Our Future?

The quest continues! Is this getting boring already? :P I'm sorry, folks, but this is something that occupies my mind, and therefore my weblog as well. After having worried about THE FUTURE for a very long time, and consequently breaking down afterwards, I decided to not think about the future at all. This worked pretty well for a couple of days (which is HUGE for me). Yesterday Jochem and I started thinking about THE FUTURE again. We spent our Saturday night at the dining room table, having dinner and discussing our options. It was great because I was able to look at the situation with a new perspective. We decided that we definately wanted to finish our studies first. I graduate in September 2010 and Jochem in January 2011. I will try to get a job in education in September 2010 while Jochem finishes his internship in the Netherlands. When Jochem graduates in January 2011 he will try to get a job in hospitality. We will work through August and want to leave on a world trip in September 2011. Jochem wanted to leave for six months and I wanted to leave for twelve months, so in the end we decided on nine months. We made a list of all the countries we wanted to see and made a rough plan of how we were going to fit them all in. You can see the 'route' on the map. We will stay in Oceania for one month, in Asia for 3 months and in Central and South America for five months. The trip goes something like this:

Netherlands - New Zealand - Australia - Bali (Indonesia) - India - Nepal - Tibet - China - Japan - USA - Costa Rica - Cuba - Brazil - Argentina - Chile - Peru - Ecuador - Venezuela - Curaçao- Netherlands.

It's crazy, I know. We don't know what to do about our apartment, or what to do or where to go when we come back, or what to do about our pets, or if we are really able to live off our backpacks for nine months, or anything specific, really. But we DO know that we can afford it this way without having to work while traveling and without having to jeapordize any major summer holidays. Isn't it GREAT?! :P I guess it's a shame that I am still a planner at heart, but I feel much better now! :)