The "Round-the-World" Trip

Being the professional procrastinator that I am, I’m posting my first blog post of this trip after I’ve already left. In fact, you don’t even know what trip I’m talking about, because I haven’t mentioned it yet. So, here’s the story.

Back when I first started consulting, I heard about this thing called the “round-the-world (RTW) ticket”. Without knowing any details, how awesome does that sound? Okay, dumb question, but it probably also sounds really expensive, so let me explain. Basically, for 180,000 SkyMiles (+ taxes), you could get an economy class ticket to 7 places around the world, with a few restrictions (e.g., you can only fly in one direction, there’s a maximum number of segments). Better yet, for 280,000 SkyMiles, you could get the same ticket in business class! Obviously, my goal for the next few years became to earn enough miles for that ticket. (Aside: For those of you who don’t already know, earning miles takes a really, really long time. Earning hotel points is much quicker and more valuable.)

Anyways, this ticket was always in the back of my mind until last year, when there was a rumor that Delta was going to stop offering the ticket after December 31, 2014. Upon hearing the news, there were two things that made me decide to go ahead and book it.

1. Timing: I was planning on going to business school in 2015, so it’d be an awesome way to transition.
2. Status Benefits: If you have platinum or diamond status on Delta, they let you cancel tickets on miles up to 72 hours before the flight for a full refund, meaning if something happened, I could cancel it with no harm done to my mileage account or bank account.

Afterwards, I began planning my trip, figuring out potential destinations based on a few criteria:

1. Destinations that I’ve really, really wanted to go to (no explanation necessary).
2. Destinations that are a little far out of the way/hard to get to, because if I’m going to go somewhere far away, I might as well be going in business class.
3. Destinations that are generally expensive to get to, because if I’m paying a fixed price, I might as well get the most bang for the buck.

After researching for a few weeks, and after a couple of scheduling tweaks here and there, I came up with my final itinerary, which would take place over a span of 35 days:

• New York City -> Sydney* (China Southern)
• Melbourne* -> Tokyo (China Southern)
• Requires a separate ticket outside of RTW to get to Melbourne from Sydney.
• Tokyo -> Hong Kong (China Airlines)
• Hong Kong -> Istanbul* (Aeroflot)
• Istanbul* -> Johnannesburg (KLM)
• Long layover in Amsterdam, so I can leave the airport and come back.
• Really, I wanted to go to Cape Town, but there were no available flights, so this required a separate ticket outside of RTW to get from Johannesburg to Cape Town and back.
• Johannesburg -> Rio de Janeiro* (Air France)
• Long layover in Paris, so I can leave the airport and come back.
• Going to Iguazu Falls for 1 day, which required a separate ticket outside of RTW.
• Sao Paulo* -> Atlanta (Delta)
• Requires a separate ticket outside of RTW to get to Sao Paulo from Rio de Janeiro.

(*) Indicates a visa was required with a US Passport for this location.

PS - I also made an awesome spreadsheet with all this information + a bunch of other stuff that only a consultant would be proud of, but that’s a different story for another day.

A few things I was excited about upon booking this trip:

• Getting to experience all of these places (duh).
• Making myself book a 35 day trip without planned company at the time of booking. I say at the time of booking because, since then, a few things have happened:
• I told my sister if she helped me plan my trip, I’d fly her somewhere to meet me. It worked out best for her to come to Tokyo and Hong Kong. Because my sister and I were both going to be there, my parents decided to come, too. So, Tokyo and Hong Kong are now part of a family trip.
• A friend I met while studying abroad lives in Sydney, so we’re planning on meeting up at some point. I'm actually planning on meeting up with 4 different people that I somehow know while I'm here, so that will be pretty cool.
• My roommate decided to come to Istanbul, since he also hadn’t been and wanted to go.
• A couple of my friends are planning to come to Rio de Janeiro on standby flights.
• Meeting random people at hostels or otherwise, because who knows what will happen.
• It’s worth noting that I’m only staying at hostels in cities where I have no company. If I know someone that will also be traveling to the location with me, I’m planning on using points to get a hotel.
• Comparing a ton of international airlines and airports with domestic ones.
• Flying business class internationally on different aircraft (including the new Airbus A380!).

