Tomorrow at 9:30AM we will be taking off for Chicago, our layover on the way to London.
There are a lot of strange emotions that are washing over us today... mostly panic (Did I pre-pay that bill? Do we have enough cash? Do we have copies of our passports?).
Unfortunately, one of us (Jacqueline) is sick, which will make the 20+ hours of plane travel a real treat. Our first priority once we land at Heathrow is to go to the US Embassy, and get additional pages for our passports. We didn't want to do it here-- given the huge processing backlog in the US, we didn't trust that we'd get our passports back in time for the trip.
We have reading materials, some protein bars for the plane, and everything we think we will need. All that is left is a last-minute Walgreens run and some house cleaning (vacuuming, bathroom etc). We have hope that internet access abroad can assist us with any administrative tasks we may have forgotten.
It is daunting to leave a city you love for unknown discomforts.
Can someone remind us why we are doing this?
Oh yeah--to see the world, and to start to feel human again. The older we get, the more each day becomes a flash--one day closer to the next meeting, the next presentation, the next deadline. We're looking forward to just "experiencing" life for a while.
It's like when you were five and every day in the yard was a delight and promised a new discovery. Here's to feeling that way again. Stay tuned...
-j
Showing posts with label Getting ready. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Getting ready. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Sunday, September 2, 2007
San Francisco
In the past, after returning from other trips abroad, San Francisco would seem newly exotic to me, like I was seeing it in a different context as a foreigner or outsider.
The experience now seems to be happening in reverse. We've lived in the city almost all our adult lives, and we feel pretty rooted here. Jacqueline and I half-joke about feeling homesick before we even leave, but there's some vague truth to that. When you know you're leaving for a long time, everything starts to feel a little different. I find myself looking differently at things, noticing details a little more, trying to take it all in... the quality of light and shadow on buildings and on the water; the salt air; the hills; the sights, smells and sounds; the places we like to eat; the neighborhoods we walk through; the conversations we overhear (in Cantonese or Russian as often as English sometimes).
And of course since it's August it seems that half of Italy is here on their vacation; I enjoy watching them wander around with their maps, completely lost but still quite happy about it.
I don't think I'm wistful about leaving so much as anxious about everything we need to do...we've been running around trying to get everything organized.... mail, bills, insurance, laundry, visas, tickets.... *ack* we're trying not to freak out too much.
'bye SF, see y'all in February.
Security for Ike & Tina
Ike and Tina need protection in some of our more exotic locations (Ike and Tina are our backpacks; the previous post will explain the moniker).
Some of our plans include circumstances one might call "sketchy". Egyptian overnight train? Sketchy. Indian train? Sketchy (and pretty gross from what I have heard--stained sheets in the sleeping berths, families of las cucarachas).
Traveling with an ultra-light laptop and an 80G iPod increases our awareness about the possibility of theft, and after doing a bit of research, we found this cool product called PacSafe. This steel mesh webbing fits over the entire pack, and the cable can be locked around a stationary object. We're thinking hotel room sink pipes and train-seat posts, although I am sure we will find all sorts of things to secure our bags to... helpfully, the PacSafe website shows the product cabled to a stripper pole... very handy for a stay in Bangkok perhaps.
Some of our plans include circumstances one might call "sketchy". Egyptian overnight train? Sketchy. Indian train? Sketchy (and pretty gross from what I have heard--stained sheets in the sleeping berths, families of las cucarachas).
Traveling with an ultra-light laptop and an 80G iPod increases our awareness about the possibility of theft, and after doing a bit of research, we found this cool product called PacSafe. This steel mesh webbing fits over the entire pack, and the cable can be locked around a stationary object. We're thinking hotel room sink pipes and train-seat posts, although I am sure we will find all sorts of things to secure our bags to... helpfully, the PacSafe website shows the product cabled to a stripper pole... very handy for a stay in Bangkok perhaps.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Travel Gear
Last night we packed up everything to get us through six months of travel. It was a little scary. It's no small feat finding and packing the right clothes for temperature and travel extremes, as our trip takes us from late summer in Egypt to winter in the Himalayas--and then onward still, to summer in Australia.
