Visas
Technically, I don't need to apply for a visa proper until I get towards the Australian leg of my trip. I say technically because while I don't have visas to apply for yet, I have had to apply for an eTA for Canada and an ESTA for the USA. The perks of being a British citizen! Surprisingly, both applications were pretty straightforward although I had to laugh at some of the questions on the US one."Are you coming to the USA with the intent to engage in terrorism, espionage or genocide?"
... because, yes, of course, if I was planning on doing any of those things, I would declare them on my ESTA application in the interests of honesty. Umm...
Vaccinations
A few weeks ago I got stuck full of needles. Hep B, Hep A, Typhoid, Yellow Fever... nice. Fortunately, I managed not to have any serious reactions to any of them and they came in a lot cheaper than I had expected. I'd rather have to pay a bit and face my dislike of needles than catch some sort of nasty while I'm away.I also have a nearly two month supply of anti-malarials. Also much cheaper than anticipated and again, I'd rather have them and not need them than not have them and catch malaria.
On a similar note, my mum has kindly donated her diarrheoa management kit, so I'm fully stocked on rehydration sachets and the like.
Basically, I'm turning into the walking chemist I so disdained before I went to New Zealand...
Communication
In addition to the aforementioned diarrheoa kit (isn't diarrheoa a funny word?), my mum has also given me her old tablet, so I can keep up with the sporadic blogging and more importantly I can book hostels and flights and all the other things I'll need to book while I'm away.My mobile phone is also going with me. I plan on using local SIMs in it if I'm in a country for more than a couple of weeks (looking at you, Canada). Good plan, yes? Should save me some money, yes?
Yeah...
Naively/stupidly, having read all the bumpf I could find online about whether Virgin Mobile lock their handsets, I came to the conclusion that my phone was more than likely unlocked and I could just pootle over to Canada and slot a nice cheap Canadian SIM in it. No worries.
Which means I left it until yesterday and 11 days until departure to actually test this theory. Take a guess at what happened when I put my sister's SIM into my phone?
Ooops.
This should be pretty easy to sort out, thinks yesterday's me. I'll just go to the shop in town and ask them to unlock it. They say, no, you have to ring customer services and kindly put me on to them. Customer services man goes "uh..." a bit and does some tapping on his keyboard for good measure and then tells me that while the number belongs to me, the phone is still registered to my parents' account and that therefore they'll have to ring Virgin to get my phone unlocked.
My parents. Have to ring Virgin. To get MY PHONE unlocked.
This is ridiculous. Whoever came up with this system is a fucking genius.
So I might just be without a phone for the first couple of weeks in Canada. I'm sure I'll cope - I barely use the thing anyway aside from for tinterwebz.
Other bits and bobs
I have currency. Hurray. Actually, I'm planning on using my cards as much as possible, but there's always going to be times I need physical cash. So I've got a small stash of Icelandic krona and Canadian dollars to keep me going. I fear the dollars will mostly be spent on Tim Hortons... you'll probably hear more about that in a future post.Shopping has been done. I am now the proud owner of a very compact mosquito net, travel wash (yeah) and a new pair of shoes which I am frantically trying to wear in so they don't eat my feet while I'm away. Woop.
Anything else? Had a farewell lunch with the family. Plans are in place for work leaving do (both current and former offices). And then... well, then next Sunday I get on a train to London and from there...
Adventure awaits.
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