Things I maybe should have considered that didn’t really factor in, and how I offset them (I’m sure there will be a lot more of these as I go):

1. Weather differences - Half of my places are near the equator (hot), and the other half are in the southern hemisphere (winter).
1. To be fair, I actually did think of this. I decided since I wasn’t going to be “backpacking”, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I could just take a suitcase a little larger than a carry-on and check it in for flights (because it’s free with a business class ticket)... and it’s now occurring to me that I’m relying heavily on airport baggage handlers to not steal things… guess I’m keeping anything remotely valuable in my backpack for this trip.
2. Layovers - You do not want to be on a long flight, followed by another long flight, with no time in between to stretch your legs and get your blood flowing.
1. My original flight from Johannesburg to Rio de Janeiro had a 3ish hour layover in Paris. Bad idea. Rescheduled it so I could have 30 hours rather than 3. Yay for having airline status.
3. Timing - I booked it for May based on work stuff, but probably should have done it a little later given that I was planning on going to business school, and aggressive timelines occasionally (almost always) get delayed anyways.
1. Had to quit my job earlier than I wanted because of this one, which is probably okay because it gives me more time to relax over the summer and maybe try some new things before I move.

Random aside: Because of #3, I had a few major things going on at once. My suggestion (probably everyone in the world’s suggestion) is to make sure to avoid situations like this. I had to:

• Quit my job and finish transitioning responsibilities.
• Continue planning my trip, which I had done very little of.
• Sublet my apartment (PS - don’t tell anyone! I’m technically not allowed to).
• Complete enrollment activities for business school.
• Find a new place and start a new lease before I left.
• Look for potential things to do for the remaining part of summer (e.g., internship, roadtrips in the US)

DONE

I know I haven't updated in a while and for good reason. I have been very busy. BUT, I will update the world on Croatia (amazing), Rome and Cinque Terre (pretty), and Amsterdam (awesome). But first, I will go to Paris tonight. I will leave for Atlanta Thursday afternoon. I will graduate Sunday.

Schedule for Rest of Semester

Okay, so lately I've been trying to figure out trains and all that stuff for the rest of the semester. Here's what I have, and these are pretty close to being set in stone.

April 15-18: Croatia

April 21-25: Rome, Cinque Terre, and hopefully either Paris or Lyon (pending train reservations)

April 28-May 2: Amsterdam

May 4-5: Paris (pending train reservations) - for a city that wasn't one of my favorites, I feel like I go here way too often haha

May 5: Atlanta

Also, a couple things I forgot to mention about last weekend:
Antwerp
1) I think it's a really rich city, we saw a bunch of really nice cars while we were there.
2) It's a really relaxing city, it's kind of like a beach city with a river instead of a beach.
3) Best döner kebab place I've been to since being in Europe.
4) Met some other Americans at the Kulminator who were really cool and also bought us some relatively expensive beer.
Westvleteren
1) I got ice cream from there with some kind of beer syrup or something and it was amazing.
2) Depending on what day you go, you can bring a six pack back. We went on the wrong day.
3) Trains hate us. On the way back, we got fined for something dumb (for those of you who have Eurail, it was for not filling out the travel report at the bottom that nobody looks at). Then, we got stuck in Luxembourg and had to take a cab ride back to Metz.

Stay tuned for stuff about this past weekend.

Paddy's Day and (the rest of) SB '11 Part Two

Sorry I'm a little behind on updating, a lot of things have been going on and I've also been really lazy lately; that means this post is going to have a lot of random stuff in it.

After my last post, I was headed to Dublin, Ireland (more like Metz -> Paris -> Cherbourg -> Rosslare -> Dublin) for St. Patrick's Day, or as the Irish people call it, Paddy's Day. There were a few things that happened once I got to Ireland:
a) Information overload. What do I mean by that? Well, being in a country that doesn't speak English, you generally start to tune everyone out unless they're speaking English, and if they are, you assume they're talking to you. In Ireland, they speak English, which really took a second to get used to.
b) English is awesome. I miss not having to think about what I'm going to say before I'm going to say it.
c) Irish people are really, really nice. And they have cool accents.

