holy *#%!ing *#%!

i just spent two months gross pay in one swoop and there is, quite literally, no going back now.

i am officially the proud, if theoretical, owner of both one ginormous credit card charge and 10 plane tickets to take me around the world and back starting next january - theoretical because RTW tickets evidently don't come electronically, so I will have to go pick up my crisp, lovely, tangible tickets next week.

the itinerary has been floating and re-formulating in my head for months now. even after i had a departure date (january), which gave me a direction (westward, ho!), there are still so many variables that i had to play around with. some placed got dropped early on, for time - i am doing the entire world, and not hitting india, or china, or russia - and some for money, like south africa and brazil and easter island.

then i got to streamlining - dubai was in there for a long time, because come on - how cool to go sunning on the persian gulf and go see those freaking PRIVATE ISLANDS in the shape of palm trees and the continents and get henna tatoos in a bazaar and i have to stop talking about it because it will make me sad i am not going. dubai came in because one online travel place put me through there as essentially a free connection, and then i added it as a must see because it sounded cool enough. dubai left because i didn't book through that travel place, and so the cost of getting there + the cost of being there + the stories i've heard of dubai as alternately dull for us poor folk and/or unpleasant for us womenfolk made it no longer worth it.

egypt was another that was supposed to be on my rtw itinerary, but i decided that i could get there just as economically by finding a cut-rate flight from europe. so it left the overall planning, but is still being planned on for next spring.

and then there is patagonia. it's so impractical, and all accounts, it should be long, long gone from the plans. it's expensive, hard to navigate, and huge. but...i just couldn't give it up. there was no place i could substitute in that wouldn't continue to make me sad. so i kept working on it with a lovely travel agent who did not seem to want to slap me or anything, and voila. i'm going to patagonia - all the way down to see the bottom of the world. and i know scandinavia will essentially drain money directly from my bank account, but i don't care - it's my #1 must-see place, so it stays. and i'm going - all the way up to see the top of the world.

so now, in its full glory, my itinerary:
in january, i head south for about three and a half weeks of patagonia (both argentina and chile) and buenos aires.
then 3.5 weeks in new zealand
then 3.5 weeks in australia
then 3.5 weeks in southeast asia
then off to europe for about 3 months. must-sees there are greece, croatia, scandinavia and egypt. beyond that, it will just be whereever my whims take me - turkey? iceland? morocco? who knows.

at the end of july, i come home.

theoretically.