Indulgences of Modern Times

I was asked if with all the miles we'll cover in the next eight months we have considered buying credits for the emissions of CO2 that we'll cause. On the British Airways website there is a link for a company called Climate Care, which is one of the biggest ones providing this service in the UK. The idea is: by using "government published figures to convert units of energy to CO2 emissions", they tell you how much you pollute when traveling, but even staying at home (using electricity, gas and oil), and they allow you to pay a fee to offset your emissions. The money goes to finance projects to reduce the CO2 emissions in different parts of the world. The goal is to reach a carbon neutral situation where your emissions are neutralized by the green projects you support.

The idea is good, but putting it into practice is another matter and what I saw didn't convince me. The companies offering the service are all private ones and they operate according to schemes that cannot be verified or monitored and some of them turned out to be fraudulent, ineffective or even self defeating, (see The Guardian "The inconvenient truth about carbon offset industry"). Among all the different CO2 emissions, already difficult to calculate by the IPCC own admission, the ones caused by air travel are the most difficult to calculate because depending on altitude and amount of cargo (see FAQ on Climate Care). Even more difficult to establish is the amount of CO2 offset somewhere else. The most popular projects are the ones that plant trees, that naturally get rid of CO2, but the amount is unmeasurable especially because the companies doing it, offset immediately all the CO2 that the tree will process in a 100 years lifespan. A scheme to plant trees in Ecuador(see World Rainforest Movement) has been accused of evicting thousands of small farmers and manage plantations where the CO2 released by the soil is superior to the one absorbed by the trees. The founder of Climate Care, Mike Mason, said that planting trees as a form of offsetting is a waste of time and energy, but unfortunately people love it.

Other projects like the ones that aim to discourage the use of highly polluting fuels for domestic use in India or Africa, are even more difficult to realize because they require the cooperation of the locals. From what I have seen so far, I do not believe that we can trust private companies with offsetting our CO2 and I agree with those who compare it with the medieval practice of buying indulgences in order to keep on sinning with a clear conscience, (see Denis Hays in The New York Times). You can call me Eco-vandal, but until the subject won't be regulated by law and managed by a government, until the cost of CO2 won't be shared proportionally between who causes it and who makes money on it (in 2005 when the scheme was launched BA bought credits for the year that didn't even cover their London-NY routes in a day), I won't feel like punishing myself for the next 8 months.

Porquè quieres aprender l'espanol? Porquè el chino no me gusta.

I can't remember if the egg came first or the chicken did: if Brendan started to learn Chinese because he wanted to go to China or if he wants to go to China because he is learning Chinese. Trouble is he can't remember himself. About two years ago he started a course in the local school. After the first term, the course was cancelled because the subject was too difficult. In a class of 20 people, only 3 were disappointed, Brendan among them. He convinced the other two and the teacher, LiPing, to keep up the lessons privately and meet up in each other's houses. Since then, Tuesday became Chinese night, a much more sociable affair now that the lessons are held at home, involving great amounts of green tea and fortune cookies, (or scones, depending on the mood), and occasionally even music.

At the end of the first year one of the students gave up and Brendan said he only then realized 'how much he didn't know'. Finally learned the characters and the tones, (the same word has 5 different meanings depending on intonation going up, down, flat or no intonation at all: "Ma1 ma4 ma3 ma", meaning: "mother, to curse, horse, question mark"= Did mother curse the horse?), now he could start learning Chinese.

As well as the lessons with LiPing and Ian, the other brave scholar, Brendan used a Chinese course online for grinds: http://chinesepod.com.
level or like In the beginning he just used the free dialogues, then he subscribed for the script of the dialogues and the grammar. Last summer he used their premium package with one to one conversations over skype with a teacher. At present he has reached an intermediate level, or as LiPing more beautifully put it: "If you compare learning Chinese with climbing a mountain, you are halfway up." The experience is so intense anyway that to get it out of his system Brendan has started to blog about how difficult it is to climb that particular mountain: http://peelingmandarin.blogspot.com

As with English we'll get by in Oz and NZ (or will we?? See Glossary), and my esposo covers China, I was left with South America and Spanish. I have started a beginners course in the local school and then with the few braves that wanted to keep going we have continued with private lessons in each otter's houses. The class is a bit larger than the Chinese one, but not by much: Cheryl, Gillian, Sean, Mark, Jez, I, y Maria, nuestra profesora. I do my grinds through http://spanishsense.com. It's not like climbing the Kilimajaro, I'd rather compare it to the Inca Trail...

