Saturday, June 5, 2010

24 Time Zones Later

We are home safe! Wow, what a trip! We are so lucky!

We are right back where we started after many miles, but we have learned 3 things on this trip:
1. The world is crowded.
2. We really like life at sea.
3. How you perceive things in life, depends on your perspective. All things are relative!

Traveling to each place, one after the next, has given us a comparative perspective we've never had in our annual trips. It has been very enlightening. And we have been so pleased to have people to share our experiences with in this blog. Thank you for your interest!

We have had so many people on the trip who were kind and helpful to us along the way and we want to send BIG THANKS TO:

  • Maria in our Costa Rican home-stay who helped us learn Spanish (especially when explaining that lie detector show)
  • Camden who oriented and entertained us and will one day make a great teacher
  • Jane and Alan, the Brits in Chile who allowed us to tag along on their wine tasting tour
  • Fernando and Marianna who opened their home and introduced us to Onces
  • Tomas, who stuffed us like Thanksgiving turkeys full of great food and showed us that even locals can't get good directions in Chile
  • Aggie at the Shiny Paua in Invercargill, New Zealand who helped us with -- everything
  • Debbie's family for an amazing dinner and Debbie for killing my dad at ping pong
  • The fearsome foursome in Tasmania who fed us our best meal in the country and kept us endlessly amused
  • Chuck who allowed us to stay in his place in Cairns, Australia in a lifestyle we'd like to become accustomed to
  • Dick, Jane and their son or grandson Owen who survived the whole cruise and allowed us honorary Australian status when necessary, as well as letting us win a quiz or two
  • Peter, whose knowledge far outweighed all others on the cruise, and made the crossing more meaningful
  • Rolando who knows what he did
  • Pujon and Michelle in Nepal who have such a great atmosphere in their courtyard where we met some of the most interesting characters of our trip
  • Aliki whose welcome to Santorini set the tone for the best Big Fat Greek Vacation ever

And our BIGGEST thanks to the 4 people without whom our trip simply could not have happened:

Bob and Carol for taking us and picking us up, storing our stuff, keeping us, paying our credit card and joining us in New Zealand

Gary and Linda for storing our stuff, booking our Nepal side trip (and others), keeping our stuff, keeping us, and sending us encouraging cards and e-mails

YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!

I also want to thank Steven who made a herculean effort planning this whole trip. He is amazing and wonderful. There are times where we drove each other nuts during these 214 days, but there is nobody I'd rather adventure with.

There are so many factors (including time, money, health, assistance, politics, etc.) that had to align to make this journey possible. We are forever grateful and feel very lucky upon completion of this amazing around the world journey.

Amsterdam Blur

Amsterdam was a blur of trams, cars, bicycles, scooters, and canals. Pedestrians are the last priority in this transport hierarchy. It is a nice city however with unique character.

The "Red Light" district was smaller than we had anticipated, and stripper-girls looked odd posing in windows in broad daylight due to the season of only a few hours of darkness.

By far the grand highlight was the Van Gogh Museum. It is rare that I am moved by creations of man, but the art of Van Gogh was truly moving. I would travel all that way just to see the museum and come home!

This is a fine city to make the final destination of our trip. It is amazing to look back at all we have done, and see how close we are to completing this adventure. We have been very lucky throughout. Daina being stung by a jelly fish and Steve getting food poisoning (IN BRUSSELS) is really not much to complain about! All that is left is to fly Amsterdam to Ireland to Chicago to LAX. Then our world tour is complete!