Polar route

And I am off to my longest flight ever, on this trip, and beyond, beating my previous 14h record for the Frankfurt-Buenos Aires route in 2011. I’ll board a United Airlines Boeing 777 today, to fly 15h35 to Hong Kong, on a polar route that will bring me within some 70 miles of the North […] Read More

The Heisenberg principle

In quantum physics, the Heisenberg principle describes the impossibility to measure both the speed and the place of any particle precisely. The more precise you are on its speed, the less precise you can say where the particle actually is. And vice versa. I discovered today that this also applies to me. My own private […] Read More

Illinois

Mid-october already… Which means: I’m heading to Asia. But first, a short stop-over in Chicago, for technical reasons. On paper, I could have made the connection from Mexico on to the United flight to Hong Kong in Chicago. But with only 1h25 in between flights, it seemed too tight. Anyone who has waited ages at US immigration […] Read More

One more time (RTW#3)

It took a long time to figure out what I wanted to do with the three months’ extension I granted myself on this trip. And just when HR mailed me the signed OK for the prolongation  only three days after the expiration of the first sabbatical year (not that I had already booked the flights, anyway…) […] Read More

Interesting times

‘May you live in interesting times’  is said to be a Chinese curse, that we all have heard at one point or the other. Seeing the protest that have sprung up in Hong Kong over the organization of somewhat free elections promised for 2017, I came to realize that I have ‘escaped’ a few political […] Read More

Got it

The trip can go ahead as planned. Today, the Visa for India arrived from Germany, with DHL. Some 200 Euros for the whole process. Better be worth it… I’m still getting weird messages from the Agency in San Francisco, wanting me to fill-out a non-attached form in order to re-fund me, and not responding since… Read More

Asian update

The past days I was busy planning a bit more of the Asian leg of my journey. First, I booked a place to stay in Hong Kong. I’ll be in the Sai Ying Pun Neighborhood on Hong Kong Island. It sounded good, was affordable, and seems to be well connected with public transport. I will stay […] Read More

Future Chinese Adventures

I have a flight into Hong Kong on 15 October. Hong Kong because: a) the flight was available to get with my miles, and b) because Will, who let us stay in his apartment in Melbourne, lives close-by in a multi-million city called Jiangmen. So, pending the open Indian Visa question, I hope to get a Visa […] Read More

100.000

Somewhere on the way to Mexico City, maybe half an hour before landing, I have crossed the 100.000 kilometer threshold on this trip. I just updated my travel statistics and realized that, all different means of transport combined – planes, cars, busses, ferries and trains – I have travelled approximatively 100.400 kilometers. In detail, I – […] Read More

Off to Mexico City

On and on and on and on…. I’m off to Mexico City tonight. It’s an overnight flight, I leave just after 11 and arrive at 5.30 in the morning – jumping two hours back in the process. I’ll be picked up at the airport, meet my Airbnb hosts , and then probably sleep in. Here […] Read More

Indian Visa, round two

Just when I thought the visa for India is on track, I get this email from the agency dealing with it, basically saying… well, what exactly? The following Documents are incomplete:- 1)proof of address not acceptable, if not resident of san francisco is not able to apply tourist visa to india. 2) provide legal valid […] Read More

Visa application

I spent the last two days assembling my visa application for India. Honestly, without Renato’s patience and help, I would not have made it. It’s a cumbersome, bureaucratic, ridiculous process. The embassy has outsourced the check of the documents to a private company, which only forward the complete, correctly filled out applications to the embassy. However, […] Read More