A Quick Word on Visas

Visas are a lot like car insurance. Lots of money, lots of hassle, very low perceived value. Ok they get you in the country of your choice and all that, but still, come on, nobody really likes insurance or Visas (apologies to the Visa and insurance sales forces).

Allow me to explain. We are visiting 12 different countries (counting the EU as one for this exercise). 7 of these countries require a Visa (Australia, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Turkey, Egypt, and the EU).  Only one of these countries allow you to get a Visa 90 days in advance (Australia) and the rest its only 60 days! That means I'll need to be applying for Visas while on the road, which seems just crazy town to me. Besides the fact that each Visa appears to cost around $100 or more, which adds up after a while. Thank you thank you thank you to Thailand, Israel, Morocco for not requiring this process, much appreciated.

If anyone has had experiences with this and can offer some advice, that would be much appreciated.

Researching Sydney

Sarah has been rehearsing like crazy this summer for Hair - the musical, which opens tonight on Granville Island. I'm very excited to go see the show, which promises to be amazing, and to cheer on my favorite hippie. But as she's been rehearsing/dancing/singing/hugging trees, I've realized the big trip is very quickly approaching. Time to plan. First port of call - Australia.

We land in Sydney first, and will probably pop in on my step-sister Shannon, the itinerant world traveler who always seems to pop up in the most fascinating places. I've been checking out things to do in Sydney and it seems be a lot like Vancouver - bustling city on the water with a strong outdoor orientation and a serious mix of populations and cultures. I'm excited to check out the exhibits on Aboriginal artwork, the Chinese Garden in Darling Harbor, and a little Bondi Beach.


I did check out Airbnb.com and found some really nice, centrally located rooms for rent in people's homes (40-70/night), which is even cheaper than the extensive hostel network around Australia. I'm sure we'll get our fill of hostel culture over the trip so perhaps we'll stick with cheaper Airbnb alternatives (or just sleep in Shannon's hammock!)

We'll only have a couple of days in Sydney, so probably no time to do exploring around the region, but once we get down to Melbourne and hook up with Tanja, Joel, and Otto, there will be plenty of time to venture further off the beaten path. If you have thoughts on good hotspots in Sydney, we'd love to hear from you!

The FINAL Itinerary

What started out as a crazy idea many years ago has slowly grown into a more and more feasible possibility, and finally, a few weeks ago, has become a reality. Sarah and I booked the tickets for the round-the-world flight. That's fun to say. Here's a picture of us celebrating spending 151 days on the road in our sleeping bags:

And here it is:

Jan 3 - 16 Australia
Jan 16 - 26 Thailand
Jan 27 - Feb 3 Bali
Feb 4 - 25 India
Feb 25 - March 10 Katmandu
March 11 - 23 Israel
March 23 - 30 Cairo
March 30 - April 6 Istanbul
April 6 - 16 Morrocco
April 16 - end of May Europe (including Greece, Tunisia and other stopoffs)

So very excited. Check your calendars, see if you can join us somewhere around the world. From now on, we are filling in the itinerary for those destinations and we'll be posting regularly about places we're considering, travels in the meantime, etc. Love to hear your suggestions.

Welcome back to the Big Gray

Steve here - you may remember that I took a trip out to Toronto for a meeting a few months back. My overall impression at the time was that if Toronto was asked its favorite color, it would be gray. Well, I'm back (in June no less!), and guess what:

I'm here for the Canadian Public Health Association meeting, which has been quite fun, and I'll provide some more details later. But for now - wow. Perk up Toronto, it aint as bad as all that.

What do you do with 24 hours to kill on the east coast before a wedding.....?

...go to New York, of course!

