It Begins!

mark_and_emma — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 16:08:00 GMT

8/24/2014

Today is the first day of our world trip! We are flying from Los Angeles to Seattle. Emma started out in Australia, but we met in Los Angeles and I took the same connecting flight that Emma was on. The current plan is to go for fifteen months. Our trip finishes on November 21^st when we arrive by ship in San Diego. So we are basically beginning and ending on the west coast, since Seattle is where we catch our first ship.

The last two months have been a big blur. Leaving Japan and then trying to get ready for the trip has kept life exceedingly busy. I had assumed that my two week stop back home between Japan and this trip would give me time to get a lot done, but that wasn’t the case. Most of my checklist items have run very close to the wire, including getting a visa for Brazil (one of the only countries we are visiting that requires an advance visa put in our passports). My passport is still actually in the Brazilian embassy in Los Angeles. Luckily my parents are joining Emma and I for our first leg of the cruise and will be able to bring my passport which my sister, Amber, is retrieving tomorrow morning. This was really the earliest I could do the visa as I needed a new California license to show at the embassy before they would issue a visa (you can only get it through the consulate that covers the area in which you live) and it took a week to get the license in the mail (I had a New York one before). I guess somehow it didn’t occur to me that a lot of things like that take at least a few days and sometimes even longer. As usual in my life, everything is last minute!

As a result of everything feeling busy, I haven’t really had a chance to think much about the coming trip. In my mind I always imagined that since we had about a year to prepare that I would be a bit more ready for the trip today. But here we are and my bags are packed and it’s happening. So that’s what counts! But I think it hasn’t really sunk in yet. To be honest it’s a little scary. It kind of reminds me of bungee jumping where you stand on the edge waiting to jump. You know it’s going to be a big thrill, but making the first leap is a bit hard. Well, being so busy it’s like we got to avoid the scared anticipation of the jump and all of a sudden looked up and realized we had stepped off the platform already. And really as I write this I am getting more excited. Most of my trips are like that too. I am racing to get everything done so I don’t get to savor the anticipation as much, and then I suddenly stop and realize, hey, I am now on the trip.

So my goal is to blog on a regular basis during this trip. My blog on Japan only got about 4 or 5 entries though during the first year (years 2-5 have no entries). In fact, I did a three-part entry and never wrote part three! So here’s hoping this one turns out better! I think that a world trip is something fun to document and look back upon so I feel motivated today. But if this ends at entry 5, I guess we all suspected that might occur. So, yay trip! Yay trip blog! YAY!

Mark and Emma's World Adventure!

It Begins!