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A Broken Toe and Off We Go!

Closing the Bali chapter and heading off to the Philippines (Candace)

In our final Bali days with Andrew’s mom, we had a whirlwind of activity. We took a sailboat cruise to Nusa Lombongan and dove there, attended the DevDan culture show, spent a day at the beaches of Jimbaran and Uluwatu, and took a cooking class with a farmer’s market tour. We literally covered the entire island in seven days, and feel that we left no stone unturned during our one month here.

We spent a day at the hospital for hookworm and perioral dermatitis, we broke and fixed two iPhones, I broke my toe while running (full force) into a cement stair, and a monkey stole Andrew’s mom’s cell phone, only to return it in exchange for some food. We even knocked the unplanned events out of the park.

And as we wrapped up our time in Bali, we could both honestly say that we loved our time here, fully explored our space, felt like we really lived here, and are ready to move on. While we know there is still so much more to explore on that beautiful island and that we would both be happy staying there months more, we learned early on that in order to truly experience this trip, we could not waste time wringing our hands about experiences we could not fit in. When we had those feelings, we just promised ourselves that we would pursue those on round 2. We don’t feel sad about leaving because we sincerely feel like we fully experienced each and every day here. We will definitely be back, and look forward to staying longer next time (hopefully with some children undertoe).

It’s such a nice feeling to be completely satiated upon leaving a little piece of paradise. To be ready for life’s next adventure.

And so we are off. We are flying to the Philippines today to spend a week in Boracay, an island where my friend and old roommate, Jeff, is from. Then we’ll stop in Malaysia for one day en route to New Zealand (we diverted after the Australia fiasco). We’ll then relax for two days in Hawaii, thanks to a wedding gift from my mom and dad (thank you!), and then….we're coming home!

It’s hard to believe that we only have two weeks left on this crazy six-month adventure, and we expect that many blog posts about reflections and life lessons will follow.

Get ready for us, friends!