WORLD TOUR ITINERARY

Okay, finally I've had the time to more or less work through an itinerary for our trip. This will help give people an idea of where we're going, and when. Also, we're hoping that doing so will facilitate anyone out there who'se got the travel bug to come out and join us for any portion of our trip. It would be great - really - if our friends can come out and meet us. In fact, John and Arranny from Calgary will be meeting us in Paris in mid June!

Anyway, here's what our plans look like at this point. Of course the further into the future we're looking, the less certain things are, but this should still serve as a pretty good guide.

Unfortunately this HTML editor is a bit funny, so you need to scroll waaaaay down to actually see the table I made. For some reason a ton of blank lines got inserted that I can't delete, so just scroll down to view the table...

F R O M	T O	D A T E (y/m/d)	D A Y	D A Y S
Edmonton	London	2009/05/27	Wed	2
London	Ireland	2009/05/30	Sat	3
Ireland	Scotland	2009/06/02	Tue	5
Scotland	Dublin	2009/06/07	Sun	3
Dublin	Paris	2009/06/10	Wed	5
Paris	Zurich	2009/06/15	Mon	3
Zurich	CERN / Geneva	2009/06/18	Thu	2
CERN / Geneva	Marseille	2009/06/20	Sat	3
Marseille	Milan	2009/06/23	Tue	3
Milan	Venice	2009/06/26	Fri	3
Venice	Ljubljana	2009/06/29	Mon	3
Ljubljana	Zagreb	2009/07/02	Thu	3
Zagreb	Budapest	2009/07/05	Sun	3
Budapest	Graz	2009/07/08	Wed	3
Graz	Krakow	2009/07/11	Sat	3
Krakow	Warsaw	2009/07/14	Tue	3
Warsaw	Berlin	2009/07/17	Fri	2
Berlin	Dresden	2009/07/19	Sun	2
Dresden	Koln	2009/07/21	Tue	8
Koln	Amsterdam	2009/07/29	Wed	3
Amsterdam	London	2009/08/01	Sat	2
London	Cape Town	2009/08/03	Mon	10
Cape Town	Swakopmund	2009/08/13	Thu	5
Swakopmund	Windhoek	2009/08/18	Tue	2
Windhoek	Okavango Delta	2009/08/20	Thu	3
Okavango Delta	Chobe Natn'l Park	2009/08/23	Sun	2
Chobe Natn'l Park	Victoria Falls	2009/08/25	Tue	5
Victoria Falls	Malawi	2009/08/30	Sun	7
Malawi	Dar es Salaam	2009/09/06	Sun	2
Dar es Salaam	Zanzibar	2009/09/08	Tue	4
Zanzibar	Masai Mara	2009/09/12	Sat	3
Masai Mara	Serengeti	2009/09/15	Tue	2
Serengeti	Ngorongoro Crater	2009/09/17	Thu	1
Ngorongoro Crater	Nairobi	2009/09/18	Fri	5
Nairobi	Doha	2009/09/23	Wed	1
Doha	Cairo	2009/09/24	Thu	6
Cairo	Aswan	2009/09/30	Wed	4
Aswan	Luxor	2009/10/04	Sun	3
Luxor	Cairo	2009/10/07	Wed	2
Cairo	Aqabah	2009/10/09	Fri	2
Aqabah	Petra	2009/10/11	Sun	2
Petra	Amman	2009/10/13	Tue	2
Amman	Jerusalem	2009/10/15	Thu	2
Jerusalem	Damascus	2009/10/17	Sat	2
Damascus	Istanbul	2009/10/19	Mon	5
Istanbul	Dubai	2009/10/24	Sat	7
Dubai	Delhi	2009/10/31	Sat	6
Delhi	Varanasi	2009/11/06	Fri	6
Varanasi	Mumbai	2009/11/12	Thu	6
Mumbai	Goa	2009/11/18	Wed	6
Goa	Madurai	2009/11/24	Tue	2
Madurai	Colombo	2009/11/26	Thu	5
Colombo	Madras	2009/12/01	Tue	6
Madras	Calcutta	2009/12/07	Mon	6
Calcutta	Bangkok	2009/12/13	Sun	5
Bangkok	Chiang Mai	2009/12/18	Fri	3
Chiang Mai	Vientiane	2009/12/21	Mon	4
Vientiane	Bangkok	2009/12/25	Fri	3
Bangkok	Siem Reip	2009/12/28	Mon	4
Siem Reip	Phnom Penh	2010/01/01	Fri	4
Phnom Penh	Ho Chi Minh	2010/01/05	Tue	4
Ho Chi Minh	Hanoi	2010/01/09	Sat	4
Hanoi	Halong Bay	2010/01/13	Wed	2
Halong Bay	Hanoi	2010/01/15	Fri	1
Hanoi	Manila	2010/01/16	Sat	9
Manila	Bangkok	2010/01/25	Mon	2
Bangkok	Hong Kong	2010/01/27	Wed	4
Hong Kong	Shanghai	2010/01/31	Sun	5
Shanghai	Nanjing	2010/02/05	Fri	4
Nanjing	Xi'an	2010/02/09	Tue	3
Xi'an	Beijing	2010/02/12	Fri	4
Beijing	Seoul	2010/02/16	Tue	4
Seoul	Pusan	2010/02/20	Sat	2
Pusan	Oita	2010/02/22	Mon	4
Oita	Hiroshima	2010/02/26	Fri	4
Hiroshima	Kyoto	2010/03/02	Tue	4
Kyoto	Tokyo	2010/03/06	Sat	6
Tokyo	Washington D.C.	2010/03/12	Fri	4
Washington D.C.	Buenos Aries	2010/03/16	Tue	5
Buenos Aries	Montevideo	2010/03/21	Sun	5
Montevideo	Sao Paulo	2010/03/26	Fri	4
Sao Paulo	Rio de Jenario	2010/03/30	Tue	6
Rio de Jenario	Asuncion	2010/04/05	Mon	5
Asuncion	La Paz	2010/04/10	Sat	4
La Paz	Lima	2010/04/14	Wed	7
Lima	Quito	2010/04/21	Wed	6
Quito	Bogata	2010/04/27	Tue	6
Bogata	Panama City	2010/05/03	Mon	6
Panama City	San Jose	2010/05/09	Sun	9
San Jose	Belize City	2010/05/18	Tue	6
Belize City	Cancun	2010/05/24	Mon	4
Cancun	Edmonton	2010/05/28	Fri

