The World Is Coming To The End

A young Englishman married his fiancee in London this Friday. A million people celebrated in the streets and about 2 billion people watched the wedding on their TVs. They kissed twice! So there is one good thing happening and everybody clings to it, they don't really have much else.

Cambodia and Thailand are fighting at their border. There will be elections in Thailand later this year and the politicians and the army are likely using this issue for political advantage. So they kill a decent number of soldiers and flatten some of the temples they are fighting about. "What is not in doubt is that this won’t be the last time that Thailand and Cambodia lob shells at each other over the border. They have been tussling over this land for many years, and politicians know better than to be reasonable and generous in a situation like this." (the economist) We plan to cross that border somewhere south from where they fight.
Earlier this year there was a major earthquake in Christchurch and we bought our plane tickets there two weeks later. Maybe some people didn't hear of Christchurch before, but when we mentioned it, they knew now: "this is where the earthquake was, right?" And then there was another major earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown in Japan and a few weeks later we bought our tickets to Osaka. So when we said something we left some people speechless.
A tibetan monk sets himself on fire to protest against the Chinese occupation, China closes some areas for tourists "because of the unrest" but we are still going to Tibet. India eliminates American companies from the 10 billion bid for fighter aircraft as they arm themselves to be better able to fight (who?). People are arguing back and forth about the reasons for this and the American ambassador to India will retire for "personal reasons". Nobody cares how much 10 billion could do to help some poor people or some hungry children, we need war planes.
There is a guy in Syria who is killing innocent Syrians en gros and the world is watching and not doing anything about it. There is a guy in Libya who kills Libyans and the world wanted to help so they went there to kill some Libyans too. We might have to skip Syria next year. We knew that we wouldn't be able to go to Libya, but now, who knows?
Tornadoes happen in US and 340 people are killed in one day because they didn't listen to their radios, or they listened but didn't act on it.
As the price of fuel jet goes up, AirAsia restores some fuel surcharges and will make our plane tickets more expensive. Meanwhile America is recovering from recession but continues to manipulate the data about inflation and subsequently the dollar value will continue to go down and the price of oil will continue to go up. We will have less money on our trip. So what?
Annette just told me the other day that she knows that it is the end of the world, some guy who died and went to hell returned to tell his pastor and then the pastor went to Texas and died in a car accident. At least with this theory it all makes sense now, I have one less thing to worry about.

According to Britney Spears latest single we still have until December 21st 2012 - "till the world ends". She recommends that we keep on dancing. We will keep on planning and taking our trip until then and maybe dance a bit.

A Long and Potentially Boring Description of My Easters

Well, despite having celebrated it twice this year,* I believe Easter was a very happy occasion. The weekend's events include dressing rather morosely on Good Friday for our funeral of sorts, and, like at most funerals, giggling madly. I've never been to a funeral other than this one, and from past experience and books/movies/that one line from "One Week" by BareNakedLadies, people tend to laugh at funerals. Continuing with the actions occurring on said Friday, my friend Aimée, Ria, and I proceeded in lighting our candles an hour or so too early. This resulted in having very little candle to light our way as we walked around the church. Of course, the wind made several attempts on the lives of our flames (and, naturally, succeeded), which resulted in us following up on another Good Friday tradition: bother Jesse (Aimée's older brother) senseless by asking him to relight our candles. Unfortunately, this tradition could not be followed upon due to the fact that Jesse was, this year, up at the front with the priest and we were, of course, at the back. We did manage to, however, relight our candles once before Jesse suggested we take a second candle. This comment resulted in my throwing away my pitiful stub and exchanging it for a full-length candle before being scolded by Ria and putting it back. These comments resulted in my inability to further participate in any Good Friday traditions other than senseless giggling.

