Heeey buuuudddddy!

Last weekend we went to sunny Brighton on England's south coast for a fun-filled, booze-fueled reunion with Kate and Lizzie.  Kate lives with boyfriend Chris down in Brighton and she invited all of us down to visit for one of the biggest events on the Brighton calendar - Gay Pride Festival!

We had a great time.  Kate and Chris' place was lovely and they were the perfect hosts.  Kate cooked a special Thai meal for us when we arrived on Friday night (a rare treat apparently according to Chris) and we got to meet the famous Foxtrot, Kate's massive rabbit...more like a small dog really.

Heeyy buuuddddyy!

On Saturday we started early with breakfast cocktails before heading down to watch the parade.  There was something like 160,000 people at the event and as you can imagine, there were some real characters!

Lady Gaga?

What can you say about this?

After the parade we followed the crowds down to the park to continue the festivities.  We rounded out the night at one of Kate and Chis' local pubs where more alcohol was consumed, some drunken singing took place and Lee made several attempts to dance with an old man who was having none of it.  What a weekend!

The perfect end to a perfect day.

The beginning of the end

This latest update finds us back in jolly old England and at the final stop of our trip around the globe.  We're spending five weeks or so in London, with a few side trips, before taking one last flight across the Atlantic back to Philadelphia...and (cue sad music) the real world.

On the bright side we've still got over a month to go before we go from world travelers to unemployed good-for-nothings so we plan to make the most of it.

First up is a trip Wales.

Round-the-world in numbers: the story so far

Most of the counting we have been doing on this trip has been related to money - how much is this hostel room?  What is the exchange rate? Lee you've already spent this much on beer already, Courtney if we forgo using moisturizer we'll save this much money, etc, etc.

After just 2 days in New Zealand we realized that we were going to have a tough time keeping track of our daily expenditures, and therefore our budget, so we invested in a cheap calculator to help.  With the assistance of that same trusty little number crunching device, we decided to look at some other numbers related to this trip and the result is the following summary.  Our trip by the numbers...

5 number of continents visited
11 number of countries explored
144 number of days traveled
43 total number of places that we've stayed in
2 number of motorbikes rented

before the "incident"

50 percentage of rented motorbikes that were crashed
20 number of books read
18 number of flights taken
4 number of different cameras used (so far)
2,195 number of photos taken
10 different modes of transport used

One of the higher quality buses we rode on

35,317 number of miles traveled
24,901 distance in miles around the world at the equator
1 bag of insects eaten

Yum

15,000 height in feet from which we jumped out of a plane
15 number of beaches laid on
3 number of public rallies/riots/protests we have witnessed (civil unrest seems to be a theme on this trip)
9 number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites visited

Sydney Opera House - UNESCO World Heritage Site

190 cost in US dollars of one speeding ticket in Australia
26 number of bus journeys taken
23 percentage of bus journeys where we feared for our lives

This was a contender for worst bus trip

65 percentage of bus drivers in New Zealand named "Peter"
10 number of capital cities visited
8,500 approximate weight in pounds of the elephant we rode in northern Thailand

53 current age of former England captain and all-round footballing legend Bryan Robson, who we saw hanging out near our hotel in Bangkok
171* number of canadians met while traveling (*estimate.  actual number unknown but it felt like at least that many
27 number of new facebook friends
8 average cost in US dollars of a beer in Australia
0.45 average cost in US dollars of beer in Vietnam
15 number of dorm rooms stayed in
36 percentage of dorms that had smelly and/or noisy roomies
7.5 size of the flip flops Lee inherited after his were stolen from outside an internet cafe in Laos (they are a bit snug)

With only 3 days to go until the start of the World Cup, we'll likely have plenty more statistics to think about over the next 4 weeks.