Meandering Around the World

Vincent’s mother is turning 90 this year and so the entire Dixon clan are throwing a huge party. In a Castle no less, the actual 600 year old Butler Castle in Kilkenny. Should be quite a show. Anyway, it turns out to be perfect timing, right smack in the middle of 3 out of the 4 children’s Spring Break from school so we decided to make a real trip of it and spend a week in London and a week traveling around Ireland. For some reason we haven’t been back to London in eight years, since before the girls were born, even though my sister and Vincent’s brother both live there. Of course we are thinking of it as a dress rehearsal for our big trip even though this one is mostly geared around seeing family and we will have to be bringing fancy clothes which obviously would not be required in the RTW backpacks! It will give us a tiny taste of what we need to brush up on. So far I think we can get away with even smaller backpacks than what we have – both the girls are sharing one, David Evan has his own which seems to be primarily filled with nerf guns and mine is half filled with presents. But then comes Dad with his two huge cases! He keeps saying he won’t be bringing all this stuff on the actual RTW trip but I’ll believe it when I see it. The only problem is that we might end up with a false sense of security since getting around England and Ireland is such a breeze. We will pick up our sim card for the phone at the airport and we can probably get an oyster card to ride the tube the same day so we will have transport and communication sorted as soon as we arrive. Ah well, it is supposed to be an actual holiday after all….

I am going around the world with my family. I can’t wait! First I am going to Borneo. Then I am going to China. In China we are going to see the biggest Buddha in the world and it is good luck to rub his nose. We are definitely going to see an opera because there they give you massages and feed you while you watch. I am going to see my cousins in Chengdu which is where the giant pandas live. We are going to be panda keepers for a day and feed them bamboo and apple slices. I have three cousins who live there- John, Sarah and Lilly. The reason they are there is because of their daddy’s job. He works for Chevron. I can’t wait to see my cousins and aunt and uncle because I haven’t seen them in a long time – two years!!! From Chengdu we are getting on a train to the top of the world. Tibet has the highest mountain in the world and we are going to go pretty high up!

I feel kind of sad about leaving New York but I know it will be fun going around the world and seeing so many new things. My friends are really sad that I am leaving but I told them about skype.

It is unbelievable how many blogs there are out there. There are probably thousands of people writing or have written about their own personal trips around the world. Even narrowing it down to families traveling around the world ... [Continue reading this entry]

OK, we've dropped Russia. Our friends who were going to take the trans Siberian Express with us couldn't make the trip and we quickly figured out that skipping that section would give us four more weeks in South East ... [Continue reading this entry]

It was a lovely one. From this point on everything will be marked as the last .... to be had in New York City since when we return from our RTW trip we will be landing in our new ... [Continue reading this entry]