Thank you George W. Bush!

Well, since everyone is giving the current president of the United States such a hard time, I think I personally have to step up and thank him for making one of my biggest dreams come true.

How you might ask?

There is also a little pre-story that I want to share, which dates back to the year 2001, to be precise, the 9th of September 2007. I was travelling around Australia at that time and visiting a friend of mine in Brisbane. We where sitting at the shores of a river watching the Goodwill Games and each one of us was smoking a big cigar. Both of us love to travel and we where mapping out trips that we would love to do in the years to come, up to about when both of us would turn 25. To my own surprise I managed to stick to all the plans I made back then. Which included Mexico, Cuba, New Zealand, South Africa and LatinAmerican. But silently, I added another goal, to visit all continents, including Antarctica before I would turn 30. Back then a ridiculous plan way beyond my financial resources. But the idea kept spinning in my head all the time.

Well, seven years later, and I just got the booking confirmation for my trip to Antarctica. The trip is still months ahead, but I would have never gotten this far without the weak US economy!

When George Bush was elected president of the United States (thanks to Florida…), the Dollar was at an All-time-high, and the trip I booked recently would have cost me a whopping 5.500 Euros.

Fast forward to 2008, the Trip is down to 2.350 Euro, less then half of what I could have paid if the Dollar would have sustained its strength. Since the day George Bush took office, the Dollar has gotten weaker, and by the time the citizens of the USA have elected their new leader, I will have returned from my trip to the frozen continent.

So in a wicked way, I do owe my trip to George Bush and the path the American economy has taken since he is in charge.