But first, the way over there was pretty cool. Our ferry was named the Oscar Wilde (the guy who wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray). We also got to watch the sun rise over the English Channel.

We ended up getting to Dublin at like 4 PM on Wednesday and spent a little while walking around and stuff, as well as meeting the people in the place we were staying at (friend's friend's place who's studying abroad at the University of Dublin). Thursday, St. Patrick's Day, was pretty entertaining. There was a huge parade (which was kind of annoying to see because it was extremely crowded) and the city was completely packed. We explored the city for a while and found out that most Dublin's old city (castle, old city gate, etc.) don't actually exist, even though they mark them on the map. And at night, the city was even more packed.

green beer - this was disgusting

The next day we woke up and took the train to Kerry, Ireland (that's where our flights left from). On the train there, I talked with a random Irish dude for like an hour, which was really cool. Anyway, we arrived there at around 1 PM and ate and stuff, then explored the city. We walked to a castle there called Ross castle, which is like two miles outside the city, took pictures and stuff over there, then came back. The others had a plane that left earlier to Amsterdam, but my plane to London didn't leave for a little while later, so I went back and explored the huge park they have. After exploring the park (which was really pretty), I was walking past the shops and... I ran into 3 people from GTL there! (Note: If this doesn't sound that cool, let me explain why it was. We ran into each other in a random shop - not at a tourist destination. Also, it was in a relatively small city, in a different country, where neither of us knew each other was going. If it still doesn't sound cool, I hate you.)

After that cool coincidence, I got on my (first) RyanAir flight to London (got there Friday night). One thing I can say about London is that it helped me understand where we got a lot of our mentality from. They do a lot of things differently than mainland Europe. I wish I could give an example but I kinda forgot why since I took too long to write this post. Anyway, since I've been there before, I wasn't really worried about doing that many touristy things (although I still did a few). It was mostly to visit people there since I was already so close by. While I was there, I visited Vinesh, a family friend from Atlanta who currently works in London, Sarung, who came to visit at the same time, and a relative, who lives in London. Here are a few cool pictures I did take while I was there though.

It was also cool that in Dublin and in London, on the streets, it told you which way to look for oncoming traffic.

Metz
So it's definitely a new era in Metz, and I guess I understand why people like Metz in the summer. It's warm all the time and the sun actually comes out! In fact, inside downtown, there are fountains turned on, flowers blooming, etc. so it isn't as depressing as during the winter. Also, it's kind of weird to me that they have a different daylight savings time here (we didn't hit it until March 27).

Updated Tentative Schedule:

March 31 - Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam

April 7 - Interlaken

April 14 - Croatia

April 21 - Rome, Cinque Terre, Zurich

April 28 - Amsterdam

May 4 - Paris

May 5 - Atlanta

Next post: Munich

Weekend #7 and #8 (aka Spring Break, Part 2)

Unfortunately, it seems like, since spring break (the official one), my trip has been (and probably will be) getting more expensive and more exhausting (for good reason - traveling larger distances, longer amounts of time). But, it definitely is and will be worth it. And, although I am definitely excited for the rest of the trip, I'm beginning to look forward to being back home.
Anyway, I'm leaving Thursday at almost midnight to go to Prague for this coming weekend, and I should get back Monday morning at around 7:00. Then, I leave Tuesday (the next day) at around 10:00 in the morning to do the following:
Train to northern France, ferry to southern Ireland, train to Dublin, train to Kerry, airplane to London, airplane to Frankfurt, bus to Metz. I'm pretty sure I've covered every form of long distance transportation in this trip. And, I'll be back to Metz Monday, March 21, at around 1:00 PM (tentatively). So basically, I will be in Metz for less than 30 hours between Friday, March 11 to Monday, March 21.
Luckily, of my 8 classes next week, 2 are cancelled. I will be able to attend one class, so I'm missing 5 - hopefully my teachers don't hate me and I don't fall too far behind. Not too thrilled about that, but hey, how often are you in Europe for a long period of time without anyone or anything to worry about but yourself? And even more importantly, how often are you in Ireland for St. Patrick's Day?

