Round the World with Frojo

There has been a fairly excited 6th grader bopping around the house these past few days, which means the time has come for him to set off on his big adventure. It was hard to pin Joey down on where he wanted to travel to, but after much reflection (and some martabak manis), he settled on Indonesia and Australia. Across a little more than three weeks, we’ll be visiting Bali, Cairns, Ayers Rock and Melbourne, hopefully sharing some experiences we will all carry with us forever.

As these journeys are primarily powered by frequent flier points, we don’t always get the prime choice of flights. As Australia is typically a tough ticket from the US, our best option was to go the long way round, flying through Houston, Dubai, and Bali. Coming home, we were able to lock down Melbourne to Los Angeles, making Joey the first of the Roberts boys to circumnavigate the globe. It does however make for a very long first travel day (two really, as with the overnight in Dubai it will take us 44 hours to get to Bali). On the upside, the longest leg is on the A380, which itself is a bit of an experience.

After waking up early, still slightly hopped up on Halloween candy, we’re off to the airport, where Joey’s first clue that he’s in for something special is the automatic pancake machine in the Alaska Airlines lounge.

Our first flight is pretty uneventful and we make it to Houston in time to catch the end of the Seahawks game (a 13-12 nail biter). From there, it is 15 long hours stuck in the metal tube I find myself in now, watching movies, trying to keep up with email over some sketchy Internet, and working the rust out of the old blogging software.

Stay tuned…