Two Month Countdown Starts Soon

This is a pretty decent website, although maybe not for people who are only just talking about traveling and not actually on their way yet. That is of course, our fault. I think by the time we actually leave we'll have about six or seven pins in Brooklyn alone. But that's okay. Look it is a pain to organize this thing, and we have to vent. Let me update you on all that has happened in the last few months.

Shots

I can't see anyone buying a microwave that only displays one digit.

We each have finished our rounds of shots. They include Yellow Fever, Polio, Hepatitis A and B, Tetanus and Diptheria and Typhoid. Our blood is a veritable soup of the world's most preventable diseases. If only mosquitos didn't find that soup so delicious. The last of our disease worries remains Malaria. We've been talking to all kinds of people who have done similar trips to ours, and have read blogs on this site, a very good resource for information such as this. Most people we've talked to have admitted to having stopped taking their meds sometime into the routine, as it was making them go crazy. After a long discussion with our doctor, we decided to go with Doxycycline. Apparently these antibiotics do the trick, but you must take copious amounts of them. Side effects include increased sensitivity to sun - which I already have - and reduced efficiency in your digestive track. See there are tons of little creatures that we rely on to help us digest that are completely wiped out by antibiotics. So you have to take probiotics (a fancy term for yogurt) to counteract this. I predict my stomach will be in tatters most of the trip anyway since I am a wuss and I plan on eating lots of suspicious looking food.

Visas

We don't have any yet, as most of them have time constraints and will expire by the time we get to most of these places. We are planning on getting the majority though before we leave. We will probably start in earnest a few weeks from now. The process includes sending your passport off into the ether and hoping it returns to you stamped. I don't love this idea, but I sounds better than doing the same thing abroad, using third world post offices. On the other hand have you seen the Post Offices in Brooklyn?? Nightmarish. The one near us requires a Tetanus shot just to touch the mail slot. Fortunately we've already taken care of that part.

Magda has been making complicated charts that describe when we should be applying for visas, how much they are going to be and how long we need to wait for them to be processed. Unfortunately because she is a Polish citizen her passport gets much more scrutiny. And she has to pay much more, for many more visas. It is a fortunate side-effect of America's wealth that I need far fewer visas than she, but that only half helps us as a couple. If there is no other reason for her to get citizenship, this is it. Well that and baseball. Go M's!

Getting Rid of Our Stuff

How can we get rid of our stuff? It's our stuff! I keep pointing to things asking if we can sell it. Usually the answer is no. But the more stuff we choose to keep, the more stuff will be overflowing from the sure-to-be-tiny storage space we plan on renting. Considering all this is hard, and troubling. Once you start considering your belongings, actually looking at it all, you realize just how much you do not need. We have an estimated three-thousand bags of all shapes and sizes and materials. Shall we keep all the towels? The only thing we can both agree on is that I'm selling the electric scooter I bought years ago that just sits sadly in the closet. Unfortunately we can't really sell the things we need until just before we go. What happens if we can't sell them? This is a real worry since I can't see anyone buying a microwave that only displays one digit. And who will buy two air-conditioners at the beginning of September?

I'll let you all know where the pile of perfectly good appliances are before we leave.

More to come as we start making progress on our visas.