Away We GO!

Ok, for anyone who wants to find us (or notify the US Embassy where we were last...hee-hee) this is our final, crazy itineary...
A couple of things...
1) We know that we can't see everything we want. This is pretty much the formula of the locations we've chosen...

WOW Factor+If it is in our "bible" (1,000 Places to See Before you Die)+Cheapness+Distance from our "new home" in New Zealand

We know that there are so many places not listed that we wanted to see..(India, France, China) but we are happy with the final round draft picks!

2) The trip is pretty whirlwind. It may seem pretty difficult to lots, but anyone who knows us will agree....We don't tire very quickly and we bore very easily. We figured it would do no good to hang out in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai for a week each because lets face it...most big Asian cities have a lot in common. Also we wanted to maximize culture. We really wanted to try to go "off the beaten path" and explore less common vacation destinations. Of course, there are the exceptions to the rule...We are doing London and Tuscany but we are also adding the "huh?" places of Copenhagen, Khao Lak and Maldives...(yes, I had to check a map, too)
So this is it...the Crazy Browns trip itinearay


Jan 31...Get the Hell Out...(via San Francisco)

FEB:
Tokyo Japan(3 days)...see Mt Fuji, tower over Japanese people, etc

Khao Lak, Thailand...Dive the Similan Islands, See whale sharks, avoid getting killed by sea creatures, etc

Colombo, Sri Lanka (2 days)...Make sure the US Embassy knows we're there..Avoid death

Male, Maldives (9 days)...Liveaboard a boat, dive all day and all night..avoid getting killed by sea creatures

MARCH:
Hong Kong (2 days)...rest, enjoy city life, eat recently dead things

Philippines(9 days)...See the family, not understand the family, go to Boracay, enjoy the beach, live like king/queen because its so awesomely cheap!!!!

London(3 days)...Do the London thing, ride the tube (Mind the Gap, Reine!), see Big Ben, eat everything at Harrods

Amsterdam/Brussels...Recharge,relax, you know....

Copenhagen...Not sure, but my brother LOVES this place...

Venice(4 days)...See St. Marks Square, don't get wet...eat lots of carbs
Tuscany(4 days)....drink Chianti in Chianti, drink anything they give me...continue carb loading

APRIL
Barcelona(7+ days)...Rest, recharge, hang out, party hard, eat late
Buenos Aires(7+days)...More rest, party, drinking and eating
Peru(5 days)...Hit Lima, Cuzco and Machu Picchu...hopefully, they don't hit back
Miami, Florida (quick one day stop...had to go back thru...)

MAY
Panama...see the Panama Canal, remember my Spanish, be stuck translating....
Aruba....dive, dive, dive!!!!
Somewhere else in the Caribbean...more drinking, diving, not in that order

Consider coming home....We'll see...

I didn't include exact dates because we may decide to stay longer in some places or leave sooner from others...that is the beauty of the One World Round the World Pass...Totally changeable...Gives us a little wiggle room to be spontaneous....Hard to believe that we are spontaneous, huh?

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.....

Ok! We are at countdown! Today is my next to LAST day at work and i am battling a strong urge to flee...Don't get me wrong, I love the people I work with and I love what I do but the call of the Boeing 777 to Tokyo is WAAAY more seductive..
Needless to say, last night i tried to pack. It was a fiasco. Maybe I'm trying to make this into a scientific endeavor. I had a list that I compiled from my travel guru, Ana and from my new favorite site, http://www.onebag.com/ According to this man, I should be able to travel the world with some toothpaste, three pairs of panties and some flip flops.  Ok, not really but he is really strict about packing. In fact, he has wonderful, gut churning articles about how often luggage goes stolen and missing everywhere in the world. His belief? A checked bag is a stolen bag. Why did i read that?! ugh! Anyway, i'm packing and i'm trying to keep the weight in check, being realistic on how much crap I really need. I keep repeating the mantra "I can buy what I need when i'm there"....Right? WRONG!!! Unless i have just magically morphed into my tiny Asian genes I will be SCREWED if I have to buy anything while we are in Asia. I know this from experience. Our first foray into overseas travel (and my first time out of the country) found us in Beijing, China. It was a wonderful trip except for the fact that our bags never left "Lost" Angeles Aiport. No worries, I packed about 3 days worth of clothes in my carry on. On day number 3, we decided it would be fun to go out and buy a couple of new things. We went to the closest Chinese mall and despite the SERIOUS language barrier were able to understand 3 things...1) I'm considered a cross between Yao Ming and the tallest woman that ever lived. 2) I'm fat by Chinese standards 3) Hip hop lives on in China, evidenced by the fact that Bruce had a multitude of stores selling everything from Ecko, Sean Jean, Phat Farm, etc. It was like we went into a mall in China and ended up in a urban clothing store in South Central LA! However, whenever we went to a store and pointed at clothes and pointed at me, I was greeted with a frown, rapid discussion then a wonderfully broken English reply of "too big, no clothes for her".  Now I am 40lb lighter, i want to travel back to China just to show them that i'm not "too big"! Needless to say, my horrible anxiety of buying things in Asia has lead me to staring at an open suitcase at 9'oclock at night trying to figure out what is too important to leave behind.  Will I be able to buy drawers in Denmark? or pants in Peru?  Toothpaste in Thailand?...ok, now i'm fixating...
After another couple of hours of useless staring and internal arguments and conversations, I abandoned the packing.  I'll try again today.

