Operation: “The World” is a Go

After much discussion we decided that we both would come home in October for the wedding instead of just Brian. To help offset the plane tickets we made the trip home for about a month instead of a week and flew home around the same time as everyone else the first week of October.

HOME is WONDERFUL! We were pleasantly surprised to find it 80 degrees and sunny when we got home. We were loving it. Brian’s parents and my brother Paul met us at the airport and took us to Perkins to meet my parents for some good American food. Well, the “good” part I suppose could be debated but the “American” was pretty right on. I was eager to get my chimis and side salad loaded with ranch dressing and Brian his chocolate-chipper. We were happy campers.

On our first weekend home we joined Brian’s parents and their MG Club on a fall color tour. Brian was very excited to be out driving his little red car. We were designated as the photographers of the tour and I found myself in awe of how beautiful everything was. After being in foreign places for so long, you start to look at everything in a different way. It was as if we were discovering MN for the first time. I think sometimes we take for granted how beautiful and fun even our familiar places can be.

We spent the next weeks visiting our families, taking it easy, and eating way to much food. While the first few days we were up early and what some might call “go-getters” it didn’t take long for us to get into a more of a laid back routine. 

 We did re-evaluate our trip plans and had to scale things down to the rising cost of jet fuel and the decreasing value of the dollar. They both led to a faster deflation of our “trip-money” than planned. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot on the way about traveling and ourselves. So, for the next part of our trip we estimated high. We decided that we had enough to comfortably enjoy one more region of the world and after much deliberation we chose Southeast Asia. We both are really sad and disappointed that we will not be making it to New Zealand and South America; however, we are excited to have the opportunity to visit a country that has cultures and traditions so different than our own. We felt that we could stretch our dollar the farthest here and it would be best explored while we are still in good health and a little crazy. I think we might be a little of both!

We hooked up with a great travel agent at University Travel in Minneapolis and found a ticket that would let us stopover in San Francisco and visit our travel buddies Lindsay and Luke for a week and then to Bangkok, Thailand. The only downside is that we have to spend Thanksgiving on a plane. We are extremely lucky that we were able to have Thanksgiving and Christmas, complete with stockings and a miniature tree, all in one day before we left.

We plan on exploring Thailand and the neighboring countries in November and December and then spending the month of January in Vietnam volunteering with Global Volunteer Network based out of New Zealand at the local orphanages and community sites. Our ticket includes a stop over in Tokyo, Japan on the way home where we will spend about six days soaking up the Japanese sights. Let the adventure begin…