Well, I've been playing since the release, but I was only about level 30ish BLM after the first three months while most of my original friends that had still been playing were in their 40+s. I stopped for a while, decided to farm for all the best stuff (Morians ext) and for some spare cash for future endevours. Maybe around February of 04 I start leveling again, this time I pretty much breeze. I manage to catch up with all the high level NA around level 50 when the first wave attempts to go through Genkai. Around level 45-50ish I started to static with a RDM named Dar and a WHM named Cyrus. Around level 50 I started to static also with a PLD named Varick and DRK named Marick. The static continued to 55 until Dar eventually dropped and we picked up Metix a little. Then eventually it all got swapped around. At some point it was me, Marick, Varick, Anaeran, Pye and Cyrus. Marick took a little break from FF, Varick seemed to lose interest in PLD for a little and Pye kinda disappeared. So I continued onward by myself.
On Tuesday March 18th according to a screenshot my BLM was lvl 60.
I bounced til 75 mostly pickup, managing to get a mix of Japanese invites and the occasional NA. Around maybe lvl 64-68ish I PTed pretty constantly with JSoft the THF, then I think he formed a partial static with Villarel and Boyhanna the Samurai. Me and the WHM Pud then seemed to level together pretty constantly, and we managed to ace Maat and continue to the goal while most of the other NA got stuck there( or a member of their static got stuck). 70-75 was interesting. It was a race between me and Aurorine to be the first to BLM not counting those freaks who somehow managed to do it in like 2 months. Aurorine managed to beat me, though I was lvl 74 at the time, and in the PT with her. (grrrr)
I'll also mention level 72 or 73 is when I met a Japanese BRD named Merodia and we hit it off. We hit level 75 together in the same PT and we were like 2000 exp apart when we did it. Now we're always together. <3 Mero.
As for the actual time that I did it... not positive. All i know is my PLD took a lot less time and I had a lot more money to make it easier.