By Blair, on April 17th, 2011
It’s been month since we’ve posted on this blog.
Why?
I’m not quite sure, actually. I still get pangs of photos I’d like to take, of stories I’d like to tell. And yet, I’m enjoying keeping it to myself, to my close friends and family. I’m now encountering thoughts and emotions that directly affect people who actually read (or read, past tense) this blog. I’m not comfortable putting out there my quick thoughts on readjustment, housing, and work. It’s a journey that has been more private.
And yet, funnily enough, it’s been smooth.
I was expecting this intense, crazy AAAAAAAH feeling throughout the readjustment process. In my past travels, the return has almost been the hardest part.
Yet with this trip, and with this return, things have been different.
I’ve been traveling with a partner who I’ve been with for five years. Someone who was with me before, during, and after the trip. A constant companion who can share and who understands (almost) all of my thoughts and emotions. Perhaps Tom is one of my reasons for the calm re-entry?
Also: I was ready to come home. I am savoring all of the good stuff of stability: a clean bed, my own shower, an espresso machine, more than three sets of clothing, friends and family close by, and (dun dun duuuuun) our very own dog.
Last week, we adopted Hank, an 8 year old hound mix from a shelter here in San Diego.
For those of you who have read through this blog, you’ll notice a common photo subject: dogs. We love them, and throughout our travels we sought them out to befriend and play. WE LOVE DOGS.
The other big news of the week: Tom’s new job! Starting Thursday, I’ll lose my house companion. I’ve enjoyed coming home for midday breaks from the yoga studio to have lunch with Tom. Other activities we’ve partaken in during the weekday: walks, beach, and food shopping.
So here we are, jumping off into a new phase of home, dog, work, and stability. It feels right.
You know what else feels right? Hosting couchsurfers. We had so many loving and welcoming hosts throughout our trip, we’ve decided to open up our abode to fellow travelers. A few weeks ago, we had a Spaniard (Juan) spend a few nights with us. The special thing about Juan: he’s currently biking from the southern tip of Argentina up to Alaska. Yup, that’s ALL of South, Central, and North America. Amazing.
And just this past week, we hosted the most loving, amazing family of four from Canada. They’re taking a few months to drive in a monster van from Vancouver, down the West Coast, possibly dipping down into Mexico, and then making their way home in July. JD and Claire: parents extraordinaire to their three year old James and four month old Jasper. Did I mention that in addition to traveling down by van, they’re also sleeping in it? It’s something like an extreme New Zealand camper van experience.
Today we celebrated my Grandma’s 88th birthday in style. It’s just the type of event that we hadn’t been able to participate in during our travels, and it feels so right to be here now, celebrating her life, with loving friends and family.
life.is.good
You may just see me on here a bit more.
And the photos…
We left off here during our road trip up to Oregon. This is our good friend Julie, living the rural life in Western Oregon:
Visiting my college roommate Melanie, and her sweet child Caleb. She introduced me as, “Mommy’s college friend Shooter.” Kinda surreal.
Off to Pennsylvania where we visiting Tom’s family:
Pennsylvania:
Cousin Gracie:
Couchsurfers!
And ole Hank:
By Tom, on January 19th, 2011
Several friends have asked us how we went about booking our flights for our trip last year. Well here is the story.
Before we flew out of LAX bound for Argentina over 1 year ago, Blair and I did a bit of legwork trying to determine how we wanted to get from place to place on this trip. Lots of friends recommended looking at Round the World (RTW) tickets, so we priced out a few options. Student Travel Agency (STA), who offers trips to not only students, but geezers like us, gave a quote for our first itinerary, which was actually quite different from what we ended up booking.
STA quoted us at around $4000 each for the following:
Los Angeles to New Zealand – 1 Dec
New Zealand to Australia – 2 Mar
Australia to SE Asia – 13 Apr
SE Asia to South Africa – 8 Jun
South Africa to Kenya – 13 Jul
Kenya to Spain – 7 Sep
Spain to Argentina – 5 Oct
Argentina to Los Angeles – 4 jan
We priced out individual tickets on Orbitz (I think) for the same itinerary and it was about 20% less than STA’s quote. Why use an agency if they aren’t providing some kind of savings? Perhaps this is why online ticketing is so prevalent these days. We looked at another online tool, Qantas’s RTW ticket. Their automated system coughed out pretty much the same price as STA. The problem with Qantas’s pricing was that it was largely based on the number of continents being traveled to. Including our home continent of North America we would be hitting 5 continents: North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Blair investigated Airtreks, which seemed like a viable option, but by the time we found Airtreks we were already leaning towards DIY.
