Itchy Feet

After living in Australia for five years, it's probably time I head home for a visit.  Andy and I have been meaning to get home, but between expensive flights, and teaching/fieldwork schedules, it hasn't happened yet.  Then we decided to go for a few weeks in October.  Then, Andy got accepted to present at a conference. In Scotland. The week before we were planning to head to NY. It took a bit of negotiating, but finally we agreed on a very exciting, somewhat whirlwind, Round the World trip.

For those of you who are Facebook friends, this is old news.  But, our itinerary looks like this:

5 days in Hong Kong
4 days in Switzerland, with possible day trips to Austria and/or Liechtenstein
5 days in Scotland - an overnight in Edinburgh, and then on to Aberdeen where the conference is
3 days in Dublin
5 or so days in New York City
1 or 2 days in Philadelphia
3 or 4 days in Washington, DC
Then to visit my parents, in Upstate NY.  From there, we'll probably get out to Niagara Falls, at Andy's request, and maybe venture onwards to Toronto for a few days, before trekking back to St Lawrence uni, where I did my undergrad degree.

Because this is a work trip for Andy, there are certain parts that are non-negotiable in terms of times and locations.  But, if anyone has any recommendations for things we should do, or places we should eat, in any of these locations, please please leave me a comment!

The leg in Hong Kong is what inspired us to snag two sets of chop sticks from Andy's parents' closet when we were visiting.  Until that week, I had never, ever, in my life, successfully eaten with chop sticks.  I had tried a few times, and all were miserable failures.  But somehow, Andy's mum's description of how to use them just worked for me, and after playing around and grabbing random things for a few hours, I was able to eat with them.  We're still practicing regularly, so we don't look like clowns when we get to Hong Kong.

And if simply reading this post gives you itchy feet, the tickets are pretty reasonable - we got this one from RoundAbout Travel.  We've got a stack of travel guidebooks out of the library and can't wait for September to come!