Just 5 more months

So Christmas is almost here..and the trip is now just 5 months and 1 day away from starting..that coupled with a day off yesterday, this morning off and only a few hours of work tomorrow morning, it's a pretty darn great week!

The tent arrived this morning after a bit of confusion with GLS who couldn't locate the building - it should have gotten here last week but the courier for some reason didn't try to call me and I only figured out what was happening when I thought to check the tracking info on their site. All's well that ends well though :) There I am snoozing on my morning off and the phone rings with a jolly voice telling me he'll be at the front door in 10 mins to deliver a package if I'm available to take it. Hell yea I say..tis Christmas after all and I love opening presents (though this is technically one I bought myself). Disappointingly, the guy was not very Santa-esque..he had a hat..but it was a brown baseball cap. Not a bit of red and white to be seen.

I've not tried to pitch it yet (if I start I'll get halfway through, bored and abandon it in the living room..not the best idea when I've gotta sort out the present piles into bags for delivery later. The tent seems pretty light which make me happy..not sure how much carrying I'll have to do with it along the way but I reckon once I hit Oz, I'll be posting it along with my Thermarest & any other awkwardly shaped items I don't necessarily need back home. The question will be whether they go surface mail or something quicker because if I get the career break extension I'm hoping for, then who knows how soon after I get back to the Emerald Isle I'll need them :) All will be revealed in September '09!

The planning is at a bit of a stand still because I was doing so much reading about other people's adventures I was getting a bit depressed about how far away mine is, and how quickly it'll pass by before I'm due back to same old same old. I know I've some travel book to unwrap at Christmas so I reckon I can restart the reading in the new year to see what other wonderful things are out there to be done but limit the amount of reading I do until I'm at the 3 month marker. I have to sort out a new passport and call the doctor about vaccinations etc, but these are January tasks :)

I've had some interesting chats with people about the trip of late. I've become one of those people who's started responding to the weird people in the bus/dart/taxi who strike up a conversation with me and when they ask if I've any holidays planned I beam and explain the adventure. Some think I'm mad, some are horribly jealous... One taxi man a few weeks back reckoned he'd book in on the OzBus too because there's no money in the taxi game anymore and he'd be better off sitting on a bus being driven around than driving people around Dublin and putting up with traffic. Another suggested that in order to experience Australia properly I need to go to work there, which isn't really on my plan. He reckons I won't get a rounded view of the place unless I do it and suggested either fruit picking or the traffic diversion jobs that he reckons are freely available. We'll see! The best suggestion to date was from two sisters I got talking to at a party in early December who suggested that instead of flying from Sydney to Perth I should take the train. It takes a few days but goes via Adelaide..perfect much? Apparently it's better to do it Sydney to Perth rather than the reverse..though I'm not sure I understand that logic as I assume the train goes on the same track in both directions?!? Anyways, I reckon it's something I'm definitely on for (or am at this point in time having not spent longer than an hour or so on a bus in the last 18 months). I took Amtrak from LA to NYC a few years back and it was brilliant..I didn't enjoy the lack of shower facilities too much, but I'm guessing after the lifestyle I'll become adjusted to on the overland to Oz journey I'll be less concerned about that this time around..or if money's not too tight I might see about a sleeper carriage :)

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas, and the happiest of New Year's for 2009!

Awaiting Delivery

Yay! I got an email earlier today to say my shiny new tent has been despatched for delivery and since it's a courier company rather than the regular post..who knows I might just have it before my bday and Crimbo. How exciting!?!

Latest trip update is that the information pack I'm longing for won't be produced until February!! Each OzBus journey is unique with the route being constantly upated to add cool stuff and remove not so cool stuff, along with making sure everywhere they take us is 'safe'. So there I was hoping to fill my christmas wish list with every guide book under the sun to make sure I know what there is to see along the way (and prehaps bore everyone to tears or make them very jealous with constant chatter about the millions of plans I'm bound to come up with between now and May). Looks like Little Miss Organised is going to become Little Miss Less Organised by force if necessary ;)

I have however got a guide book for New Zealand and I can't wait to get there. My god that place looks like heaven!! Really not sure how I'm going to see everything I want to see in the couple of week's I'll have to spend there.

Countdown was calculated yesterday as 160 to London departure date...time to try forget about the excitement again til we whittle it down to double digits!

Countdown 6..5..4..3..2..1

Six months...SIX MONTHS...the countdown is on!!

I'm positively twitching with excitement and trying very hard to resist the temptation to buy a mountain of stuff, book a flight to London and pay off my OzBus balance...trying to get this relaxed attitude started off now so I don't drive Loonie loony with preparation talks. I was bold and started picking up some stuff for the camping side of things in the States in October - but only because it was so much cheaper than buying them here..so I've got my Thermarest self-inflating camping mattress inflated and stored under the bed, my maglite and head torch stored sans battery along with my mosquito net and Swiss Army knife (sorry for ruining your Crimbo pressie idea Lolly).

