99 days to lift off...

Ron and I are freaking out. We've just realized how little time there is left and how much we have left to do. We need tickets and gear, vaccinations and passports, sell this and that, review agreements, transfer accounts, terms and conditions, insurance and storage, refills and battery chargers, bosses and bank accounts, getting in shape, going insane. Ahhhhhh!

And to top all that off the economy is just getting worse and worse and worse. The money we set aside to restart our lives when we return is disappearing before our eyes. But we can't bring ourselves to give up now. We've mentally made the leap and now we have to jump even if we have to shackle each other to the rocket pointed precariously off the cliff. Wile E. Coyote style.

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Salomey

I've been sponsoring a girl in Ghana for about 6 years and I'm going to visit her on the trip! It is really exciting to get to meet her. I don't know where her village is just yet, I'm still awaiting my interview to be approved, and I understand I have to go there chaperoned for only one day. I had some fantasies about staying with her in her village, walking her to school, making buddies with the elders and all that, but I guess that's not to be. I'm sure it will still be an amazing experience.

About two years ago, she had written me that she wanted to be a seamstress so I went to Britex in downtown San Francisco and got her some fabric and buttons, zippers and thread, and needles. I just thought it would be nice for her to get practice sewing but I had been writing her for years and never really thought I made a tangible difference. Many months later I received an email from a Marketing Director from Plan USA that was going through Salome's village and video taped a segment with her (video below).

Well I just about cried watching it, as she talked about me, and read my letters, I was very real to her and now she was just as real to me. Blown away is more the feeling I had, looking at her in the dress made from the materials I sent her. I don't know if she made it herself, but she beamed in it nonetheless.

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RTW Ticket

Round the world in 365 days. Woohoo!


But now to deal with the transportation factor...


I've gone back and forth on the purchase of a classic round-the-world ticket or just buying one-way tickets as we go. I looked extensively at a hybrid option: booking the major air legs on a RTW ticket with some regional flights thrown in for spice. The major alliances and consolidators I considered were Star Alliance, One World, and Airtreks and the price was about 5-6k/piece for our general itinerary.

But after all that analysis I went to one of my favorite travel sites kayak.com and painstakingly priced each one way ticket and found out we could do it for several hundred dollars cheaper booking as we go. Aaaaand, the best part, we can change our itinerary whenever we want. Meet someone new going someplace we haven't heard of? No problem! One of my favorite memories of backpacking in Europe was hoping on a train and ending up somewhere I didn't expect I would go when I planned the trip at home. With a year long trip we would be foolish to think we can know what and where we will want to go, in sequential order, ahead of time.

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The Inevitable Sickness

We are getting a small boatload of prescriptions for Antibiotics and Anti-malarials to try and buffer ourselves from the inevitable sickness that we will surely get. Everyone who has traveled extensively has a horror story of being ill on the road, and they absolutely love to make this the first story they relay to me when I tell them I'm going around the world. Everything from diarrhea in the pants on a long bus ride, to being so sick you can't get up and resort to getting sick "in bed", to having to go so desperately you end up going in the middle of a crowded street with families walking by and pointing. Ugh. I can do without this badge of honor. But it will surely come dear readers, and I'll spill it all (literally and figuratively).

Then there are the travelers that have eaten and drinken all the things you should never eat or drink and never seem to get sick. Can you say Anthony Bourdain?! (Well he may in fact have a royal taster, or intern of some sort.) I think some precautions are warranted, like eating well cooked dishes from crowded places and popular food stalls. But I'm sure there will be many questionable things that I consume. Each time spinning Montezuma's roulette wheel

They say to not eat lettuce or salad because it's washed in dirty water. But I love salad! Or iced drinks on a hot day. I love iced drinks on a hot day! Or unpasteurized dairy like milk and sour cream. Oh-my-god!! Well at least I think I can have thai iced tea (don't they make it with sweet canned evaporated milk?) I really hope so because in my dreams I'm chilling on a hammock outside my hut drinking a creamy thai tea every single day!

