Take daily

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has just arrived in Australia and I am thrilled. It comes on at 9:30 every night and I am tickled with anticipation throughout the evening. I’m just sad it didn’t arrive earlier, sigh. However I am just going to be happy happy happy that it has, finally, arrived and I can watch it. I think Jon Stewart is a genius, plus funny, which in my mind is pretty darn perfect.

A fascinating study

Being a marketing person, I think I am probably more fascinated by people than most. I always like to study relationships, people’s reactions to situations, and of course, communication in general.  I’m even more captivated by people’s reactions to things that are uncommon in their world. This is usually introduced by new ideas or technologies, or simply by different cultures.

My latest study has been even more interesting to me, simply because it also involves me. I have been observing people’s reactions to Darren and my upcoming trip with mounting curiousity, simply because I am so surprised by the wide range of responses we have gotten. 

Group A is the easiest – they are enthralled by the concept. Often times the person has done a trip similar to ours, or dreamed of doing it at one time. The person often pauses, and gets a distant look in their eyes, as if they are reliving past journeys. Then they usually sigh and say something to the fact of, “Good on you.”

Group B is a big mosh of the middle ground people. These are the ones who understand the why of what we are doing, but they wouldn’t pick up and do it themselves: either the timing is wrong, or the desire isn’t there.  They usually respond with something like, “Do it while you can, cause once you settle down…” and blah blah, I usually stop listening.  This grouping is still supportive of the trip, even if they think it’s a tiny bit off the normal scale.

Group C is my favourite to interact with, simply because I think we scare them. These are the people who cannot and I mean CANNOT understand why in the world we would do this. Couldn’t the money be better spent on [insert house/anything else here]? How can you take this much time off? They look at us as if we are about to implode in front of their eyes or perhaps we’ve been taken over by voodoo.  My colleague actually asked me, “Why would you want to travel?” And to understand the venom in his voice you should probably say it like you would say “Why would you want to maim small puppies?”

Then we have group D. Group D is group C but with a twist. Our plans are so far out of people’s realm of consiousness that they don’t even register we are going anywhere. In December we will suddenly arrive back to the U.S. and the group will have no idea we would have travelled, much less ask where we’ve been or how it was. 

Fasincating don’t you think? That one sentence, “We’re taking 6 months off to travel” could summon so many different reactions. Right now - when Darren and I have explain to our everyone why we are leaving Australia - is a perfect time to gather up all my evidence on these groups.

In the beginning I thought I would be able to predict the groups of people quite easily, either based on age or nationality. And yet, I am constantly proven wrong! I could go on now about conclusions and summaries and blah blah, but I never liked that part of science. I always thought the observations were much more exciting. Who cares why it turned green – but isn’t it a cool green? So, I will enlighten you on my one and only conclusion – nothing so far has been a proof test of how people respond. I guess I just have to gather more feedback. Fascinating isn’t it?

Weekly wrap

It’s been a busy week here in Stagnaro town.  I flew to Sydney for lunch (yes literally – I was in Sydney for less time than I spent on the airplane) on Tuesday to meet a candidate for my position. Stangely enough he is an American guy, we seem to  keep populating our APAC team with them. But he’s a good guy and I think we’ll be offering him something soon. Thank goodness!

I have set up a sweatshop downstairs for all of our moving and travel plans and books.  Being that I am owner and sole worker of the sweatshop, I tend to be my own worst nightmare. Last night I was even dreaming plans… seriously. I think I might have gone over the deep end sometime around Wednesday.

In good news, Darren has just gotten to single digits for number of days left. I only have a few more, I’m sitting around 14! Then we’ll have a few weeks to entertain mom and I’m sure I’ll be handcuffed to EBay trying to sell everything we own. Oh the ride just begins!

I hope everyone had a nice fourth of July. We didn’t exactly celebrate, but I only got about 1 email those few days, since the states was on holiday. So I guess I can be thankful for that. It allowed me to log some extra hours in my sweatshop.

More changes

As you can see I made some more changes to the website today. I’m not trying to confuse people, I just think I have a bit of ADD.  Anyways, I’m not thrilled with the bottom blog look, but I like the new header enough that I’ll keep this theme, for awhile at least. And now my #1 man has header status.

Feelin’ the pain

Ouch. We just got our final final itinerary back from our travel agent. And of course, because I like to torture myself, I decided to figure out exactly how long I was going to be in the plane during travel days.  Showing an odd likeness to my normal life, which is devoid of moderation, our itinerary has long or short days. We are either travelling for 3 hours or 14. The more painful bit being how many 10+ days of flying we actually have – 6 to be exact.

I can’t say I’m surprised, giving the fact we are circumnavigating the globe as well as going from the bottom (Oz) to the top (Beijing) back to the bottom (South Africa) and back UP to the top (London). A strange form of self torture, I’m sure.  So, if anyone knows of any good card games send them my way. Daz and I plan on having Gin Rummy tourneys, but I’m afraid the excitment might wear off after our 200th hour of playing.

Robbed

Poor Socceroos. They were completely robbed in their game vs italy. Daz and I stayed up until 3am to watch it and it was heartbreaking to see them lose in the final seconds. Stupid ref. Now I’m just going to have to cheer for Germany to take it all. Go Germany!

I’m in love

There's a new man in town and oh is he wonderful. His name is Hostelworld and he is by far my new favourite anything of all time. Now, it may not be very exciting for most people, but he is a dream boat to an upcoming traveller like me. Let me just name off a few of his better known qualities: cheap hostels in every place in the world, even places I haven't heard of yet. Not only are the hostels cheap, but there are fabulous write ups of each one, and ratings from people who have actually stayed there and can be as nasty or nice as they want to. Add that to an abundant variety and I was happy as clam.

That was until I booked our hostel in Rome tonight…. and then I just got so damn pleased I was dancing around the house. I tell you, the makers of hostelworld are brilliant!  Once you book a place, you have your own special account page which has your itineraries, details of your hostel (like directions if, alas, you lost your print out on the elephant in Thailand), city details, and other tour options for the city. Plus you get special points for booking with them which you can then use to buy t-shirts or even books (like LP guides) from Amazon!  THEN (Can it get better? Yes!!!!), a 6 page pdf pops up with your booking which includes budget tips, things to do, and important info (currency, emergency phone numbers, etc) for your specific city. Included in that pdf is, again, your hostel details, booking number, prices, and directions. BAM! 

Shhh…. Did you hear that?  I think I just heard Travelocity skuttle off into a corner.