Blogs from Essex, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 37

Time goes so quick that we find ourselves leaving Holland today. Once again Beck did most of the packing, and then we had to say goodbye to Lenny who has been so great in opening up her home for us. Fifteen minutes after Lenny headed off to work, Henny and Theo arrived to pick us up just as we were putting the finishing touches to our packing. The traffic in Holland is pretty bad at times, but we made it to the airport in plenty of time, which enabled us to check our bags in, and have a hot drink and snack with Theo and Henny. Soon after we had to bid them goodbye and catch our flight. We hope we get the chance to show Henny and Theo the hospitality we have been shown by ... read more

I'm all packed now, ready to go... Is it scary yet? Ask me again tomorrow. Next post should be from Tokyo!... read more

I depart on my Asian Adventure on the 23rd February. Flights are booked, visa application for Australia is in and the hunt for a cheap yet amazingly high quality mp3 player and camera begins. Plus a decision needs to be made... is one pair of boxers enough for 5 months? I suspect not, but part of me sees it as a challenge. In truth 4 and fair bit of soap might do me, but ill leave behind a T-Shirt for that! Im aiming to get everything in hand luggage. A pointless exercise considering the presence of a couple of sterile syringes in my bag will force it to go in the hold.... but I figure that keeping it light will make for an altogether more pleasant trip. The itinerary is below. Subject to change dependant on ... read more

(Bronia typing) We had to go back down south from Sutton Coldfield to Billericay, Essex (Jan 5-8) as we had final visits to Doctors for travel antibiotics, malaria tablets as well as 3 final vaccines for our trip. Dave and I feel like walking petri-dishes or lab specimens with the amounts of disease samples that have been pumped into our arms over the last few months. Talk about testing our immune systems! Who would have thought that your body could cope with creating immunity for rabies, Japanese encephalitis and Hep B ALL at once?! - The nurse however assured us that indeed, it could as she rather too briskly shot all three vaccines into us at once. Interestingly - when I asked the nurse if she ever went to the countries she so frequently vaccinated ... read more

(Bronia typing) Ok, so it sounds corny, but it's true - The one thing that Dave and I keep saying to one another at the moment is: This time a year ago who would have thought we'd be doing this?" This trip; across Asia, down through North and South America is one of those realities that you just think won't happen. The kind of thing you talk about amongst your friends but you just never get around to doing because jobs, mortgage, well life really, gets in the way. So it was a normal conversation that started one day between Dave and I .... a sort of "wouldn't it be great to.....?" and "imagine if we quit our jobs and just took off.... ?" - You know the kind. A bit like what you’d do ... read more