February 25, 2012

3 Years Later – The Final Post

DSC06360Over the last 3 years, I have been asked many times, "when are you going to write the Final Post?" My response has always been, "yeah, I need to do that . . . " as my mind wanders off thinking about our trip around the world. Well, after 3 years of procrastinating and maybe just not wanting to post the Final Post, here it is. I assume the reason that I haven been avoiding it stems from the fact that the act of doing so brings an official end to the trip. The prod I needed was Jennifer posting a picture of Halong Bay on Facebook a couple days ago stating where we were 3 years ago. 3 years ago?! Really?! The other prodding came from my desire to convert the blog into a book and the book really should have an epilogue.
Aaron Grad FamilyIn the time that we have been back, Aaron graduated from Williams College and started his professional career at J.P. Morgan in New York. He absolutely loves living and working in Manhattan. Noah has passed up Aaron height wise, topping out at 6'5". He is a Junior at Apple Valley High School and thoroughly enjoys hanging out with people other than his parents after 7 months of too much Mom and Dad time. Jennifer is on her 3rd job since our return, landing for the 4th time at IBM. I sold my internet company and went back into the project management consulting business. Jennifer and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a trip to Kauai!
DSC04572The last few days in Fiji, the final destination on our trip, we spent a lot of time reminiscing about the previous 7 months. We discussed the experiences we had, the people we met, and potential impact they will have on how we live our lives. Other than those deep philosophical topics, we also chronicled how we got around the world. We took 33 flights, 103 taxi rides, 99 bus rides, 29 boat rides, 4 car rentals, 6 train rides, 37 trips on the subway, 5 bike rentals, 16 trips in friends cars, 1 cable car, 19 Tuk-Tuk rides, 4 trips on a Cyclo, 4 scooter rentals, and 3 types of animals (horse, camel, and elephant).
DSC06496Looking back on the trip, we feel blessed that we were able to take a break from life and experience all that the world has to offer. The picture to the right pretty much sums up how we feel about taking 7 months to travel the world. This little boy is from Ubud on the island of Bali in Indonesia. It makes us want to go back to Bali, since we did not spend enough time there. Better yet, we need to figure out when we can do another trip around the world. It might have to wait until we get Noah through college.
Until next time . . .
Click on the following link to view a 15 minute video/picture summary of our trip ==> Trip Video

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