She is killing me!

Hello everyone. This is my foray into the blogosphere. I don't know why I haven't done this sooner, since I like to talk so much trash and have people listen:)!  Thanks Rich and Ana for the inspiration; and thanks for unleashing my wife on this trip.  I swear she is like a pitbull when she gets a hold of something she wants:)

Needless to say, this has been a dream of ours since we went on our honeymoon.  I knew the very first day in Cancun when I told Carmen I signed us up for Scuba lessons, and she initially refused, then changed her mind immediately when I said I was going to do it without her, that she was a "ride or die chic".  Now I am the one being dragged around like lifeless cabbage patch doll!!!!!  Literally everyday since we left Australia she has been on the web researching places and things to do and how much this and that costs.  I try to argue why we can't do this or that, but she always has a rebuttal and in the end I realize that this is "our" time.  The stars have aligned so that we have the time and the money to realize our dream of seeing the world on our terms.

I agree with Carmen totally when she says,"I thought this was suppose to be fun?"  It gave me terrible flashbacks of medical school. Up late at night with the dry erase board, countless travel books and magazines, our bible (A Thousand Places to See Before You Die), and the web, trying to figure out where and when we would go.  Who argues about whether to go to Bali vs the Maldives?  Bruce & Carmen the hyper type A personalities thats who!  Don't say it....we are silly and spoiled for arguing about it; but this is probably our last chance to do this, and we want to get it right!:)  We finally hammered out the itinerary (15 countries) in about a week (wheeew!), then we got the tickets purchased (special shout out to Wally our travel agent for going through that ordeal with me), then it was off to shop for our clothes and gear...  More disagreements in the Sports Authority and Cabellas about this backpack vs that backpack and how many convertible pants I could get!  Cmon man!  She complains about me wearing the same jeans everyday and how I always wear gray or shades of gray.  I actually picked up green pants and pastel colored shirts and she still balked!  I love convertible pants. They are for real men.  Men who get dirty and sweaty and wet dammit!  One pair of my pants has 8 pockets with zippers and velcro! It would take a robber 30 minutes to find my money, he's liable to give up! As far as I'm concerned you can never have to many convertible pants, in the end she let me get 4 pair:)  I lost the battle for the waterproof pack because the color scheme was all wrong for my baby's ensemble. Cmon man! Ladies does it have to match? Especially since Im gonna end up carrying it anyway?! Needless to say, when her stuff is wet from our ferry rides in asia, she is not getting to wear any of my dry convertible pants!  Seriously though, the logistics of this trip are hell.  With all the different climates, the different social norms(casual vs formal), and airline weight requirements.  I give up!  I'm going to throw what I want in the suitcase and jettison stuff along the way!

I am indeed excited, scared and humbled by this opportunity.  To my family and friends: If I should fall off the face of a mountain, get eaten by a shark, die from altitude sickness, liver failure from drinking rusty moonshine in a 3rd world country, kidnapped by a terrorist; remember this blog....It is what I want with everything in me! I believe in the circle of life!  I'd rather die living than live dying!  To Carmen's family: Nothing will happen to Carmen cause her survival instinct is too strong! I know you've seen her escape a dog, but have you seen her walk on water trying to get away from a 6 foot moray eel!  Damn she can move!  Seriously, if she can survive the mean streets of Atlanta, she can survive anywhere:)  Baby, thank you for putting this together and thank you for being my "Ride or Die Chic".  Its been a wonderful 14 years and I can't wait to see what tommorow brings! I LOVE YOU, ALWAYS HAVE.............................................
PS-Look out world...Here come the Browns!

What the Hell is Waterproof?!