Saturday's events included standing outside (this time with full-length candles) with an unnamed accomplice [Aimée] and spending the whole time asking each other if each pause the priest made in his speech really was the end... or just another false alarm. We also made slightly amusing comments on various things and debated whether Jesse really was singing along or if his lips had simply gone numb from the cold. We then proceeded to walking around the church and fighting against the bitter wind to keep the little flame from our candles alive, and then we listened to what I shall forever consider as the world's weirdest knock-knock joke. Then, towards the end, we began to discuss the texting apps on our iTouches before reentering the church. Later, I might've ruined a shirt I rather liked by nearly setting it on fire, ruined a perfectly good skirt by dripping hot wax on it, was nearly set on fire by Aimée and due to my overactive [and slightly paranoid] imagination, I have convinced myself that I also nearly set the priest on fire. O______o Afterwards, when the sermon finished, I informed my unnamed accomplice [Aimée] that I "officially re-hate your brother. Again" before hugging her good-bye. Shortly after, we gorged ourselves on eggs, cozonac, and various forms of cookies. Once we tired of this we went to our hotel room where we slept soundly until around 10 am, when I woke up and went to the bathroom.

More on Sunday's events: after spending about 2 or 3 minutes the night before (because surprise, surprise, I fell asleep rather quickly last night) worrying that the Easter Rabbit would not fill my shoes because I had, in fact, placed them beneath my bed and not with the others, I awoke and discovered that they had been moved and now had a yellow marshmallow bunny-pop in them. After eating a rather unbalanced breakfast of eggs, left-over cookies and whatnot, I got dressed and rehearsed my little "piece" I was going to read later in church. Then we actually left for church where I made a rather starling and depressing discovery before the actual cool part came along. You see, every Easter Sunday, we read the same excerpt from the Bible in multiple languages. Sometimes there are more, sometimes there are less. This year we had Romanian, English, (read by the priest), French (read by his wife), Spanish (read by Aimée's and Jesse's older brother), Latin (read by I-don't-know-who), German (read by the deacon), Russian (read by Aimée's and Jesse's father), Ukrainian (read by another older brother of Aimée's), Chinese (read by my mother), Japanese (read by moi), and Hebrew (also read by the priest).

Following these activities we went downstairs for "coffee hour" and had lunch. My U.A. [Aimée] and I bumped each other some apps for our iTouches and tried to also bump each other music, but to no avail. On the other hand, these apps are really fun!! Thanks Aimée!! :D After Aimée left, though, I listened to a bit of music and helped Johnny and his friend Dimitri with their Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? game, and then we went home. The car trip was okay, after we finally stopped playing Britney Spears's new album, and then we got home where it was freezing.

After some time, Ria, Johnny, and I settled down to watch three episodes of Remington Steele <3 Then after dinner I sat down and wrote this lengthy description of my weekend. On my iTouch. Not computer. I find that verging on suicidal, but I've always had a screw loose. ;)

*The first time this year I celebrated Easter was, in fact, much shorter and because of this, might be considered less boring. During the sermon, I was wedged between Aimée and Jesse, which made it rather awkward for me, due to the fact that I could not stop yawning and was so, so sleepy... zzZzzZZZZzzz... somewhere around half-past one I succumbed to slumber and my head found a pillow in Jesse's right shoulder. About an hour later at two-thirty I awoke and began to express my embarrassment as quietly as a half-asleep person can while apologizing profusely. I soon realized, though, that while it was indeed 2.30 am, and that perhaps because I was so sleepy, the fact remained that Jesse would not now nor ever mind that I fell asleep on his shoulder. This may be due to the fact that it was mid-January and Jesse was asleep in his own bed while I, four hours worth of driving away, was lying in my own.

Perseverence

Our plans become reality step by step. We bought $105 per person tickets for New Zealand from Kuala Lumpur, we just have to figure a way to get there. Mihai checks daily for cheaper airplane tickets. I continue to study Chinese (today I finished the first course with 102 hanzi, the squigly signs) and the children continue to live unperturbed, despite our commitment to make them interested in our plans.

We bought merino clothing from Icebreaker and jackets from Scottevest (they have plenty of hidden pockets). Ileana’s was little for her size so Ioan inherited it. He is happy to have a vest, but couldn’t he have one for men? (the smallest in men would have the sleeves up to his knees).

