"Where? What? How? I've got the when, two weeks!"

"Where? What? How? I've got the when, two weeks!"  is what a friend posted on my Facebook wall last week when I announced it was only two weeks until I'm off.  So there are people out there who haven't had to put up with my excitement (with a little nervous anticipation thrown in) and who hadn't heard from my dad that I'm off on my travels again!

So there it is, on Thursday 19th August 2010 I'm off on a journey which will take me to Toronto, then by train across Canada to Vancouver, on to LA for a Californian Road trip, a flight to Fiji which will lose me a day of my life (!) then 3 weeks in New Zealand where I will catch up with friends in Wellington and Blenheim followed by a Sydney, Bribane and Perth where I will catch up with friends at each location.  And finally, a stop off in Hong Kong on my way home, arriving back in Blighty on 8th December.

It all started with a necklace!  My mum has asked that we give one of her necklaces to her cousin Grace, who lives in Toronto and while I thought about posting it over the last couple of years, it didn't feel like the right thing to do.  So in April, I hatched a plan to take the necklace in person to Grace and fit in a visit to my friend Neil in Ohio while I was in that neck of the woods.  'Great idea' I thought and Neil was happy to have me come and visit after the end of the Hockey season so it seemed like a great plan, but return flights thorugh Toronto were hard to come by.  So I had to have a rethink.

In any case, if I was going to Canada, it seemed to be a shame to see Grace but to miss Jack, another cousin who lives in Vancouver.  And with open invitations from friends in New Zealand & Australia and a friend applying for a job in Kuala Lumpur, a route was forming which would take me to all those places to meet family members for the first time and see some dear friends on the other side of the world.

I sent a few emails and got some positive responses, the timing was right for me so I decided to go for it.  What an opportunity I have been given, it would have been foolish to waste it.

So after a good couple of weeks of planning route, dates and emailing to check that people were available, the ticket was booked and there was no going back!