Visa!

So exciting!!

Last Friday, I sent my Visa application in. It was quite the nerve-wracking experience sending away my passport with wishes for a quick turnaround! Little did I know that as I was driving down to Gran & Papa's on Wednesday, I would get a phone call from Mom saying the post office had called with a package that had to be signed for...FOR ME...from the EMBASSY OF UGANDA! Super exciting!!

When they opened it, all was good..except for my exit date: November 23rd--EEEK, three weeks before my program ended!!! Not good.

But after chatting with the program coordinator from SIT, the problem has been resolved! I forgot that the Ugandan Embassy is only issuing visas for 3 months...so it's okay that mine was going to kick me out in Nov. So...once the time comes, I'll just get it re-issued and all will be good!!

The preparations for this trip have been quite exciting...but I never realized how much went into such a trip! SIT has been such a help guiding us all through this process and has had some awesome tips!! I'm so excited to see the pieces falling into place and I can't wait to get there!!! Less than a MONTH!!!

:)

<3cm

Preparations for a Journey

Hi All,

  So this is my FIRST blog post EVER!  Kind of exciting!!  I'm just testing this baby out to get a feel for blogging...just one of the many "To Do's" before I leave that I'm checkin' off my list.  A brief rundown of the others:

-Buy a backpack!  My Mom and I had a fantastic trip to EMS and ended up having the manager as our personal shopper and got some great gear (and ON SALE!!!)!  I think this trip will be the beginning of a great friendship with my backpack!

-A Trip to the Travel Clinic- I was a weee bit nervous about this one, as I have passed out getting shots before.  So I enlisted my Dad to drive me down to Hartford, but I was a big girl and went in by  myself!  :)  The Doc and I chatted and he wrote me a prescription for malaria pills and I was off.  When I walked into the waiting room, I proudly announced that I didn't have to get any shots!!  Well...there was this other girl in there with her mom, she was sixteen and apparently was on her way to Honduras (this was two days after their coup-I have no clue what she was going to do there), but apparently her face just LIT up when she saw me come out without shots!  That poor girl was going to be a pin cushion, which I had gone through three years ago for Peru.  But oh well.  No shots for me, it's all good!!  

-Reading:  I've been doing a lot of reading on Uganda, development, and travel in general.  It's been quite interesting and has kept my brain from going to summer-mooosh.  

-Plane Tickets:  I got my plane ticket last week!  I couldn't stop dancing after getting it!  I'll be leaving Aug 22nd from JFK and arriving in Entebbe the morning of the 24th.  I'll return to the States on Dec 22nd!  I'm pumped!!!  I can't wait to see what these next four months will hold for me!  

More to come as we get closer to lift-off!!  :)

<3cm