We left Christchurch and headed to the middle of the South Island. This part of our trip to New Zealand was the most challenging to plan and I was not really looking forward to it. I'm so glad I was wrong though-it was the best few days!

We rented a car in Christchurch and started driving west. Brennan did excellent driving on the left side of the road while sitting on the right side of the car! We enjoyed mountains around us and the 3 hour drive was relatively uneventful. 

Our time in Wellington was brief because we had more adventures planned! We woke up early and left our hotel to head to the ferry port. We took a 3 hour ferry across the Cook Straits from the North island of New Zealand to the South island. 

The ferry was large and had many seating areas, a few cafes and an outdoor viewing deck. We didn't spend much time outside because it was so windy, but it helped with my slight case of seasickness. 

Our time in Fiji came to an end, but we had a new country to visit-New Zealand!

When we got to the airport and checked in, we saw this bright sign. I guess common sense isn't always common?

I remember hearing about Fiji as a kid and thinking, “Wow, I will never go that far away. But that seems like a cool place.” And now we’ve been there.

We decided to go to Fiji by accident. Brennan found an award plane ticket to New Zealand with a stop on the way in Fiji for 6 days last May or June. We booked it, not knowing if it would actually work for us to go. We started booking details in November and it still didn't feel real until we were on the plane.

We flew from Los Angeles to Nadi. The flight was 10.5 hours, but we crossed the international date line multiple times while we flew. We left LA on Wednesday night and arrived on Friday-we completely skipped Thursday! The flight was amazing with really friendly flight attendants and very comfortable seats. Brennan and I both slept well and woke up in Nadi ready to start our day. 

When we got back from the cruise, we spent a few days in Nashville before flying out to California. We had a little over a week there before flying out to begin traveling internationally again!

Brennan and I have talked about going to Disneyland for a long time. We love Disney World and had annual passes for several years, but he had never been to Disneyland. I went for a quick day trip in college while I was student teaching in LA, but I forgot a lot of what I saw there. We were both really excited about the idea of spending a few days in Anaheim and experiencing the original Disney park.

We spent New Year's Eve on a cruise! After spending time with our families over Christmas (and surviving an insanely cold and icy drive from Florida to Ohio), we flew to Miami to spend 7 nights on the Symphony of the Seas. This cruise was so different than the other 2 we did earlier in 2022. For one thing, this ship was the largest in the world until 2022. It really was massive, but well designed because it wasn't overwhelming or difficult to find your way around. We'd never done a Royal Caribbean cruise or departed on a cruise from the United States, so that was different too. Miami is the busiest cruise port in the world and it was very obvious when we checked in on New Year's Eve. 

We went to Europe for a month, mostly so we could visit as many Christmas markets as possible. Our route took us from Brussels to Budapest, then back to Brussels to fly home for Christmas. 

The Christmas markets hadn't started in Brussels or Brugge, but began with our time in Luxembourg. We rated each city on it's food, shopping and atmosphere throughout the Christmas markets, since there were multiple in every city we visited. 

Luxembourg had just started their Christmas market season when we arrived. It was nice to walk around the few markets we went to, but there weren't a lot of options for different things to eat or buy. The lights were nice though!

We decided before we flew to Brussels that we were not going to plan out our entire time in Europe and see what happened. While we were on the walking tour in Brussels, I asked our guide where else we should visit in Belgium-he suggested Brugge, so we went. 

This city is one of the best preserved Medieval towns in Europe. We arrived at the main train station, boarded a city bus, and started toward our hotel. We checked into our hotel and headed out to do a brewery tour. 

We flew directly from New York to Brussels on November 16. We arrived on the morning of the 17th and took a train into downtown Brussels after an easy exit from the airport. We arrived at our hotel and were hoping to check in, but our room wasn't available. So we pivoted and stopped to get something to eat before joining a walking tour at 11am. 

It was COLD! We had to get coffee to warm up, because the wind and rain went straight to our bones. The walking helped warm us up and we saw a lot of Brussels with our guide. The tour started in the Grand Place and they had an undecorated Christmas tree right in the middle of the square, getting ready for the Christmas markets!

In case you’ve never heard me say it, I’ll repeat myself: we love New York. Even after all the places we have been in the world, Brennan and I always feel this tug back to New York. It’s our favorite city and we love any chance we have to visit.

We set out from Bangkok on November 8. Our hotel was already decorated for Christmas, so I made sure to snap a photo before we left. We made it to the airport, and saw these statues as we were checking in. I thought it was very funny how they looked with the giant masks on their faces. This statue has smaller faces on the back of the head and even the little faces had masks! At some point in the far future, I know it will be hard to believe how prevalent masks were everywhere, so I think it’s interesting to document things like this.