And so it came to be..

Its been almost 6 weeks to the day that I got the go-ahead from work to take a sabbatical. Took a bit of wrangling - but it all came through in the end! The next task was convincing Awanti that even though Leave No Trace is an awesome job, and they love you there, and yes - having dogs in the office is super cool, its time to have a talk with with them and hit the road.

The interim weeks have been filled with planning (an ongoing concern), making sure we have the money (if this blog shuts next February instead of June, its because we ran out of money!), getting my visas (ahh...the joys of being an Indian citizen), and making to-do lists (my new favorite activity after mountain biking).It's all finally falling in place though - the past weekend was hopefully the storm before the calm. We finished packing and moving all our stuff (or junk as I like to call it).

Packing..not my favorite activity

Allow me to digress and rant a bit on this topic. Its amazing the amount of stuff a couple living in a one-bedroom apartment manage to accumulate in the span of 22 months. When we moved in together, Awanti was fresh off the boat from Sydney, Australia and her life possessions consisted of one suitcase, a backpack, and as many clothes as she could wear without customs mistaking her for a smuggler. I had a bit more, but it all still fit in 3 big cardboard boxes. Add to that, you'd think being on the 15th floor would serve as a natural impediment to the accumulation of stuff - but NO! 'It' somehow crawled its way up 15 flights and into our home in the middle of the night - 'it' being stuff. Anyhow, we managed to box, throw, or unload onto unwitting friends/family our worldly possessions and now are sitting in our bare apartment floor contemplating a night on the carpet. Think its finally sinking in what we are about to embark upon..

A bit of background on how this trip came to be. A long long time ago (3 yrs to be precise), Awanti, inspired by some backpackers she met in Sydney, Australia, decided its something we should undertake too at some point. I then followed it up a year later by mentioning that my company does allow sabbaticals. Ever since then, every month or so, at the most unexpected of times, Awanti gets this look in her eyes, turns to me, and declares - LETS GO ON A SABBATICAL! I, being adept at making excuses (blame it on my consulting background), always came up with some or the other reason, usually a variation of the following: I don't qualify for a Sabbatical as yet; we don't have enough money; just not the right time at work - which bought me a couple of weeks. However, when she again proposed the idea in April, I suddenly had no excuse to give. Having thus run out of excuses, realizing that this is something I really want to do too, and that I should stop being a 'Debbie Downer', I said YES. And so having committed to the idea, began the planning. We went through a couple of iterations including a 6 month road trip in the US, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (a 6 month, 2600 mile long hike along the western coast), 6 months in Europe and India only, before we finally settled on 12 months and a trip around the world. Blame it on Awanti.

Below's a rough itinerary:

Denver - Europe - N. Africa - SE Asia - India - S. America.

Well..I did warn you it's a rough itinerary.

Our journey begins fairly close to home - a couple of days in the Big Apple before we head over to Austria. From there its onto the Czech Republic, Germany, and other European countries. If you're still reading this, it means one of two things - you are my mother, or you really really have nothing better to do at work. Either ways, I hope you enjoyed my  rants and ramblings. We hope to keep this going over the course of the year and I do hope you check in from time to time to read the latest rant.

Time for bed!

- Ashish