98 days to go!

As of three weeks ago my friend and I purchased our tickets for Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. I now can hold the 'printed' version of my tickets and feel the overwhelming need to brag to my friends that my trip is now a reality. Buying the tickets was an adventure within itself. We went through a travel agency, which turned out to be a fine choice. The biggest issue we came across was trying to book a reasonable ticket to central Australia. Every way we tried to manipulate the situation we were spending almost as much on central Australia as we were on the trip to the continent itself. So we have decided to try being less organized and more flexible by booking that 'mini' trip as we go (I am sure that post will be an interesting one).

So we leave on January 12th 2011. We stop over in Las Vagas for five hours and then Fiji for another few hours before we land in New Zealand for 16 glorious days, then off to Australia. I will be taking so many planes that I am becoming a little nervous about how I will fair, though I am certain that it will be a better trip than Bernard and Bianca had with Whilbur on their trip down under.

December and January will be an interesting month as I will be shoving my material self into a storage unit and will becoming homeless for two weeks prior to my departure. I haven't decided what to do about that situation, but I am hoping that it will be a good time to say goodbye to friends by monopolizing their couches and eating their food.

I will continue to make my way through these last few months of school trying to live in the present despite the blinding brightness of my future travels.

Our plans....

This is the first post of many to come. I am setting out on an eight month adventure with my friend Devon to New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, and Europe. We leave in January and come back in August of 2011. I will be blogging weekly about our adventures. I am starting blogging a little early for several reasons. First I am way too excited not to get this blog going, second I thought it would be best to document the whole process (booking the tickets and all). We have looked though a whopping 50 pounds of tour books to see where we want to go and whether we want to go on some or not. We will fly into New Zealand first but we don't know to tour or not to tour the two islands (ie travel on our own). Then we will jump the water to Australia. We plan on going up the east coast by bus then flying from Darwin to Alice Springs then to Perth then to Adelaide. After that we jet off to Fiji for a few days to unwind. We have narrowed down some other choices, which you will have to read about in future posts.

We are booking our trip in the next week. Booking our trip has been filled with excitment, anxiety and a bit of frustration. We have looked online and gone to two travel agents. Now I sit on my couch wishing I could tap my red socks together and suddenly be one week from now, when I will have the tickets in my hands! In the mean time I will plug through school, counting the days until we leave...125!