Blog

Passport: Acquired

August 09, 2007 15:30 +0000  |  'Round-the-World Travel 3

I got my first passport ever yesterday and have to comment on how very awesome the passport office is in this city. After all the fear-mongering by friends and family: "You haven't got a passport yet? You better get one quick, the lineups are crazy!" etc etc. I'd like to share my experience:

  1. On the week of July 22 (don't remember which day), I got to the passport office at 8am.
  2. I received a line number (37) and waiting for about 30min while writing code on my laptop.
  3. Upon talking to the kiosk guy, he informed me that they needed a couple extra bits of info. He gave me a "skip the line" card and I left.
  4. The next day I went back to the passport office at 8:30am and waited about 15min in the short line.
  5. The kiosk lady was friendly and helpful and let me add some stuff to my forms while I stood there.
  6. I was out of there by 9:30am
  7. I picked up my passport at the office with zero waiting yesterday.

End of story. Nothing to fear ladies and gentlemen. Acquiring a Canadian Passport is not the chaotic hassle you might have expected.

Trip Funds

August 07, 2007 16:14 +0000  |  Money 'Round-the-World Travel 4

My parents (most vocally my mother) worked very hard to drill one way of thinking into my brain: "Find out what you want to do and do it. Worry about the money last". It's an ideology that many might consider irresponsible, but my grandfather's words: "Money is for spending!" still echo in my head. It is after all only money, and this is a life experience.

So true to family tradition, I have left the costs of my round the world trip to the last minute. It's not that I've been financially irresponsible or anything, in fact, I have roughly $12K in the bank for this gig... I just haven't burdened myself with the numbers until now. And now I know that I don't have enough.

Ballpark costs at this point look like roughly $3700 for plane tickets and $2000 for moving. That's just the trip. If I want somewhere to live in Vancouver, I'll need an additional $1500 or so for rent & damage deposit. That leaves $4800 for room & board for 1.5 months in Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Chech Republic, Switzerland and Italy, then whatever I end up spending cash on in Korea (big thanks to Shawna for putting me up while I'm in town).

I figured that that kind of cash would be fine. I do, after all, get by on $1K/month quite comfortably in Toronto. However, I pay rent and make my own food here, while I'll have to endure the costs of hostel fees and restaurants on the other side of the pond. With hostels in Germany running $60 - $90 CAD /night, that $4800 is going to run out fast.

I'm not going to change anything though. I just have to manage my expenses so the majority goes on my low-interest credit card rather than paying in cash (can you get travellers cheques with a credit card? Should I bother?) I'll pay off what I can when I get to Vancouver, saving just enough for a first month's rent payment and worry about the rest later.

When I moved to Toronto, I racked up a debt of roughly $5700 and paid it off within a year. It looks like I'll be doing something similar for this move as well, so those of you who are reading this from Vancouver, please remember that I'll be as poor as a church mouse for some time after I arrive. This is, a life experience, and what's a few thousand dollars of debt when compared to that?

Europe & Korea: Booked

July 24, 2007 23:37 +0000  |  'Round-the-World Travel 0

I've booked my tickets, and the travel time looks insane, but they're booked, so I'm going. Some of this might change, if it turns out that I want to change something along the way, but for now, this is the most accurate stuff I can give you all:

If you want more detail (like flight numbers etc.) log in, 'cause I have a private post for friends & family with that kind of info.

Leave Arrive Travel Time Kilometres
Toronto 2007-09-11 Frankfurt 2007-09-12 7:40 6346
Rome 2007-10-28 Singapore 2007-10-29 11:45 10005
Singapore 2007-10-29 Seoul 2007-10-29 6:15 4667
Seoul 2007-11-14 Vancouver 2007-11-14 10:10 5092

An interesting bit to note here is that I chose to take the shorter route home (Seoul » Vancouver vs. Seoul » Singapore » Frankfurt » Vancouver) not because of the time, but because of the cost of carbon credits for the return journey. The cost of the credits for the whole longer trip was in the range of $500 -- given that I was only going to save $600 by going the long route (44026km), the shorter option (26110km) seemed only logical.

In Preparation of a Torontonian Exodous

July 22, 2007 16:14 +0000  |  Blogger Geek Stuff Imager Melanie Money Moving Riptown 'Round-the-World The Toronto Public Space Committee Travel 2

I've not been posting a lot lately, mostly because I'm just stupid-busy. I'd forgotten what an incredible hassle it was to move my life 4349.9 kilometres away in the first place and doing it again is generally un-fun.