So, we are going around the world...I'm excited, Bruce is excited, the tickets are purchased (ouch!) and we are ready to go!
Now, all we have to do is pack...Should be easy. Once again, I have found that something that is supposed to be fun and simple is ridiculously hard!
Its mostly my fault...i'm a planner. I thrive on minutia and little details...it keeps me going. Bruce is more of a "plan-till-I-get-tired-then-let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may" kinda guy.  So here I am, charged with the duty of packing our lives up and making it fit into a suitcase/backpack contraption that cannot weigh more than 23kg. That is not a random number either...That is the minimum weight of a bag for all of the air carriers that we are using on this trip. Like a nerd, I took the time and researched the baggage allowance size and weights for all of the carriers that we will be on on this 4 month journey. American Airlines, Bangkok Airways, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Cimber Sterling, Iberia, JAL, LAN, Philippines Airlines, SAS and Sri Lanka Airlines...whew!!! So after all of that wonderful work, I've found that we must cram our lives down to a mere 23kg...We can do it!!!! I think...

The First Challenge...Find a Zip Lock Bag
We need a bag...Something that we can use as a carry-on but something that will be lightweight and easy for me to carry. Bruce already had his backpack, i didn't have an "appropriate" backpack. Actually, I do have a backpack/carry-on but I had failed Bruce's "Can-You-Carry-This-By-Yourself" Test, twice.  Pretty much this equation is:

                            How many times i've used the bag

MINUS

                                        How many times he's had to carry it for me

Needless to say, I needed a new bag. So we were off to finding a backpack. We hit all of the major sporting goods stores in Phoenix and came away each time empty handed...Either they were too big, too small, not enough pockets, etc. The biggest issue was finding a waterproof bag...why waterproof? Well, I'll lay blame this on our Type A personality digestion of small facts and information.  We would have gone into any sports store and found a basically good backpack if it wasn't for the blog entry from our friends, Rich and Ana who were in the Philippines at the time. According to Rich, their stuff got soaked on a ferry boat ride between islands in the Philippines. I don't know why we focused on that one detail of their trip, but we did. Now, we were on the hunt for a WATERPROOF backpack. Water resistant wouldn't cut it. On our last stop, we go to Dick's Sporting Goods, a big mega store in Phoenix to find the fabeled "waterproof" backpack. We go to the camping section and ask the man to get us a waterproff backpack. He pulls down what looks like a large garbage bag/zip lock bag...with straps. I immediately frown...it doesn't even resemble a backpack. It is literally a big, black ziplock bag...with straps! "I'm not wearing that", was my immediate statement. It looked bulky, hot, and ridiculosly waterproof. What the hell? We're not rafting around the world?! This isn't Deliverance! I'm not wearing the black ziplock bag! After some moments of discussion, with me pointing out that aside from not being a backpack (in the normal sense of the word) it didn't have exterior pockets or anything that would make carrying a laptop, camera, papers, etc easy. Bruce agreed, even though he really liked the zip lock part. Moments later, we found a horribly bright, orange, normal sized "WATER RESISTANT" backpack. It was perfect (except for color, ugh), it was light, comfy and roomy. Score!

We left the camping section, feeling like we really had won a battle. Now off to the clothing section! More waterproof stuff to buy!

What the Hell are Convertable Pants?
We are on the hunt for convertable pants. What are they you ask? Oh, the best invention in the world next to sliced bread and plasma transfusions. Pretty much they are pants that you can zip off the bottom 1/2 and make them into shorts!!! Brilliant!!!! I have to admit, this was Bruce's idea. He had gotten a pair during our travels in China and I made fun of them. It seemed really too "Indiana Jones" for me. Too many pockets and secret stash locations, zippers and etc. Too much work. Bruce on the other hand, loved them. I have to admit, I was jealous when we were climbing along the Great Wall and the sun got hotter and hotter and he was able to zip off his legs to cool off...Ok, good idea after all. So now it was my turn to get my own "Indiana Jones" gear. We both decided that convertable pants and quick dry stuff was the way to go (advice from Rich!). So here we are, picking through fishing, camping and hiking clothes trying to find the fabeled "convertable pants". The problem is, there are not a lot of convertable pants options for ladies. After a while, i decided to raid the guys section...I mean why not? I'm sure I could find a pair of guys pants that would fit me.  I grabbed a couple of small mens pants and headed off to the fitting room. Boy, am I glad I tried them on first!!!! Yikes! First of all, men's clothes are mens clothes for a reason. They are fitted for men. i.e, no room for butt or hips!  The first pair I tried on looked like I was auditioning for a role in "The Biggest Loser" as a BEFORE candidate! How in the HELL could a men's small NOT fit me! Bruce came over and smiled. He even made a nice little "riiiiiiiiippp" sound when I attempted to bend over...NOT HELPING. Ok, so no men's small in that stupid brand (who shall remain nameless) I tried a couple others and before long had two perfectly good pairs of men's convertable pants. Cheaper than the women's pants by $30!!! Who knew that guys had it so easy with shopping?
We walked out of the store, a couple of hundred dollars poorer but now we had GEAR! We had bought Indiana Jones pants 2 for me, 2 for Bruce, a couple of long sleeved quick dry shirts, thermal undies and my backpack!!! We are ready to pack!!!
23kilos, here we come!!!!!!

