Make the hop!

We are occupying a new space now!

Pleaseeee check us out at:

http://www.kellyandellie.wordpress.com

(Mom, click the link above!!!!!)

For the newest and most up to date posts.

Time flies faster than me slipping on a pickle.

The plans are becoming concrete. We officially leave on a transatlantic cruise on May 4th, 2009. It takes nearly 13 days and stops in the ports of Bermuda, Spain, Portugal and France before reaching England. All places we are happy to revisit with my mom in tow who has never been to any of these places.

From England, we will take my mom to Amsterdam for a long weekend and then she will fly home to Key West and we will fly back to good old favorite London to spend some pub time with our best friends. After London, we will fly to Turkey (Istanbul and from there Cappadoccia) and then on to Moscow where we will take the Trans-Mongolian railway through Siberia and stopping off in small Russian villages and Mongolia before reaching Beijing, China.

From Beijing we will travel to Shanghai to catch a ferry to Japan and then back. After China and Japan, we will travel on to SE Asia including Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and potentially heading all the way down to Singapore where we will catch a flight to Perth, Australia and explore a little of the West coast before settling down in our new home of Melbourne.

We are beyond excited....

In the meantime, we have been working a lot, doing mundane serving work and answering annoying tourist questions. We have been attempting to save every little penny we can get but as of the last few weeks been a little more frivolous than we should be. We have an appointment to begin getting some shots for Asia and have been researching like crazy.


We have actually gone ahead and planned to meet Cory and Lauren in St. Augustine for the Harvest of Hope Fest where we will camp, drink beer, eat veggie dogs, listen to good music, catch up and celebrate my early birthday! This will take place the first weekend of March. We are also trying to fit in a trip to Brooklyn before we depart in May.

In April, we are thrilled that Gena is coming down for a whole month and Ellie's family are coming for a long weekend and Cory for a weekend.

It's nuts that all of that is just two months away and that we leave in less than 100 days!!!


In past news, we took part in Rachel and Ian's wedding in December which was an honor and a really good time. I enjoyed seeing Benji and Lauren and sharing a massive suite with them. Good Luck to Rachel and Ian whom we love sooo soooo much.

You can choose whoever you like....

Obama baby!!!

Here is a little funny picture from Smathers in Key West on the election day:


Yes, this is Mccain and someone has thrown his massive leftover from Fantasy Fest paper mache head into the ocean before he ever lost.


And this is me with my sign, urging people to get out and vote for the best candidate.

And as I rolled silverware that night at Caroline's, the first biracial man to ever make it on the ballot had won. When his family took the stage, the tears streamed down my face. Amazement at the history that was being created right before my eyes.

Now let's hope he makes smart choices in leading our nation and let's hope that he takes a hard look at the civil rights fights that are currently taking place in America today, ie gay marriage.

Enough about politics!

Back Home!

We arrived to the US, New York City to be exact, on August 27th where my(Kelly's) mom and brother were at the gate awaiting our arrival. We had booked an apartment for 3 nights in East Village to do some shopping, unwinding and eating. It was so nice all of being together again. We also saw Lauren in Brooklyn, where she is planning her next move. The NYC trip was a nice transition back into the US lifestyle after 10 months abroad.


Me with my mom and brother Joe in NYC!

While bored on long train rides, we often calculated some stats about our trip.
Here are some of them:

Time gone from US total: 9 months and 20 days approx.

Countries visited: 20

Languages: 18

Currencies: 11

*Sleeping Arrangements*

Beds/Places we have slept while traveling: 53 different spots

CS Hosts/Friends in other countries we have stayed with: 23

Hostels: 12

Boat: 1 for a week(Croatia)

Campsites: 3

Budget Hotels: 8

Overnight trains taken: 3

Overnight Ferries taken: 2

Sleeping in Airport: 1

Camper Van: 1
*Locations*
Farthest South: Santorini, Greece

Farthest West: Lisbon, Portugal

Farthest North: Bergen, Norway

Farthest East: Santorini, Greece

*Bodies of Water*

Seas/Oceans we have seen: Baltic, North, Adriatic, Ionian, Aegean, Atlantic, Mediterrean

Time Zones: 3

Methods of Transportation: 9

Unesco World Heritage Sites visited: 29

*Update- We are now both back in Key West, Fl, living with Kel's mom, waitressing on Duval Street and preparing for Fantasy Fest to make some money. Ellie lived in St. Augustine for a month to spend time with her family before we made a Florida road trip together and ended up back on the island.