Listening to: Asian Dub Foundation, 1000 Mirrors

Visas

Just a few pictures to show the starting point. Taken a few days ago in Drake's Pool, on the road between Carrigaline and Crosshaven where I go walking almost every morning.


The only countries for which we need VISAS beforehand are Australia and China. For all the others it is a case of a stamp on arrival. From other people's experience we have learned that the only difficulties could arise in Bolivia, especially crossing the border by land. It is not unheard of having to discretely slip a few dollars inside the passport to gain access to the country.


For the Australian VISA we simply got it through the travel agency. Once again it was one of those virtual goods: you pay 20e and get a receipt, but the real thing is registered with the Australian authorities that will stamp the passport on entering the country. China was, is, much more complicated. They don't accept applications by post, but insist on bringing the passports to the embassy. It takes up to 5 working days to complete the procedure and given that the embassy is in Dublin, it is all in all a big headache. They want details such flights details, itinerary, hotel bookings and the likes. At present we are putting everything together and next week we'll send a courier to Dublin with the passports, at least they do not insist on doing it in person.

Booking China

In the last few days we have started to look at hotels in China. There is a huge choice for all kinds of budgets and in Beijing and Shanghai prices are average lower of 1/3 compared to Europe, in Chengdu less than half. The bases for our research were once again the Rough Guide and the WEB.

In Beijing we booked the Novhotel. As a first stop, just arrived and jet lagged, we picked something not very adventurous: 3 stars, near Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. It will help us settle in, even if it doesn't look very exciting. On the other end though, booking the hotel was an adventure in itself. All their rooms seemed to offer accommodation for just one child and we travel with two. It took at least 6 emails to reach an agreement. Whatever way we formulated our request for a double room with 2 extra single beds, the first answer was always "Yes", followed by a complicated song and dance that meant no. In the end we got what we wanted (I think!), but we have probably been very rude in forcing out such a direct answer.

The next stop will be in Xi'an, to see the terracotta warriors. We haven't booked anything yet, but we know we want to stay inside the walls as the city is worth visiting.

The best discovery was the one for our third stop, a guesthouse in Chengdu that Brendan found in a blog. It's called Sim's Cozy Guesthouse, owned by a Japanese-Korean couple, Sim and Maki. Of all the places we'll be in this is the one we are most excited about as it looks like a place where you can meet people and have fun. They organize Sichuanese cooking courses, ping pong contests, and they even have a library for the guests, with "all kind of novels and lomance books"! It looks like the perfect place to free some of ours and start traveling a bit lighter.

Next we'll spend three days on a cruise on the Yangtze from Chongqing to Ychang. Once again, we found a deal on the WEB: a local tour operator called Yatour.
Up until now, we haven't been asked any deposit or credit card number to guarantee our bookings. It will be interesting to discover if it is due to a grater trust on humankind or if there is some trick behind it, (like pre-payed discounted rates...), it's all part of the fun.

8 Months of Suitcases

One of the most frequent questions we are asked when we talk about the trip is: what kind of luggage will you bring for eight months?! We are allowed the traditional, as in pre-Ryanair, 20kg per person, so that's the max. We have to take into account though that we can't expect the girls to drag their own 2okg share, so Brendan and I will be the Sherpas. We have therefore decreased the allowance to two 20kg suitcases and two rucksacks, by definition lighter than the first, at least mine for sure!How to fill them up? There are things that we just have to bring with us: medicines, travel guides for all the places we'll visit and the girl's schoolbooks. Already 6kg gone, maybe even more.

We had to get into a particular frame of mind: for the next eight months clothes will be something we'll use to cover ourselves, not to dress, which for an Italian girl is particularly hard to accept, but there are no alternatives. Once accepted that we realized that we didn't need much, just a couple of changes for winter and something more for summer. In the end we always tend to use always the same things even with a full wardrobe, the rest becomes just a frame for our favourite items of clothing, a reserve that gives a sense of security but is for the biggest part useless. In our case we'll just have to identify very carefully our favourite bits, the most useful, and do the laundry often.