Weekend Trip #6, #7 and Beyond

I'm going to take a break from writing about Spring Break and talk about my schedule for the next few weeks/rest of the semester. I'm going to go to Paris again this weekend and Prague next weekend. Afterwards, this is what the tentative plan is, so please feel free to critique and tell me what I should change.


March 3 Paris
March 10 Prague
March 17 Dublin (for St. Patrick's Day) then London afterwards
March 24 Munich
March 31
April 7
April 14 Italy
April 21 Italy & Greece
April 28 Amsterdam (for Queen's Day)

I don't know if the Dublin thing is happening yet or not (it's really expensive now), and if not then I may or may not wait to go to London. I'm also planning on going to Interlaken during one of the two weekends that are empty, which means I still have one weekend to decide (assuming everything works out to plan).

Let me know what you guys think I should do during that weekend or change during other weekends!

Weekend Trip #5 (and Spring Break)

So earlier this week when I mentioned that I'd have to go back to Paris, I didn't think I'd be going back this soon. But, things just worked out, and, as long as I get my tickets, I will be headed there tomorrow afternoon! Hopefully I'll get to conquer the things I didn't get to last weekend!
And, on an even brighter note, spring break has (kind of) been finalized. I decided on going to Spain and Portugal, but I will be going to Italy and Greece when it gets warmer, around Easter time, for about two weekends (hopefully)! Anyway, we have the following tickets: Metz - Madrid (~1-2 days in Madrid), Madrid - Lisbon (~3ish days in Lisbon), Barcelona (~4ish days in Barcelona) - Metz. We wanted to go somewhere in between Lisbon and Barcelona, and our first choice was Seville, but turns out, the trains are full. So, we're going to try and find somewhere else to go instead for the day we were supposed to spend in Seville, but otherwise we'll be stuck (because it's such a bad thing) with an extra day in either Lisbon or Barcelona.

Edit: Didn't get tickets, so won't be in Paris this weekend. But, it gives me time to recover (since I'm sick), relax before spring break, and get dumb stuff like laundry and schoolwork done. Also gives me time to do stuff in Metz (like the Pompidou Center) and hangout with people around here.

Weekend Trip #4

This weekend: Paris. What else needs to be said?

Weekend Trip #3

This weekend is Berlin. We will be leaving around midnight and will get back Monday morning... I think.

Also, since our spring break is at the same time as everyone else's in Europe, I need to decide where to go soon or everything will be booked. I know of groups going to:

a) Spain and Portugal

b) Greece and Italy

Any suggestions?

Also, I've begun uploading my pictures to Facebook, as there is no other website that offers unlimited picture storage space, so check them out if you're interested. Oh, and laundry just cost me 7 euros (~$10). What the heck.

Weekend Trip #2

This weekend, it looks like we'll be venturing into the French Alps, specifically to Valfrejus, France, for a ski/snowboarding trip. Where is that, you ask? Well, according to Google Maps, it is 112 km (~70 miles) away from Torino, Italy, which, if you don't remember, was the host of the 2006 Winter Olympics! So basically, it's the same city - I'll be on the same mountains all the Olympians were on! Our train leaves at 6 AM and we have no idea when our train back will get here. We get to look forward to a 10 hour train ride and temperatures as low as -16°C (~3.2°F)! I'll post again when I get back!

Weekend Trip #1

So we just kind of finalized our plans for our first trip! We're going to be going to Luxembourg at 8 AM! We're not going to use our Eurail passes because tickets are so cheap (~14 euros each way). Some of us might split off and go somewhere else afterwards, but we aren't really sure yet. I'll post pictures and stuff when I get back with an update of where we went!