Should we all just take bets now on how many times I feel like I nearly die from my culinary indiscretions? I'm going to put my money on 5. Just enough to make the same mistake twice but not so many that I seem insane according to our buddy Einstein.

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All Shot Up

I went to get my second round of vaccinations today at the SF Travel Health Clinic. Apparently we need a lot vaccinations due to our itinerary so we are bracing to be human pincushions. I'm really not a fan of being jabbed but I guess I'd rather be safe then sorry. I'd rather not be knocked out with Yellow Fever in the middle of BFE.

And Poor Ron, he gets faint when he sees a needle. When he went to get his first round I gripped his sweaty hand and led him past all the adults getting blood drawn to lay down in the kiddie room. Then he proceeded to squeeze the life out of a stuffed Tigger while I distracted him with writing a shopping list for Whole Foods so he wouldn't pass out. The good news for him is that he gets the shots for free with Kaiser, while I'm paying almost $1500 due to my fantastic coverage with Blue Cross.


Twinrix - Hepatitis A/B - 3 shots
Polio
Typhoid - capsules
TDAP (Tetanus, Diptheria, Pertussis)
Yellow Fever
Japanese Encephalitus - 3 shots
Rabies - 3 shots



Um, Rabies? I guess there are a lot mangy stray dogs out on the streets wanting to nip at you? This is a slightly concerning thought.

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Furry Critters

Oh, what do I do about my kitties?! They are my babies, my zen masters, the furry loves of my critter life, and it pains my heart to be apart for more than a week let alone more than a year. My dad has agreed to take them. And also promised not to let them outside (since they will surely be eaten by wolves in the back country of Oklahoma). He was definitely stressed when I first asked him this huge favor, not exactly being a cat lover, but I can tell he is warming to the idea. And I know deep down that he will fall in love with them and then not want to give them back. I have to resign to this likely possibility that I will lose my cats forever.

"meeeeaaaaaaaaaorrr" <-- sad meow

I love how I wake up every morning with Cooper snuggled in to the crook of my arm and how Sushi keeps me company in the office, sleeping on the back of the desk where the monitor warms the wood. My sweet furry critters, of all the things I leave behind, I will miss you the most of all!

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Lovers and Haters

I can put every person in my life from friends, family, acquaintances, and colleagues in to two distinct categories. The lovers and the haters. People who think this trip is the most fantastic thing they've ever heard of, they've done it before or dreamed of doing it. Their eyes are wild with jealousy, to live vicariously off every single exotic city that falls from your lips or smile broadly with the confidence that they've made a leap just like this one and are better, wiser, and fuller because of it.

And then there are the other people, the Haters, that have to bring up every practical and very reasonable explanation about how this plan to travel the world is not reasonable at all. You don't have enough money. You're going to blow your entire savings?! It won't be all its cracked up to be. Just take a month off and go back to work. The economy is in the toilet. You won't be able to find a job when you get back. You'll wish you didn't go. Or will I?


To the Haters out there. Why you hatin? Thanks for your concern. I know you do it because you love me. But if you love me, you gotta support me. Because this is my life. Queue music. I have this silly business card I made and carry around in my wallet that says: Executive Director, My Life to remind myself who is in charge. Y'know we all have total control over our lives but we usually don't feel that way. We make a constant stream of choices that shape everything we have and if we aren't happy then there is only one person you can complain to.

Nifty (and relevant) quote from Steve Jobs:

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

So I stared at my myself, into my own eyes, and promptly fired the girl in the mirror. I am more than my resume. My life won't be measured by a list of accomplishments in perfect order that read like every other person on this block like every block in every town of the country. And the world could go down in flames tomorrow, or I could get hit by a bus and then all this careful long term planning is bullsh*t. So I'm going for it! I'm gonna spend all those pennies I saved for a rainy day, and when it rains I'm going to make a poncho out of my gleeful memories and dance in the street.

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