The tripWell I said I'd be back. Clearly I lied. Time has been insane lately. And by that I mean I have absolutely none. Work is crazy, have moved twice in 8 months, and studying at uni online. I can't remember what it was like to be bored. Some time long ago in my childhood I actually got bored. What was that like? I'd like to revisit the feeling! I am going to blog about a trip I took last year which I have been meaning to blog about. More for keeping memories for myself than anything. Now it will be a test of my memory. So here goes... The trip. Why? Ok so the trip was a month long affair. We have a friend in Beijing who had always made it clear (in the preceeding 4 years) that we were going to Beijing for the Olympics. No ifs. No buts. It was happening. And you know.. such a tough call.. do I go experience my 2nd Olympics in 8 years? Hell yea! So the trip started out as going to Beijing for the Olympics with the accompanying priority going to New York. The two don't really mix that well from Sydney. They're kinda not in the same vicinity. Continents and oceans in the way. We looked at various flight package options and the only thing that made sense was to get a round the world trip. Now what happens when you have a round the world ticket? You add things! And then add a few things more. And then you finish up by adding a couple more. So a 2 country 2-4 city trip turned into 6 countries and 7 cities. We could have added more but we were circling the globe the long way. Of our 29000 miles we managed to use up 28990 can you believe?! Well done I say. Preparation: Are you the laid back type who lets it all happen and packs the morning you fly? I'm not. Not. haha I was planning our trip months in advance. I was a serial stalker of tripadviser.com reviews and discount travel sites. I planned our accom and sight seeing itinerary ad nauseum. That's me. It's not about being anal and a control freak.. its about me not being able to stop my enthusiasm. I can't help myself but want to do things.. like.. now! ie. as early as possible when its something that doesnt involve work! But I do like to be prepared and organised on a crazy trip where time was limited. Accom: I booked most of our accom over 6 months in advance as we were gonna be in the Northern hemisphere summer amidst the craziness of peak travel periods. The specials all worked out to be awesome way in advance. Compared to prices a month out from our trip.. all accom increased by 25% to 300% (the 300% was New York). The only thing that dampened our love for the discounts we got was that we had to pay for a bunch of them up front. If only we could have got the discounts and not paid up front! Our dollar vs USD went from like.. 0.80 to 0.98 or something crazy but we stilll did awesome on accom. Sight seeing: I knew from the outset that work had never been without me for such a long period and I was going to need to be in limited contact. This meant I took my work smart phone with Outlook etc. I planned our trip in hourly blocks completely and entirely in Outlook. Ok that sounds a bit anal doesn't it haha. But you must know me.. if I am not organised like that.. I'll clumsily make mistakes in the heat of the moment like forgetting things etc. I booked virtually everything in advance that I could including Broadway and West End shows and tickets to things like Buckingham Palace, the Washington Monument, Empire State, New York harbour cruise etc etc. I just cannot stand going somewhere and not being able to do exactly what I want because its booked out or the timing is wrong. Flight prepartion: I was prepared for the flights too. The Star Alliance software is great. You can organise everything so easily and track miles, but also know what to ask the travel agent for. Without their software I wouldnt have been able to suggest about 50% of the flights that the travel agent wasn't suggesting. So I used their software + seatguru.com to choose the best combination of flight date & time / airport / plane model / entertainment options etc. Seriously if you want to organise a world trip yourself, three things: airline alliance software + tripadviser.com + seatguru.com! I specifically chose where possible planes with power outlets for my laptop and with good in flight entertainment. Boy was it worth it. We were gonna be doin over 55 hrs of flying (not including transit times for connections) and so bein able to sit and watch my downloaded TV shows and DVDs was a god send! So yeah I bought a new laptop for the trip, had heaps of TV and DVDs with me and my iPod and books. I was set. So on to the trip... Day 1 (kinda - crossing 10 time zones make things a bit crazy) - Leaving Sydney for Montreal  We were flying with Star Alliance and about half the flights were with Air Canada. I have a friend who works there and he was able to assign our seats 6 months out or somethin crazy like that. So we were always at the front of the plane ready to sprint out Amazing Race style. Even on the A380 from Singapore. He was also ONTO IT when it came to our flights. Keeping us up to date with delays etc. That helped so much. When you're on a big trip and connections are involved, its easy to get stressed about delays. Starting out.. the day before.. we knew the plane coming in from Vancouver to take us back there was on track to be 2 hours late.. meaning it would probably leave late.. meaning we might get into Vancouver late and miss our connection. Its nice knowing ahead of time - cuts out the stress! So that in fact did happen. Although it was possible they could have made up time with winds etc they didnt and our flight was late taking off. Again it was possible to make up time on the way to Vancouver and I think we made up some, but we still missed our connection. As for the flight itself: 14.5 hours of insanity. I can't sleep on planes (except when I fly business but more on that later!). I was prepared with my laptop and TV and Air Canada's VOD system was pretty good. But 14.5 hours stuck on plane is insanity inducing. I was ok until about 8 hours in.. then it was like.. ok I've had enough I want to get off!