We really had trouble leading up to our trip finding an option where we could book our flights all at once to save money. In the end we decided to buy the tickets as we traveled. It’s a good thing, too, because our itinerary ended up being very different than the one above. We ended up going in the opposite direction! The final price for our exact itinerary without flight points was …<drum roll>… $3277/person. Here’s how it worked out for us in a pay-as-you-go style:
Los Angeles – Buenos Aires $372
Buenos Aires – El Calafate (internal) $249
Buenos Aires – Cape Town $521
Johannesburg – Durban (internal) $47 *side story about this
Johannesburg – Bangkok $443
Luang Prabang – Hanoi $130
Hanoi – Bangkok $83
Bangkok – Melbourne $337 + $127 change fee for the two of us
Melbourne – Christchurch $205
Auckland – Los Angeles $890
Total airfare one person: $3277 x 2 of us = $6554
minus our flight points of $815
plus a flight change to Melbourne $127
gives us our grand total of $5866 (so in our case $2933 per person)
We were glad in the end that planning the trip ourselves both saved us a ton of money and also gave us the flexibility to choose our route as we went. To be honest, before digging up the STA emails for this post, I had forgotten how much our itinerary had changed. We started to seriously plan our route in the summer of 2009. But by the time December 2009 arrived, we had changed the direction entirely. Our starting country of New Zealand had become our finishing country and vice versa for Argentina. The time frames where entirely different. Countries were cut out entirely. I’m not sure what this would have cost us if we had gone with STA or the Qantas planner. I do know that we would have stuck to the original itinerary to avoid fees and, consequently, we would have felt like we had our hands tied.
Our flights were a mix of well-planned legs and more spontaneous ones. Flights within SE Asia were booked with short notice, a few days to a week in advance, adding to the cost a bit. Melbourne was added as a 5 day stopover, adding around $250 to the final cost of getting from Bangkok to Chirstchurch. Most of the international flights were booked well in advance with the aid of Kayak, a handy flight search website. We were able to set up email alerts to keep us from constantly searching for flights. Once a flight hit a certain price, we would receive an email and usually we purchased the ticket that day.
*The South African flight from Johannesburg to Durban was the one nightmare. We waited until January 2010 to book that flight, which was nearly 6 months in advance. I had seen the prices for this flight back in November 2009 and they were running around $30/each. Waiting ended up killing us. By January they had rocketed to $300 due to World Cup demand and shady airlines charging outlandish prices. Through methods (read: “by accident … sort of”) I’ll not publish on the web, we were able to get the tickets at a very steep discount, close to the original price of the tickets before World Cup greediness grasped the airlines in South Africa.
Blair and I are very accustomed to booking our own travel and so our planning method came very natural to us. Websites are constantly making it easier to book the way we did. In the end, we didn’t have to spend much of our time thinking about how we’d get from place to place. And in general I think it’s a stretch to think you can book everything at once an have your flights booked before you leave on a trip like this. Dates and destinations almost always change. Booking legs ourselves, a few weeks to a few months in advance, was the best way for us to deal with these changes.
Ron, Blair’s Dad, snapped a shot of us outside of LAX baggage claim, returning home:
By Blair, on January 12th, 2011
We love Bend. We love the Longs (uncle, aunt, and cousin). We love dogs. We love snow.
Pictures below for proof.
The drive (with new snow chains!):
Uncle Dave and Aunt J:
Our roommates… Bella:
And Charlotte:
And Cousin Jenny:
By Blair, on January 9th, 2011
Over the past week, we’ve had the pleasure of visiting some amazing and beautiful friends in amazing and beautiful places.
San Francisco has always held a soft spot in both of our hearts, what with the big bridge and all. Add to that best friends, a funky and accessible city, and beautiful surroundings, and boom: we’re sold. I spent countless hours laughing and sharing secrets with my best friend. We ate delicious, homemade food. We drank wine. And we moved our car every two hours so it wouldn’t be towed. Such is life in the city.
