10.15.2008

Australia Countdown!

It is official. In a mere 67 days, Ashley Holwell and I will be down-under-bound.

I can't recall what first struck my fancy about wanting to visit Australia (well, besides obvious reasons that I feel I don't have to blatantly list here), but for at least three years now Australia has been at the top of my list of places to travel.

While I have traveled elsewhere overseas in the past three years, it has taken me this long to take the plunge!

I attribute the delay to finding someone to go with...

Being that my father works for an airline, I am able to fly free on all US Airways domestic flights and receive large discounts on all other airlines. (Rough life - I know).

What is even MORE exciting about flying for free is that it also applies to international travel. All I have to pay on international flights is country tax (equating to about two or three hundred dollars round trip). Now if that doesn't sound like music to anyone's ears, I'd like to send you in for a tune-up.

So, the factor hindering me from heading west (or east? or south? or... heck, I guess I don't know which route my plane will take) has been finding one of my normal friends (and by normal, I mean someone who would have to shell out thousands of dollars on a plane ticket, alone, for the trip, which is...oh wait, all of my friends) who could afford to go with me.

Clearly, it is not sensical to go to Australia with one of my family members (who also can fly for next to nothing). London, perhaps. Switzerland, perhaps. Ireland or Scotland to play golf, most definitely. But not Australia.

So, low and behold, I have finally found a friend who is much like me in the sense that she is all about experiences and getting the most out of life that she can. Enter: Ashley Holwell.

Wait...I should clarify...I have other friends who love life and love living it and being ridiculous (enter Ashley Davis and Meredith Badali), but Ashley Holwell has the additional element of funding... and thus, she and I are embarking on what will most certainly be an EPIC experience.

In preparation for spending two weeks in December and January in Australia, I have stopped eating. Okay, I wish... that is the general plan but it hasn't gone into effect yet. Oh yeah, and I'm needing to do this thing called 'working out' which, since I sold my soul to Walter Cronkite at the end of August, I have not been able to do much of.

BUT, Ashley created a workout/eat healthy spreadsheet for us to track our food intake and calorie-burning activity! Wish me luck because who really wants to spend two weeks in Australia (during their summer) looking anything less-than-perfect...?!!?


.......67 days to EPIC-dom! :)