Bought a One-Way Ticket to Ride
Thursday, December 26th, 2009 will go down in history as the first day of our new life. The day we took the first definitive step toward the actualization of a lifelong dream. The first day of the most amazing experience of our lives.
We bought our one-way tickets to Buenos Aires, Argentina. We took the leap into the unknown. After all the monotonous planning, the visas, the vaccines, the backpacks, the savings . . .we rediscovered what this whole adventure is about, the journey, by purchasing probably one of the most defining flights of our lives. Our freedom rediscovered in the form of an orbitz automated email.
We are so indescribably excited and at the same time really overwhelmed. As we woke the morning after buying the tickets, we were overtaken by a bittersweet feeling of amazement (that we have done it, it is really happening) and sadness (as we glanced at Lola) and realized that although this will be one of the most extraordinary things we do, something we will have endless stories about, we will be missing one important part of lives- our families. As we take off on this adventure we will see things we probably never imagined seeing. We will be overtaken by amazement, but we will also be reminded of our loved ones and miss them along the way.
I know some of you are thinking, WTF. Why is she so down, this should be one of the most exciting days of her life. So in response to that, I apologize. I am sorry for this sappy sad post, which should be one of the happiest on our entire blog. But, I are not one to sugarcoat. The purpose of our blog is not to serve as a Hollywood movie where everything is perfect all the time. 
The purpose of our blog is to be brutally honest about what we experience. How our trip affects us. We want to look back and truly remember what happened and how we felt, not how we thought we should feel.
Don’t get me wrong. I am more excited than I have ever been about anything (except maybe marrying Mark) in my entire life. I have butterflies just thinking about going to the airport. I just felt it is necessary for me to mention, honestly, all the emotions we are feeling.
Trust me, we are definitely not just happy, but amazed that we are so close! We celebrated buying the tickets a couple days later. 
It is pretty easy to tell from the photos how excited we are and how much we celebrated (probably a little too much).
So to sum it all up for those wondering about what happens when you take the leap. Emotions rush over you, good and bad. You feel extreme happiness and a feeling of sadness for those you will leave behind. You feel free and lonely. You feel overwhelmed and carefree. It is an interesting experience, one that is hard to describe.
In my life I have found most things difficult to explain are best summed up with one word, in this case the word would be- Incredible.
Le echo de menos ya
I think your emotions are very understandable. On my first round-the-world trip I was similarly thrilled to be going off on an amazing adventure, but also sad to be leaving behind my girlfriend (though she later joined me on the road and we eventually got married, so it all worked out!)
Though you will indeed miss friends and family, the adventure you’ll be embarking on is something that you will always remember as a highlight of your life. My personal list of suggestions would include:
* Treat the locals with interest and respect, and they will be similarly good to you.
* When in doubt, see it or do it. I still get bummed thinking about how we didn’t bother going to Aleppo (Syria) and a few other places, as we were a bit tired, or whatever. You may never be in these places again, so make the most of them while you are there.
* Having said the above, focus on enjoying your trip, not just rushing around to check-off all the sights.
* As your great website tagline says, “it’s not the destination, but the journey.” A trip like this is the ultimate “live in the moment” kind of experience.
* Take some time to learn how to take good photos, and then be sure to take lots of photos of you, doing the things you do on a trip. My wife and I enjoy the photos of places we went and things we saw, but the photos we truly treasure are the photos of us enjoying ourselves in a new and different place.
I could go on and on, but hopefully above is of some help. Have a great trip!
Bob,
Thanks for the wise words, they are greatly appreciated. We can always guess what the trip will be like, but it is nice to hear from people who have experienced an around the world trip. Thankfully we will have each other through this whole thing. I am sure it was tough to leave your wife at home and it must have been a fantastic feeling to meet up with her later. I can’t even imagine how much I would miss Mark if he stayed behind in Raleigh as I traveled (it would be really hard).
When it comes to the photos- I totally hear you on that. It always seems like we have tons of photos of me or tons of photos of Mark, but never any of us together. That was one thing I was thinking about . . .how will we get photos of us doing things. Our camera has a timer, but when we are in the mist of doing something (like zorbing) it is going to be hard to capture both of us at once. Also, I need to work on my photo composition.
Overall, I want to say thanks again for the insight and advice.
Thanks,
Jessica
Still can’t believe you guys made it happen!