One month, three weeks left to go...

(Jenn)

Well, yes, I am, but really at this point, I'm mostly disbelieving. I know it's going to happen, that we're going to travel around the world for a YEAR and that we're leaving Toronto in less than 2 months but it's such a huge thing and there's so much to do and things are going both more smoothly and roughly than I thought they would (with moving house and finishing work).

But wow. One month, three weeks tomorrow...

which is also my last day of work. After that my full-time job will be preparing for the trip.

We had a journal set up elsewhere but after having some problems with it, decided to move it here, so for anyone just joining us, we're Jenn, Rob and Anica - mum, dad and kidlet from Toronto, Canada - and we're going to be traveling from Toronto to Vancouver to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and through most of Western Europe.

So far we have our travel packs, our clothes and most of the things on our packing list (which we've tried to keep to a bare minimum except for our electronics which include a Toshiba Libretto laptop (for my writing, website updates, photos and Anica's schoolwork), a digital camera, an iPOD and a cellphone).

We also have most of our flights. The Canadian dollar has been so strong that we decided to go ahead and book what we could and we did quite well, beating out our Air Treks (Long Haul in Canada) quote by $5000.

But we still have to finalize the arrangements for Anica's homeschooling, get what visas we can before we leave, take a St. John's Ambulance first aid workshop (which I'm insisting on since we're traveling with the kidlet), put all our travel information together for our parents who are going to be watching over things for us while we're gone, sell our remaining car (the Firefly made things easier by breaking down a couple of weeks ago), get all our prescriptions filled (we're going to be a walking pharmacy), etc.

Oh, and we get our second round of shots on Wednesday. Take our second dose of Lariam (antimalarial) on Thursday.

Our very wonderful travel doctor, Dr. Mark Wise, suggested we try it before we leave home in case either of us experienced any side effects. Like severe nightmares, extreme anxiety, sudden suicidal impulses... So far nothing, but Rob tells me my chirping "hope you don't have any nightmares" before we went to bed wasn't exactly helpful in that department

Anyway, I'm going to try and get in the habit of updating this a couple of times a week before we leave, make sure it works and let everyone know how things are coming along. If there's anything you want to know about what we're doing, please feel free to email us or pipe up in comments.