Jason and Swiss's Round the World (RTW) Blog

5AM, WTF mate?
Well, the big day is here. At around 5am I woke up on the couch (I don't have a bed), wrapped in a blanket (thanks Shannon), restless. The last week has been spent tying up loose ends, selling stuff, donating even more stuff, and here I am on the big day with half of a garage full of even more stuff. I figure that I either overvalue my belongings or I suck at sales, but here I am, at 5:30am, putting up garage sale signs. The good news is that I only (knowingly) woke up one neighbor with my hammering of signs to a wooden utility pole. I guess it is somewhat of a strange activity to be doing before dawn. Oh well. Here's the stuff I had a couple hours to sell:



Yesterday was spent at one last going away dinner with former roomies, sushi and sake bombs, nice little way to wrap up a busy week week. I'm growing a tad restless not having internet, courtesy of Comcast sucking. So get this: I want to cancel my service and have Shannon take over my account. They say “no problem”. So then I ask whether she can qualify for any promos given she's a new customer. Well, that's a no, unless, of course, I disconnect my service and have her re-connect it. Efficiency at it's best. So here I am sitting without TV or internet. As I reflect, I guess that's going to be a good chunk of my life for the next year anyways. But point is: Comcast Sucks.

Packing stuff
So down to the key question: Will I be wearing underwear for this trip? The answer, fortunately, is yes. The product is called ExOfficio, their tag line is “6 months, 17 countries, one pair of underwear” or something like that. Given that we're traveling for a year and it would be nice to wash them without going comando, I opt for two pair. At $25 a pop, they might be the most expensive piece of clothing on a per square foot basis that I own. Good news is that they are fast drying, have antibacterial properties, and are basically designed for travel. And yes, I just wasted a paragraph talking about underwear, but thus far they are the highlight of the trip.

I'm done packing, content with my backpack being about 75% full (50% of which seems to be meds). Below is a picture of all my belongings for a year. Including two pair of underwear. True story.




The plan for today is to head to the city, meet up with Lawton and Sonia (who is taking us to the airport – Thanks!), have some dinner, then head to SFO. I am writing this sitting among all my garage sale stuff, unable to post to the blog given the lack of internet. So most of the things listed above probably already happened by the time you read this, but hey, at least I made an effort at documenting the first day.