After three days, we were off to visit our good friend Lauren up in Humboldt county. Neither of us had ever driven past Napa, and had instead explored the Northwest by flying into Portland or Seattle. And so this big, beautiful pocket of our country, and even our state, was new to us. And let me tell you: it was mind-bogglingly (word?) beautiful. Granted, we were blessed with two sunny days, which may or may not be so common, especially in the winter. But who cares? It was surreal.
It’s amazing to think that many of the feelings of astonishment at natural beauty that we experienced throughout our trip, especially in Argentina, Northern Thailand, and New Zealand, resurfaced here in our humble little state. Well, California is not exactly humble, nor little, but you get the point. I had, in the back of my mind, always wanted to come up here, but never made it happen. And after traveling around the world, it felt like the least we could do was to drive another seven hours north of San Francisco to see not only our friend Lauren, but also the area. Huge, old Redwood trees, rugged coast lines, and elk greeted us. Boo-yeah, let’s do it again some time.
Yesterday, we left on a rainy morning and drove another seven hours to Corvallis, Oregon, where we were greeted by Pete and Becka, who went to school with Tom at Bucknell and were fellow frisbee players. Right after we pulled up, we loaded up their car, and headed for a hike with their two labs Luna and Sola. Thankfully we had some serious hiking boots for some seriously muddy trails, but man: it was gorgeous. With two muddy dogs, we headed back to their house for a delicious meal of some sort of roast. Pete and Becka, apart from being funny, sassy, and seriously intelligent friends, love cooking local, healthy, and happy animals and veggies for their meals. It’s the best of both worlds: we get to play with dogs, hang out with friends, eat delicious food, and learn more about using all parts of a cow. Love it.
One thing I don’t love: when Tom gets hurt. This morning, during a Cross Fit training (and might I add the first training either of us have done over 14 months), Tom tweaked his achilles. We’re not sure how serious it is, but are crossing our fingers for the best.
San Francisco, and Sharon!
Golden Gate Bridge:
Humboldt (frozen roses outside Lauren’s house):
Frost!
Lauren’s 180lb Neighbor, named Agnes:
Dinner! Local crabs:
Lauren getting ready for her skit in class tomorrow.. with her boyfriend Marco:
Corvallis!
By Blair, on January 8th, 2011
Being back in the States has led to a supreme decrease in the amount of posting that we do.
A few factors:
1) We’re visiting a ton of friends and family, and we don’t have all the solo time to hang out on the computer, reflect on recent experiences, and take/post pictures.
2) We’re on the road… a lot! Driving 10 hours in the car doesn’t exactly lead to enlightenment, or computer access.
3) It’s a new reality, and one which we like to process through somewhat privately.
That said, I’m back on the posting wagon. And this one will be dedicated to our New Years in Las Vegas, as well as the snow storm that changed our 8 hour drive into a 13 hour one.
After not leaving my parent’s house, except for the very occasional dog walk, we spent three days in San Diego. I checked in with work, and actually worked for a few hours a day. Tom spent his time making food, hanging out with friends, and buying us a new laptop. It was time well spent.
And on the 31st, we took off early for Vegas. Thankfully, we hit no traffic, and were soon spending time with Tom’s Mom Lisa, and her partner Tommy, in their beautiful new home. They had recently relocated from Florida, and are currently getting settled in, and enjoying all that Vegas has to offer.
After Tom’s sister Jessie and her boyfriend Phil joined us, we took the worlds largest limo (seriously) the few miles to the strip, ate delicious food, lost some money in a casino, and watched the fireworks along with 350,000 other revelers. It was fun, if not a bit overwhelming compared to the quiet and nomadic life we’ve been leading the past year or so.
We spent the next two days eating delicious food and wine, seeing some sights, and relaxing in front of the fire. It was such a treat spending time with family, and we’re so grateful to have Tommy and Lisa closer to us in San Diego.
I have to admit though: Las Vegas hit me like a ton of bricks, and I didn’t realize it until after we left. It’s the city of excess, and it highlights and exaggerates some things that aren’t to love about America; namely that everything is bigger, better, badder, ballsier, etc etc etc. I had felt that for the first week I was in a relative state of calm in being back in the States, and the city of Las Vegas shook up some of those reintegration emotions that I knew were going to hit at some time or another.
