A Conversation With a Bottle of Wine

Some many months ago, in the living room of my mom's house I sat down to have a conversation with a bottle of Cabernet. Somehow, that conversation has brought me to the place I now sit... a hostel, in a small town on the South island of New Zealand, named Wanaka, meaning, "The Gleaming Mountain". Many things have occurred in my life to bring me to this place, but I can narrow it down to a few specific events. Four to be exact. The first was a broken heart. From that broken heart came a book that one of my best friends and his wife gave to me. In that book, the author's fiance left him only a few days before the wedding. This led the author on the trip of a lifetime around the world. When he was making his decision to go on this trip he let his grandmother, who was in an assisted living home, in on his plan. All of the elderly people in the home encouraged him to go, saying, "The only thing in your life that you are guaranteed to not regret is travel." Second event was the passing of my mom. As we found out she was diagnosed with cancer, and maybe had only six months to a couple of years left with us i thought, "...well, I should quit my job and take her to see the world." She thought this was a great idea, but was never healthy enough to make it happen. She was healthy enough to tell me to do it on my own. Third event, two of my best friends had been training for and planning a trip to New Zealand to participate in an Ironman event, "Challenge Wanaka". Lastly was, you guessed it, a conversation with a bottle of wine.

Sitting alone, in the house I was raised in, looking for a flight to New Zealand to support my friends in their endeavor, I opened a bottle of Cabernet.

Glass one.
As I looked at how expensive round trip airfare was to New Zealand, calculated the little paid time off I would have left, and how many days I would lose due to jet lag, I decided it didn't make sense to go for the amount of days work could give me off. Minor Setback. I'll talk to work and tell them I was going to take some extra time off and we could work out any problems with my plan. Airfare from LA to New Zealand and back, $1400.00.

Glass two.
If I'm all the way across the globe and so close to Australia I need to find a way to make that part of my trip. Okay, two weeks in NZ and two weeks in Australia. Work can figure out how to keep my job for a month. Airfare from La to NZ, NZ to Aus, and Aus to LA, $1700.00.

Glass three.
If I'm all the way across the globe and so close to Bali, I need to find a way to make that part of my trip. Okay, I can add a week in Bali and that wont change too much. No time to check the airfare, I finished my glass of wine.

Glass four.
If I'm going to quit my job to go all the way to the other side of the earth, I might as well see the world! I can quit my job, fly to New Zealand to support my friends, and take my time returning home. Around the world ticket, without a flight home, $2400.00.

I spent the next couple of weeks flipping through books, searching the web, working with a travel agent, memorizing google maps, and planning my trip. Then came the day, I booked my flights. One week in Australia, four weeks in New Zealand, three more weeks in Australia, two weeks in Egypt, one week in Sicily, three days in London, and a flight to Ireland. Followed by three months, or so (as I said, no flight home yet), to travel through the rest of Europe. And there it began... My journey across the world and, The Slow Road Home.