We started telling people our plans. The vast majority of reactions were of joy, we had offers to have our luggage caried or to be chaperoned. Our parents were initialy schoked, but they passed over it and now they are going to join us in China. This doesn’t mean that they are not going to be worried (with all these earthquakes in Christchurch or Japan and the revolutions in the North of Africa). For Mihai it was a little bit stressful to inform his boss and his collegues, but they were happy for him.

We don’t know if we are going to rent the house or not, but in May there is a whole village sale, so I’m selecting the things we don’t need so we can sell them (and in case that we are renting, it would be easier to pack).

Two Hundred Twenty Five

Guess what? You can only have an accurate countdown after you decide on a target day. We had some days counted before but we really didn't know when we leave. But now we know.  Since my last post we went back and forth between leaving October 23 or November 27, with two different plans. We were waiting for an answer from my job and checking some plane tickets and waiting. And waiting. I don't know for what, maybe for the right way to define the question. One day I realized that in the process of planning for this trip we ended up upside down. We knew the end but not the beginning. But since we actually don't know the ending, maybe we should just start at the beginning. Even though it would be a nice idea to end in Romania in December 2012, we might end our trip in September, or in June or in November. We'll know when we are done and when we are ready to come back. Or we'll just find out that the money is over and we'll have to come back.

I explained this to my director and during a five minute conversation he told me that I should just go ahead and decide. Looking at a calendar he had on the wall we chose my last day - October 15. Neither one realized that it's a Saturday and we don't work weekends. It just sounds good. October 15.

Saturday morning we bought our first tickets. It is amazing. Tickets for February 29, 360 days from now. Flying from Kuala Lumpur to Christchurch for less than $105 per person. Taxes, lunch and luggage included. It's a distance longer than from here to Europe. If I would find this ticket price for Europe we might just go every other weekend. Before this we had to decide on Asia or Australia first. Our parents were still undecided on coming to China. I asked if they might consider coming in November. They said no. But they said we should just make our plans as we think best. Started from Japan the trip could be 8000 miles shorter and at least $2500 cheaper. We don't have yet the plane tickets for Japan and we only have 225 days to get them and get on the plane... I'm working on it.

Crossing Into The Other World

Our secret plans are becoming public. We were living in a fantasy world for some time and now everything is becoming real. For us that was reality and the other world was living in its fantasy. In the real world there are a lot of people that we love and care about. They had no idea that we were planning for this. They never heard of anybody to do this. They say that this is everybody's dream, but nobody does it. They praise us and envy our children who might not know how lucky they are. They wonder if there would be anything left after that. How does somebody return to work and keeps going after they've accomplished their lifetime dream? They are scared for us and silently hope that we will come to our senses. They are excited for us and want to join us. And they are mad and hurt because we didn't share and kept this hidden for so long. They are worried about my job and the school. And on and on it goes, I love this range of answers to our disclosure. There will be more and more people to learn about this and hopefully more reactions to remember. We are working getting our story strait, some details need to be clarified. It might also help to have a script of how to start a discussion, how to break the news that we are leaving, how to say that we will go for 14 months.

For those who might start our blog here, let me make a short summary. We are a family of five Romanians from upstate New York and we are going around the world. We always wanted to travel, even thought about going around the world and we were waiting for the kids to grow and go, or for us to retire. After learning of some families who traveled extensively with their children we started to talk about it. In July 2009 we decided to do it. A few months later we realized that we have to do it. We can pull this through and we owe it to ourselves and to our children. Jokingly or not we can make it part of their homeschooling. We kept this hidden, just among the five of us, we waited to break the news face to face to our families in Romania. We did it in December 2010 during our winter vacation and they took it pretty well. After we came home we started to share the news with some of our friends and with the people I work for/with. We are counting the days and starting to wrap things up. We don't know yet when we would be leaving but we are clarifying our choices and moving forward.

As my daughter put it, we want to discover a "slice of the world", not just monuments and resorts, but people and cultures from four continents. For now the plan is to go west, we know the end, Maria's 18th birthday in Romania in December 2012. We will leave sometime this fall, before December 1st. We will have just the hand luggage and a limited budget and we will work our way through looking for shelter, food and fun, making arrangements and plans as we go. We are not talking about a long vacation, it is actually travel and it will not be easy, but we are ready for it.

