Paris... Oh Paris

We made it quite smoothly to Paris and are off to a rip-roaring start here. Possibly making it to rockstar jetset traveler status already. OK, OK, we are going to ovea ourselves now.

Paris is our first, quick, painless, stop. Over our three days here we covered quite a bit of Parisian ground... Museum de O'rsay, Louvre (apparently we are HUGE fans), Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Paninis, Nutella and banana creps, and Sarah's favourite pastry of all - the elephant ear. We had awesome roomates at the hostel, Elisa and Beni, from Berlin. We became quick friends: drinking wine, talking American culture vs. German culture, singing the 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air' theme song (Beni had it down), Barack winning the nomination over Hillary, life in East Germany during the Cold War, and general University studies. We also made friends with the boys from Amsterdam, not to mention Chloe, the French girl from Gabon. It was a great place to start this trip, easy, amazing weather, familiar town, identifiable/ediable food... these are things we are sure to appreciate later.

We have officially been to Brussels, where we consumed a Hoegaarden and a waffle. Check, check, dj.

Amsterdam. Here now...details to follow.

Cheers.

The good-bye week

So, we leave tomorrow for B. Pretty amazing that it is here. This week was great, busy and lots of fun. We decided to milk it up and have two good-bye parties. Who doesn't love a reason to have a party? We both got to catch up with a lot of our friends. So we have both heard a lot of talk of people promising to come visit us along the way... now that you have talked the talk, I want to see you walk that walk to see us. Now that we are finally on our way you will get actual interesting blogs about the trip, not just me rambling on and on. Good-bye America, we will see you again soon!!!

Not to hold hands here, but to make a comment on the blog just click the comment link below, then type in your comment, type in the random letters, then you can either click 'Name/URL' to display your name or just do 'anonymous'. Cheers!

Seven Wonders

So I have become maybe a little bit obsessed with The Seven Wonders of the World (dund dund dund). I did not realize that not only are there the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Medieval Times, and Natural Wonders, but there are also Modern Times, Architectural, and Engineering (not to brag but the Internet is listed as one, random). Anyway, we realized that we are going to be able to hit almost all of the top 20 wonders, recently voted on a few years ago, thank you Wikipedia. So just to provide you with some more Jeopardy knowledge...

The Seven Wonders of the World:
- Chichen Itza (Yucatan, Mexico)
- Christ the Redeemer (Rio de Janerio, Brazil)
- Colosseum (Rome, Italy)
- Great Wall of China (China)
- Machu Picchu (Cuzco, Peru)
- Petra (Jordan)
- Taj Mahal (Agra, India)
- Great Pyramid of Giza, Honorary status as last remaining ancient wonder of the world (Cairo, Egypt)

The other 13 finalists for the Title, oh so close:
- Acropolis of Athens (Athens, Greece)
- Alhambra (Granada, Spain my amor)
- Angkor Wat (Angkor, Cambodia)
- Easter Island Moais (Easter Island, Chile)
- Eiffel Tower (Paris, France)

We get a kick out of ourselves

Sarah has officially arrived in NYC. We're one step closer to the true beginning of B, no big deal. Today we had a great walking tour of the city, Sarah has been getting her bearings and navigating the subways (while I was drinking margaritas with the Wyckoff girls, would you expect nothing less). So we kind of get a kick out of ourselves, not going to lie we are having 2 NY going away parties. Like we have said before, that's just how we roll. Oh yeah, and Sunday Funday brunch at Deborah, have to enjoy one last Deborah Bloody Mary before we venture out.

So I (Mairs) had some hope seeing Sarah with the gigantic backpack on, made me realize that it is possible to cram a year's worth of stuff into one bag....

Tomorrow is the last Brinner of the year (actually Sarah's first Brinner)....nothing tastes as good as a big stack of pancakes and a nice glass of wine!

Signing off for the evening, much love y'all
mp and srh

Packing the Green Monster

So I am feverishly packing this backpack that will take me around the world on this trip. I will break it down for you and pull an honesty card, packing this bag is much harder then I ever imagined it would be. Here I am going on this amazing trip to see the world, experience the way others live, and gain a greater appreciation for other cultures and I am feeling torn over the number of sun dresses to pack? It has been rather disheartening. Who really cares, right? It will be amazing to see how differently the world defines 'need' and 'want'. Material possessions, these are the things I hope don't hold the same importance to me when I return. I have everything stuffed into 'space saver' bags and those are stuffed into my slightly puke green colored backpack. And we all know Mary will bring enough spandex and Underarmor to outfit an army. As for me, lets just say I never thought I would get stressed over the space a white-beater shirt consumes or how many to bring.... I leave for New York tomorrow!

Good-bye Hair... Good-bye San Diego

I chopped off all my hair on Friday, yes the same golden locks that I have been growing out since Nova graduation. Almost six inches and no, my hair is not as mini as at graduation (check out the grad photos on the flicker link to the right of this blog). I am taking the ' it will be easier to manage and is more practical' approach and plus I have always liked the short hair.

