Au Revoir, Mes Amis!

I'm off to Morocco tomorrow! Bon voyage to me!

It's All Greek to Me 2

I need to meet a guy like Evan Chambers from Greek: rich, hot, totally in love with me (in this scenario, I am playing the Casey Cartwright role). Maybe my version of Evan Chambers would be fractionally less likely to show his love by bribing other guys to stay away from me, but I could probably learn to find that cute.

The (Galapagos) Tortoise and the Hare

This weekend, after some creative manipulation of vacation days for next year, I decided I could squeeze in a trip to the Galapagos Islands (#16 on my list) next Memorial Day. I realize the trip is an entire year away, but I'm already excited and debating whether a side trip to Ecuador's famed Otovalo Market is worth it.

As psycho as I am when it comes to advance vacation planning, I realized recently that I have nothing on people who take cruises. Before booking my trip, I had briefly pondered whether my family might all cruise the Galapagos Islands together for an important event in 2010. Not only did the cruise line I like already have their Galapagos dates posted for the date that interested me, but some of the classes of rooms were sold out. Damn, cruise people. I doff my cap to their advanced planning skillz and look forward to joining their ranks one day.

If everything goes according to my plans, by the end of 2009, I will have completed six of the 17 trips on my list. Very impressive. However, nothing is for sure yet, since the Galapagos trip and my trip to Egypt and Dubai are not classified as "guaranteed departures" by the tour companies I'm using. So we shall see.

All Through My Wild Days, My Mad Existence, I Kept My Promise

I booked my plane tickets and hotel to Buenos Aires (or, as I saw on the cover of one Lonely Planet guide, Buenos Aries, which must come right after Buenos Pisces) for Thanksgiving! I am so excited. I'll make the day trip to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay while I'm there, thus checking off one of the items on my list already (or preparing to anyway in November).

Seize the Days

I want to make a list of must-see travel destinations, just like my new role model, Tony Wheeler. Here is my list, on which I have included some places to which I have already arranged to travel just so I feel more encouraged when I check it off the list:

1. Egypt (pyramids)
2. Dubai
3. Jordan
4. Syria (Damascus)
5. Kenya/Tanzania/Uganda/Rwanda (safari(s))
6. Madagascar
7. India (Taj Mahal)
8. Nepal
9. Russia (Moscow/St. Petersburg)
10. Cambodia (Angkor Wat)
11. Bhutan
12. China (Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors, Hong Kong)
13. Macau
14. Argentina/Uruguay
15. Peru (Machu Picchu)
16. Ecuador (Galapagos Islands)
17. Antarctica

Seize the Day

I'm so excited for my trip next week! I can't wait.

I just finished reading Unlikely Destinations by Tony and Maureen Wheeler, the founders of Lonely Planet. The book irritated me because I wish I had thought of their damn idea first and founded a multimillion dollar company based on my passion for travel. However, I readily acknowledge that I am unwilling to suffer the kind of uncertainty and scarcity they endured (they arrived in Sydney at the end of a cross-Asia voyage with twenty-seven cents to their names) in the hope of getting to that point, so I will content myself to live vicariously through them. I thought that reading the book might help me see how to reconcile the kind of travel I need to do to be happy (at least one passport stamp per year, preferably more) with being a mother, but it didn't exactly succeed. The Wheelers have two children who received matchless travel opportunities during their lives, but this came at the cost of lazing around on school breaks with friends and generally having more normal, sedentary childhood experiences. So much for that. But the Wheelers have gone to some undeniably cool places (or, more or less everywhere on earth), and I am jealous of them for that.

One thing Tony Wheeler mentioned that he did in his book is to make a list of "must do" trips. I think that is a brilliant idea, mostly since I have also done that and enjoy when anyone validates something I have also done. I am obviously implementing my chain of most important "must dos" next year (pyramids, Taj Mahal, Moscow and St. Petersburg, and Angkor Wat), and I hope to follow up that flurry of trips with China. I'd also love to go to Damascus, the Galapagos (or South America in general) and a safari in Kenya and/or Tanzania. I think it's so important to start doing the things you really want to do and not put it off. Unfortunately for me, every time I plan to tick something off of my list, I think of something else that needs to go on it.

Dr. Feelgood

I am getting more and more excited about my upcoming trip, but what I am not excited about is the plane ride. I'm not too afraid of flying, but after I flew from Florida to Australia for my high school graduation trip, it lost its allure to me. It's boring and it takes too long, and I'm really disappointed that we don't seem to have developed the technology to beam places like on Star Trek (this would also be great for the environment). I wanted to get some sleeping pills to tranquilize myself into submission on the flight over, but I doubted my ability to do it. I tried to wheedle medicine out of Cindy Kim, but he deflected. I hinted around to my dermatologist, but she was too distracted by how ugly my head is to notice. As a last resort, I called my primary care provider's office and just told the truth -- that I'm flying to Morocco and want something to put me to sleep on the plane. My doctor wrote me a prescription for 10 sleeping pills with no further inquiry! I can't believe it!