Travels ahead :)

I haven't blogged yet this week because I have busy doing two things: eating dinner with friends (each night this week so far, which has been fun) and buying airline tickets. 

On Monday I was putzing around waiting to meet my friend for dinner so I perused airline tickets for this summer.  I've just been fare watching lately.  I've discovered that I can save significant money (usually) by flying to Chicago and then either getting a ride from my dad or taking the Megabus or Amtrak the rest of the way.  In order to go to Argentina in July, I have two itineraries to book that need to be closely linked together on the return trip: ie, the times must fit perfectly.  Short story is I had to book them at the exact same time to ensure this would all work.  Well, when I looked on Monday one itinerary had dropped $300 since I looked last time and the other had dropped $100.  Both were pretty good prices for the trips. I knew I had a decent deal on Buenos Aires, and was relieved to find out at school the next day that the Thailand-USA ticket was also a decent price. 

So on June 3rd-4th, I head to Chicago via Korea. 
On July 6th-7th I go from Chicago to Buenos Aires vis Panama and Peru.
On July 27th-28th I return to Chicago via Colombia and Panama. 
Then the 28th-29th I come back here via Korea again.  If all goes well, I'll have 12 hours on the ground in Chicago to go to my dad's house and shower and sleep. 
My first day back at work is July 30th :) 

Yesterday I also fulfilled a nearly life-long wish: I booked a ticket to Singapore.  When I was a kid my parents worked with Asian Outreach, a group on UM's campus.  We got to be very close with several students, and two of them even lived with our family at various times.  One such student was Uncle Pong. He was from Singapore, so I grew up hearing about this far-away magical island where is was always hot and the food was delicious.  And at the age of 8 I decided that someday, I was going to go there.  Uncle Ping's girlfriend came to visit while he was in Ann Arbor, so we got to know Aunt Choon as well.  So at the end of March, I am flying to Singapore for 4 days to spend time with Uncle Pong and Aunt Choon and their four kids (teenagers by now) and to experience the wonder and magic of Singapore.  Obviously, from an adult perspective, I know that Singapore is not magical, but I do know it's a great place to visit and I can't wait to go! 

Tonight, no dinner with friends or airline tickets.  I'm feeling kind of under the weather- there's a major bug going around school, so I came home a bit early from school and slept for an hour. I'll heat up some leftover Issan (northern Thai) food from Tuesday and relax and skype with my mom before an early trip to bed.  I  hope I don't get this as bad as everyone else...