Day 1: I can´t believe I finally went through with this trip This entire trip started with writing down my dreams in a daily journal. During tough times at my last job, I tried to put things into perspective and ask myself, ¨If I lost this job, what would I like to do most, regardless of money?¨ The reoccuring theme was that I had a burning desire to travel to locations in the world that fascinated me and I wondered if I would ever get to visit these places. On my list I consistently had Galapagos, New Zealand and the Great Barrier reef. Addionally, i always wanted to go to Africa, Madrid, Ireland and see the Tour de France. After losing my job, I jumped right into exploring a trip to one of these places. I found out that I had enough mileage to fly to Australia in business class, but would have to pay for additional legs to New Zealand and the Great Barrier reef. I asked about a multi-destination route with miles and found out about the Around the World Plan by American. ¨What a great idea I thought!¨ I figured out that I could use my mileage and travel around the world in business class and figured it was the perfect opportunity to take a break from a bad economy and gain some new perspective on life.
After staying up all night packing last minute items, I was exhausted getting to the airport
. Kristin and I had a lot of sadness leaving each other and I readjusted my schedule to allow 3 weeks together in New Zealand and Australia. She is taking care of my dogs during this trip and was a big part of encouraging me to go forward with the trip and reassuring me that she would take care of the dogs. I am so thankful for her and her help.
Arriving to the airport, I checked into my first class and realized that I also had the ability to go to the Admirals Club (VIP) prior to my flight. Never been there before, I walked right up there, had my mamosa and danish, while looking out the window at my snow covered plane. Strange to see 6 inches of new snow when I am taking off to a place that is so hot.
The gentlemen next to me in first class was a large business man that fit the image of what I think of when I think of first class. He spoke on his cell phone right up into take off, chatting so loud that the people in the back of the plane could probably hear him
. It appeared that this man wanted everyone to know how important he was, but I was really just interested in sleeping and put my new noise cancelling headphones on and fell asleep before the plane even took off.
I was pampered to death in first class with a gourment breakfast consisting of an omelet, pancakes, toast, jelly and a mamosa of course when I awoke. I met my friend Kevin in Miami and continued on to Quito, Ecuador. Flying into Ecuador was amazing. What beautiful mountains surround the city. Quitos elevation is 9500 feet and I could feel the difference even after living in Denver. The city itself had many low buildings. I did not see any high rises or fancy cars. We had a hotel shuttle take us directly to the airport and had the bellman get us a taxi to a recommended restaurant. Our taxi driver did not speak great english and my four years of Spanish came in handy (Senor Cruz and Diaz would be very happy). Our taxi driver did not know his directions very well and we ended stopping to ask for directions 4 times before reaching the restaurant. We expect to be hit with a huge taxi charge, but our 30 min tour of the city only cost us $3. Kevin´s is still brushing up on his spanish and when the taxi driver told us tres dollars, Kevin assumed 30 dollars and almost paid that amount to the driver.
The sushi was excellent and we had fun trying to order sushi items in Spanish. We retired early after the long day and prepared four our early Flight to Galapagos.
Day 1 : My Adventure Begins
Monday, April 27, 2009
Quito, Ecuador
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2025-02-10