Our first task (and a popular discussion topic on other RTW blogs): "the backpack". Do we get backpacks with a frame, or without? What about wheels? I don't at all consider myself a "backpacker" type of person, though I may inevitably have to become one during the course of our adventure.
After a long day at REI, and an afternoon at the North Face on Union Square, we picked out what we think is a great solution, a combination backpack/roller luggage. This Eagle Creek bag is is a wheeled carry-on, but you can hide the telescoping handle away, unzip the back panel, and pull out all those backpack/waist strap/chest strap things and run from the police if you need to (OK, maybe just run for a train). It's only 22", so it's allowed as carry-on for most airlines. We compared it with other brands-- it's the lightest, most durable model with the most cubic inches of packing space: a whopping 3900!
Here are some pictures of our travel companions. We nicknamed them Ike & Tina because we know they're going to get the crap beat out of them during the trip!
Our first task (and a popular discussion topic on other RTW blogs): "the backpack". Do we get backpacks with a frame, or without? What about wheels? I don't at all consider myself a "backpacker" type of person, though I may inevitably have to become one during the course of our adventure.
After a long day at REI, and an afternoon at the North Face on Union Square, we picked out what we think is a great solution, a combination backpack/roller luggage. This Eagle Creek bag is is a wheeled carry-on, but you can hide the telescoping handle away, unzip the back panel, and pull out all those backpack/waist strap/chest strap things and run from the police if you need to (OK, maybe just run for a train). It's only 22", so it's allowed as carry-on for most airlines. We compared it with other brands-- it's the lightest, most durable model with the most cubic inches of packing space: a whopping 3900!
Here are some pictures of our travel companions. We nicknamed them Ike & Tina because we know they're going to get the crap beat out of them during the trip!
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The plan, so far
I know we've told quite a few people already about the RTW tickets, our schedule and the logistics of the trip; here are some more specifics...
Different airlines offer different types of RTW tickets (it's always "round the world"; everyone likes to drop that first 'a'). We bought our tickets from the One World alliance, which consists of American Airlines plus its partners (British Airways, Qantas, Cathay Pacific etc). Some airline partnerships have a precise RTW mileage-based fee system, but we liked One World because you can choose up to twenty stops for a fixed price--kind of an all-you-can-eat-buffet model; it's a pretty good deal.
There are some basic guidelines: travel needs to be more-or-less in one direction (no backtracking unless its within the same region, ie "Europe" or "Asia"). You have to cross both Atlantic and Pacific oceans. You have to return to your starting point, arriving the opposite direction from which you left. You have up to one year to complete your trip.
As far as restrictions go, there are limits to how many stops you can make in any one region or hemisphere; the details of it are a little boring, so I won't get into it.
You'll see a few odd zig-zags in our itinerary (listed below). Mostly this is due to airline hubs and flight availability, though some of the more arcane RTW restrictions add to the confusion.
For example, let's say we're in Cairo. If we want to go somewhere else on the African continent (like Cape Town), we have to go through London. Heathrow and British Airways have made London an improbable African/middle-eastern hub.
Similarly, getting from South Africa to India involves a layover... in Hong Kong.
With these tickets, there's an additional charge (something like $100 or $150) for each destination or leg we change, but there's no charge for changing our flights to the same destination: if we decide we want to stay longer in 'city A', we can push back our flight to 'city B' without any penalties.
With that in mind, our trip is mostly-- but not entirely-- planned out. Our main city-to-city framework has been set, even though we might change some actual travel dates/flights while we're on the road. In this framework there's still a lot of "in-between" time within a city or country that's open ended. Every new place we arrive by plane, we've made sure to have rooms reserved the first couple nights, so we can relax a bit and get our bearings. But it's unrealistic for us to plan out every detail or every day of a 5-6 month trip, we'd make ourselves crazy trying. We're already buried under mountains of travel guides as it is; we accept that a certain amount of improvisation is unavoidable. *gulp*
So here's our schedule as it stands now--
San Francisco -> London (for a few days layover)
London -> Cairo
We'll be here-- during Ramadan no less-- for my 40th birthday. We'll also be checking out Alexandria and most of the tried-and-true Nile river tourist circuit.