For starters, the cost of moving is ridiculous. Most moving companies will only accept a minimum of 1000lbs (they charge by weight, not time), and since I live in a bachelor, that's typically an aweful lot of extra space. On top of that, I have to pay for storage (since I'll be in Europe for a couple months before getting to Vancouver) and insurance, and movers. My latest quote was $2429.54!

Clearly, I have to keep looking, but time is running short.

Once I have a mover, I need a moving day, and since I'm not likely to leave Toronto 'till September 11th (yes, you read right, it is the cheapest day to fly), I could be living at Melanie's out of a suitcase for nearly a month.

Then there's the flight itself, I've been working with a travel agent and the routing is insane. I want to visit these places:

  • Stockholm
  • Berlin
  • Amsterdam
  • Geneva
  • Prague
  • Rome/Vatican City
  • Seoul

So one would imagine that the cheapest (and most efficient) option would be:

  • Toronto » Stockholm
  • Rome » Seoul
  • Seoul » Vancouver

But sadly, because of the way the airlines work, not only do I have to use Frankfurt as my entrance & exit for Europe, and route my Seoul trip through Singapore, but in order to get home, I have to fly back through Europe!

  • Toronto » Frankfurt
  • Frankfurt » Singapore
  • Singapore » Seoul
  • Seoul » Singapore
  • Singapore » Frankfurt
  • Frankfurt » Vancouver

This trip is about $3500. I can't be the only one that thinks this is insane. Obviously, I can get a direct Seoul » Vancouver flight, but that costs roughly $600 more and a RoundTheWorld pass is nearly $5000.

I may still take the more direct route, if only because it means I'm not in transit for 26hours on my last leg, not to mention the environmental implications of adding so many more kilometres to my trip. I'll also be buying carbon credits, but somehow, that doesn't make me feel any better about it all.

I'm also leaving my life in Toronto, of which Melanie is a big part. She's going through a rough spot in her life lately, and sometimes I feel like I'm not helping enough because of all of these other complications, not to mention the fact that I'm likely to make it worse when I leave. Even though we both knew this was coming the day we met, it doesn't make things any easier.

I have responsibilities as coordinator for the Camaras in Public Spaces campaign of the TPSC. I have yet to find a suitable replacement. We have a big event coming up for August, but someone will have to be here in October to field questions from the press when the pilot project is over and the one I had in mind to replace me doesn't appear interested. Stephen has expressed interest, but he's always got so much on his plate, I wanted to bring in some fresh blood to run the show, but I'm not sure who that would be at the moment.

Then there's my job. I don't have one lined up in Vancouver just yet, though my current boss has been kind enough to look into available positions with Riptown's Vancouver office. Whether there's a spot for me there or not, I'm not too worried about finding work in what I understand to be a competitive market, but that spectre of joblessness is still pretty scary.

Lastly, I've started re-coding my site using the new techniques I've been learning at my current job. The new site (still in development) will use a true MVC system and include nifty stuff like Ajax and JQuery as well as a Modified Preorder Tree Traversal algorithm for storing the hierarchical sorting structures in my Imager. This is mostly in preparation for when I'm in Europe and want to remote-blog and upload images -- I want the site to be better equipped.

So that's all for now. Wish me luck I suppose. If my heart & brain don't implode from the pressure, those of you reading this from Vancouver should see me in a few months.

Alone in Europe?

May 12, 2007 04:37 +0000  |  'Round-the-World Self Reflection Travel 13

So I've had this plan for the longest time: I quit my job in September, hop a plane to Europe somewhere, gallivant about the continent for a couple months, and then head home to Vancouver. It's a good plan, lots of people dream of this sort of thing and I'm actually going to do it... how often do you get a chance like this?

The whole plan seemed great until the other night. I was walking around the city (it would seem that I'd been bitten by an exploratory bug) when I realised how boring it is to do this sort of thing alone. I sat in a square, wrote some code, listened to the water fountain, had some food and did some shopping... the whole time trying to think of someone to call to meet for drinks or just to talk to... and then it occurred to me:

Is this what Europe would be like?

Now don't get me wrong, I love my alone time. I rather like the idea of wandering a street alone, talking to strangers, eating bits of local food and sitting at my laptop in a public square somewhere. The idea of sharing my time with someone who has needs/demands of their own is not something I want... and yet the idea of being alone for 2months for this trip is not something I think of as appealing.

Am I wrong to think this way? Is it illogical to assume that I'll not make friends as I go or is it just nuts to go half way around the world only to be alone?