On our way out of town, we made it 15 miles in two hours (thanks to traffic), and so turned around and spent another night in Las Vegas with Lisa and Tommy, which was a treat. We woke up at 3:30a, hit the road at 4:00, and drove through some snow flurries on our way to San Francisco. At about 7:30, we were stopped dead, thanks to a road closure. Turns out, one main freeway, and a bunch of smaller highways were closed due to the snow, and all of the holiday travelers were stuck on the road. After three hours of no movement, and many doubts as to how to we were to actually make it to San Francisco, the road opened, and we made it up there safe.
Coming up, our brief stops in San Francisco and Humboldt. Today: driving the 8 hours to Corvallis. Stay tuned.
The crew inside the biggest limo in the world:
And outside the biggest limo in the world:
Happy New Years!
Phil, Jess, Lisa, Tommy, Tom, Blair (and Harley the dog):
Snow!
By Blair, on December 27th, 2010
We’ve been called out by a few folks (cough cough FRAN!) on the lack of posting since returning home.
And so here I am, just an hour or two before we start our West Coast friend/family extravaganza, thinking about what has transpired over the past week.
Our departure from Auckland, and essentially from our world travel, couldn’t have been better. After we said good-bye to Mark, Jess, and Kenzie, we met up with Margaret, a travel buddy we had met in Mozambique. She had just finished 16 years living in NYC, spent four or five months in Africa, and was getting settled into a kiwi life on the outskirts of the city. Her forest cottage was the perfect sanctuary for us as we finished up our trip. We were able to talk to Margaret about travel, about her transition home, and all the highs and lows that come with this move back.
We also had the luck of meeting up with two amazing girls who I knew in elementary school (Cara) and middle and high school (Rachel). Along with their friend Nicole, the girls were (are) on a four week holiday trip through New Zealand and Australia. We met up at a coffee shop and had a three hour power chat, catching up after not seeing each other for over four years. What better way to catch up with girls that literally grew up down the street from me than to meet up across the world. Their questions brought up thoughts, feelings, and emotions that we had yet to dissect or digest, and it was another good step for our homecoming.
We flew with Air Pacific, a Fijian Airlines who played three Christmas songs plus their ‘I Love Fiji’ song intermittently throughout the entire 11 hour journey. Luckily, we both slept well as we had a whole row of seats to ourselves, and woke up relatively refreshed for our return to a rainy Los Angeles.
My parents and sister welcomed us with hugs, kisses, and a few tears after a quick and easy pass through customs. I felt content to be with them, driving back to my childhood home. On that car ride, I had expected tons of things to jump out at me. Look at the size of the cars! The traffic! The buildings! Those Americans!!
But you know what: it felt like I had never left. It felt like we were driving home on any other day.
That was weird.
And since we’ve been here, staying at my parents house, I’ve only just now begun to feel that we have been gone. The first few days, we slept a ton, played with the dogs, ate delicious food, played games, and sat around the fire. Home for me has always been this, it’s always been the same. This home is the same home that I’ve lived in or come back to for 24 years. It’s a sanctuary and a time bubble. And so I just let myself fall into this loving, warm, comforting space. No need to stress out about starting again, really. Let’s just play with the dogs, love my family, and take a walk every once in a while.
It was perfect.
Today we’re heading down to San Diego to see friends, reconnect with the yoga studio, and just hang out. After that, we’ll head to Las Vegas for NYE with Tom’s mom and her partner, Tommy, and then up the coast to visit more friends and family.
West Coast Road Trip 2010/2011: commence!
Friends! Cara, Rachel, me, and Nicole
Margaret:
Margaret’s Forest Cottage:
My parents with their three dogs and my sister’s two… plus a stroller for when the old dogs get tired… seriously
Christmas Tree:
Our stuff from a previous life in my parents’ garage:
By Blair, on December 22nd, 2010
Safe.
Happy.
Healthy.
And exhausted.
By Blair, on December 20th, 2010
One of the great pleasures of a long term traveler is the ability to visit friends who you’ve made along the way. It’s not only a sneak peak into the true life of a real local, but it’s also a much welcome break, really a luxury, to be off of the hostel/hotel/campervan track.
These past three days, we’ve been hanging out with Mark (mmmm… 50ish?), Jess (13), and Kensie (11) in Auckland. We arrived just wanting to hang out with these guys, who we had met at our absolutely favorite lodge Bulungula in South Africa.
