Nine months down the line, a fortune down the drain, and still 10 destinations to go. As you know we will do anything to avoid doing a day of honest work.
We managed to strike off 18 destinations of our List of 28 in 2010, although to be fair, we had to be a little bit creative for three of them:
1. "The World Exposition in Shanghai, China" was replaced by "Sandboarding in the Death Valley in Chili" (August 2010) after being unceremoniously dumped by Vijverberg Sr. (no hard feelings dad...)
2. "Globalising the orange juice trade in Malawi" was replaced by "Crossing (and surviving) Bolivia" (August 2010) after we found out that my cousin and her partner had fled Malawi before we could book a ticket, having left behind a fully-fledged flourishing orange juice business
3. "Relaxing in The Datai in Langkawi" was replaced by "Thrill seeking in New Zealand" (November 2010) as after nine months we were pretty much maxed out on relaxation already anyway
So what is left for 2011? Well, this is what we are still looking to do in the next couple of months:
1. Party like it is 1999 in Copenhagen (Denmark)
2. Checking out some stones in Petra (Jordan)
3. Meeting Fidel for tea in Havana (Cuba)
4. Chilling out at the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi (Sweden)
5. Trekking to Mount Everest Base Camp from Kathmandu (Nepal)
6. Getting admitted to the SAS-led Ultimate Bootcamp in Devon (England)
7. NEW: Wrestling Grizzlies in Alaska (USA)
8. NEW: Skiing with the little monkeys in Saas Fee (Switzerland)
9. NEW: Drinking port with the Portuguese doctors in Porto (Portugal)
10. New York, New York for the Grand Finale of our Sabbatical (USA)
Having had the chance to have another look at our remaining 10 destinations during the festive period, we decided to include Alaska (special thanks to Julio and Basil for being so convincing), Porto and Saas Fee at the expense of Strasbourg (we missed the Christmas market due to heavy snow), Turin (Juve managed to sell "The Atomic Ant" to AC Parma before we could book our tickets) and Vietnam (this one hurts the most as we had genuinely looked forward to visiting Ruben and Frederiek but we had to drop one and Alaska just sounded as too good to be true). So, 10 adventures still to go in 2011, we will keep you all up to date with our progress. And before we forget: Happy 2011 to everyone!
