Jason and Swiss's Round the World (RTW) Blog

Well, our flight landed safely this morning (Monday, August 17th) a little before 5am local time. I would be more well refreshed if I had slept more, but luckily we had the LOUDEST guy snoring a row or two back and I’m sure he kept a lot of the back half of the plane awake. The service was quite good, and Swiss used his charm with the gate agent to get us a section of three seats in the middle together for just the two of us, so we each had an aisle and an open seat between us!

As we were taxiing to the gate this morning it occurred to us that we lost a day that we’ll never get to experience, Sunday August 16th will never really happen for us. Now of course we’ll gain that time back as we travel more and more west, but over the course of a year, who notices? Anything good happen on Aug 16th since we didn’t get to live it?!

We’re at the Auckland Airport now waiting for our flight to Queenstown. Luckily only a 2 hr flight down there and should be nice. Queenstown Winter Games start Saturday, and although we leave Sunday we’ll get at least one day there during the Games. Any other recommendations for Queenstown?!?

Swiss has identified his next goal, which is to complete a quest to capture a movie of the “reverse swirl” flushing toilet. (Who knew the Southern Hemisphere would keep Swiss so busy and amused?!?!) (Un)fortunately (thus far), the toilets at the airport show no distinct swirl.  I’ll let Swiss post an update on the quest as it unfolds.

UPDATE: Upon further review of the evidence, it appears that Swiss has collected data showing a counterclockwise swirl on toilets down under, although I’m sure he’ll be collecting more data (data that no one wants to see anyways, hopefully I can shield you all from it!!)

UPDATE 2: It’s almost 9pm on Monday night and we’re both exhausted! We’ve been up since Saturday morning (PDT of course) and I know I’m totally exhausted!

Well, it’s 4pm, t-5 hours until our flight and I’m finally packed! (Oh, and moved fully out of my apartment, thank goodness!!) We’re all packed and all my stuff moved into Sonia’s kitchen and Jeannette’s garage (thanks Jeannette and Sonia!!) So I wanted to post a few pictures before we leave…here’s our official before picture, come check this out again in 12 months!!

And of course what’s a trip without a farewell picture with our driver…er, I mean Sonia, our hospitable hostess for the afternoon and chauffeur to the airport!!

At this point I don’t think it’s fully hit yet that I’m not coming back for a year…it feels like I’m just leaving on vacation right now. I’m sure the rest will come along the way. I know it’s going to be an amazing adventure and I’m looking forward to it, I know I’m really fortunate to have this opportunity…here goes nothing!! :)

5AM, WTF mate?
Well, the big day is here. At around 5am I woke up on the couch (I don't have a bed), wrapped in a blanket (thanks Shannon), restless. The last week has been spent tying up loose ends, selling stuff, donating even more stuff, and here I am on the big day with half of a garage full of even more stuff. I figure that I either overvalue my belongings or I suck at sales, but here I am, at 5:30am, putting up garage sale signs. The good news is that I only (knowingly) woke up one neighbor with my hammering of signs to a wooden utility pole. I guess it is somewhat of a strange activity to be doing before dawn. Oh well. Here's the stuff I had a couple hours to sell:



Yesterday was spent at one last going away dinner with former roomies, sushi and sake bombs, nice little way to wrap up a busy week week. I'm growing a tad restless not having internet, courtesy of Comcast sucking. So get this: I want to cancel my service and have Shannon take over my account. They say “no problem”. So then I ask whether she can qualify for any promos given she's a new customer. Well, that's a no, unless, of course, I disconnect my service and have her re-connect it. Efficiency at it's best. So here I am sitting without TV or internet. As I reflect, I guess that's going to be a good chunk of my life for the next year anyways. But point is: Comcast Sucks.

Packing stuff
So down to the key question: Will I be wearing underwear for this trip? The answer, fortunately, is yes. The product is called ExOfficio, their tag line is “6 months, 17 countries, one pair of underwear” or something like that. Given that we're traveling for a year and it would be nice to wash them without going comando, I opt for two pair. At $25 a pop, they might be the most expensive piece of clothing on a per square foot basis that I own. Good news is that they are fast drying, have antibacterial properties, and are basically designed for travel. And yes, I just wasted a paragraph talking about underwear, but thus far they are the highlight of the trip.

I'm done packing, content with my backpack being about 75% full (50% of which seems to be meds). Below is a picture of all my belongings for a year. Including two pair of underwear. True story.




The plan for today is to head to the city, meet up with Lawton and Sonia (who is taking us to the airport – Thanks!), have some dinner, then head to SFO. I am writing this sitting among all my garage sale stuff, unable to post to the blog given the lack of internet. So most of the things listed above probably already happened by the time you read this, but hey, at least I made an effort at documenting the first day.