I had my 'San Diego Style, Good-bye Sarah' party yesterday for my extended family and SD friends. It was blast- BBQ, lots of cousins running around, lots of my San Diego friends, several lively games of beer pong- Villanova standard practice (Confession: although against Nova rules, some wine pong made an appearance at the party. I gave a senior citizen discount on the violation.) The 'travel' room was a big hit, complete with my extensive collection of travel books, my backpack, and the famous Plan B map with our route indicated (I finally advanced to permanent marker). More good-byes for me, bittersweet to say the least. It has been nice to be home and spend some time with the people that I regrettable don't get to see too often.

The whole damn thing

Yes, I will confess, probably the third thing that passed through my mind when we decided to go on this trip was, 'Crap, I am going to miss the NFL season?!!?'... my SD Chargers, kicking ass in Fantasy Football, Sunday football, pretending to really give a rats ass about college football - oh wait, I mean go USC. Then when we decided to extend the trip to one year that meant... missing college basketball -my Wildcats, March Madness, and Jay Wright. I wonder if I can pick up Charger or Villanova games or Jay in Vietnam... On a brighter note, with me being out of the country this year, you can count on the Chargers winning the Superbowl and Villanova going to the final four (lets face it, winning the whole damn thing).

Mair's First Entry

Big moment here ladies and gents - my first ever blog entry. I actually had to have Batman (aka Sarah) explain to me what exactly a blog is (I'm not too tech-saavy)...and I do have to say it's pretty cool. Huge shout out to Sar for putting this all together so you all can track us along the way.

My last day of work was on Friday and since I've been packing up my apartment and trying to get everything organized. It's going pretty smoothly so far, as Sarah said we've had some minor bumps in the road but thankfully nothing tragic. TTW Tip #2: just suck it up and get any and every vaccine that is recommended. I have had shots for diseases I can't pronounce and all I know is that I don't want them. They've got some F-ed up diseases in SE Asia.

I've started saying some goodbyes and am going to miss everyone so much...but listen up folks, we'd better see and hear from you along the way. We'll be sending out the skeleton plan with a tentative date schedule shortly and would LOVE if people popped in to hang out with us in the jungles of Vietnam or the beaches of Bali or the mountains of Peru...

Alright I'm signing off for now, check back again soon
-mp

TTW - Tip #1 - Around the World Plane Ticket

OK, so part of the reason for doing this blog is to inspire/educate/help and give some insight on how the hell someone would pull this off. Also, since everyone will be glued to this blog at all times, I won't have to explain/answer all the same questions as often. Therefore I am going to be posting a few 'Travel the World' tips (TTW) throughout the trip. This first travel tip will provide all you Magellan dreamers with information about the Around the World plane ticket that we bought. Hit it...

Tip #1 - Around the World Plane Ticket:
You buy your ticket from one of the two different airline alliances, we used the OneWorld alliance which is made up of American Airlines (we are pretty much BFF at this point and yes they have made the impossible leap to become a saved contact on my phone- no regrets)... Royal Jordanian, Cathay Pacific, Qantas Airlines, LAN Airlines.

Basically, the ATW ticket price is determined by how many continents you are flying to and each ATW ticket has 16 allotted segments. This is where they can trick you: a direct flight counts as one segment, but if you have a connecting flight it counts as two segments, and any ground transportation counts as a segment too even if you aren't taking a flight. My strategy was to get almost all direct flights, thus getting the most value out of the ticket. I was able to score 11 flights with the ticket. (Of course there are a few other restrictions thrown into the ATW rulebook). To us, the main advantage to the ATW ticket is that you can change any of the flights you have scheduled with no change fee charge. This is huge for us because we want to remain as flexible as possible with our travel plans.

Cost: 5 Continents = $4,900 + taxes... not too bad really.

Word of advise to the kids- this is not as easy to plan as it looks so use a pencil and get your eraser ready. The remainder of the travel not included in these flights will be made via planes, trains, bus, cars, private jets, and fat yachts. I am just sayin.

America's Finest City

I have been back in the beautiful San Diego for a week now. I am enjoying my time of nothing since I won't get much of it over the next year. Just hanging with the parental unit (mom and dad), my cat (Mo), and dog (Cheyenne). I am getting my fill of San Diego- Padres games, going out/catching up with friends, and enjoying the great beaches. My brother even took a break from playing ball and came down for a couple days. Realistically, I am here trying to wrapping up all seven thousand odds and ends for this trip that are hanging dangerously close to my head before I head out to NYC and then we leave for, well, the world. My room is almost unnavigable, filled with boxes of my crap from LA, many of which will not be opened until I return. They way I see it, a day before I depart, I will end up sitting between boxes with a huge pile of stuff that I feel is 'essential' for my trip and my little, single, one, solo, solitary, individual, fabulous backpack that I will somehow live out of over the next year. The phone calls between Mairs and I have grown to about 7, 15 min conversations a day- in Dr. offices, shoe stores, work, bars, sleeping, and/or cars (only with a headset obviously). Admittedly, there have been some minor issues/semi-freaking out... let's just sum it up as a Japanese Encephalitis vaccine, some "I am a serious, kind of a big deal, hiker" hiking shoes, and a handlebar mustache. You can do the math.