It’s inspiring and comforting to find two young girls who are so independent, comfortable, loving, intelligent, respectful, and funny as these two. The main reason we stayed in touch with Mark and the girls is because they are all amazing individuals, and a fun and strong family unit.
Our first day here we were able to take a little hike near the place that Mark grew up, but apart from that small break in the rain, we’ve been enjoying the indoors and watching the rain fall outside. Tons of card games with a bit of home made pizza and cookies thrown in, and you have yourself the perfect rainy weekend.
Kiwi Pie:
A Bit of Sun:
With Jess, and the city behind us:
Pizza!
By Blair, on December 16th, 2010
These past few days, we’ve had the absolute luck to be staying with Emma Bean, a good friend of friends, in Rotorua. Even though she was sick, she pretended she wasn’t and has been added to the list of AMAZING people we’ve been lucky to meet on this trip.
Rotorua is a pretty huge destination for anyone visiting New Zealand, and we’ve enjoyed our time here.
We have….
visited thermal pools:
gone ’swooping’, aka: giant swing:
(notice the terror)
made kiwi cookies:
eaten homemade pizza:
hung out with Whitty the chubby rabbit who loves having his head rubbed:
We’re catching our final bus up to Auckland, where we’ll spend the weekend with a bunch of friends, and catch our plane home on Wednesday. Yeaaaaaah!
By Blair, on December 12th, 2010
Yesterday, Tom looked at me and said, “We have eleven more days.”
Uuuuuuuuuuh, WHAT?!
Up to this point, I’ve been so excited about going home, yet happy to be traveling, and haven’t really had any strong emotions with our imminent arrival home.
I’ve talked to my parents about Christmas, to family about New Year’s, to friends about our three week West Coast travel, and to my boss about getting back to work. So I’ve been exposed to home, and I’ve been comfortably happy about it.
When we talk to fellow travelers, I’m always happy to say that we’ll be home for Christmas. I specifically remember traveling in Namibia with Kate and Nat, who were going to be back in England just a few weeks after we finished our Namibian road trip, and I was so jealous that their time was up. Why couldn’t it be us, fulfilled and satisfied, to be heading home? And now, it is!
Throughout the 12.5 months, it was almost always me who was homesick. Yet when faced with the real option of buying a ticket back home, I immediately knew that I wanted to stay, to continue traveling. I wanted to see Asia and New Zealand. I wanted to learn, and struggle, and find random joy. I wanted to continue.
And so I’m surprised that Tom’s passing comment of having eleven days left was what it took for me to find a huge ball of emotions stir in my stomach. I feel excited, nervous, content, fulfilled, sensitive, and extremely grateful. I’M SO EXCITED TO SEE MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS. And yet I’m mourning the end of our travels, of this special time in our lives.
We’ve learned about ourselves, about each other, and about others. We’ve changed in subtle and not so subtle ways. While we’re returning to the same city we left, I know our lives there will be different from what they were before.
We’re excited to grow a garden, to have dogs, to work with refugees and immigrants through the IRC, an organization I worked for during a summer in college. We’re committing to purchasing all food from the numerous Farmer’s Markets, and maybe have a booth there ourselves (Tom’s Portable Pizza Parlor, anyone?). We want to learn how to make cheese, yogurt, and constantly delicious bread. I’m excited to open myself up to friendships that I had been resistant to before, simply because I was in a routine. And once our home life is settled, we’re excited to host couch surfers with the same love that was shown to us on this trip.
And so here we are. Just one more night with Beddy, then off to Rotarua to visit a friend of a friend (Anissa: it’s Bean!), and back to Auckland to meet up with two families who we met in Africa, as well as an amazing meet up with two of my good friends from high school who happen to be traveling in New Zealand.
We’re flying home one the 22nd of December: Summer Solstice in New Zealand, and Winter Solstice in the good ole’ USA. This effectively means we’ll leave NZ on their longest day of summer, and come home for the shortest day of winter. Not only that, but we fly out at noon on the 22nd, and arrive around noon on the 22nd in California, thanks to all the time zone changes.
Life is good. And exciting, crazy, joyful as well.
Some shots of the black sand beach of Raglan:
Jellyfish:
Side story: A few nights ago, we made friends with Gabi and her son Mauro, two Argentinians traveling through NZ. I think that our connection to Argentina has led to us making more Argentina friends through our travels.
With Gabi… soy su hija bautizada:
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