Mar 2006

It was probably spring 2002, back in our first year of study at the University of East Anglia that we formulated our plans to go on an extended holiday after graduation. We had originally intended just to travel around the USA for 3 months in September 2005, as I had talked with Kate about how much I'd love to see America one day. This was, by the way, years before that annoying advertising campaign about how we've all "seen the film," and should therefore feel compelled to "visit the set". I seriously question whether watching J-Lo in Maid in Manhattan could really make you want to visit New York. The bog, to puke your guts out is more likely. But to be honest, the said campaign actually hit the nail on the head, despite some of its odd film choices: I wanted to see in real-life so many of the places I'd seen on the small and silver screens throughout my life. It probably seems desperately sad to want to visit a country based on the TV and movies it produces and exports, but I have a good excuse lined up, I assure you! All about being a product of my environment and stuff... actually, it really isn't that good. In fact, forget it. Maybe I'll come back to it in a later entry. I get the feeling I'm losing some of you, so I'll just get on with it.

Soooooooooooooooo, we were going to head to the States in the autumn and planned to be back in time to tell our tales around the Christmas dinner table, our stories of course enhanced by loads of John Smiths and too many bottles of White Zinfandel. However, over the years of watching Neighbours when we should have been studying, it became clear we really wanted to visit Ramsay Street, and maybe some other places in Australia - I'd heard there was an interesting rock that people sat and stared at. Also, viewing that beautiful Peter Jackson movie REALLY made us want to visit New Zealand - although I'd be shocked if anyone else who has seen Bad Taste didn't also feel drawn to such a wonderfully picturesque and geographically diverse country. I also have an uncle who moved to Thailand a few years ago, giving up a career in property management to work with yachts in Phuket. It seemed crazy, if not downright rude to not stop by for a visit on the way back to the UK.

So, with these three essential stops added to our game plan, our 3-month America Tour metamorphosed (I swear that spelling doesn't look right!) into a nearly-9-month World Tour. We added a few interesting-looking stops along the way in the form of Fiji, Malaysia and Singapore. The aim is once more to be home by Christmas - those cans of John Smiths and bottles of White Zinfandel are just having an extra year to chill, the same as us really.

Andy.

Hi, Andy here - or Andrew or indeed whatever you want to call me. I wanted to use this space to let anyone who is interested know a little about myself and Kate in terms of our travel plans (see below), our thoughts and feelings before we depart, and various other generic 'blog' conventions. Hopefully it won't be too generic, and, thinking about it, as a complete newbie to weblogging, I'm sure it will fail to follow any unwritten blog-lore/code of conduct, rather ending up becoming a tangled mess of sentences (such as this one) amounting to our excitement, apprehension, eagerness, fear, elation, along with many other thesaurus-gained abstract nouns... Oh dear, I sound like a pretentious arse already - but let's just see how this one plays out.

In a nutshell, our plan is to spend 253 days out of the UK, travelling first to the USA, then onward to Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. We didn't want to do it on the cheapy-come-scummy cheap, nor could we afford to do it first class all the way (or premium economy either for that matter). We wanted comfortable, but affordable to the average Joes like us who have been slumming it on almost minimum-wage for nearly two years! We will explain in much more detail what we're doing and how we went about saving for it in later entries to this blog. It might get boring, but I'll attempt to intersperse it with cutting witticisms and playful wisecracks to keep your attention throughout!

Anyways, enough with the introduction to the introduction, and on to the introduction of the two loveable protagonists in this unfolding adventure: Kate and Andrew. Due to my paranoia toward identity fraud, I won't give our surnames or other personal details that would give a would-be scallywag the oportunity to become one of us...although why anyone would want to become me is something of a brainteaser... he'd need to pull off long-haired T-shirt wearing self proclaimed 'scruff' who listens to 'difficult music' and quotes the works of Chris Morris and Trey Parker far too much. The scamster would also have to pretend to have grown up in Bradford, studied computer science at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where he would need to pretend he met his wonderful girlfriend of 4 years! THEN our rapscallion would need to blag that he worked as a projectionist for a year and a half post-graduation at UCI Norwich, then as a lowbie popcorn scooper-cum-body-spillage-cleaner-upperer at Odeon Leeds/Bradford for 4 months after. It all seems like far too much effort for our would-be swindler - they might as well just mug someone in the street. (Oh, and if you're wondering about the term 'difficult music', its not really my term - avid readers of this blog will find out in due course what I listen to...then can make up their own mind!)

It just wouldn't be right to concoct an equally poor ruse to introduce that wonderful girlfriend of 4 years, as I'm sure she will add her own in due course... that is if she can work out how to use the computer - she is arts graduate afterall! All I will say is she's fab and I genuinely couldn't think of a greater person to travel the world with... except of course for Lucy Liu, but I'm sure she'd let me off for that one so long as I gave her Jack White!

That's quite enough of the shenanigans methinks. In the next part I'll write in more detail about where we are planning to travel and what we're wanting to do while there! If you haven't fallen asleep already, congratulations!

Andrew.