heading, if I had a job, then talked politics with me for awhile when I told him I had just resigned my council position, before stamping my immigration card and waving me through.

My old college roommate David met me at Sea-Tac, and we hopped some light rail and a bus back to his place. I spent a couple nights there recuperating, which was great... I really didn't feel like hopping the train home right away, after all the traveling I had done in the last couple days. I got to spend some time with other friends as well, and had a great time playing Dominion and drinking (and then going out for another drink; the cajun tots at McMenamins are really good). On the afternoon of the 18th I got on a bus (it was supposed to be a train, but there was a derailment holding it up) back to Wenatchee, got picked up by dad, and got to sleep in my own bed for the first time in over a month.

Total time away from home: 37 days

Total time out of the US: 34 days

Total miles walked: A LOT... I actually lost 5-10 pounds while over there

Right now I'm going through all of my pictures, trying to get as many as possible labeled before I start forgetting what things are. I'll be putting more of them up with the others at that point, but even after repeats there are over 1200 of them, and there's no way I'm posting them all. I do also still plan on typing out my journal from the trip on another blog... I'll throw up a link when the first part of that is ready to go.