For the winter we have invested in trekking gear: fleeces, waterproof trousers with fleece lining and thermal vests, two changes each. We'll then pack one, maybe two changes of normal clothes. For the summer it's easier, less bulky: swimming suit, T-shirts, shorts and two pairs of trousers. As soon as we finish with something, like the summer stuff and the school books some time in NZ, we'll send it back home. It will make space for whatever we'll inevitably acquire along the way.

As fare as reading books is concerned, we'll just have to get used to read one a t the time rather than having a pile on the bedside table and once finished we'll have to "free" them into the wild, something that hopefully will help my Bookcrossing stats.

Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Ka Ora! Ka Ora!

Lately, one of the best things is to check our email in the morning and almost every day find a message from Down Under. Leah asking us if we need help to find a school for the girls in Brisbane, Francesca wanting to know when we'll get to Melbourne, Ludi and Gary who are waiting for us with 'gallons' of Australian wine on their sailing boat, Duncan warning us not to book anything else without consulting him first, but then admits that even left to our own device we didn't do too bad (G'day mate! How come you leave comments on the hubby's blog and not mine??).

A few days ago we had a surprise: finally living things to fate started to pay up and luck came our way. A couple from Christchurch contacted us for a house-swap, starting to make our staying in New Zealand more real. The website they used is Home4exchange. Louise and Ray are interested in spending a few months in Europe and include this part of Ireland in their tour. After having swapped a few emails we agreed on the details of the exchange and from April the 12th, our arrival date in NZ and Sara's birthday, we'll be using their house as a base for the lentgh of our staying on the South Island, until the beginning of June. They'll do the same with our place in Cork.

After we introduced ourselves and we agreed on the exchange, we both offered our availability to help the other discover the area. At present we are swapping notes on bridge clubs, restaurants, pubs and stone circles (stuff they're into), and what interests us in their area. We have learned that there is a swimming pool near their house, as well as basketball and tennis court (Nina will be happy), a playground and lots of lovely walks. We've heard that ChCh has an important art gallery and that the Anthartic Centre is worth seeing. There is also an ice skating rink nearby, which both girls are delighted with, and Arthur's Pass and the skiing slopes are only a day trip. The house is big, on three levels, with a stunning view of the Alps. With the house come 2 cats, that for my daughters deprived of the joy of a pet by cruel parents who drag them around the world instead, is a welcome surprise.

We would have liked a swap with Sidney, in January, but honestly, nobody in their right mind would swap the Australian summer with the worst of the Irish winter! We didn't stand a chance!!

The Chinese Eiffel Tower

Yesterday we finally collected the plane tickets that for best part of a year have seen us in close contact with Sinead, our exceptionally patient travel agent. Like many other things these days, (like the money we used to pay for them for example!), even these are virtual. They are called E-tickets, meaning that we won't have any coupons to bring with us and guard with our lives because the tickets are registered in the airline system. Despite the lack of physical token, the moment was quite exciting, at least for Brendan and me.

While we were finalizing the last details with Sinead, our daughters completely ignored us, Nina playing with her Nintendo and Sara going through all the brochures she could lay hands on. After having studied them all, discarded safari in Kenya, skiing in Austria and city-breaks in Europe, she came to show me a brochure on Dubai with fairy tale hotels and ads for shops that sell diamonds by the kilo: "Look mummy, it's lovely! Can we go there?"
"Maybe another time", says I.
"Why?"
I decide to ignore the question and the impulse to strangle her, how can she be so ungrateful?

Walking back to the car, Nina always without raising her eyes from the Nintendo and Sara with the Dubai brochure under her arm, I ask them: "Aren't you excited about the trip? It won't be long now?" Silence, sideways glances and then "NO! I don't wanna go where there are crocodiles and poisonous spiders, I like Dubai, and Spain where my friend Alex says you can buy cool things!" Only six years of age and yet such a well defined personality, a real Bond-girl, Dry Martini, shopping and swimming pool. One of her favourite things to do at the moment is to go shopping with her Italian grand-mother and stop for coffee and cake, or an aperitif, depending on the time of the day. I already feel sorry for the poor unaware six-year-something-old who one day will lose his head for her.

