Pig Hog Fleas

[reldnahkram]

Apparently, these guys are going to resume flights from SEA to VVO early next year, which means the following trip should be doable:

(1)
(2)
Flight mentioned above
(3)
Find a way to get from the end of (3) to the start of (4)
(5)
Fly home

Comments

[ultranurd.livejournal.com]

SWIL Vacation '09?

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

This says there's a weekly sleeper from Moscow to Istanbul, assuming we're trying to do the entire Orient Express and not just Vienna to Strasbourg.

Unfortunately, we're talking at least a couple thousand dollars for the whole trip, though.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

My sister took that train. She started out in Romania, but I think she was still on the night part (if I recall correctly, we were supposed to meet her in Istanbul at 10 am, which we completely failed to do due to a communications breakdown).

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

I had the whole Orient Express in mind. I hadn't found that train earlier today, but I had found a train from Moscow to Budapest and from there it's easy to get to Paris. The whole OE would be more fun though.

Yes, it's probably prohibitively expensive, but at ~$2500 (that's a rough guess) for 2.5 weeks of vacation and a trip around the world, it's not bad.

[ajacs.livejournal.com]

Plus the cost of food, probably laundry, and extra accommodations for people who don't want to sleep in their seats the entire way.

I suggest the following: Try to get a Professor With Interesting Things To Say to agree to be tour guide, and turn it into a Swarthmore Continuing Learning Vacation Thing. We just might be able to negotiate some better rates on some portions if we are an Official Tour.

Finally, plan to do this no sooner than 2010, to give everyone time to sell a kidney and recover from the operation.

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

Perhaps even more fun would a be a train from Moscow to Odessa and then a boat from Odessa to Istanbul, assuming those two things exist.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that would be awesome.

And I agree that it's not a bad deal at all as far as vacations go, but it's still not cheap, and requires getting a lot of vacation time all at once. I would think we'd want to spend a couple of days in each transfer city, too, which would add to both time and expense. Still not saying I wouldn't do it if I could pull everything together, though.

[god-of-belac.livejournal.com]

You're insane. And I'm so going with.

[god-of-belac.livejournal.com]

Also, it doesn't count unless you go through Magadan.

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

I really don't think that's feasible.

[uncleamos]

Holy. Shit.

Too bad I can only afford this after I don't have time for it.