Nightmares

I woke up last night with a terrible nightmare: I already bought the first two tickets of our RTW trip, I spent almost $7000 and I got tickets to a J....-j.... place somewhere in a colony of Brazil and from there to Surinam. We already decided to skip South America for this trip and this had been hard to accept. I had to justify it somehow, but this became easy when we realized that these places were on a different continent that was somehow hidden from the others (that's why we missed it the first time). There was a major issue getting from the hidden continent to the not hidden ones but at least it wasn't my fault. Having resolved this I felt a bit better but then I came to the worst part of the nightmare when I realized that I spent all the money for these places without having read about them and without knowing the weather! Eventually I woke up, I was relieved to realize we don't yet have the tickets. We are on vacation in Romania spending Christmas and New Year, we are letting families and friends know about our plans and making our secret plans public.

So far so good, people take the news pretty well, there is no secret that it is kind of crazy, especially for the life in Romania. We told my parents, Ileana's mother and sister, other people that are close to us. Some cheered, some got scared, obviously scared, but most people took the news very lightly and polite and moved the conversation to more pressing matters (like the daily life issues).

I am writing a draft letter to Airtreks trying to summarize our plans and our questions so far. We are now 301 days away from the planned departure and we could even buy tickets if we want to! This is something I played with last night and this would fully explain my nightmare. If this is what it takes, I'll take it...

Galápagos

This is a short summary of our trip in the Galapagos:

• Day 1-2 - Just travel 

We left our home on Thursday morning, 14 hours before the plane departure. We stopped for a few hours at the BMW dealership for the maintenance service and then kept driving toward JFK. We made it a couple of hours early, this was good because we had time to get back to the car and recover the forgotten water bottle. The kids were very good on the plane, slept almost all the time. We landed fine in Guayaquil and even stepped out of the airport for a couple of minutes. It looked to be a fine and interesting city, but no time for that. We were almost late for the Galapagos connection because Ileana wanted some ice-cream. We landed in Baltra just on time, and just in time for us to realize that we do not have the permit. We were among the first off the plane, but by far the last ones getting in because it took forever to fill the permit. After $500 and a long wait we were through, the buses left, but Freddy was there to offer us one of the cheapest cruises and some of the finest hotels. We passed on those, but got boat tickets. Of course the last ones, I didn't believe that, who would? Except that he was probably right.

Galapagos

Momeala a funcționat: suntem prinși, fără nici o putință de scăpare!

Am plecat cinci oameni cu patru bagaje de mână, trei schimburi fiecare, două subțiri și unul gros pe noi. Un bagaj era doar din scule, iar altul din cărți și caiete. Trebuia să verific dacă putem să mergem în jurul lumii cu atât de puține lucruri. Ce obiecte sunt bune, ce trebuie să schimbăm.

Înainte să plecăm ne-am făcut temele și am învățat despre Galapagos: istorie, geografie, păsări, animale. Am citit cărți și ne-am uitat la filme, am căutat pe internet informații despre ce trebuie să vizităm pe ce insule, în ce agenții să ne încredem, ce hoteluri să evităm. Pe scurt: ne-am dus pregătiți. Mental...Restul ne-a luat pe sus.

Another update

Getting ready for Galapagos. Emma is coming to Romania. Maria is taking the SAT. We spent $500 on swimming suits. Next week my old highschool friends are meeting in a restaurant in Bucharest and I cannot go because I will be in Puerto Villamil. Nobody knows and nobody asked and nobody cares where is that. It is at one of the ends of the world...
We spent a lot of money buying various things, a new videocamera, battery and memory sticks, headlamps, special towel, special sleeping bags, ear plugs, medicines and sunscreen. Then Ileana saw a book in the library and reading something there I found Coolibar, special clothing for being in the sun. And yesterday we got our $500 swimming suits. We didn't take it out of the house (we have freezing temperatures here now) but it was so cool to try it and we had one of those moments "How could we live without it until now?" There are three pieces each, long sleeves, long legs and a hat, but they are rated UPF 50+ sun protection, we are going to use it in Galapagos and in Australia and in Bali.

