Where in the world are Sam and Caroline?!

I cannot believe it myself, but the first leg of our year of international travel is nearing its end. We have had a wonderful time here, and we will be leaving Santiago this Saturday night. Wow, weird.

From the plane, I'll write a post summing up my thoughts and highlights from this first part of the experience. For now, I just wanted to post about the next stages of our travels, for anyone who was curious - or anyone who wants to meet up with us somewhere! (Just ask our friends and family who have already visited us in South America - it was a blast)

Here's the plan for the remainder of the journey. For those who don't care about the details, I'll give you the short version first:

Short version: We leave Santiago and fly to India, travel there for 2 weeks, then arrive in Haifa, Israel on Feb. 19 where we will stay until July 21. At that point, we'll do a little more traveling and then come back to Boston by about August 4.

Detailed version:

• Feb. 2: Fly from Santiago to Tel Aviv, via Toronto. Yes, we know, we know, Toronto is not on the way. But we booked Air Canada because it was cheap and now we have to deal with it. It's a 10.5 hour flight, a 10 hour layover and then an 11hr flight. Yay.
  
• Feb. 4: Arrive in Tel Aviv. We'll be staying in Tel Aviv for one night with a friend of my parents. We'll also leave some of our luggage there, before heading back to the airport the next day for...
  
• Feb. 5: Fly from Tel Aviv to Delhi, India. It's through Vienna, Austria, but we won't have enough time to see anything there.
  
• Feb. 6 - 14: Travel around Delhi and surroundings. We'll spend a few days in the city, then do an organized tour of the so-called "Golden Triangle" which also includes the cities of Agra (with the Taj Mahal) and Jaipur.
  
• Feb. 14 - 19: Travel around the south of India. We got a lot of recommendations to spend some time in the South since we'll experience the North in Delhi. The South has different food, a more hindu culture (rather than muslim), and MUCH hotter weather.
  
• Feb. 19 - July 21: Live and work in Haifa, Israel. Obviously there's a lot to say here, but we'll wait until we're actually in Haifa and experiencing it to tell you all about it.
  
• July 21 - Aug. 4: Travel through Europe back to Boston. We will be traveling briefly through Turkey, Morocco (I know that's not Europe!) and London before coming back to Boston. We'll hopefully visit one of Caroline's childhood friends who will meet us in Morocco, and a few MIT friends who live in the UK.

So that's the plan! We might be halfway done with the time, but I'm sure we still have way more than half the excitement left to come.

Oh, and if you're wondering about plans when we get back to the US...we'll spend August visiting our families in Philly and Minneapolis, then we plan to find an apartment in Cambridge and start working at the start of September. I have accepted a job offer from an educational consulting firm called the District Management Council, and Caroline will hopefully be working again at the Museum of Science Boston.