I ignore the little pest and turn to my eldest: "How about you Nina, are you happy about the trip?"
"No. I like staying in the same place, not moving all the time. I'll just get used to a place and we'll have to leave again! And anyway, HOW DO YOU THINK TO MANAGE TO TEACH ME WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO LEARN IN SCHOOL??"
A bit deeper concerns the ones of my eldest, but concerns nonetheless. Revelation struck: my children don't trust us neither to keep them away from crocodiles or with their education! So much for the unforgettable experience.

Appealing to all my superhuman motherly love I tried to put myself in their shoes and see things from their perspective. It's true, at that age they like routine and stability. They are not in that almost autistic phase anymore, where everything must be done ALWAYS in the same way and if you try to put their jackets on before tying the shoelaces the go berserk. But they are attached to their friends, the Simpsons at 6 o'clock, the school and all the little things that make their world. Nonetheless, with the family divided among Ireland, Sardinia and France they are used to travel. We have also taken them hillwalking in the Rockies, to Stuttgart for the Weinachtsmarkt and to Scotland looking for Nessie. 8 months on the road though are admittedly something else.

In the end we understood that there'll be 4 of us in the party and we can't drag the children around like a piece of luggage. They should have their saying, within reason! We said to ourselves that maybe the solution was to involve them more in the planning, ask them what they want from the experience, what THEY want to see. At that point Nina finally raised her gaze from the video game and told me: "You know when people go to Paris go to see the Eiffel Tower? I want to see the Chinese Eiffel Tower!"

I saw the light! We opened up the guidebook together and decided that the Chinese Eiffel Tower are the Great Wall and the Giant Buddha in Leshan! For Sara we are still working on it, given the type it will be harder, but at least we managed to get her to admit that she wouldn't mind to see the Pandas in Chengdu and swim with dolphins in Australia...so good of her.

Listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers: Round the world, Nina's choice!

Homeschooling our children

As parents, the best part of this trip is to give our children a unique, unforgettable experience. At the ages of nearly nine and nearly seven, they are at a great stage from a parenting point of view. At the other end of nappies and sleepless nights, they are now independent children that make a pleasant company. We know it won't last forever and hormones will soon kick in, they won't be so enthusiastic about spending time with us anymore, so we enjoy the phase while it lasts.

The trip will be for them an introduction to Planet Earth, a live geography lesson to show them different ways of living and teach them to appreciate differences. We believe that with the continuous increase of fuel costs, the era of cheap travel won't last much longer and probably in another ten years a trip like this won't be possible anymore, at least for the likes of us.

Even from a schooling point of view it seems to be the ideal time. With Nina in third class and Sara in first, they are still at an age where they can skip six months of school without consequences for their education. The choice to leave at the end of the year was strongly influenced by the fact that like this the kids will have by then completed the first term in their classes and covered the biggest part of the program. The teachers will have set the path that then us parents will have to continue. The months spent standing still Oz and NZ will be school months when a few hours a day will be dedicated to studying.

The school was extremely cooperative in our plans. The principal gave us enthusiastically thumbs up and assured us that the school will help the children to reintegrate after we get back. This month we'll have a meeting with the teachers where they'll explain to us exactly what part of the program we'll have to cover. They want the kids to keep contact with their classes by email, to tell their school mates about the things they'll see in their time away. Their Daddy had to take it a bit further though and as soon as we'll be on the road even Nina and Sara will start writing their own blog!

Of course school doesn't only mean curriculum, being in contact with other children is as important for their development. We don't know how they'll react to eight months spent almost exclusively in our company. They'll come in contact with other kids for sure, we hope to put them in a school in Brisbane for a few days, but they'll have to get used to making friends and leaving them behind. From other parent's experience, the experience of people who did similar trips, some adopting this lifestyle for a number of years, living on a sailing boat and changing mooring every few months, we have heard that kids who live this kind of experience learn to choose their friends more carefully. And that is an ability they acquire for a lifetime. Once back to a stable lifestyle, with this newly acquired skill they learn how to think more independently, they're less susceptible to the peer pressure of the group and become more selective in choosing their friends. At least, that's the theory.

