Shittin' bricks

You guyyys! I leave in two weeks!

Ro leaves even sooner since she is going to Tasmania before we meet up in Sydney. But who cares about her?

I am feeling really nervous again today. I am in love with probably the handsomest boy in the world, and I am scared about how much I might miss him in six months. (The trip was in the works before we got together, otherwise I might have forced him to earn thousands and thousands of dollars to come visit me). Logically, I'm aware that it won't be that bad when I'm actually there - things never are, plus I'll be all minglin' with Peruvians and chillin' on mountains and such - but right now it seems that it will surely be intolerable. This is probably the thing I'm most worried about, to be honest. What can I say ladies, I'm a romantic. I am also scared that I will cry so much at the airport that I will look completely horrible and that his last image of me will be of a whimpering, moaning, red puffy freak and he will never want to kiss me again.

I'm a little bit scared I'll die and my family will be really upset. I'm also scared that Ro will die and I'll have to call her family, like in the Gringo Trail by Mark Mann. Nightmare. And I'm also scared that someone I think is great will die and I won't have said goodbye to them properly. Also that a member of my family will get sick while I'm away.

I'm scared I'll run out of money and that I'll have a major tooth problem and need surgery and be unable to get it. I'm scared that one of my moles is actually a skin cancer and I won't find out until I get back and the doctor says "you know, if we had found this three months ago, we would have been able to save you." Or that I have any other kind of cancer really. I'm scared that I won't be able to find a place or a job when I get back and I'll have to live with my parents and they'll be like "FOR GOD'S SAKE, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GET OUT OF OUR HOUSE, YOU ARE A GROWN WOMAN."

I'm scared that I'm going to hate it even though I know I won't because I've never really hated anything, ever, I'm always happy when I'm somewhere new, but still I haven't been overseas for five years, and even though I like to think of myself as a travel-happy person what if it turns out I'm actually a real homebody, can't leave home for a month without crying every day, the kind of person that always made me think to myself: LAAAAAAAAME! I am regretting this cruelty, now.

If it weren't for the fact that you only get one life to live I'm not sure I'd have the courage to travel anywhere, ever.

One weird thing is that I'm actually very eager to leave in a way, but mainly just so that I can stop this terrible worrying.

It's like she's trying to talk to me, I just know it!

I have three days of work left (including today). I fly out to Tasmania in six days. I meet Lion in Sydney in thirteen days. We'll be in Buenos Aires in two weeks' time. You’d think I’d be excited, but to be honest my routine hasn’t changed and those numbers on their own are too surreal!

I have been working on my Spanish today:

• ¿o estoy? – or am I? (emotions / location)
• ¿o soy? – or am I? (identity)
• ¿o es? – or is it?
• ¿o estás? – or are you? (informal)
• ¿o está? – or are you? (formal – because we’re so likely to say this in a formal setting)
• ¿o están? – or are youse?
• también lo es tu mamá - so's your mum (there's gotta be an easier way to say that)
• ¡que usted! - that's you!

For example:

¡Oiga Lion, que usted! Es broma... ¿o estoy?
(Hey lion, that's you! Just kidding... or am I?)

This is gonna be great.

También (also), I LOVE the fact that Spanish has a word for “youse” that you can use without sounding like an Emu Bitter drinker. It makes so much sense! Why doesn’t English have a proper word for “youse”?

Updates!

Hello little ones. I played around with the blog a little bit today, so if it looks strange in your browser please let me know! The photos are of me and Robo. I am the light-haired one whose mouth is always open.

Also, I FIIIIINALLY have a passport! The guy at the passport office was SUPER friendly and said "Ooh, that's definitely you! What a nice photo!" I don't know what he was talking about since I basically look like a rugby player who has been imprisoned for a long time.

A lesson in stressin'

One problem I have is that, from a philosophical point of view, I am a pretty chillaxed sort of person. I espouse all sorts of maxims like "worrying never got anyone anywhere" and "I don't regret the things I've done but those I did not do" (usually with reference to going out dancing instead of completing an assignment or job application) and "you can't take it with you when you go" and that sort of thing. In college I was prone to starting essays at midnight the day they were due, and once I left college I didn't bother until they were over due (you only lost 2% a day in the Arts department and frankly I had better things to do.)

This isn't a problem in itself, but thanks to my wonderful mother I have also inherited the Worry Gene. So when I fail to do things in a timely manner, which I inevitably do, I stress. I lie awake at night, I grind my teeth, I jiggle my legs rapidly (or my entire body if it's really bad), I walk around with a mantra of "oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck fuck fuck" blaring in my head.

