Well I have just recovered from my second migraine. My first was about a year ago down in Costa Rica, and lasted 11 days. This one, thankfully, only lasted about half a week. My friend Scott deals with migraines on a regular basis, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Enough about that... Let's get on with the stories!

As is my usual style, I waited until the very last minute for a lot of things before this trip. You know, little things, like renewing my passport! New Zealand immigration laws require that your passport be valid for at least 90 days past your expected departure date. Since I would not be departing that country until mid November, and my passport was up in January, I had to rush and expedite the renewal process. My new passport arrived in mid-September, just in-time for my October 5th departure for Italy.

With that out of the way, I could focus on more important items, like shopping, a hair-cut, and packing. I bought some new white deck shoes just for the trip. I figured they looked "very european." As I tried to break them in over the next few days, stupidly without wearing socks, they cut my heals up pretty bad. Dumb move. I ended up leaving them at home and brought more band-aids instead.

I decided to save a little money and gave myself a fresh buzz cut the day before I left. This went fine, but gave me very little time to pack, which I had not started yet. Perhaps this was not such a hot idea, since I would be gone for a month and a half and visiting both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Doing well so far.

The morning of October 5th I found myself wide awake long before the sun woke up. I had managed to pack two bags, one for Italy and one for New Zealand. The plan was to swap them out when I flew from Italy back to LA, during my eight hour layover.

A few hours before my ride to the airport, I had this overwhelming feeling that I was not bringing enough clothes to Italy. I jumped up and hastily emptied both bags, sorted through the mess and created one giant bag. I had a new, brilliant plan.

I would unpack my enormous bag during my layover, do some laundry, swap out a few small items that I would only need in New Zealand, and repack everything... we'll find out just how well that plan worked later.

As time went on, while I waited for my ride, I started to look around the house for anything I might have missed. Oh, I can fit this... Wait, what if I need this... Well if I brought this, I can bring that... It was the result of a poorly prepared packing job, and it continued to the very last minute.

My parents arrived right on-time, ready to take me to LAX, and I was forced to leave whatever I had missed behind. They had already picked up my traveling buddy Scott, and it was still early in the morning, so the four of us made great time getting up to the airport. So quickly that we had several hours before either of us were scheduled to fly.

Scott & I were flying different airlines with me leaving first, then him later. We had a few hours to kill, and he was able to switch to a much earlier flight. However, because he would be delayed twice on this new route due to weather conditions, he would arrive several hours after I checked into the hotel in Venice. It was not a race, but I totally won.

But, I digress. For me it was smooth sailing departing from LA, transferring in Detroit, then Paris, and finally touching down in Venice. The European Union has recently changed their immigration rules, I found out. Since I had cleared customs in Paris and received a French stamp in my passport, I would not receive an Italian stamp in Venice. Bummer.

Needless to say it had been a long day, covering 6,448 miles over 16 hours and 9 time zones. I was anxious to get to the hotel. I had several options available for transportation once I left the airport terminal; bus, shuttle, walk. In the end I simply hailed a cab, paid more than I should have, and quickly checked into the room for a much needed shower. No sense in messing around.

This, after all, was just the beginning.