Pre-departure Bucket List

Peace Corps is one of the many things on my bucket list and I am so excited to be able to finally cross one off!  However, I also have an extensive list of things I absolutely have to do before I leave the states.  In addition to spending tons of of time with my family and friends, my list includes:


Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACL) -- done
Austin, Texas (in general)
The Lake House 
Bourbon Street
Houston Area Things
     Dinner at Brennan's 
     Galveston, Texas
     The Zoo
     MFAH -- done
     The Menil
     The Museum of Natural Sciences
     Bayou Gardens
     Houston Rodeo (& Cook-off)
     Crawfish Festival
New York City
     Central Park Zoo
     Guggenheim
     The Met
     Bodies
     MOMA
     Empire State Building
     Sushi and Pizza that are actually good


Because I'm such an amazing planner, I did attend ACL last year and it was amazing!  My girlfriend, Deirdre and I loaded up the car and headed to Georgetown where we stayed with her sister-in-law.  For the next three days, we made the trek into Austin, spent the whole day in the sun with outstanding music, and spent the evenings soaking up good ol' hippie Austin culture.  I'm bummed that I won't be able to make it this year, but there's always 2015!!!


Yesterday, with my friends, Dawn and Matt, I visited the MFAH for the King Tut exhibit.  If you have the opportunity to see this, I definitely recommend it!  I've been to so many exhibits where I've walked out disappointed, but this one really rocked it.  There were statues of several Egyptian pharaohs and other figureheads such as Ahkenaten, Ramesess the Great, Kafre, and  Hatshepsut.  In addition, there were some amazing things from the tomb  such as gold sandals, a bed (that was so small and seemed terribly uncomfortable), a gold canopic coffinette (that actually held his stomach), a sarcophagus of a royal cat, and a model boat (that supposedly could carry him across the river to the afterlife).  There was this awesome 17 foot statue of Tut that really brought to life the majestic nature of the era.  Additionally, there was a small sarcophagus that had originally contained two fetuses.  The neatest was there were 43 shabtis (slave statues) found in the tomb that apparently would come to life and serve the pharaoh in the afterlife.


Once we finished with the Tut exhibit, we moved on to a newly constructed Asian exhibit with pieces from Indonesia, Korea, China and India.  this was awesome!!!!  I have this fascination with Indian deities so it was super neat to get to really examine them up close.  There was even a small section on African art with some pieces from Ghana.  Most of the pieces from Africa and Asia (minus India) were jewelry and headpieces made of hammered out gold.  It's amazing how gold was such a commonly used material that is now so rare and expensive.  After yesterday, I really hope that I'll have the ability to travel to Egypt to visit Cairo, Luxor, The Valley of The Kings and as many other sights as I can squeeze in!


So....While I work on knocking out my pre-departure bucket list, I leave you with these two questions:
     1) If you could visit any place in the world, where would you go?
     2) If you were leaving the US for over 2 years, where in the US would you  
         have to visit before you left?