So as you might expect, this whole "travel planning" thing is not so much my bag. Oh, I'm perfectly happy daydreaming itineraries and comparing trail shoes online, but when it comes to going to a bank to open a new account only to find I don't have adequate ID and then searching for ancient documents that I put in a "safe place" years ago and taking more time off work to go to the bank again and blah blah blah... god, it is just so boring, and then I procrastinate, and then I PANIC.

Couple this panic with the three calls a day I've been getting from my mum and it turns into TRIPLE PANIC. Or QUADRUPLE PANIC or similar, I'm not entirely sure about the numbers.

Anyway, despite the terrible panic that has been keeping me awake at night, I'm finally starting to feel as if everything is falling into place.

I still need to:
-Finalise my fucking debit card ARGH
-Buy a completely rockin' warm jacket and two pairs of horrible travel pants and trail shoes (I'm really starting to dread this, but at least I have a Mountain Designs voucher to remove some of the burden, plus it's SALES TIME)
-Take a photo into STA travel for my ISIC card
-Change some money (oh god this process terrifies me I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND)

But I don't need to:
-Stress about travel insurance
-Stress about my tickets
-Stress about my passport
-Stress about an emergency credit card
-Stress about a backpack (well, almost definitely. Hmm.)
-Stress about my birth certificate (I couldn't find it on Wednesday, ordered a new copy on Thursday, and found the old one this morning, in the "safe place" where I was certain I had left it yet couldn't find it on Wednesday).

Also I've organised a shindig to get rid of as much shit from my unit as humanly possible. And Mark said he would take my books. And Magda said she could possibly store some stuff if needed too. And I'm growing increasingly ruthless with the things I'm throwing out.

I am probably going to make it to South America you guys!

For some reason I find this fact incredibly surprising and still slightly unbelievable? I feel as if I deserve a medal for making it this far.

Four weeks to go (13 work days left)

Work is pretty slow at the moment, so I've been doing a lot of research, and the more I find out the more excited I get!

I remember having a discussion with C and Lion about drugs a few months ago that made me laugh. Someone from work told me, "Oh, you've got to try cocaine while you're over there, you've just GOT to!" Lion said, when I told her about it, "I'm pretty sure you DON'T." I laughed, because she’s right: I’m pretty sure nobody is going to kick us out of the country for NOT trying cocaine.

C said, "Well it would be about fifty times more dangerous than in Australia... but hey, cocaine’s so cheap over there that it's WORTH it!" (He was joking.)

If I wanted to try cocaine (which I don’t) without spending much money, I'm pretty sure it would be cheaper to stay in Australia than to pay a hefty airfare and head for South America. But hey, what do I know?

I have been doing a lot of research on safety, and asking people I know who've been travelling for advice.

G (who lived in Brazil for 3 months) gave me this advice: don't get on or off or use transport at night, be sceptical, don't eat dodgy meat, stay with other people in dodgy areas, don't go off with dodgy people on your own, wear flotation devices when swimming if you can’t tread water without using your hands for greater than 1 minute (thanks G, you doofus!), dress down rather than up, do your research before you go especially if the area you’re heading isn’t touristy, travel light. He also said: brush your teeth to avoid cavities, and eat 5 serves of vegetables per day!

K's advice boiled down to: trust your gut. If something doesn't feel right, it probably isn't!

Good times. I have also been wondering whether six months is too long... but after breaking it down into how long we'll be able to spend in each country, I'm wondering whether it'll be long enough!

This time tomorrow, where will we be?

Lion does not have a travel partner. I am just a figment of her violently creative imagination. (And since I don't exist, I can say what I like!)

Right now I have 17 days of "work" left. Craaaaazy times!

I went hiking over the Christmas break, and then to Southbound, and I’m really enjoying the memories of all the “in-jokes”. While I'm away I'm really gonna miss that, “Here I am with all these great mates,” feeling. This morning I was standing across the road from work waiting for the Little Green Man, and thinking there was nobody behind me I started laughing out loud and muttering, “Chhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarlie! We’re back at wooooooork, Chaaaaaaaarrlie!”

Turns out, there WAS somebody behind me, so that was a little awkward.

Moving on. I’ve had all my vaccinations now. The last two didn't hurt, but they did make me feel queasy for an hour or so. Needles don't worry me, so to get a reaction like that seemed bizarre! But K told me that he's fainted for needles before. Or at least I think that's what he said. I was kind of delerious after walking all day on "this is one of the more challenging sections of the Bibbulmun track", and I was half-watching C douse himself in manky damwater in the afternoon sunlight instead of showering (very humourous). So the memory blurs.

To do: get travel insurance, get a blood test to prove my cheapie rabies vaccine worked, buy anti-malarials and insect repellent and altitude tablets, book accomodation, try not to freak out too much.

A disclaimer: I'm TRYING to keep this short in memory of M. Smith, whose sole comment upon my group emails about NZ was "Jeez you've been there two days and you've already written a novel". But look, just suck it up, okay?