Around the World in 89 Days

Man, if I'd gotten back to Boston just a few days sooner this would have been such an epically titled summer.

For the many of you that just know that I'm traveling around the world this summer, and aren't entirely sure why or how the hell I'm paying for this:

On of my goals for my 22nd year of life was to go abroad. One of my life goals, period, is to get a PhD. The Singapore-MIT Undergraduate Research Fellowship (known, I kid you not, as SMURFs-- FLP kids will know that this was meant to be.) funds undergrads to do research in Singapore. I saw this in November and was basically all, "oh, Singapore. They speak English. That would be a solid."

The long and the short of the story is that I got the fellowship and will be sharing an apartment with four other MIT kids in Singapore. I'm the only white person or American citizen. Hooray diversity! Always happy to do my part.

However, I somehow have to get to Singapore. The fellowship comes with round-trip airfare between Singapore and Boston, up to $2,500 (just in case an Arab Spring causes gas prices to go up you buy your tickets late or something). I saw this and was like, well, hell, I can make my layover in Heathrow last a week and only pay an extra 100 bucks in airfare. Could I just pay MIT?

So at our SMURF intro meeting in March, I posed this very scenario and was told that yes, indeed, I could pay MIT $100 for the pleasure of spending a week in London. "Out of curiousity," the director asked, "how many of you are planning on taking side trips to or from Singapore?" All five of us tentaively raise our hands in affirmation. "You know what then," he said. "Let's just make this administratively easier on our end. You can take whatever side trips you want, and we'll reimburse you up to $2,500."

In the words of the fountain of wisdom that is Charlie Sheen: WINNING.

This is how the trip around the world came to be. My trips around Europe at the beginning of the summer and China at the end are basically wait-this-would-actually-be-awesome scenarios that we made happen. While I've yet to book my ticket from Singapore to Shanghai at the end of July, the most this trip will cost me in airfare is $10.


THE SCHEDULE

STAGE 1: Eurotripping with Lily!
5/19-5/20: London with Lily
5/20-5/22: Berlin with Lily and Aditi
5/23-5/25: Lausanne, Switzerland with Lily and LShields
5/25-5/27: Munich with Lily and Aditi

STAGE 2: Singapore and other Adventures
5/28-7/29: Singapore, plus visitors and side trips (AliceYu and DWang and AnneShen!!)

STAGE 3: Chinaland
7/30-8/4: TIBET with AnneShen, DWang, others...?

STAGE 4: Los Estados Unidos
8/7-8/15: Land in Chicago, chill at home
8/15: Back to Boston for FLP!!!

I'll start posting things tomorrow on my and Lily's train ride from Zurich to Lausanne.