650g of Gadgets

The first and most important part of our luggage after passports and credit cards is our little technology park. Over the last few months we have invested in a few items that will allow us to stay connected with the rest of the world anywhere there is a Wifi or GSM signal. Weight is going to be a main issue in our moving around so bringing a computer was going to be a problem. Therefore we have acquired a reduced version of a laptop, a Nokia N800 internet tablet that will allow us to go online, do text editing, skyping, transferring images and last but not least blogging! To go along with it we bought a Freedom Universal Keyboard (bluetooth), to make it easier to do the text based things.

As a camera, we went for a Sony Cybershot DSC-W50. No bigger than a credit card, it has a long battery life. Not the latest in the series so the price was reasonable as well.

The most innovative gadgets though are the ones related to the indispensable mobile phone. First the phone itself: a Cubic Telecom Wifi phone that allows us to use both VoIP calls which work out about 1c per minute world wide (if we are in an open Wifi zone), and normal GSM calls.
Second, the sim inside the phone is a MaxRoam sim. MaxRoam is a product of Cubic Telecom, which as it happens is based here in Cork. With this sim we can make much cheaper calls than if we were roaming with our own local provider, Vodafone (See Brendan's blog entry for a comparison between the two). Moreover we can associate both Irish and Italian number with a single sim which means that not only do we save money but so do our friends and families.
All the gadgets fit comfortably into our pockets without the need of a special piece of luggage and their total weight amount to 650g.

Calculating our expenses for three months in Australia and three in New Zealand was, still is, much more complicated. The first thing we had to decide was: what do we want from the experience? Seeing as much as possible for sure, but not only. Above all we want to experience everyday life Down Under to see if it suits us, in case one day we came across the right opportunity to move over there. With this in mind, we have divided our staying both in Oz and NZ in three parts, 2 standing still in one place and 1 traveling around.

In Australia we'll be spending 5 weeks in Sidney, 3 on the road and 4 in Brisbane. Once again we started form the Rough Guide and budgeted the 3 weeks on the road as tourists. After that we had to look into cost of living in the cities we picked as bases for the first and the last month. Thanks to the guides, internet and above all our Ozzies friends we came up with an australian budget of 15 thousandE. Thanks to Simon and Leah who generously offered to us the use of a granny flat in their house, Brisbane was the easy part (Thank You guys, I'll never say it enough :-)

For Sidney, we had hoped to organize a house-swap by joining two sites that specialize in these kind of holidays: Homelink and Home4exchange. We came close a few times but in the end we never found an ideal partner. Part of the problem is the precise idea of what we want from Sidney: a real city experience. We want to enjoy the place fully with all that has to offer, with the possibility of spending a few days on the beach but not forced to do so by an accommodation too far out. Time was running out, so after some research on the internet we booked a place (Take a look!) in Randwick, 20 minutes from the center and 10 minutes from Cogee Beach. It will become home for 5 weeks where we hope to mingle with the locals and live like real Ozzies, barbecue and all.

New Zealand is still in the planning stages. We know that our bases will be Queenstown in the South Island and Wellington in the North Island. For the moment we trust the guides and the fact that the NZ dollar is cheaper than the Australian one. Our budget for NZ is 13 thousandE, we can only hope!

At the end of the trip I will publish a spreadsheet with a detailed account of our expenses, divided in categories and countries, only then we'll be able to see how accurate (or not!) our forecasts were. To the travel expenses we'll have to add our fixed costs back home, chiefly the mortgage and car insurances, considering also that we won't have an income until the end of September. We are going to cancel phone, broadband, gas and electricity. Our total budget, considering even a contingency fund, is 60 thousandE. On top of it, we'll add a safety net of another 20 thousand, thanks to a special loan for emergency available through AIB Bank that doesn't charge interest until the money is drawn. If in the end of the trip we won't have touched it, we'll be able to give the money back the way we got it. We both agree that when we'll start dipping into this fund, it will be time to turn back (or rather keep going as you can back track!). We hope our budget will hold so as to arrive to Buenos Aires in the end of August, but if it won't never mind. Even if we had made a gross mistake and were to run out of money halfway, we'll have always seen China and Australia, there are worse calamities. Sure what else would we be doing?

Listening to The Killers: Bones

Pricing the plane tickets was the easy part, the safest part for sure, no surprises there. Costing all the rest was more difficult and no matter how many calculations and research we have done, the truth is that we won't know for sure until we get back. Obviously we have a figure in mind, we can make a reasonably educated guess, add contingency, but until August the 20Th when we'll be back on Irish soil we can't give a definite answer.

