updated itinerary

so, Jason has left on his trip...he left on Saturday for Korea through Vancouver. It's weird to have him gone and me here trying to tie up some loose ends. I meet up with him in a month in Singapore so it won't be too bad (by the way, apparently Singapore Airlines are awesome...he said it was how he pictured first class...I am almost excited to spend 18 hours on the plane! *groan* the only thing saving me is my plan to reread (or more exactly, rerereread Diana Gabaldon's Outlander. I am almost giddy thinking about picking it up again). If you're thinking of taking a big trip, here is the finalized itinerary starting with when I leave Ottawa:

19 September: Ottawa-Vancouver
22 September: Vancouver-Singapore (to meet Jason)
8 Oct: Singapore-Manila, Philippines
18 Oct: Manila-Sydney, Australia (with a quick stopover in Bangkok)
13 Nov: Sydney-Auckland, New Zealand
26 Nov: Auckland-Nadi, Fiji
6 Dec: Nadi-Mumbai, India (with stops in Auckland and Bangkok. This will be a really yucky long flight in case you're wondering)
14 Dec: Dubai, UAE-Cairo, Egypt (if you're quick you've noticed that we don't have an organized flight from Mumbai to Dubai...not quite sure yet how that will work out)
28 Dec: Cairo-Frankfurt, Germany
29 Dec: Frankfurt-Toronto-Ottawa

So, if you're looking to get away for a few weeks, don't be shy! :)

feelin' the burn from the needles

I went to Appletree Medical Clinic yesterday for some of my shots yesterday. Because the trip isn't super finalized yet, it's hard to tell exactly what to get, but I am pretty sure I got Hepatitis A, Typhoid Fever and Yellow Fever. The good thing about yellow fever is that it's good for ten years. One of the shots was injected in my shoulder (intermuscular) and the other was in the fat in my arm above the elbow. I must be a wuss, because it still hurts a bit (especially the one in the shoulder). I just need to get the Hep A booster and the malaria pills, and we'll be good to go. I am also looking forward to taking Dukoral, which will hopefully reduce the likelihood that I will have to carry three months' worth of Imodium...*shudder* I started reading Lonely Planet's South America on a shoestring book today on the bus ride in to work. I only started reading about Argentina and I already got all goosebumpy thinking of the amazing things I'll see. (By the way, I much prefer reading Lonely Planet over Frommer's) Plus, I am really looking forward to being in a continent where A) I kinda speak the language (well, I can get by with Spanish. I can read Portugese OK) and B) I get to practice speaking Spanish. of course, the sights will be phenomenal as well. Thinking of all of these exciting places to research and plan makes it really hard to focus on other things!

first entry

After graduating from a Master's, my boyfriend at the time, Jason, and I thought it would be great to take an amazing world tour. In the government, you can take three months off of leave without pay for personal reasons. Because I didn't have a job, but was being bridged into a full-time position when I finished school, I negotiated with my employer to prolong my start date until I came back from my trip.

Jason took the lead on planning this trip, mostly because he was bored with work and wanted to go somewhere crazy. So we talked about an endless summer world tour. His friend is now teaching ESL in Korea so he thought of going to see him. The whole thing has evolved to the point that he will leave around the third week of August, travel around in southeast Asia, and I will meet him about a month later (the timing could be a little sketchy since I need to finish my master's thesis first. Yes, I probably should be working on that instead of writing this, but that gives more time for the thesis fairies to do the work for me) somewhere near the end of his Asia trek for a three month to head out to Fiji - New Zealand - Australia - Egypt - Brazil - Argentina - Peru and home.

The endless summer part was an add-on because I am a huge fan of the super cheezy wonderfully upbeat music of Scooter..."endless summer" is a song by Scooter that I love. Also, I will be travelling when most countries south of the equator will be in their spring-summer phase so this trip will be like an endless summer, which sadly will be followed by depression forever winter when we come back near the end of December. I am hoping that future round the world travellers might also find it helpful to figure out how we went about with the tickets, visas, vaccinations, and also some suggested itineraries. I will attempt to post pictures every once in a while along the way as well. As a start, we are likely going with travel cuts for their round the world tickets. More info on this as I figure out the specifics. Will this be a cheap trip? Heck no. Will it be ordinary? Absolutely not. This will likely be the trip of a lifetime and one that I will forever be grateful to have had the opportunity to take. I always wanted to take a massive trip, and the timing of taking one between finishing grad studies and starting work couldn't be better.