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Published: November 2nd 2005
First, a few interesting tidbits of current events, culled from the English language supplement of El Pais, part of the International Herald Tribune that I picked up this morning in Madrid at the airport.
Did you know that Diego Maradona recently interviewed Fidel Castro for a broadcast on Argentine TV, and that this former soccer star (apparently recovering nicely from stomach stapling surgery) plans to lead an anti-Bush demonstration in Argentina during the upcoming summit? Apparently he's organizing a protest train from Buenos Aires to the sight of the summit. We live in a crazy world.
The Spanish royal family has a new member, Leonor, daughter of Felipe and Leitzia. Felipe is the prince and current heir. There have been calls for him to move to change Spains rule of succession, which apparently favors a male heir, and so if the couple has another child and it is a male, then this child will be the next heir, not Leonor.
250 years ago on Nov 1, All Saints Day, there was a devastating earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, measuring probably 8.7 on the Richter scale and killing an estimated 50-90,000 people.
Ok, so where are we? Well, our trip has come to an end. Sherry is half-way across the Atlantic right now, on her way to Atlanta, and I am here in Zurich. I'll be here for about 3 weeks doing some consulting work for ESRI Switzerland. It feels good to be earning money since we've been doing nothing but spending for the past 3 months, 4 actually if you count the US leg of our trip.
Speaking of the RTW trip, here are some statistics:
- Number of days: 93
- Days (nights actually for rec. keeping purposes) spent per country: Fiji 15, Aus 5, NZ 16, Thai 14, China 22, Swe 5, France 5, Schweiz 3, Ger 1, Spain 7.
- Most expensive country (based on daily spending): Aus, then Spain, then NZ. Based on overall spending, we contributed the most to the NZ economy.
- Cheapest (per day): Thailand, then China.
- Farthest south: near Queenstown, NZ. See Google Earth for the exact coord!
- Farthest north: Uppsala, Sweden
- Number of flights (= take off and landing): 15
- Number of bus, train, rik-sha, tuk tuk rides: too many to count.
- Number of rides on an animal's back: (surprisingly) none
- Number of surf sessions for Cory: 2 (Manly Beach, Aus and Phuket, Thai)
Okay, now on to some other lists, mostly my opinion with some input from Sherry.Hopefully I can get her to write up her own thoughts like these.
Top Sights
In no order: Great Wall, Versailles, Alhambra. Worst sight: Milford Sound, NZ.
Best Meals
Again in no order:
- home cooked steak/fish at the Thomases in NZ
- Sichuan hotpot in Chengdu, China
- Pizza Hut pan pizzas (!) in Chongqing, China
- Veal roast at Novit and Bianca's in Switzerland
- Tofu and broccoli on the street in Yangshuo, China. Actually we at this twice.
- (worst) Veggie restaurant in Kunming, China. Everything was dry and friend and I will never forget the deep fried cabbage.
Best Coffee
Yunanese coffee in Lijiang. (worst) the instant coffee that I accidentally made using already brewed black tea in Fiji.
Best Hostel
Best was Peppertree Lodge in Paihia, NZ. We spent 3 nights there. Incidentally, the longest we spent in any one lodging establishment (yes I kept track of all of this) was 5 nights at Elin and Freds in Stockholm followed by 3 places where we stayed 4 nights (Sanawai Res. Fiji, Thomases in NZ, Jeff's in Paris). Worst hostel: City Groove in Auckland, NZ.
Best Hotel
The Suva Motor Lodge in Fiji was great. It had a killer hot shower which we hadnt had much of previously. We stayed in a lot of nice hotels also in Spain. (worst). This is easy, Club Masa in Fiji. The place was closed, but we paid and stayed anyway!
Trip Themes
Ok, so on the train the other day, I jotted down a few introspective thoughts about our trip. This probably won't be the concluding entry, but here are a few thoughts, sappy at times, for good measure:
Goals
Obviously, to circumnavigate the globe, the ultimate 'round trip' ticket, was a goal, but there were others: to survive, to enjoy, to discover, to see, taste, hear, explore, learn, understand. Goals achieved?
Life on the Road
1 bag each, couple pairs of shoes (more or less), socks worn 3 days in a row at at least 1 point (Sherry actually), a new home every night at times. Uniformity of travel experiences rather surprising worldwide. Theres always a waiting area, no matter how informal, there are always better seats and less good seats, but only sometimes is it a decision on your part to determine this. e.g. sometimes its the choice between an aisle/window, other times you have no choice whether to sit next to the stinky, smoky guy(s). Plane travel is really similar wherever we went.
Ill also say that weve met people that see fewer things/places than we did, taking a slower approach in the same amount of time. Well, this is great in theory: more time to see a place, spending less money on transportation. But, the problem is, if you go too slow, youre not really traveling. Its the traveling part that I really love and enjoy, and I think Sherry would agree with me toa point. Riding a bus or train, sitting in the back of a mini van enduring a bumpy stretch of road, this is traveling. Youre moving, seeing new things, going new places.
Not Working
Hey, if you can do it, not having to work is great! Traveling like this is work though, just a different kind of work that doesnt pay you money, but rather experience. It can be just as, or more tiring as this classical work. Perhaps everybody should try this sometime to see how they like being a retiree?!
Home
What is home? First of all, Sherry and I dont have a home right now. We have a storage unit in Denver. Each night on our trip, our home was where we slept. But, sometimes home is closer than you think when you are traveling. Home can be your ipod playing a familiar tune. maybe home is an ESPN in your Bangkok hotel room, or the strange comfort of a US Navy base in Spain where you have Cheerios for breakfast and bbq'd hamburgers for dinner, oh did I also mention that here we had a choice of salad dressing! Here also I took out money from an ATM and got good old dollars, and of course the familiar 1.50 surcharge, this for not being a member of the Navy cr. union.
Getting Lost
We didnt get lost that many times in a physical sense, maybe because both of us are pretty good navigators. It certainly wasnt the result of us being able to actually use these terrible guidebooks maps. Theyre just too tiny to be of much use at all. Tourist maps, the free ones, can be bad too. Generally theyre sponsered by someone. For instance, the directions we had in Zurich off of one of these map/pamphlets took us the most circuitous route possible. Regardless, we did find ourselves happily lost in a spiritual/mental sense, and well, this is what travel is all about, or at least part of it. Oh yes, I have to announce that we werent LATE much either. I dont think we were late for anything important like flight or train or bus or tour or things of this nature. This will certainly surprise my parents, I know that it surprised Sherry.
Okay, that's all I have time for today. Hopefully in a few days well be able to upload some more photos and I can provide you a few more interesting bits of data from our trip.
We had a blast, and I hope you too enjoyed reading. Stick around for more if you can bear it.
Thanks,
Sherry and Cory
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DaveB
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Lisbon earthquake
I remember (vaguely) someone did a Penn State Dept. of Geog. Coffee Hour talk about that Lisbon earthquake and how the news traveled through Europe at the time. Thanks for sharing your travels with us.