Once again the key to tackle the problem was dividing the eight months into smaller segments and start budgeting for the shortest ones: the first 3 weeks in China and the last 5 in South America. Up until now we have always used the 'Rough Guides' every time we traveled and were never disappointed. We'll trust them even this time :
China 70$ pp a day
Chile 350$ pp a week
Bolivia 40$ pp a day
Peru 60$ pp a day
The figures refer to food, accommodation and transport. All touristy stuff is extra, at least the big ones like a trip to Machu Pichu or a cruise on the Yangtze river. For the children we have budgeted half quote.

The guides always provide three budgets: economic (for backpackers using exclusively hostels and sometimes not even those), moderate (B&B or Hotel and a bit more comfort) and luxury (for who travels 4 stars all the time). At this stage of our life we fall into the second category. Adding the tourist's bits and contingency, the budget for the holidays within the holiday is as follows:

China 4000e
Chile 1700e
Bolivia 1000e
Peru 1300e

We still have to add 5 days in Buenos Aires for which we haven't a figure yet but we assume a cost of living similar to the one in Chile rather than Peru or Bolivia where it is definitely lower.

The next segment to be quoted was the week in Fiji. Even there no surprises because it will be a week in the sun staying put in a resort, getting ready for 5 weeks in South America where we'll be constantly on the move, covering the distance between Santiago and Lima by land. We'll then jump on a plane to Buenos Aires where we'll spend the last few days before getting back to Europe. Prices in Fiji vary greatly. For now we stuck to the middle range and budgeted 2500e for the week, but we won't book anything until much closer to the date.

Costs

Once made the decision and overcome the initial euphoric feeling that came with it, the first reality check were the costs. Can we afford it? Or rather, WHAT can we afford? We realized straight away that a full year like it was in our original plans, it is too hard both financially and school-wise. By reducing the time from 12 to 8 months though everything looked much more doable.

The first step in deciding the itinerary was to exclude any stop in Europe (we live in the middle of it, we can see it whenever we want) and North America, (we'll leave Christmas shopping in NY for when we'll be older and calmer). As cost of living, these are the most expensive parts of the planet hence we eliminated them completely. The next bit to be chopped off our map was Africa, only because we both see it as a place of its own, deserving a greater attention than the one we could give it in only a few weeks.

At that point we were left with Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South America. We both came up with our preferences: for me NZ, South America and South East Asia, in the order. For Brendan China, OZ and NZ. We both agreed that it made sense to spend as long as possible in the countries furthest away where we don't know if we'll ever have the chance to go back. We often talked about moving to Oz if the right opportunity arose, so this is our chance to try what it's like to live Down Under and see if it suits us.

Now we had a clearer idea of what we wanted to do: 3 months in Oz, 3 in NZ, partly staying put in one place and partly moving around, with a month holiday in Asia at the beginning and one in South America at the end. By simply putting things that way already made it more possible!

The next step was to talk with the local travel agency, Foreign AFares (thank you Sinead!) to organize the plane tickets. Always travel in one direction, back tracking not permitted, number of stops and restricted mileage, the rules were too many for us so we decided to look for the expert's advice. Once cleared our minds on these rules we understood very quickly that it wasn't possible to see everything, despite actually going around the globe. This was the second reality check and made another casualty: South East Asia will have to wait another trip.

The tickets we finally booked are called World Discovery Plus and allow 29000 air miles with the possibility to buy an extra 3000 for 150E per person. The airlines we'll be using are British Airways and Qantas, all the seats were booked in Y class as soon as they appeared on the system, some 330 days before departure. The final itinerary is as follows:

29Dec Cork-Heathrow-Beijing
surface to Shanghai
20Jan Shanghai-Sidney
07March Sidney-Cairns
surface to Brisbane
12Apr Brisbane-Christchurch
surface to Auckland
05Jul Auckland-Nadi (Fiji)
12Jul Nadi-Auckland
13Jul Auckland-Santiago
surface to Buenos Aires
19Aug Buenos Aires-Heathrow-Cork

Full cost, for 2 adults and 2 children 10400E, (2220+tax pp adults, 1690+tax pp child)

Listening to Red Hot Cili Peppers, Snow