Cairo -> Amman
We'll be hitting the tourist sites in Jordan too-- Petra, Wadi Rum etc.
Amman -> London
This is one of those odd stops I mentioned earlier; we pass through London again on our way to Cape Town. So, we decided to stretch out our layover: during our month "in London" we're taking advantage of those super budget Euro-shuttle flights to go to both Italy and Morocco.
London -> Rome
Once in Rome, we'll work our way up to Milan via train.
Milan -> Marrakech
Call us superficial, but we timed Marrakech to coincide with an awesome eurotrash DJ lounge party in the Medina. Jacqueline is determined to get her picture taken with Bryan Ferry!
Morocco, like Italy, is only partially planned. Essaouira and the Atlas Mountains are definite maybes. We need to be back in London by Oct 30 for our big flight to Cape Town.
Marrakech -> London
London -> Cape Town
Cape Town -> Johannesburg
We're in the process of arranging some kind of safari excursion; maybe a stay in Kruger Nat'l Park.
Johannesburg -> Hong Kong
Hong Kong -> Seoul
So far it looks like we'll be spending Thanksgiving in South Korea.
Seoul -> Mumbai
Mumbai is a sort of home-base for us in December. From here we're heading north directly to Kathmandu, and then working our way back down through India (where we'll be for Christmas).
Mumbai -> Kathmandu
Flying in to Kathmandu the beginning of December. We're hoping for a Tibetan side-trip here somewhere... the Chinese are skittish about letting people into Tibet without a tour group, and the information we're getting over the phone and online tends to be contradictory. We know we'll have better luck trying to arrange something once we're in Kathmandu.
From Nepal, we'll eventually make our way overland back down to Mumbai, in order to catch a new year's eve flight to Sydney.
Mumbai -> Sydney
We have some time planned in Sydney, but beyond that there's still a lot of Australia we haven't figured out yet.
Sydney -> Auckland
Ditto for NZ: we have a couple days in Auckland, but we're still making arrangements for everything else. (I'd love to see some All-Blacks rugby; I haven't checked their season schedule yet)
Auckland -> Santiago
Chile's a little unplanned so far.
Santiago -> Easter Island (Rapa Nui)
(Rapa Nui sounds so much cooler than "Easter Island", doesn't it?) We'll be there for the start of their big Tapati festival at the beginning of February.
Easter Island -> Buenos Aires
Our last stop, in one of the coolest cities in the world. We love BA, we honeymooned there, we have friends there... it seemed the perfect place to start our transition back to the US.
Buenos Aires -> Dallas -> San Francisco
Getting home mid/late February. Whew.
-k
Different airlines offer different types of RTW tickets (it's always "round the world"; everyone likes to drop that first 'a'). We bought our tickets from the One World alliance, which consists of American Airlines plus its partners (British Airways, Qantas, Cathay Pacific etc). Some airline partnerships have a precise RTW mileage-based fee system, but we liked One World because you can choose up to twenty stops for a fixed price--kind of an all-you-can-eat-buffet model; it's a pretty good deal.
There are some basic guidelines: travel needs to be more-or-less in one direction (no backtracking unless its within the same region, ie "Europe" or "Asia"). You have to cross both Atlantic and Pacific oceans. You have to return to your starting point, arriving the opposite direction from which you left. You have up to one year to complete your trip.
As far as restrictions go, there are limits to how many stops you can make in any one region or hemisphere; the details of it are a little boring, so I won't get into it.
You'll see a few odd zig-zags in our itinerary (listed below). Mostly this is due to airline hubs and flight availability, though some of the more arcane RTW restrictions add to the confusion.