 So yeah.. we got into Vancouver late and missed our connection. My Canadian friend had prepared us for havin to wait for the next Vancouver - Montreal flight or reroute through Toronto where the flights are more frequent. We hurried to the carousel and got our bags and hot footed it to the connections desk and boy were they slow! Each person took about 20 minutes to process cos of some system problem. This meant delayed people were being delayed more. Luckily we made it with literally 2 mins to spare on a flight to Toronto requiring another connection to Montreal. The people behind us would have had to wait ages. Our forward seats helped Amazing Race style!
Upon landing in Vancouver and turning on my phone I got a flood of voicemails, e-mails and SMSs because of a disaster at work. I was a zombie and not really caring a whole lot because there was nothing I could do. Our data service company had errantly actioned a disconnection request for a few services as a disconnection of ALL our services. I was away from work one day and all hell had broken loose. All 7 of our offices lost their internet and access to the WAN. Fantastic. Note: my disconnection fax had clearly stated "DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DISCONNECT ANY OTHER SERVICE THAN THOSE LISTED" (yep bold and underlined). So of course thats exactly what they did. F-wits.  So back to our missed connection. I think the flight was about 4.5 hours which I was loving (errr). Eventually we got into Toronto and finally had a bit of time to stretch our legs on the ground and get some real food while waiting for our Montreal flight. We sat down at a little cafe for a bight and I got out my laptop to get online and see what was happenin news and work wise. No sooner had I opened up my brand new laptop than my boi had decided to force an evervescent energy tablet into a bottle of water that's neck was too small for the tablet. The result: a small fountain of water that rained down on my new laptop! I turned it off and dabbed tissues for the next 20 minutes (with the help of a nice Canadian man) and then turned it on. Result: high pitched sound and nothing else. I could have throttled him! More on that later..
 Being in Vancouver and Toronto briefly had a kinda odd feeling about it.. I hadnt travelled outside Asia before (which I had done 7 times) and I'm a big world news and history fan so I always felt connected to the rest of the world but finally here I was.. in another Western country. It was kinda surreal. Felt like I was comin extra late to the party. Finally visiting the rest of the old Western world where our common history began. Especially as I am a big US history fan and had studied world relations and politics at uni.
 So we got on the Toronto to Montreal flight and eventually got in. All this time we had been juggling luggage, carry ons and a didgeridoo for our Montreal hosts. For some reason the didgeridoo had some mystical meaning to people. I had checked with the airlines in advance if it was ok to carry on and it was. Every security check though was met with a blank stare and a "I'm not sure if we can allow that on board" remark. As soon as we said it was a didgeridoo it was always ok. "Oh ok sure". It wasn't the Olympic torch. Don't know why it always made the difference. But took it we did!
I think we left Sydney at 11am on a Friday. We got into Montreal after over 20 hours of flying at about 7:30pm on the same day or something. Gotta love those time zones! Our Canadian friends picked us up from the airport and received their didgeridoo and at long last the trip was over! The longest leg by far was over. Relief was an understatement. Driving back from the airport was kinda surreal too. I had been in countries that drive on the other side of the road before but it had been a while. I kept closing my eyes on the way to my friends place. Scary! So we got in and resisted the temptation to sleep immediately and stayed out that night for dinner and a club in the Village. Boy oh boy was it nice to sleep that night! Day 2 is next... | 
