"And there's one more thing...it's been emotional"

So the time has almost come to say goodbye. I've had my farewell party, and cried at that. I've had a farewell lunch with my sister, brother and cousins plus their partners and only just managed to bite back the tears at that. I had a lovely goodbye message from my brother in law who's in Ethiopia and very nearly cried at that. I was waved off at the station today by my parents and other sister after popping down to Kent to see them and cried again, after several bouts of tears earlier and the night before. I'm not used to this - I hate crying. I have cried more over the last couple of days than in the last several years.


I just want to be gone now, and not in this horrible, almost gone state of being sad and scared and crying and feeling all the time in the pit of my stomach how very, very much I am going to miss all my family and friends.


OK, after hopefully having made you all a bit sad now (misery loves company), here's the making you jealous bit - my itinerary!

• 19th October - fly out to Japan. I'll have 2 days in Tokyo (inc. a full day tour of the city with a tea ceremony), 3 days in Kyoto and Nara (Nara has tame deer that apparently come and bite your bottom to get you to give them your food!) with a trip to Hiroshima and then 2 days in Nagasaki.
• 27th October - fly to Sydney where I will spend a week visiting my lovely Auntie Isabel and her two new kittens. It'll be lovely, even after a week, to see a familiar face and have someone to hang out with.
• 5th November - fly to Fiji where I will spend a week island hopping, snorkling, swimming, sunbathing (yes mum, with factor 30 on) and generally relaxing. I do seem to have picked the rainy season for this, but it will be hot nevertheless and mostly the rain is in short bursts with sunshine the rest of the time. Hopefully.
• 12th November - fly to Auckland, NZ. I haven't really planned anything much, I just have a vague idea that I want to spend a few days visiting things I haven't seen yet, such as Milford Sound, and visiting my friend Daran and his wife (I worked with Daran for a few years previously) before settling probably in Wellington. I plan to get a job and a flatshare - and if that doesn't work I'll pop over to the south island and get some work shearing sheep or something.
• 1st April 2011 - fly to Santiago, Chile where I'll join a month long tour that winds its way through Bolivia and Peru. Highlights will include a 2 day stay in the Amazon Jungle, doing the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu, Visiting the Witches Market in Bolivia (women in bowler hats sell dead cats and llama foetuses - yuk!!) and the Salt Flats at Atacama.
• 8th May 2011 - Land back in London (jobless, homeless, poor... oh wait, I'm still supposed to be making you jealous here...)

Clearly it's going to be utterly amazing and I am a very, very lucky girl. I know I am really. Once I get out there the excitement will properly kick in and I might well cry just as much at having to come home...