Follow the adventures of two Flutherites from down-under, as they travel the world in search of – what else? – other jellies. And, you know, stuff like culture, enrichment, and amusement, too.

In a year off – between high school and university – we (shrubbery and bluemukaki) traveled from our home in Australia to North America and Europe: to see the sights, drive the drives, ride the rides and perform other activities involving alliteration. We especially wanted to meet the jellies we had known on Fluther for two years and who we had been promising to visit for nearly as long!

First Jelly sighting:

Our first destination was New York City. One nice, balmy day we headed out of the city on a bus, to meet Petethepothead. We drank iced tea, talked about books, and he took us to a great second-hand bookshop nearby. Shrubbery ended up with 7 books – including a couple from Pete’s amazing collection!

Second Jelly sighting:

From NYC we took a train to Washington, DC. Sadly, augustlan – who we had planned to stay with for a night – was sick. Fortunately another jelly, marinelife, opened her home to us for the night (thanks to a quick Fluther question!). We attended a party held by one her husband’s colleagues, and the following day marinelife took shrubbery into Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. They also checked out the Masonic Temple nearby.

Third and fourth Jelly sightings:

The next day, rangerr picked us up from marinelife’s place and took us back to her home in another part of Virginia. While there, we watched Star Wars (of course). One day rangerr drove us all to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland. Strangely enough there was an exhibit called “When Jellies Invade”!

We also met up with another jelly in the area: IBERnineD. We had a day of gluttony as she took us on a tour of the best cupcake bakeries in the Washington, DC area and made us laugh so hard that we all got cheek cramps.

Fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth Jelly sightings:

From DC, we flew to Ohio, where PnL met us at the airport. J0E and kenmc (formerly known as boots) arrived by car and a few hours later, we all picked up Allie. It was an eventful drive back to PnL’s apartment: “flat” tires, freaking out about the car exploding… and a very seedy gas station. You can read about it, (and the next day – a great trip to the Cedar Point amusement park) on J0E’s Day in the life of a Jelly blog.

Ninth Jelly sighting:

After Joe and kenmc had gone home, PnL took Allie and us to meet lefteh for lunch. We discussed the fact that PnL had not voted yet and since lefteh is very involved in political campaigns, he decided to put her on the “hostile” list for people calling to get her to vote. Next, we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth Jelly sightings:

After Ohio, we visited Denver, Portland and Vancouver. After these jelly-less stops we flew down to San Francisco, CA. As soon as we got into the city we headed to Fluther Headquarters. We met Tim, Cameron, Andrew, and Ben. We hung out there for a while, playing darts and definitely not distracting the gods away from their hard work. We stayed with Tim for 4 days and met Allie again when she drove into the city for a day.

Sixteenth Jelly sighting:

From San Francisco we headed to San Diego, CA where we met up with Sarcasm. He took us to the zoo and we had a great time. Sadly, we didn’t see any Jellyfish.

Seventeenth Jelly sighting:

While on the European portion of our trip, we headed over to Amsterdam and hung out with our last jelly of the trip, markyy, for the day. Dressed as Hagrid from Harry Potter, he took us to see the Sinterklaas parade, held where our Santa Claus originated. We also got to see all the old and tilty buildings.

After nearly two months on other continents, shrubbery and bluemukaki are back home, safe and sound. You can read more about their travels on their blog. If you have travel or jelly meet-up stories you’d like to share, please send us an email at feedback@fluther.com.