For example, let's say we're in Cairo. If we want to go somewhere else on the African continent (like Cape Town), we have to go through London. Heathrow and British Airways have made London an improbable African/middle-eastern hub.
Similarly, getting from South Africa to India involves a layover... in Hong Kong.
With these tickets, there's an additional charge (something like $100 or $150) for each destination or leg we change, but there's no charge for changing our flights to the same destination: if we decide we want to stay longer in 'city A', we can push back our flight to 'city B' without any penalties.
With that in mind, our trip is mostly-- but not entirely-- planned out. Our main city-to-city framework has been set, even though we might change some actual travel dates/flights while we're on the road. In this framework there's still a lot of "in-between" time within a city or country that's open ended. Every new place we arrive by plane, we've made sure to have rooms reserved the first couple nights, so we can relax a bit and get our bearings. But it's unrealistic for us to plan out every detail or every day of a 5-6 month trip, we'd make ourselves crazy trying. We're already buried under mountains of travel guides as it is; we accept that a certain amount of improvisation is unavoidable. *gulp*
So here's our schedule as it stands now--
San Francisco -> London (for a few days layover)
London -> Cairo
We'll be here-- during Ramadan no less-- for my 40th birthday. We'll also be checking out Alexandria and most of the tried-and-true Nile river tourist circuit.
Cairo -> Amman
We'll be hitting the tourist sites in Jordan too-- Petra, Wadi Rum etc.
Amman -> London
This is one of those odd stops I mentioned earlier; we pass through London again on our way to Cape Town. So, we decided to stretch out our layover: during our month "in London" we're taking advantage of those super budget Euro-shuttle flights to go to both Italy and Morocco.
London -> Rome
Once in Rome, we'll work our way up to Milan via train.
Milan -> Marrakech
Call us superficial, but we timed Marrakech to coincide with an awesome eurotrash DJ lounge party in the Medina. Jacqueline is determined to get her picture taken with Bryan Ferry!
Morocco, like Italy, is only partially planned. Essaouira and the Atlas Mountains are definite maybes. We need to be back in London by Oct 30 for our big flight to Cape Town.
Marrakech -> London
London -> Cape Town
Cape Town -> Johannesburg
We're in the process of arranging some kind of safari excursion; maybe a stay in Kruger Nat'l Park.
Johannesburg -> Hong Kong
Hong Kong -> Seoul
So far it looks like we'll be spending Thanksgiving in South Korea.
Seoul -> Mumbai
Mumbai is a sort of home-base for us in December. From here we're heading north directly to Kathmandu, and then working our way back down through India (where we'll be for Christmas).
Mumbai -> Kathmandu
Flying in to Kathmandu the beginning of December. We're hoping for a Tibetan side-trip here somewhere... the Chinese are skittish about letting people into Tibet without a tour group, and the information we're getting over the phone and online tends to be contradictory. We know we'll have better luck trying to arrange something once we're in Kathmandu.
From Nepal, we'll eventually make our way overland back down to Mumbai, in order to catch a new year's eve flight to Sydney.
Mumbai -> Sydney
We have some time planned in Sydney, but beyond that there's still a lot of Australia we haven't figured out yet.
Sydney -> Auckland
Ditto for NZ: we have a couple days in Auckland, but we're still making arrangements for everything else. (I'd love to see some All-Blacks rugby; I haven't checked their season schedule yet)
Auckland -> Santiago
Chile's a little unplanned so far.
Santiago -> Easter Island (Rapa Nui)
(Rapa Nui sounds so much cooler than "Easter Island", doesn't it?) We'll be there for the start of their big Tapati festival at the beginning of February.
Easter Island -> Buenos Aires
Our last stop, in one of the coolest cities in the world. We love BA, we honeymooned there, we have friends there... it seemed the perfect place to start our transition back to the US.
Buenos Aires -> Dallas -> San Francisco
Getting home mid/late February. Whew.
-k
Sunday, August 19, 2007
An ode to Yoyo's
Time to say goodbye to my second home :-(
Among Financial District/Jackson Square lunch-goers, Yoyo's is famous (notorious?) for their cheap sushi and udon.