Word is out in work that I'm heading off...a relief to have that known so I can talk about the plans openly. There's been a steady increase in the number of "are you mad..you want to sit on a bus for 13 weeks..have you lost it?" questions that have been coming to me...but then that's to be expected, it's not really your typical holiday is it? One interesting question was as to whether the trip was for charity...hrmm....maybe I should consider a 'send Emma to Oz' charity ;)

Over the past couple of weeks I've been reading up on my Rough Guide to travelling around the world..they've got some interesting stuff in there and then some fairly out there ideas too. When I look at the mountain of laundry that builds up here in a week I can't help but wonder how I'm going to survive with a single rucksack and day pack's worth of stuff for 13 weeks. I have a tendency to over pack so I've been reading up on suggested packing lists...holy moly there are some people out there who can travel very, very, very lightly...like the one list that suggests a single t-shirt..and for the day that you're washing it you use your swimsuit as your t-shirt...ehhhhh no..no thanks! I've got some idea of what I'll need to bring along..but I reckon it means a bit of shopping before the trip to get some gear that's more suitable to quick wash/dry and anti wrinkle than my current clothing...something that excites and terrifies me. If you've done a backpack excursion with limited bag space and have a swear by packing list please share it!

With all the excitement there is of course a bit of nervousness creeping in...

• What am I thinking signing up to spend 13 weeks on a bus? (I hate buses - I spent many years as a kid getting travel sick - how do I plan on making it through 13 weeks with occasional hangovers aboard a bus in countries without proper roads)


• How am I going to deal with being away from home and the friends and family who keep my days bright and make me smile? (Current theory is to put an album of photos onto my iPod to bring with me rather than having to carry more weight in the form of a paper album so I can look at ye and have a smile whenever I feel a bit low)


• What will I do without daily internet access...if I can't see Facebook how will I know what people are up to? (This will be a struggle because I'm always online...but I need to get a break from computers I see computers..they're everywhere)


• How many travel vaccinations am I going to have to get - how sick are they going to make me?


• Once I get going am I going to be so bitten by the travel bug that I won't want to come back..or will I be gone a week and wanting to pack it all in to come back home?
  

Something that I saw on a blog a while back for someone who had done OzBus before was the top three things they'd miss about home..and the top three they wouldn't..I'm still working on my list..it will follow in time.

Get this Blog Started

So...who are we..and what are we trying to achieve here???

Well, we're two schoolmates from Wexford, Ireland who have signed up for the trip of a lifetime with OzBus who are going to take us through 20 countries to get from London to Sydney between May and August 2009. Both of us were looking for a change..a bit of an adventure and weirdly were both thinking that the OzBus was the way to get it without having ever spoken about the idea!

The decision to do the trip together came about at a friend's house when we were having a few glasses of wine and I mentioned I was going to apply for time out of work and planned on taking the trip. Una said she wanted to do it too and so we joined forces and agreed for May 2009 as the time to do it. A couple of the other girls were interested too but they can't make it but said they wanted to keep tabs on us as we went along. So the blog was born and we have the best of intentions to keep it updated as we progress along the trip with the assistance of my new Netbook (which I still have to buy - I can't be without technology for 3 months...I am a nerd after all). One of the girls suggested we should be renamed Lemmie & Loonie and it's kinda stuck from there...Aileen..thank you!

Lemmie = Emma (aka Little Miss Organised)
Loonie = Una (aka Little Miss Laid-Back)

So here we are in November 2008, application forms completed and submitted, deposits paid and the 'Welcome Aboard' confirmations are in hand so we're starting the countdown until May 24th 2009 when we leave the safety and comfort of our respective homes behind to spend 13 weeks in confinement on a bus travelling overland through places we've never heard of before. Adventure is what we wanted...I'm sure it's what we're gonna get ;)

Here's the list of countries that our trip will see us visit:

(1) Ireland
(2) England
(3) France
(4) Belgium
(5) Germany
(6) Czech Republic
(7) Austria
(8) Hungary
(9) Romania
(10) Bulgaria
(11) Turkey
(12) Iran
(13) Pakistan
(14) India
(15) Nepal
(16) Myanmar
(17) Thailand
(18) Malaysia
(19) Indonesia
(20) East Timor
(21) Australia

In keeping with my "Little Miss Organised" title, I've started my initial planning in that I'm starting to form a view of what I'm hoping to do once I get to Sydney at the end of August '09. Number one item on the agenda is to hold up in a hotel for 2 or 3 days where I can enjoy a decent sleep that doesn't involve constructing my accommodation for the night before climbing in and trying to sleep in a mummy like sleeping bag on a wafter thin matress on the bumpy ground. Camping isn't something I've done a whole lot of...so I'm slightly nervous about that..but it's all part of the adventure so I'm quietly excited. After a few days to catch my breath in Sydney a flight to Perth is on the cards to spend a few days there visiting some fellow Wexfordians who'll have set up shop there and then either head straight back to Sydney to meet up with Conor or possibly go back via Adelaide (to do some more visiting). With a base set in Sydney the plan would be to do the East Coast of Australia before moving on to New Zealand (I'm really excited about spending a few weeks there). Depending on where the 27th Ad World Series is on I may be travelling back to Ireland with a stopover somewhere in the USA to make an appearance at the tournie and see if we can defend our Divisional Title! It's all a work in progress and I'm changing my mind on a daily basis...just trying to get some ideas together..so if you have any thoughts let me know :)