Around the World in 43 Days, or Caffeination

edit: now that we're all safe and sound, HERE'S ye post

Hello friends!

So life's kept up it's burly pace since our last posts. I see now that the mystical visions I had of what life would be like after grad school - days upon end with nothing necessary to do - was something of a cosmic joke (on me). Still, the work with which I busy myself now is so much more fun than, well, let's leave it at that.

Since the last post life's gone on at something like the machine-gun version of a haiku:
before Christmas - Candace frenetically preps, Josh is gone for 4 days
Christmas - peace on earth, Ben shows up w/ the Joneses, still not much sleep
after Christmas - Candace councils High schoolers, gets little sleep, Josh is gone more days
New Year's Eve - Josh shows up, both get less-than-optimal sleep, but ring in the new year together
New Year's Day - Josh gone for 4 more days, Candace flies out to see him one day, still not much sleep
tonight - Josh FINALLY gets back for two days in a row, Candace drinks coffee

See a pattern? And it is at this less-than-reposed juncture that I have the privilege to tell you of our approaching plans: Josh got a very juicy slice of time off (read: 6 weeks) and we're going to try to travel around the world!

Phileas Fogg did it in 80 days, but we figure that with modern air travel (not a ballon, sorry Passepartout) we can cut the time in half. Still it should be one whopper of a journey. When will it commence? Lord willing, in a mere 12 days - January 16th.

But Candace! you stammer. Why so soon?! How much planning have you gotten done? And why on earth are you shilly-shallying here when you've got visas to line out?!

The last question is probably the best, but I figured that our faithful readers would need some kind of heads up before we started posting pictures from the orient or something. As to the other questions, we knew that we'd want to travel in winter, because that's when some of our key hosts had time off teaching. Also, I've begun to see that there's an off season for travel and an off off season. Late January seems to be the later, with all the pros and cons that that entails. One of the main pros is that Josh actually got this amount of time off all in one stretch, which certainly wouldn't have happened if he had asked for time in the on season. The other factor is that his company doesn't release the next year's vacation bid until the middle of December, so as charmed as we were at the opportunity, we realized that we'd have a doozie of a planning period to get this trip literally and figuratively off the ground.

Which brings me around to the title. I know it's a corny thing to do, but growing up my family always gave big trips a title. When we went on a glorious tour of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and many famous sites in between we called it the Best of the West. When we moved to Indiana and tried our hand driving to the East Coast (in winter no less!) we called it the Cool Beans trip (see it? Boston Beans?... Winter?... you know what, never mind). Then when my brother and I heard a Beatles song on the radio right before we went to Mexico for the summer, we knew the trip should be called Good Day Sunshine. This off course left me wondering what this world tour of ours should be called to make it all official.

And I have to admit, Around the World in 43 Days is hardly original, so don't be alarmed if it's replaced by something catchier. But I've already envisioned it taking on a subtitle - Caffeination. Because in case you didn't notice in the haiku above, we neither of us are going into this trip with boundless reserves of sleep and since we'll be staying in each continent just long enough to overcome the jet lag before we move on, I can see there being days of caffeination yet before us (or at least, the more dependent of us... which is me). Of course, we're hopefully going to parts of the world which boast some of the most delicious caffeine on the planet, so the jolts can involve pleasure as well as need. I already told my mom that the one culinary item I was looking forward to the most out of the whole world was coffee in Europe - a delight I hope to sample again and again.

But now I'm getting ahead of myself. You haven't seen the itinerary yet. For better or worse this is still in the works yet, but what's starting to shape up is something like this:

Jan 16 - Indianapolis

• Australia for 5ish days (surprised? I was too. But the more I think about how stinking cute wombats are, this first choice seems to make a lot of sense) 
• China for 2.5 weeks (several friends to visit, great walls, supposedly awesome food...)
• probably a quick plane switch in India
• Europe for the remaining 2+weeks

February 27 - Indianapolis again

See? Simple really. A thing of beauty. 

So now I must rush on to the next thing - laundry, more internet research in visas, packing lists, phone calls, library, maybe even lunch. Come back in the following weeks for more updates as the Brights take on circumnavigating the globe!