Slow and steady wins the race

Last Call to Worldwide Trip!!

(Para ler este post em Português: Devagar se vai ao longe)

Now that my travel day is coming closer suddenly I find myself immersed in my ‘last-call-to-worldwide-trip’ to-do list:

– Finish immunization. I took 3 more shots last week, another 2 this morning and now there’re only 2 missing. Almost done!

My tiny first aid kit 😀

– Buy all sort of medications for an entire year. Don’t take me as an unhealthy person nor a hypochondriac. I hardly ever take medicines except by headache pills once in a while but I don’t wanna waste my time scheduling medical appointments just because of an allergy crisis or a simple cold. I did it last Friday but I’m afraid my purchases might be still incomplete… Please take a look at the pict and help me remind what else is missing…

– Sell my car. I love to drive and I deeply love my car but I wont use it for the whole next year and I’ll need the money to defray the trip cost. It was advertised last week and I’ve already closed a deal with a fortunate couple. Just one more week and I’ll be on foot, depending on public transportation… 🙄

– To book lodging and (possibly) rental cars. I bought a flight ticket to London and I have a hotel booked for the first 15 days there but even a cheap hotel is too expensive for me for such a long term travel so I need urgently to rent a room for the two months I’ll spend in UK. I’ve found lots of good rental properties on the web (using 9Flats, Wimdu, HouseTrip, Airbnb and Flat Club) but London is such a huge city I just couldn’t decide so far what is the best neighborhood for my purposes. I’ll use the Carnival recess to finish this task.

– Find the right Kung Fu Academy in London. I’m tottaly lost in this task! There’re too many alternatives…!! The thing is that there’re so many distinct styles of kung fu (mine is Choy Li Fut but there’s also Shaolin, Wing Chun, Hung Gar, Hung Len Kuen, among many many others) I’m not sure if it would be better to give a chance to a different one – although I’m aware that 2 months is not enough to learn anything… – or to stand up with the style I’m already used. Even worse (or maybe not) I found out that in UK the Choy Li Fut schools teach its techniques in a diverse manner! Someone help me to decide please!!!

– Find a good English class for my period in London. Perhaps I can do this after I get there. I bet there will be so many options of great English schools in London that it would be better to choose the closest one from my temporary home.

– Buy tickets for gigs. This is the task I’m more advanced so far haha! I already bought tickets for 9 concerts. Among them there’re three I’m particularly thrilled  about: UFO, Uriah Heep and Rival Sons. Guess what are my chances to catch them in my native country? One each ten years!! Looking forward to see my favorite bands playing live!! 😀

– Buy debit cards and cash for different currencies GBP and EUR. The exchange rate has been favorable lately specially for GBP so I’m almost done. How I will get Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Australian currencies is another story…

Documentation – checked!

– Get all travel documentation. Passports for both citizenships, International Driver Licence, International Certificate of Vaccination against Yellow Fever. I’m ready to go! (Did you know? All you have to do (at least in Brazil) to get an International Driver License is to fill a form on the web and pay the fee. Simple like that. I always thought it would be necessary to learn international road signage and how to drive on the right side… So Britons beware ❗ I’m coming!)

– Buy an International Health Insurance. Thanks to my Italian citizenship I won’t have to present an Insurance Certificate (Schengen Letter) to enter UK and also in case of a medical emergency I’m eligible to receive assistance at any European public hospital. But besides the fact that this doesn’t apply to countries outside the EU I may use a health insurance if I need a doctor appointment. Or worse if my body needs repatriation. 😛 A lot of people don’t know that but credit card brands like Visa and Mastercard provide a free travel insurance / Schengen Letter valid up to 30 days when you buy the flight ticket using their cards.  For most international credit cards this is already covered by the contract, just call the customer service center and ask for your rights.

– Formalize my Leave of Absence at the HR dept. The form was already approved and signed by my two lovely managers but that’s not enough. I have been trying to discover who is the person in charge of this role at my company for the last two weeks but January is the time of the year when the whole HR staff seems to be busy because of our annual employees evaluation and nobody is available to help me!! I’m annoying persistent and I wont give up!

– Prepare a Power of Attorney giving full powers to my parents so that they’ll be able to take care of my life, career, goods, bank account,… Just in case…

– Print all reservations done so far.

– Pack my bags. This one I’ll leave for the last minute I don’t need more then 4 hours to do that. Let’s procrastinate a little!

– Throw out or get rid of or give away all the junk I have been hoarding during my (not-so) brief existence. Things I know I wont need anymore: empty whiskey bottles, notebooks, books and handouts from college time, old clothes, clothes that don’t fit anymore, furniture and house gadgets from the years I’ve lived by myself, balls of yarn for knitting, toys (yes I still have my childhood toys stored), and so on..

– And finally the most laborious task on this list: organize & pack remaining stuff. To put things I wanna keep (basically clothes, photographs, books, CDs & LPs) into boxes. My parents are planning to move to a new house sometime midyear and I need to ease their lives. And this means in a few days I’ll be leaving this home to never ever come back again!!! We’ve been so happy here and I have so many great memories of this place… but now it’s time to say goodbye. And move forward…