one month back home in Canada

So we've been back home in Edmonton for a few weeks now, and it's been busy. Let's see, well, somebody turned 40 and had a bit of a party with lots of friends. Like Annett and Brent....

and Pat, Nader, and Christine....

my mom....

and even me and Amanda!

Shortly after the party our friends Daniel and Carmen who, you'll remember (if you were following my blog), we met in Edmonton years ago, and just visited in Australia last month. They were up in Edmonton for a visit. Yup - can all the way to Edmonton of all places to spend some holiday time. Cheers!

But as is tradition, we had to go for Angry Ribs...

Yup - those damn Texas Bold ribs are always to blame...

Cheers!

Anyway, Mike was at work for a few weeks and Amanda was fortunate enough to have one of her school projects (a lamp she designed) be chosen by a fancy lighting store in Toronto

They hope to sell these, but the problem is that she won't be around to make them. So she spent a bunch of time making up shop drawings and finding a company that can make them for her. Then there was her visit to Lethbridge to visit her gran, and my visit from Dave Swan, and our night at the theatre: "Nevermore" about Edgar Allen Poe - excellent production! So ya - it's been busy.

So what's next? Well, now that the weather here is finally nice I think we'll leave. You see, we've also been spending our time doing some trip prep. for the forthcoming sections. We've got flights to London, Dublin, Paris, and then to Cape Town in South Africa. Plus we've got a 15 journey travel pass on Eurail's network.

I also found a new company that's built a web site for people like me. They've made a web site that can track a person's journey and map it and allow posting of pics and trip updates. Check it out:

http://www.MapKat.com/MapPage.aspx?trail=c5143f3d-aacb-4055-9d85-0796bbec7463

But a word of warning - their software is in beta, so it's slow and not 100% stable. Be gentle with it and click slowly. But if used properly will show our path as we continue to criss cross the globe and will show some pics.

Also, I'd like to give a shout out to my friend Axel

who is hoping to embark on an adventure of his own. He's initiating a fund raising campaign for an African charity, and to raise awareness he is planning to ride a motorbike across Canada, then across Europe and down the east cost of Africa. Check out his web site: http://www.rideforafrica.ca/

back in Edmonton (for a while)

We're back home in Edmonton now, but before we arrived here's how we spent our last days....

We came to Papamoa to meet up with our German - correction - make that Italian friend, Reinhold.

Even though his name is German, he would say it's Austrian. He drove up from Opotiki while we rented a car and drove from Auckland. I'm starting to get used to this driving on the "wrong" side of the road.

As mentioned, we stayed at a house owned by friends of my parents. One nice thing was that they had a laundry machine! Finally, clean clothes! No drier so we hung our stuff to dry.

According to her skills, Amanda made us a great dinner.

The next day we went to the ocean and did some boogie boarding. Check this 14 second video - the waves were HUGE.



Well, I guess they look bigger when you're actually in them.

After visiting Reinhold on April 29 and 30 in Papamoa we went back to Auckland for the night and then flew early on May 1 back to Sydney. We visited a few more famous spots...

We had a little extra time this day so we hopped on a ferry and toured around a little.

I used this ticket vending machine for the ferry. Unfortunately I only had a $50 bill, and the ferry ticket was only $4

I got my $46 change in, well, change. Ya - $46 of coins. Great. Now I know for next time.

The next day we went to a museum and then spent our dinner at a good-bye party. No - not a party for us. Our German friends Daniel and Carmen who we met while Daniel lived in Edmonton have been in Sydney for the past two years, but are now moving back to Berlin. So we joined them for their good-bye party (even though it was actually our last day in Australia, and not theirs)...

That's Daniel on the right :-)

Dinner was at this German pub / restaurant "Lowenbrau" and it was a really fun night. The restaurant had a few competitions that evening, one of which was a hammering contest. That's Amanda on the right showing us how to swing a hammer. No tap-tap-tap girlie hammering for her. Ya - smack that nail! Reno princess in action!

Not much else to report. The next day we were on planes for the18 hour trip back. My folks picked us up and now we're back home in Edmonton. For a while. We have about a month here before we head off to Europe. I guess there won't be much to say between now and then. I'll see if I can finish off my trip planning and maybe send out an itinerary. That way you can all make your holiday plans to come join us at some point!

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