Just another day in paradise...

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. Hi guys,

First of all, thanks for being a good enough friend to check out my online journal for my crazy 'round-the-world trip! As an overview, I started my journey by flying to Lihue, Kauai, where I spent New Year's with my wonderful friend Mitch. (Incidentally, that experience definitely earns the title of The Ten Best Consecutive Days I've Ever Spent In My Life!) On the 6th I flew to Honolulu, where I met up with Rob Avila, my travel buddy. We will go on the 10th to Manila, Philippines, where Rob has relatives. Then we fly on the 19th to Ho Chih Minh/Saigon, Vietnam, to meet up with a college friend of Rob's who is stationed over there with the Foreign Service. Next we travel by bus to Cambodia, where we'll see Phnom Penh (and the Killing Fields) and Angkor Wat, the largest man-made religious structure in the world. From there, we cross into Thailand, spending a few days on one of the little islands before going to Bangkok and HOPEFULLY meeting up with Rob's cousins, as well as with my friend Walter and his wife Connie (hint, hint, you two!). Next, we fly on the 6th of February to Rome, where we'll work our way up Italy's boot to Pompeii, Florence, and Venice before heading over to Slovenia to meet my relatives in Ljubljana. From there, it's back to Italy as we head to Milan for a flight to Madrid on Feb. 23. On the 27th we fly to Casablanca, Morocco, then we'll take a boat over to Faro, Portugal, and work our way up to Lisbon. March 8 we fly from there to Barcelona, where my friend Terre is living. Then Rob leaves to go back to the US and I make my way through southern France (hopefully my former roommate Yves will be there at that time) and then up to Paris, where I'll meet up again with Mitch before flying back to the US! :-D

I'm so, so excited about this trip - now is both the best and the worst time for me to be embarking upon such an adventure...most of you know I got laid off from my job at the dot.com in San Francisco last summer, and that I went back to the east coast and then did a 3-month internship with the National Journalism Center which ended in mid-December. Now I'm *hoping* to get on with the Miami Herald in another year-long, paid internship program, which will start in May. But in the meantime, I wanted to take one last extended backpacking trip! And this was my chance.

Well, I guess I'll write more from Manila. By the way, I have a feeling my journal entries will be somewhat sporadic and may not all be this gramatically correct and without typos due to time constraints in overseas internet cafes. But I hope to provide you all with a fairly accurate account of my trip, so stay tuned!

Cheers, Anastasia .