It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged. A very long time. Well over a year. And several of my friends, family, and
co-workers have reminded me of that, which was surprising because I was pretty
confident that the only person reading this was my mother. While I always tried to blog regularly, life
took over and it just slipped away from me.
What can I say? I’m a very important
person doing very important things.
Just kidding! I was
probably just busy watching funny cat videos on YouTube.
I last blogged about Russia which was a trip I took in
October 2013 (yikes!) That trip also
included Finland and Estonia (which I previously blogged about) and Mongolia
and South Korea (which I have not blogged about). Since then, I have also taken overseas trips
to New Zealand (six trips in total), Myanmar, and Bali (Indonesia).
Back in Australia, I finally made it to the last of the
state and territory capitals that I had been missing: Brisbane and Darwin. I went on a big camping adventure in the
outback, channelled my inner-retiree in the Gold Coast, took a road trip down
the South Coast of New South Wales, and visited Melbourne once or twice… per
year… or more.
But there have been two really big exciting developments
missing from the blog. First and
foremost, I became an Aussie! I was
naturalized as an Australian citizen on August 15, 2014 – after roughly four
and a half years living in the Land Down Under.
I am now the proud bearer of dual passports entitling me to be shifty
when crossing international borders.
Secondly, I quit my job (yay!), moved out of my apartment,
and said goodbye to all of my friends in Australia (boo!). Last Sunday, I set out on a gap year: a full year (give or take a bit) of travel
around the globe. That was the impetus
for me starting up the blog again. Over
the next twelve months, I’ll be blogging about my adventures and even rewinding
the clocks a bit and filling you, the readers (my mother and one or two
others), in on all the exciting travels that I’ve failed to blog about over the
past nearly two years.
In the meantime, here are a few questions you can ponder:
1. Will I be able to
survive a full year of travel?
2. Just how many
times will I get food poisoning?
3. What is the most
random country in which I will eat Mexican food?
4. Just how long will
it take until I pop some loud, obnoxious American tourist in the face?
As I write this post, I am on a flight from Singapore to
Johannesburg. The first few weeks of my
travels will likely see limited wifi connections as I’ll be on various camping
safari tours across seven African nations, but I will do my best to post when
internet is available. Until then, trust
that I’ll be doing my best to type up blogs and have them ready as I go along. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare
for landing.