Maria is a bit stressed out with the SAT this week but she did a fantastic job preparing for it and she's going to do very well. She even sacrificed some of her time for Nanowrimo! Then Emma visited us last weekend, we talked about her life and her plans for travel, she's saving money for her Turkey trip and maybe also for Romania, she had no idea when she might go and how much she'll need. After spending a few minutes on the internet she had some clear plan and information and four days later she had a plane ticket. She is going to take the train from Istanbul to Bucharest and join us for Christmas. Today I asked jokingly if I should go and pick her up in Istanbul and Maria immediately wanted to come. A moment later she asked herself surprised: "When did I start to get excited about travel?" And we didn't even start yet.

We learned a lot about Galapagos and probably we are going to do very little and try to be very frugal. Land accommodations and day trips. We are saving for the big trip and cannot afford to blow our money on cruises or scuba diving. We booked a house for 5 nights but we don't have the first few days or the last week and we will leave it open for when we get there. We will get to the port, get on the available boat and find out then on what island we'll go first. We might go West to Isabella or go East to San Cristobal. And then when we land we'll look for a place to stay and stuff to do. How crazy is that?

Întrebări

Aseară ne-am uitat la "A Map for Saturday" un documentar făcut de un tip care a mers în jurul lumii (pentru el) și a intervievat pe cei cu care s-a întalnit, care si ei mergeau in jurul lumii, despre ce inseamna pentru ei sa treci printr-o astfel de experienta. Foarte bine facut documentarul (autorul lucrase in televiziune ca producator de emisiuni sportive). Ne-a spus despre faptul că s-a hotărât să plece, despre reacțiile celor cărora le-a comunicat decizia (variind de la șoc la încurajare), despre euforia care te cuprinde când îți începi călătoria, de senzația de sâmbătă permanentă, de relațiile pe care le faci, la început te legi foarte tare, apoi pe măsură ce înaintezi în timp, te bucuri de relație în prezent, apoi realizezi ca viața fiecăruia a mers mai departe și comunicarea devine superficială; de locurile și civilizațiile pe care le întâlnești, de curiozitate, de oameni, de progresele pe care le faci în a te descurca în această viață de nomad, de zidul de care te lovești, când cea mai frumoasă cascadă ți se pare obișnuită, pentru că ai mai văzut încă douăzeci, și cumva toate ți-au ajuns, de siguranța și sentimentul deosebit pe care îl ai când depășești zidul, de faptul că nu vrei să te mai întorci acasă și totuși o faci, te bucuri că ești acasă si ești trist, pentru că deși te întreabă cum a fost, nu sunt interesați de răspuns, pentru că n-ai cu cine să împarți experiența prin care ai trecut. O vreme continui să comunici cu cei pe care i-ai cunoscut in călătorie, apoi din ce în ce mai puțin, pentru că ești din nou preocupat de o viață sedentară și un serviciu cu program regulat.

