First Impressions...

Well, Blogosphere. We made it across the pond in one (very tired) piece! Though a bit worse for wear, thanks in large part to the 10 hour direct flight from Los Angeles, we made it to the UK, through customs, onto the London Underground (The Tube, Picadilly Line to the Central Line), met my brother to get his keys and to my brother's flat in Bethnal Green, whereupon we rediscovered an energetic spark!

No. No, we did not.

After regrouping and realizing we were, in fact, in another country, we dealt with the strange fact that our bodies said it was the middle of the night, but our accurately reconfigured watches said it was actually mid afternoon in sunny London. We dealt with it in the only way we knew how. We took a nap. Once awake, we plotted out our evening and proceeded to go with my brother to his and his wife's favorite watering hole, The Star of Bethnal Green.

The Star of Bethnal Green.

After a couple of rounds of ales and chips (fries, you non-British mooks), we headed back to complete our first foray into the Old World. A few things struck me as we lounged in the room dripping with wood and brass and history. For one, as much as I love Chicago because it is one of the few places in the U.S. that can claim 'history' as one of it's charms, I walked past a pub that had the date '1666' on it. I can no longer see faded daguerreotypes of people holding up glass mugs of beer in zoot suits without thinking that time period, once ancient to me, is actually more 'modern history' to the images conjured in the halls of some of London's more seasoned pubs. Seriously. People have been drinking at some of these places for nearly half a millennium. What. The hell.

The next morning, after coffee and crumpets (hell yes, those crumpets), Vicky and I went on our first of what promises to be many walks through the city. Traveling along the areas surrounding Bethnal Green Ave, Brick Ln, Whitechapel Rd, and Shoreditch High St on our way to the London Tower and the Tower Bridge was an absolutely special memory to create.

Vicky poses in an alleyway near Allen Park.

Once across the Tower Bridge, we took in the majesty of the Thames River from it's bank and marveled at the audacity of the fact that there has been a major civilized population there for nearly 2,000 years (even before Betty White was born).

What.

Despite being floored by a wave of awesome, Vicky had the wherewithal to take a quick sketch of the bridge from her point of view.

Seriously. You artist types...

After heading back towards Bethnal Green, we nipped into an area called Box Park in Shoreditch. We met a local, drank a local and played a few games of the UK's most famous sport... Ping Pong. All in all, an amazing first day and a half here, across the pond.

As we sat and decompressed after our 7 mile walkabout around just parts of Central London, I kept coming back to the same thoughts, not only am I making a once-in-a-lifetime trip come true (again), but I'm doing so with the most wonderful woman, the most wonderful person I have ever met. The person who was kind enough to call me 'husband.' My wife. All the history and all the Ping Pong and all the beer in the world will never make me lose sight of the fact that while traveling is an amazing adventure in and of itself, it pales in comparison to the adventure of creating memories with someone you love and who loves you enough in return to make you a better person along the way...

See you in the next adventure...

Checkpoint Checklist: Tips For Saving

Vicky here! Thanks for following our adventure. This is the first installment in the series "Checkpoint Checklist" in which we provide bullet point lists of tips and information on traveling based on our experience and research.

How can two freelancers in the competitive film industry afford such an extensive trip through some of the most expensive countries in the world? Here's how we did it:

• LIVE WITH ROOMMATES: 2 bedroom apartment in North Hollywood. 4 adult roommates. Sounds crowded, but Mike and I each saved around $500/month compared to what our colleagues generally pay. We split the cost of utilities and internet four ways as well. Netflix ended up being $2/person. Every penny counts, right?
• When you have cool roommates, you go out less and spend less because every night is hang out night!
• COOK YOUR OWN MEALS: Buying groceries and cooking at home saves SO MUCH MONEY! We generally spend $100 every two weeks on groceries. Between the two of us, that's $25/wk per person. That's less than what you would spend on one night out at a chain sit-down restaurant.
• Of course we still went out and enjoyed a nice dinner or drinks with friends. Just not too often.
• It also helps that our jobs offer catered lunches because we work 13+ hours a day and can't get away to buy lunch.
• DON'T BUY NEW CLOTHES: Mike and I are not trendy at all when it comes to fashion. Our jobs require us to wear practical clothes that always get dirty and torn. When we do want to update our wardrobe and dress like adults, we go to the local Goodwill or more fashionable second hand stores like Crossroads. I bought a chic BCBG sweater for $15 with the original price tag marked at $150.
• Same goes for electronics/furniture/material goods: CRAIGSLIST is the SH*T! We find amazing items and deals on Craigslist.
• OPEN A SAVINGS ACCOUNT: People who live paycheck to paycheck don't realize this is an option. This is a great way to prioritize your earnings and spending. I usually put away 50% of my paycheck into my savings. We have been saving for this trip for about a year. Even setting aside $50 a month can add up.
• Mike and I are great at saving, but that doesn't mean we stay home all the time and avoid all things fun. We go back to Chicago at least twice a year to see family and friends because that is what is important to us. Otherwise, we could be saving another $1200/year on airfare alone. Keep in mind, we aren't making any money when we visit home.
• READ TRAVEL BLOGS: Like ours! You are not the first or only person to want to travel. Many people have done it before you and have utilized blogging to share their experience and advice. There are error-proof ways to save money leading up to your trip and cost-cutting tricks to use during your trip. Listed below are the two most useful travel blogs we follow:
• http://www.nomadicmatt.com/ Nomadic Matt offers sage advice on travel budgeting.
• http://herpackinglist.com/ This blog was more useful for me than for Mike. Women think, plan, and pack differently. It was great to read about travel experiences from the ladies.