And that's just what I did. With just about 24 hours to play with, I hit the city and did such things as:

-Fly a red-eye into Westchester county airport and enjoy the leafy ride to the White Plains Metro North station.
-Happily arrive in Grand Central station and allow myself to be a tourist with a camera for a moment.
-Drop bag off with a friend (yay, Seth!) so you can walk happily without a rolly thing.
-Go to Barnes & Nobles where bathrooms are clean and blank journals are affordable.
-Eat a bagel with egg salad, lettuce, tomato, and swiss cheese while people-watching in Union Square.
-Talk to the squirrels.
-Hang out at dog park.
-Write in new journal.

-By some art from a local artist that contains reclaimed wood from Coney Island boardwalk.
-Wander down University.
-Stop at Grey Dog Cafe.
-Purchase large iced spice chai.
-Try not to scoff at the fact that they changed the recipe for their chai.
-Write in new journal.
-Wander into Washington Square Park.
-People-watch for an hour+
-Write in new journal.
-Wander down Christopher, avoiding crazyscreamingswearing man along the way.
-Like a New Yorker, glance at crazyscreamingswearing man, shrug, and keep walking.
-Take a right on Bleecker.
-Ogle the haggle of dressed up southern belles who are chowing on Magnolia cupcakes and who are clearly on a New York field trip to the opening weekend of Sex and The City 2.
-Write in new journal.
-Head up to Union Square again to grab a quick dinner with a friend (yay, Seth!) at Republic.

-Push through tourists to catch the 6 uptown to Grand Central.
-Hit up a Tasty-D for dessert while bidding farewell to friend who's kindly taking your bags up to his place in the Bronx where you'll be spending the night (yay, Seth!).
-Hop on the 6 uptown to the Met to visit Oberlin Allen Memorial Art Museum exhibit.
-Tear up when Mr. Met ticket sales man says, "visiting old friends, huh?"
-See 2/3 of Oberlin art pieces.
-Get every docent on the 2nd floor involved in locating art.
-Tear up at every single one.
-Get kicked out of Met at 8:45 (15 minutes before closing, damnit).
-Sit on the steps and people-watch for 45 minutes.
-Write in new journal.
-Catch a bus downtown on 5th ave.
-Eat a piece of pizza (come on, even when you're not hungry, you have to when in NY) and have a glass of wine while waiting for Metro North train to the Bronx.
-Arrive at friend's apartment and take a loooooong shower with amaaaaaazing New York water pressure.
-Write in new journal.
-Sleep really well.
-8:00am - wake up.

-Put band-aids on blisters and pack up rolly suitcase.
-Get ride from friend's parents (yay, Roy and Judy!) to the 1 train at 238th Street.
-Write in new journal.
-Attempt to read on subway, but get lost in thought and people-watching.
-Arrive at Penn Station.
-Walk the 3 blocks to a "Luggage Storage" place that you've discovered will hold your bags for $10/day while you wander around rolly-suitcase free! Yes!
-Buy 1:45pm bus tickets to Allentown, PA for friends' wedding (yay, Danny and Alan!).
-Hop on subway up to Columbus Circle.
-Purchase Central park breakfast must: frappacino and sesame bagel with veggie cream cheese.
-Sit in Sheep Meadow for hour+
-Write in new journal.
-Call husband (yay, Steve!) and gush over the wonderful-ness of this city.
-Walk up Columbus, writing travel itinerary in head for when you will meet up with girlfriends (yay, Mah Jongg girls! yay, Vancouver ladies!) in the city in the future.
-Go to Zabar's (80th and Broadway) where you buy two souvenir canvas bags for you and your Mom.
-Walk down Broadway, past Lincoln Center, past Time-Warner building, through old Hell's Kitchen 'hood, grinning all along the way.
-Wander into the store you know sells great shower curtains (because when one needs shower curtains in Vancouver, obviously, you have to go to New York to get them), and don't find any interesting ones, BUT tell a tourist where a specific restaurant is that he's looking for (like the back of your hand got it, baby!)
-Meet friends (yay, Nicholas and Viktor!) for lunch at Westside Diner on 44th and 9th.
-Gush some more.
-Go and get bag out of luggage storage.
-Get on bus and be happy that the bus driver had to double back to Port Authority one time before going into the Lincoln Tunnel, thus giving you one more glance at the city you love.
-Sigh.

ok ok ok.... but holy crap!

