G & J away from home

Sunday, 22 February

Today I counted out the weeks and discovered that it was exactly 8 weeks until we drive away from home on our first trip to Europe and the UK since 2004.

We drive to Auckland on Sunday in 8 weeks time.

Then fly to LA to spend a few days with Gary's cousin, Pete.

We will be flying across the US (a somewhat quicker way to cross it than our driving trip of 2012) to transit through London Heathrow on our way to Bucharest in Romania.

From Bucharest we embark on a river cruise from the Black Sea to the North Sea - celebrating my recent 50th birthday.

Going the Other Way: Our cruise goes from the Black Sea to the North Sea

At the end of the cruise we fly from Amsterdam back into Heathrow and pick up a rental car to drive around the UK for three weeks or so.  We have a few new things to see, some old haunts to revisit, and a lot of people to catch up with.

When we eventually leave the UK we're coming home through China - Shanghai to be precise.  Neither of us have visited China before so that's more new territory we'll be covering.

And then we will be home again around the middle of June ... just in time for winter.
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