Ellie with Papa Chuck

Ellie enjoyed getting to be part of regular life like hanging out with her little sister and getting to go to her track meets.


Ellie with Rachel, our engaged friend who's wedding we will be in in December. It was so nice to see our friends on the road trip.

This is Sophia, Kelly's baby niece who she hasn't seen in 10 months. Sophia has really grown into a cute little toddler now.


Our daily life in Key West consists of swimming in pools, riding our bikes, working very hard, drinking beer, going to Drag Queen bingo and eyeing the map feverishly to plan our next trip.




Swimming at the Southnermost House in Key West.


With Gena and Merlin on their visit to this side of the ocean!

Back home with our drag queens where we belong for now.


Keep checking back for more details as we plan to drive across the US and fly to Hawaii and move to Melbourne, Australia next May with a one year work visa and travel Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Japan and take the trans-siberian train through Siberia to Moscow, flying home 15 months later from Europe.

Thanks to everyone who has kept up faithfully with this blog and to everyone who supported us while we lived out this dream adventure. Let us know what you think and remember keep checking back as we will sporadically post blurbs and some photos of our island life. We miss Europe every day and everyone we met who made this trip a living dream. Until next time on the Kelly and Ellie show....

Last Stop: Dublin!

From San Sebastian, we took a train to Biarritz, France which only took about 1/2 hour. We waited around that airport for a long time, eating our last pain au chocolate before boarding. Once, we arrived in Dublin, we got on a bus, heading to Vinnie's house who allowed us to surf his couch. It felt so weird to be in an English speaking country again after 4 months. I kept having the instinct to speak bad Spanish to everyone and said Si instead of yes more than a few times that afternoon. Once we met Vinnie, we knew we were going to have a great time in Dublin.

Vinnie is a little older, maybe in his 50's was our guess. He had such a great sense of humor and was such a typical Irish fellow that we instantly felt at ease.

We ordered in take-out and he picked up some beers and we spent the evening in, staying up until 4 in the morning, laughing with Vinnie and telling him our tales about Fantasy Fest and key West and he told us a lot about Dublin since he lived in the same neighborhood since he was a kid. The next day, Vinnie had to pull himself out of bed to get to work and we slept in, did some laundry and walked around Dublin, taking in the major sites like Dublin castle and the Temple Bar area.

Walking around Temple Bar

The colorful Dublin Castle.



We checked out the Irish film institute and had an Irish pint at a little pub.

That evening, Vinnie had said he would take us on a little excursion to Howth, a fishing village right outside of Dublin.





It was a beautiful drive and we all went out to dinner to a very fancy seafood restaurant. Vinnie was so kind to us that he offered to pay for our incredibly expensive meal and we had such a gorgeous dinner with a nice bottle of wine. We laughed throughout dinner and Vinnie told us more about himself. He runs the main internet company used in Dublin and he also owns a beer distribution company that distributes beer to all of the main music festivals throughout Europe. He is such a great guy that we felt like we had known him forever. Celebrating our last night of traveling with a fancy dinner and good company will be something we always remember. After dinner, we went out for a small pint since we were all stuffed and then came home and went to bed. Vinnie drove us to the airport the next day and we very sorry to have to say good-bye to Uncle Vinnie, but he did promise us to visit for Fantasy Fest sometime in the future.

We flew on August 23rd to London and enjoyed our last weekend there. We went to Borough Market, Edinboro castle, out for Vietnamese and did some last minute shopping and tying loose ends together. We then went to Northampton to get our stuff from Gena and Merlin and visit with them. Gena came back into London the next day with us and helped us bring our stuff on the bus. We had thai food and some beers before saying good-bye to Merlin and Gena and crying hysterically.

We were very overwhelmed and entirely unprepared to be heading back to the US the next day. After 4 months of traveling and 6 months of being official Londoners, we couldn't believe the adventure was ending. I kept thinking back to when this was all just a silly idea or plan that we never thought we could pull off and at the end of the year, we did everything we had come to Europe for and so much more. Flying out from Heathrow the next afternoon was so sad, but regardless of our anxiety about leaving the UK, we were excited to see our family on the other side of the ocean in NYC.