Around the World in Eight Days

After this voyage I can say that I have circumnavigated the globe TWICE on a ship. Only .08 % of the world’s population has ever traveled completely around the world. Now I’m on my way to having done it twice! It’s always the cool personal fact that I share.

But now I have a new personal fact that can top that:: I can now say that I have circumnavigated the globe in less than 8 days! Yup – completely around the globe in less than 8 days. I flew out of Hong Kong at 11:45pm on December 24. We flew West across Russia and Europe landing in London at 5am on December 25 (1pm Hong Kong time). I sat in Heathrow Airport for seven long hours then boarded another plane that left at 11:15am (7pm Hong Kong time) and arriving in Philadelphia at 2:30pm on December 25 (3:30am on December 26 Hong Kong time). Ok if you are doing the math that is 28 hours of travel – if you add my travel time to the airports at each end the number goes up to 30 hours.

I then spent 5 ½ quick days visiting everyone in VA, PA, MD and NJ (yup – made it to all 4 states). On December 31st I left at 4am for the airport and took off from Philly at 7am flying West to LA. I landed in LA at about 10am (1pm East Coast time). At 12:15pm we took off for Hong Kong and landed 15 hours later at 7:40pm on January 1st (6:40am on January 1st East Coast time). Again 28 hours of travel.

58 hours of travel for approximately 130 hours of time home in the States. And a complete rotation around the globe. Pretty crazy. Pretty exhausting. Pretty cool. And believe it or not….Pretty worth it. Home was just what I needed to re-energize me for the start of this new semester.

Now if I could just get over this WICKED jet lag – 5 nights of waking up WIRED around 3:30am and not even the slightest sign of improvement. I guess it’s the price I pay for putting my body through 12 hours of jetlag twice in one week.

I apologize for my long delay in getting a posting up – but as you can tell from my story – I’ve been a little bit busy globe trotting. I’m back on the ship now and the new semester has started (students arrived on the ship 11 hours after I got back on the ship).

I hope that you all had fabulous holidays and you’re all settling well into the new year. I’m pretty crazy busy with work at the moment but things should get better once we arrive in Shanghai. I should be able to post more and update you on how the new semester is going. Cheers!