Monday, 24 June 2013

My travel resolutions

Dear Future Leighana: these are your rules.


1. Just try it. I'm not the most adventurous person, culinarily speaking. I'm feeling a bit trepidatious about our first leg of the trip in Japan. (That's already two words my spell check rejects!) We're going to stay in traditional ryokans for the first week, and meals are included. Mark's looking forward to fish for breakfast, and I'm ok with that, in filet-format. I'm more troubled by things with eyes. And gelatinous parts. But I'm going to try it! Whatever is on my plate will get a taste. I think not being able to recognise the characters I would use to look something up in my dictionary may actually be a blessing in disguise.:)

2. You're dressed for it. I tend to be intimidated by fancy-looking places. Especially when I've been travelling for several days, or, say, sleeping in a tent. Many times, something like this has happened:

Mark: That looks like a really cool (bar, winery, gallery, restaurant, party, etc). We should go check it out!
Leighana: We can't go in there - just look at me! I'm wearing sneakers and I smell like a campfire!
Mark: Sigh.
I'm going in, until they ask me to leave. Which is pretty much how Mark rolls anyway.

3. Don't freak out when you get lost. I hope you've noticed the when - there's no if here. I will get lost. I know this because I am always the navigator and I always get us lost. And yet, someone continues to give me the role of navigator. As if he *wants* to be lost in an unfamiliar place. To do some exploring. Hmm. I can't believe I'm just now figuring this out. 

Sunday, 23 June 2013

The adventure begins...

In a few short days, Mark and I will begin a travel adventure! We're heading off for six months overseas; the plan is to travel around for a month or so, and then settle in Berlin, Germany, from August to January. During this time, Mark's going to work on supplementing his fantastic online embryology resource, and I'm going to plug away on my PhD data analysis. I fully expect that we will be efficient and productive in our work (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

I'm setting up this blog so my friends and family can follow along with our travels from the comfort of their own homes.:) I don't really have a good idea yet of how often I'll be able to post, or what this blog will eventually look like. It's an experiment in progress - let's see how we go!