Three Days...

The time is drawing near.  Slowly but surely, the "To Do" list is shrinking, until "Board Plane" will be the only one left.  The biggest hurdle, moving out of my apartment, was crossed yesterday, thanks to my mom and her friend.  It was a lot to do, but now it is done.  I am now left for two days in my old apartment with nothing but a couple of lamps, a tv, my computer and clothes.  This almost seems to be a good test in modern minimalist survival, since I will only bring my clothes and computer with me to BsAs.  

I applied for another job today.  This one is with an American travel company with an office in BsAs.  They specialize in Latin American packages: Peru, Chile, Bolivia, all of Argentina, Antarctica (of which a portion is claimed by Argentina - yes, they are that far south in some regions of the country).  I hope my email convinced them to at least give me a sit-down interview, since most of the travel industry relies on personal communication in some form or another.  And if any of you out there know either me or my mother, you know that I can talk to anyone, anywhere, about anything - and feel relatively comfortable about all of it.  Add to that mix my father's vast professional sales experience, which also requires face-to-face charisma, professionalism and expertise, I feel I have a grab-bag of genetic potential in that industry.

I also decided on a new personal goal of mine today.  I really adopted the goal of one of my best friends, but he won't mind.  He knows who he is if he's reading this.  The goal is to visit every continent on the globe.  My friend's personal goal it to reach that point by the time he's 30, but I'm going to be flexible on that particular point.  Thirty years old isn't as far away as it used to be, and living your life can get in the way of lofty cultural goals, so 30 isn't a necessity for me.  I am currently standing at 2/7 continents, and since I visited Brazil last (northern hemisphere) summer, I won't be adding any that list this week.  However, I will be adding Canada to my country list.  My flight from America to Argentina goes through Toronto, though I won't have time to buy maple syrup or catch a hockey game - its just an hour layover.  I've heard Toronto is a beautiful city, I just hope it is beautiful from the air at midnight.

Looks like I'm clearing out of the States in time to miss most of the Swine Flu panic.  I have mixed feelings about the name of this flu as a Razorback fan.  However, I heard an interesting statistic this morning on the news: 36,000 people die every year of regular flu.  I'm not sure if that includes figures from around the world or just the US, but only 800 died worldwide from SARS (remember that?) in 2003 and only a few dozen have died from this Swine Flu in Mexico.  

I'm still more excited than nervous about the trip.  Sometimes I realize what I'm doing and it almost becomes new again, with a crescendo of exhilaration.