RTW Adventures of J&M

After coming back from our trip, J and I hosted a "We're Back!!" party to reconnect with our Seattle friends. Aside from the fresh Costco strawberries we strictly served drinks and snacks that we encountered during our world travel which included Coopers Pale Ale (Sydney), Estrella (Barcelona), Tsingtao Pure Draft (Beijing), San Pellegrino Limonata/Aranciata (Rome), Malbec (Buenos Aires), Dulce de Leche (Buenos Aires), assorted salami from Salumi's and marinated mozzarella (Rome).

 

For a little bit of entertainment, J and I decided to have a friendly photo contest during the party. He and I each picked and anonymously displayed 5 of our "best" photos and asked our friends to pick their three favorites. The winner got to decide our next vacation destination! Here were the winners in descending order:

 

1. Kaikoura Peninsula, New Zealand

2. Bluff Cove Lagoon, Falkland Islands

3. Buenos Aires, Argentina

4. Amsterdam, Netherlands

5. Barcelona, Spain

6. Great Barrier Reef, Australia

7. Barron Falls, Australia

8. Paris, France

9. London, UK (tie for 9th)

10. Tongaririo Crossing, New Zealand (tie for 9th)

 

Right now, I'm thinking the Maldives. =)

 

 

When we began this RTW adventure 8 months ago I couldn't believe that we were actually doing it. It felt so surreal. Likewise, I now can't believe that our journey is coming to an end. Has 8 months really passed by that quickly?

If all goes smoothly we will land in Seattle before the weekend arrives!

After much discussion J and I solidified the end date of our RTW trip by purchasing our tickets home. Originally, we were planning to take a real week-long vacation at the end of our trip, perhaps an all-inclusive deal by the water. Instead, we decided to save J's vacation days for right before I start my job (if and when I get one). Destination front-runners had included Santorini (Greece), Maldives and Lake Como (Italy). You might be thinking how spoiled we are for not considering any of these places tempting enough when we would already be so close geographically and will probably have no better opportunity in the future. To be honest, our decision was more based on the growing feeling of homesickness and tiredness from 7 months of travel, including the past month spent in Beijing which completely broke us. In the end we decided there's no where else we'd rather be than home!

To our surprise a one-way ticket from Rome to Seattle is twice as expensive as a round-trip fare! So, we bought the round-trip fare with the intentions of ditching the return trip to Rome. However, since the return ticket to Rome connects through Atlanta, I may just hop onto that leg to visit my good friend Jadda and then come back to Seattle on a separate one-way fare! This way I'll be able to use 75% of the ticket. =) I guess I'll have to see how my job hunting effort goes before decided on whether or not I will make this trip.

Current Location: Beijing, China

Today's joyous moments of our arrival in Cairns, Australia was overshadowed by bad news from the US - our house was burglarized! Many of our friends who live in downtown Seattle have had their homes burglarized this past year. Until today I've thought of myself as the lucky one to live in the a safe suburban neighborhood.

On the bright side when I get home I may finally be allowed to get a floppy-eared Doberman Pinscher that I've always wanted! I think he'd be sufficient to scare off anyone!

 Current Location: Cairns, Australia

March 1 was a beautiful sunny summer day in Sydney. J and I could have spent the day sunbathing at one of the city beaches or picnicking on the grass in the Royal Botanical Gardens or hiking the trails at Blue Mountain but no. We chose to hole up in our cave-like apartment for 36 hours to participate in the quasi-annual Microsoft Puzzlehunt competition!  Due to the time zone differences we joined our team around 4 AM Sydney time to set up for the event and hunted with them until the conclusion at 10 AM the next day. Somewhere in between I snuck in a 3 hour power-nap.

We've been preparing for this hunt since we arrived in Sydney about a month ago. Here were some of the things we did:

Some things I had to talk J out of purchasing:

I have the best teammates! It's a real disadvantage to not be on-site for the hunt so we thank our team three times over for letting us join in from Sydney!

Australia, out!

1. Our limited array of supplies

2. J at 1 AM after solving a puzzle called "DICE"

This is a non-travel related blog post.

I just learned today that I use to go to the same personal trainers as Jason Mesnick, the single dad looking for love on ABC's The Bachelor! I knew he was from Seattle and lived in Kirkland, but I didn't know he worked out at Elite Fitness. It's a very small gym, but I have never seen him there - probably because he goes to work out some other time of day. My guess is that he probably only recently started going to Elite to get ready for the show. I bet some of those stalker-inclined/possessive bachelorettes would be jealous to know that I likely laid on the same exercise mat that he laid on earlier in the day!

In honor of Puzzlehunt 12 being announced J and I wrote this puzzle. It was inspired by our recent trip to the Louvre. We are sad that we won't be in Seattle with our team during the Hunt, but we hope to improve our 4 AM to 8 AM PST statistics from Australia. Enjoy!

Email the answer to jm.rtw.posterous@gmail.com.

 

Written by: J & M

Photography by: M