Because I am so very cheap, and because Yoyo's is right next door to my office, well... let's just say that Lydia and Joseph know me pretty well. At work, I pretty much live off Red Bull & Chicken Teriyaki... (I know. I'm not proud)
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Initial post, Sixty-thousand miles
Hello everyone, the blog is here! We've finally decided upon a blog name. We investigated different variations of Jet Lag, Jetlagged, Jet Set, Round the World, etc... all taken. (I Hate My Job, no surprise, was also taken).
So here we go with the epic Sixty-thousand miles: it has a nice ring to it, and it's roughly equivalent to the frequent-flyer miles we'll accumulate (our "actual" distance will be closer to ninety-thousand, but we have some mysterious frequent-flyer restrictions on Royal Jordanian and Cathay Pacific).
This week we got both our Egyptian and Jordanian visas, and if their consulates in San Francisco are any indication of the inner workings of these countries, we're in for some interesting times. The Egyptian consulate is housed in a beautiful but crumbling mansion in Pacific Heights, furnished with items that look to be from an old swap meet. I found myself staring at the draperies tied back with string. Adding to the ambiance was the smell of moldy carpeting, the sound of a very heated argument in Arabic, and the inescapable scent of the woman next to us, whom I call Poo-Lady (I don't mean the bear that likes honey).
We were braced for trouble after reading about long waits and abysmal service, but in fact the staff was quite courteous and our passports were returned to us quickly, complete with Arabic script and ornate stamps.
The Jordanian consulate was less exotic, but plenty efficient. It's actually one of those strange "honorary" consuls that's run out of a private business office, where there's some other kind of accounting or retail or notary work going on, and the whole "diplomatic thing" seems to be happening on the side, as if it were a businessman's favor for a foreign buddy.
So we drove to the Mission district where the consulate's located. Lucking out with time on the meter across the street, we raced up the elevator to the fourth floor and offered up our passports, forms, money order and less-than-flattering passport photos. Within fifteen minutes we had another visa, much like before, decorated with Arabic script, wet ink, and fancy stamps.
We're concerned we may run out of passport pages (more on that later)... next, on to the airport to get our revised round-the-world (RTW) tickets!
-J
So here we go with the epic Sixty-thousand miles: it has a nice ring to it, and it's roughly equivalent to the frequent-flyer miles we'll accumulate (our "actual" distance will be closer to ninety-thousand, but we have some mysterious frequent-flyer restrictions on Royal Jordanian and Cathay Pacific).
This week we got both our Egyptian and Jordanian visas, and if their consulates in San Francisco are any indication of the inner workings of these countries, we're in for some interesting times. The Egyptian consulate is housed in a beautiful but crumbling mansion in Pacific Heights, furnished with items that look to be from an old swap meet. I found myself staring at the draperies tied back with string. Adding to the ambiance was the smell of moldy carpeting, the sound of a very heated argument in Arabic, and the inescapable scent of the woman next to us, whom I call Poo-Lady (I don't mean the bear that likes honey).
We were braced for trouble after reading about long waits and abysmal service, but in fact the staff was quite courteous and our passports were returned to us quickly, complete with Arabic script and ornate stamps.
The Jordanian consulate was less exotic, but plenty efficient. It's actually one of those strange "honorary" consuls that's run out of a private business office, where there's some other kind of accounting or retail or notary work going on, and the whole "diplomatic thing" seems to be happening on the side, as if it were a businessman's favor for a foreign buddy.
So we drove to the Mission district where the consulate's located. Lucking out with time on the meter across the street, we raced up the elevator to the fourth floor and offered up our passports, forms, money order and less-than-flattering passport photos. Within fifteen minutes we had another visa, much like before, decorated with Arabic script, wet ink, and fancy stamps.
We're concerned we may run out of passport pages (more on that later)... next, on to the airport to get our revised round-the-world (RTW) tickets!
-J
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