Ne-a prezentat și faptul că nu avea un răspuns potrivit pe care să-l dea celor care câștigă aproximativ 300$ pe an cum a renunțat la un serviciu de zeci de mii de dolari pe an doar ca să se dea prin lume. Și imediat mi-am pus întrebarea: eu ce aș răspunde?...
Motivul inițial să fim împreună cu copiii, acum avem timpul, suntem sănătoși și cred că aș putea să mai lungesc lista. Dar pe măsură ce ne apropiem și mă gândesc cum voi face față, găsesc răspunsurile personale. Plec ca să învăț despre lume, dar de fapt ca să mă cunosc pe mine și ca un exercițiu de creștinism.
Viața mea de zi cu zi este protejată. Am un program pe care mi-l fac singură, sunt propriul meu șef. Am mai multe tichii: de soție, de mamă, de profesoara a propriilor copii, de bucătăreasă, de studentă (învăț chineza în vederea acestei călătorii și corespondez în italiană doar pentru a face efortul de a mă exprima într-o limbă străină)și de directoare la școala de duminică (tichie proaspăt achiziționată în această săptămână). Contactul meu cu oamenii este limitat și dacă ceva nu-mi convine, am timp să întorc pe toate părțile evenimentul, până fac pace cu el, dar nu înseamnă că am ajuns la concluzia corectă. Vezi lumea așa cum ești! Eu vreau să ajung să o percep așa cum este, fără prejudecăți, făra așteptări, să iau ceea ce este în prezent, să dau ceea ce am pe loc, un zâmbet, o mână de ajutor, un sfat bun, să mă bucur de toate ca și cum ar fi ale mele, știind tot timpul că nimic nu-mi aparține. Vreau să fiu mai bună, să nu mai judec lumea și pe ceilalți după măsura mea, să învăț să ascult, să mă interesez de alte persoane, să văd din punctul lor de vedere, să nu mai fiu egoistă. E cam greu să fac toate astea când stau acasă și mă ocup doar de familie.
Am luat hotărârea că vom avea doar bagajul de cabină. Asta înseamnă un total de 3 schimburi de haine, inclusiv cele groase si de ploaie! Lucrurile de toaleta vor fi doar în bagajele adulților, pentru situația în care vom dormi pe sexe (trusa de toaletă este încă în procesul de proiectare: vreau să fie ușoară și să conțină toate lucrurile de care ai nevoie când te duci să te speli, va fi special pentru familia noastră)
M-am gândit ce am putea să luăm cu noi să oferim celor care ne oferă ospitalitate. La ce ar putea folosi cineva o monedă de 50 centi cu chipul lui Kennedy pe ea sau o vedere cu New York? Sau cum poți să ajuți pe cineva care te-a impresionat cu povestea lui?
Nu am răspunsurile la aceste întrebări, dar sper să le aflu. Sper ca în drumurile noastre să ne întâlnim cu acele situații în care să fim buni, să vedem și din punctul celuilalt de vedere.

Shakira and us in Montreal

We are in Montreal on a 4-5 day vacation. Staying in a hotel on Rue St. Denis, I am typing this as Ileana, Ioan and Maria are playing a cards game. We left home yesterday morning and made it here 10 hours later after a pleasant drive, a couple of stops and one hour in traffic for the last 20 km. We wanted to come here for some time but never had the chance. Several things happened. Shakira announced her first concert of the new world tour. Ileana and the kids only cared about their two-week camp, initially they didn't see a need for another vacation. Then they had the camp and came back exhausted and begging for a trip. I used their time away to work more and I needed a break. We didn't buy tickets for the concert at the beginning, even thought of not buying at all, or just trying to get one at the door at the last moment. Anyhow, they had a good deal online and we got cheap tickets.

First Post!!! (Ileana's first post)

Ever since I was little, I have wanted to travel. I never really had an actual reason for this, and was quite put off when my daddy told me to invent one. So after he hounded me for my little essay for a couple months, and after I realized he wasn't going to shut up about it, I sat down and wrote it. Here it is:


WHY I WANT TO GO AROUND THE WORLD

I want to go around the world for a number of reasons. I haven’t yet figured out which one first made me decide to travel the world, but all in all, these are my motives

• I like vanilla ice cream :-)
• I was hit by a car
• My name is Ileana Dascalu
• I was born that way
• I want to travel and see places
• I am secretly planting atomic bombs (just kidding)
• And I want to!

Explanations may be given.

I don’t see the connection between traveling and vanilla ice cream, but it is very important, I’m sure.

Being hit by a car made me realize that life is short and I could die any second. So with this in mind, I want to do something crazy!

What does my name have to do with this? It’s my identity, it’s who I am, and travel is part of that.

I’m pretty sure “I was born that way” is self-explanatory, as is “I want to travel and see places”.

Um... The atomic bombs were a joke, so I won’t go into that....

And, again, “I want to!” pretty much explains itself.

So, yes, I am going around the world, whether or not it’s this year, or the next, or when I’m 64, I have decided and, as Maria put it,

“Ileana is like a cat. She does what she wants, when she wants, if she wants.”

And you can’t change that.

So... yeah, that's pretty much it. This is my first post!!! Yes, we're going around the world!!! Eventually.... and I just lost terribly in a game of Whist!! (just when I was getting off my losing streak...)