PICTURES!!!
July 28, 2005
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
We have FINALLY put some pictures up from our trip. I had a lot of trouble setting up the photo gallery software so I decided to just use Flickr to store all the pics. Flickr has a cool slideshow feature and you can comment on any picture (but I think you need to sign up for a free Flickr account first, but that's ok).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tim_church/
A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll shut up now and let you check out the pictures for yourself.
Posted by tim at 03:34 PM | Comments (2)
Getting to know O'Hare
July 14, 2005
Miami, FL, USA
Day 1. We've run into the first snag of the trip. We missed our first flight! We stayed at my friend Jeremy's place in downtown Chicago last night and took the train into the airport this morning, but we got there 5 minutes too late to check our bags onto the 9:35 am flight. Luckily, there was room on the next flight but that flight didn't leave until 7:35 pm. It actually got delayed and ended up leaving at 10 pm. So we ended up spending 13 hours in the Chicago O'Hare airport.
We finally got to Miami at 2 am, just enough time to get a couple hours of sleep before coming back to the airport for our 10am flight to Rio. We are just grateful that we were able to make it to Miami tonight and not have to delay any of the rest of the trip.
Despite this little setback, we are still in good spirits. We've learned our lesson to get to the airport early, and if we are going to miss any of the flights on the trip, it is much easier for us to deal with it in Chicago where everyone still speaks English.
Next stop: Brazil
Posted by tim at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
About the website
July 13, 2005
Elkhart, IN, USA
The newly redesigned website is FINALLY ready to go. It was all thrown together very last minute so it is very simple and bare-bones, but we hope you enjoy it anyway. The blog is powered by MovableType, and the photo gallery is powered by Gallery.
One vast improvement on this blog from the old one is that you can now sign up for email notifications whenever we post a new entry on the blog. Just subscribe in the form on the right of the main blog screen.
Note
If anybody is looking for my Asia travelog from January-February 2005, it has been moved to http://www.timstravelog.com/asia/
Posted by tim at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)
It's in the genes...
July 11, 2005
Wilmington, DE, USA
Apparently world travel runs in my family.
I recently found out that my grandmother, Dorothy Rainer, travelled around the world when she was 26 years old. She travelled with another woman for 5 months in 1938. It was the first time she had ever travelled outside of the country. Obviously a trip of this magnitude was even more rare back in those days, especially for two women to be travelling alone. When they left Buffalo, NY, there was an article in the newspaper about their trip.
While we will be travelling almost entirely by plane, they went primarily by steam ship. The main purpose of their trip was to visit her college roommate who lived in Iran. They spent a month in Iran and visited many places that are now off-limits for American, such as Baghdad.
So you see, my trip was just a matter of fate. It was set in motion the moment my parents decided to give me her maiden name, Rainer, as my middle name. I am just carrying on the family tradition. I hope my trip goes as smoothly and is as memorable as Nana's was.
Posted by tim at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)
Manifesto
July 10, 2005
Chautauqua, NY, USA
Inspiration, Motivation, Explanation, Justification
"I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately... and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
I will soon be living the dream - leaving it all to travel around the world. I've quit my job and will spend the next 5 months travelling with my girlfriend, Emily. This is kind of thing that many people dream about their whole lives but never get the opportunity to do, or rather never take the chance to do. The concept of long-term travel is completely foreign to the American workaholic society (it seems to be much more accepted in places like Australia, UK, and Canada). There are many reasons why the average person doesn't attempt an undertaking such as this...but the bottom line is always money. We are all slaves to the money; we are tied into the system with golden handcuffs. The longer you wait and the older you get, the more responsibilities you have and the harder it is to get away.
Two years out of college and I have become another cog in the proverbial "machine". Staring at a computer screen everyday, counting down the minutes until the weekend. I have become Dilbert. I have become Office Space. I need to get out of these cubicles. The first step is always the hardest.
To me this trip is more than just a vacation; it symbolizes something more - taking control of my career and, more importantly, my life. About taking action rather than accepting things the way they are. About not being satisfied with mediocrity. I haven't given up hope that I can do something important with my life, that I can make a difference, be remembered. At the very least that I can find a fulfilling job that I look forward to, rather than feeling like I am wasting my time/life.
Call me an idealist. Call me a dreamer. Call me crazy. Call it a quarterlife crisis. Call it whatever you want. But feel free to follow our adventure and live vicariously through me, and maybe, hopefully, this will help to inspire you to set off on your own travels/adventures or to follow your dreams whatever they may be.
Posted by tim at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)