Up next: The journey begins. LA to London...

At the Terminal...

Here we are. On the precipice of another life event. So many of these take place in an airport. Not much time to wax philosophical on this one, as we're boarding soon, but just wanted to say goodbye, America. We'll get you something neat from the duty free shop in Europe!

A Train Came in the Mail Yesterday...

We are less than four days away from getting on a plane and flying 5,437 miles (Oops, 8,750 km for you Metric Nerds) to London to begin our trip across Europe. As we continue to pack up our life into a tiny, 5'x10' storage space, more than a few emotions are running through our brain...

What I look like before packing up several boxes of my life.

"Are we bringing everything we need?"

"Are we bringing too much?"

"Don't stand on that!"

"Can we afford to leave all our volumes of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind manga behind?!"

...

In any case, there are emotions. Moving can be a daunting task in itself, let alone storing all your belongings, moving AND not coming back for over 3 months. However, if we can make it work, anyone can. The real trick is to compartmentalize (aka - have a wife/husband who is meticulous and loves to organize). Take your packing in stages. Consolidate, consolidate, consolidate. The closer you get to an empty apartment (or efficiently full backpack), the more accomplished you'll feel.

What I look like after the job is done - complete with VISOR and 80's cardigan.

Sufficed to say, there are days where the task ahead can overwhelm you and this post is about the little bauble we received in the mail that made Vicky giddy as a school girl and me giddy... as another school girl...

Our Eurail Pass arrived!

This pass gives us access to 24 European countries via rail and allows us to do so over 10 travel days in a span of two months! There are various tiers of the Eurail Pass, but the specific one we chose is best suited for a trip of our length and ambition. We are avid train-goers and are excited at the prospect of taking long train trips through the European countryside and the romance of coming to a halt in cities with literally millennia of history.

BAM! TRAVEL.

London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Munich, Prague, Salzburg, Venice, Rome, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid... A whirlwind tour of history, romance, intrigue and above all, food. Getting this little train pass in the mail was another step in our preparation that made this trip feel that much more real. This is happening. This. Is. HAPPENING!

Granted, the Eurail Pass won't be the end-all, be-all of our travel, but it will take care of our country to country travel. For intracity travel, we will be using the local networks such as the London Underground, the Paris Metro or the Berlin Urban Rail to name a few. I'm sure we'll be posting more on those at a later date. Right now, before our trip has begun, we were just stoked to see that our travel between countries has been taken care of.

As our journey evolves, we'll post more about our travels between specific countries and how our 'wingin-it' itinerary shapes up. For now, we'll cope with the USA Olympic Hockey losses to our brothers and sisters to the north (Damn you, Canada! Eh?) and rejoice in the fact that we are proud Eurail Pass owners!

Hello, World...

Greetings!

A while back, my lovely and eminently talented wife, Vicky Chan, came to me with a suggestion. She thought it a grand idea to pack up our life in L.A. and move to Europe for a year.

My first reaction.

I love to travel. I haven't done it much, but the brief tastes I've had caused me to salivate in new and embarrassing ways. I have wanted to travel much further, much longer. There is a rare feeling of happiness that is experienced and renewed every time I see a photo of myself somewhere new. The ability to say, "I've been there," is the only super power I have going for me. I love to travel. However, being a self-proclaimed realist, I always have to bring myself (and inevitably those around me) back to Earth.

"How will we pay for this?"

"What will we do for money?"

"Can we really afford to put our careers on hold?"

As usual, the correct answer to all those questions was,

"Shut up, Mike."

Vicky has been all over the world. Twice. She knows the globe and she knows how to trek it. Keeping that in mind, I was able to assuage all doubts and just follow her lead. Once we decided on a rough timetable for our departure, the pieces began to fall into place. Though we plan to experience everything this amazingly diverse planet has to offer, we decided it best to take our first steps into it together slowly. An entire year abroad is doable and probably preferable when trying to fully experience a vastly different land, but we decided a shorter, less comprehensive trip was in order for 2014.

What we want for this blog is to bring you all along on our journey. Through the peaks and pitfalls of traveling, the highs and lows of new experiences, the pains of learning by doing and the exuberance of discovering that perfect moment of speechlessness as you see something you've never seen before (and may never see again). We aren't the first to do something like this, but this is the first time something like this has happened to us. If these experiences help you or someone you know gather the courage to reach out and touch another way of life, then, well... That's pretty much exactly what we want.

Throughout the next 100 days, we will be experiencing, photographing and blogging (hopefully in that order) our journey on this leg of our lifelong goal to touch the world. So, with that in mind, I look at this upcoming trip with unbridled excitement and feverish anticipation as to what's to come.

Hello, World...