Planning a Trip Can Be Hell!

I have to give credit where credit is due...This incredibly fun idea came from an amazing couple that Bruce and I met on a dive trip in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. Ana and Rich were the most amazing people! They had decided to give up on "normal" life and sell most of their worldly goods to travel the world for a year!!! A YEAR! I think that they thought I was their #1 stalker by the end of the trip. I bothered them with incessant chains of questions..."What made you do this?", "Where is your favorite place?", "What is your itenearary?"...Ana and Rich answered each one patiently and enthusiastically. They were my kind of people!
I remember that night, I hounded Bruce about the idea. I wanted to know what was stopping us from doing the same thing? We had already quit our jobs and decided to move overseas. We were currently in a "holding" pattern before we moved. What was stopping us? After several weeks of furious research and using my favorite sources (Thanks again, Ana and Rich!) we were officially planning our trip!

FIRST THINGS FIRST
Ok, I'm excited. Anyone who knows me, if you give me a task, i'm gonna hold on to it like a bulldog puppy!!There was no letting up. I spent hours researching weather, places, etc. The biggest question was: Where did we want to go? We already decided to go to the Philippines so Bruce could see where he was born but that was just one place...After some brainstorming, we decided that we definitely wanted to go to Europe, Southeast Asia, India, and South America.  Then all we had to do was choose countries to visit. Sounds easy, right? WRONG! Seems that Bruce and I had a couple of different ideas on what was considered "must see" in the world. I was insistent on Italy (specifically Tuscany), France, Spain and  England in Europe. In Southeast Asia I knew I wanted to go to Thailand and Indonesia. South Pacific was a must! I dreamt about small islands in crystal clear water! I had seen an article in a travel magazine about a little known island called Aitutaki and I KNEW that I was going to go there. We also are scuba divers so we knew that a famous diving destination was important. Thats how we chose Palau, a small island in the South Pacific well known for awesome diving. For South America, we both agreed on Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and Peru (Macchu Pichu).
Ok, so we have our places and now we started researching. The biggest thing is that we were trying to avoid the rainy season in Southeast Asia and make sure we were NOT going to be anywhere during the hellish "peak" tourist seasons. So we decided based on weather that we should travel around the world going west to east. That meant, hitting Asia then Europe and finishing up in South America. Easy...now all we do is pick cities!

EENIE MEENIE MINEY WHAT?!

Ok, you would think that nothing would be more fun than picking cities to visit all over the world, right? Wrong again! We had taken the advice of our travel gurus, Rich and Ana and purchased their tickets on the One World Round the World Program. Its actually pretty awesome deal. Instead of buying a bunch of individual tickets or use a program that bases the price on mileage, the One World Round the World program is one set price based on how many continents that you visit.  You can do 3, 4 or 5 continents for one flat price. Sounds great BUT the rules are friggin crazy! I mean, you need an advanced degree in engineering, quantam mechanics and astrophysics to figure out how to book a damned trip! I mean seriously!!!!? Ok, these are some of my favorite rules:

1) All travel must be in a east-west direction or vice versa but you can back track throughout the continent..
2) You can't cross the Atlantic Ocean or Pacific Ocean more than once. No matter what you learned in geography, the One World people have a very different definition of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans...It seems like any liquid around a country on the East side of the world can be the Atlantic Ocean and any wet stuff on the west side of the world is a Pacific....
3) You can only use 16 flights to get around the world...Each flight is a "segment". Since you only have 16 "segments" it doesn't make sense to fly from Paris to London for example, because your using up one of your segments and you can easily find transportation from one to the other...BUT they foil you with the next rule..
4) You can't arrive in one airport and then depart from an airport in another city/country or you will be charged a "segment". They call it a "land segment"...Dammit!
5) You have to be able to say the alphabet backwards in 30 seconds while hopping on one leg backwards

It was a real pain in the butt. Over the span of two weeks our itenerary changed no less than 5 times. We dropped Indonesia (time issuses), dropped Palau (couldn't figure out how to get there to save our lives), dropped France, Chile and Uruguay (couldn't make the time work), added Maldives (diving!) and added Denmark (my brother's recommendation). Now, four short weeks after we got the inspiration, we have a round the world itenearary planned!!!!

February:
Japan-Tokyo and Mount Fuji
Thailand-Phuket and Khao Lak
Maldives-Liveaboard diving trip for a week!!!!
Hong Kong-Quick city tour
Philippines-Manila and Boracay

March:
London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Venice and Tuscany and Barcelona

April:
Peru-Machu Picchu
Argentina-Buenos Aires
Honduras-Utila for more diving!!!! Whale Shark season!!!

Ok, we are set! Now to packing and fine tuning! Should be fun!!! Right?