Ok, it's been a little while since Sarah and I have updated the blog. We've been to Seattle and all over Florida and have lots of writing to do, but that will have to wait, because we just booked our first piece of the trip. Holy crap. The receipt just came through for our travel insurance, which is being booked at the same time as our tickets.

A few words about travel insurance. Buy it. Ours covers the entire cost of a flight back home in case of emergency, medical insurance around the world, baggage insurance, etc etc. 850/per person for 5 months. A hefty price tag, but seriously worth it for the piece of mind.

Now that the trip is officially being booked, we'll post the final itinerary soon so you all can make some travel plans to come and join us in exotic locales.

PS. 217 days to go till liftoff.

Vancouver Olympics Part 2 - The Whoa Factor

Steve here, continuing the Olympics saga. As I wrote about in an earlier post, I hopped out to Victoria for the Friday of Opening Ceremonies. When I got back, I met Sarah at our friends' house where people had gathered to watch the opening ceremonies. I was thinking about it kind of like the Oscars, neat to get together to watch, but ultimately not that engaging. And I felt that way, right up until k.d. lang sang Hallelujah - a tribute to the Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvii, who had died practicing that afternoon. I was blown away. She was not corny, or hokey, or overblown (like everything up until that point), she just sang beautifully and most of the people in the room had tears in their eyes. I think it was then I realized it was going to be a pretty intense couple of weeks.

The next night Sarah and I headed out to check out what the town was like with the addition 100,000+ additional people. (I'm making O's in the picture with my hands) There were rumors and ominous news stories all week about how crazy public transit would be, but we were able to hop onto Skytrain near our house, and while busy, it only took us a few minutes to jump the two stops to Yaletown. But then, walking out of the station, we encountered THE CROWD. Canada sweaters (you know the ones with the moose antlers across the chest), gloves with maple leaves on the palms, flags worn as capes, etc. Everywhere. There were probably ten times as many people in the streets as was typical for a Saturday night and what struck me the most was that everyone was talking. Loudly. And smiling. The energy of the crowd was amazing. We grabbed some sushi with friends then headed out. The LiveCity stage, which was right down by the water and playing nightly free shows, was completed packed for Wilco, so we decided to just wander and see the sights.

The first big Canadian event - women's moguls - was going on and people were stopping in the street at cafe windows and wherever there was a television available. The tension built and built as the event drew to a close, with Canadian Jennifer Heil taking top marks in the second to last run. Having never won a gold medal on home soil, Canadian were very, very excited. As it turns out, American Hannah Kearney beat her out in the final run, which only mildly doused the spirit of the crowd.

We walked down Granville Street - one of the main thoroughfares through the city that was shut down to car traffic. It was absolutely packed. Among the crazy things we saw in the crowd: an impromptu hockey game, a traveling dance party, art exhibits, and four half-naked Canadians painted completely red. It was...intense.

Finally, we stumbled onto Robson Square moments before the lights and fireworks show began. Lasers cut through the sky, fireworks roared overhead, flames shot out of towers, and fully-geared snowboarders zoomed over the crowd on a zip line hung over the city. Sarah and I stood shoulder to shoulder with a massive crowd and were completely is shock at how the city had transformed itself into this pulsating, lively beast. Check the out a video of the walls of flame:



On the Skytrain ride home (on the Canada line, which is our route), I had perhaps my favorite Olympic moment. The doors of the train opened and two clearly inebriated Canadian gents in full Canada regalia lean out of the doors and bellow "THIS IS THE CAAAAAAANADA LINE! COME ON BOARD!!" They proceded to lead the crowd in a rousing version of O Canada with much arm flapping and flag waving. Wow. Go Canada Go.