Time out...Traveling is a pain in the (BLEEEEEEEP) too!

Ok so first off I am just realizing that it is February and I totally forgot to do the last entry for a our last day/night in Mexico City and I need to do that soon because well that was October....and this is not October and the Holidays have been over and come June we will be somewhere else.

But today kids I need to do a "first world" traveling vent, so if you are not interested in my sarcasm and "woe is me" rant I totally get it and you should just stop reading this now and wait for more pretty pictures to come in the upcoming posts. However, if you want to know more about the madness that can go into making your dreams happen on a really shallow and snarky level then by all means come along! (Warning there will be math involved as well.) Reality Check :Things in this post are really not "THAT" bad, and I am lucky to even have such problems so don't take this the wrong way, part of this is just silly anyway.

Ok so I know nobody else REALLY cares about this but after weeks and hours of research I now know why Americans don't go to South East Asia...
And let me first start by saying that I am not talking about the first time we decided to go and booked a trip and then it got canceled or the second time we thought we would go but something else stopped us.

No I am talking about this time now 2015. The trip is booked and will run so that's good. We got help from a friend and a great deal to make it happen, wonderful. We plan to bookend our trip with time by ourselves to explore on our own, (not booked but a plan has been made, simply fabulous as of now.)

Then there is the every trip has its "thing" but usually that involves international bureaucratic crap called a "visa." South America we didn't need one, India I thought was pretty crazy but even though it got screwed up, it worked out and turned into a fairly easier process then the following year. Yes, East Africa was nightmare that we brought on upon ourselves.

5 visas (that is finding obscured hidden forms on outdated websites that all say different requirements and forming a ridiculous time line to send them out and crossing your fingers you get them back in time) that in the end we should and could have just bought along the way but like everything else with that particular trip, little information was shared so you live and learn.

I haven't even looked into the process for SEA yet but I know it will require only be one for Vietnam. So with all our wonderful experience of filling out forms and getting certified money orders and bla bla bla...we got this right? Hopefully they at least have a working website with proper forms, that alone would blow my mind compared to the process in the past.

Anywho................ And I am just going to say that I am never surprised just more like "Well come on honey, did you really think it would be that easy?" And then we look at each other and laugh and pass out a round of Advil.

I have also learned from flying to far away places to be much more aware of how long you are going to spend in an airport between flights, what time of day that will be verses what time of day your body thinks it is and can you even leave the airport at all to enjoy a break between flights.

However, either I am doing something totally wrong or after a month of research and comparison to fly to Bangkok you need to either have super dollars or you need to be prepared to sleep for 22hours in a Moscow airport, or risk your legs exploding from a blood clot as you sit on the plane for 14+ hours to Hong Kong, or you have to pay for visas to other countries you will only see for a total of 5-8 hours...

And while we are at it what the hell is wrong with Philadelphia International that they need to be so much more expensive than everywhere else. I hate you. You taunt me with your easy access yet your flights are ALWAYS more expensive.

I feel like this could be on the PARCC because it is becoming that confusing and difficult....lol
Here Pearson is it too late to add this one to the nonsense?

Two adults want to buy a plane ticket to Bangkok. They live closer to Philadelphia but it is too expensive to fly anywhere in the world from there for some reason. Probably because they hate people named Kelly and Thom. So then there is Newark and JFK but if we go to JFK we need to factor in time and costs to get to this forsaken airport that might as well be a third world country of its own. So when looking at prices from there are they really cheaper if you need to pay to rent a car to get there? But there is more!!! So much more!!! (Don't forget kids to show how you got your answer..... I got mine by dragging my middle finger up to the computer screen)

When comparing flights there are LONG ass layovers ranging from 8-22hours....

And that would be cool because that would mean that if you actually wanted to see say the the Red Square or St. Basil's Cathedral you could do that and stretch your legs and maybe even sleep in a bed!!!! What a concept!

This particular flight would involve you and your husband saving about $1,000 but would require you to pay back all that money with your soul and willpower to live. You see you would fist need to get to JFK, ok not the end of the world but more planning and possibly money is needed. Oh but I forgot that you need a visa too. Now you need to spend money to get to JFK, at minimum $300 (maybe more, transit visas are for those staying at least 24 HOURS not 22 so there is that and then we would need a double entry for departing and returning and then a hotel room of some kind for over night and transportation to and from the airport and so on.
Or I could do this for 22 hours of my life as well:

Or I could pick a different plane or airline you say?
Sure we can fly for close to $1200 more and do almost the same thing but in Frankfurt I wouldn't need a visa! (Are you keeping track of the math?) Or I could do 13 hours in Delhi smeh.... or 22 hours in Finland.... and it is not that much cheaper and there is less things I am interested to see in Fineland (not that I am against the Fins or anything, it was just that my heart didn't jump with excitement when I saw one of the top attractions to be a market of frozen fish) There are no direct flights there. I looked into flying to LA and then to there I looked into flying to London, or France and then flying to there.

So the moral of the story is planes don't go where people from your country don't go. And people don't want to go where it is too hard to get to. In the end we will bite the bullet and do it and make it happen in what ever form that needs to look like...

but it doesn't mean weighing out all of these ridiculous options doesn't make you nutty along the way.