preparaciones ...

Hola a todos! Bueno, ya sabemos que mucha de la gente que nos va seguir en el blog no quiere o no puede leerlo en ingles, asi que vamos hacer el esfuerzo.... a mi me cuesta un poco escribir (y Gustavo es medio vago) pero ya cada dia vamos a empezar a hablar mas en espanol que en ingles, asi que va a ser interesante ver como va a ir cambiando esto mientras vamos manejando. Gracias a todos los que nos han dejado comentarios - sigan, sigan! Entre las enfermedades – el cancer de Gustavo, mi conmocion cerebral y el maldito virus de la compu (que recien ahora pudimos arreglar) – estamos re-estresados, asi que ayer fuimos a comprar un buen seguro que nos cubre para cualquier emergencia medica en el camino. Tocamos madera. Ahora lo unico es que no sabemos nada de mecanica y pensamos manejar unos 20,000 km! Ya se que muchos piensan que estamos re-locos por hacer esto - vamos a ver, lo mas probable es que tengan razon.

Remind me to never again plan a trip for this time of year! Between shopping madness, serious parking lot rage, offices closed for the holidays, and the weather (at least it gives me an excuse to bake!), getting prepared for our trip is turning out to be a real nightmare! Anyways, mountains of red tape and a small fortune later, we finally have all of our documents in order with the Uruguayan Consulate. Of course, it doesn't help that in the past couple of days the poor laptop contracted a horrible, malicious virus (I can't believe that people actually spend hours of time and energy creating these things - bad karma or what?!) and so we had to take it in to have it fixed. Twice. Nice timing. Luckily, just as we were preparing to shell out the dough for a new laptop to take with us, the university UTS Services people have now completely fixed the problem (a special "thank you very much" to Elvis! You're our hero!) Let's hope that doesn't ever happen again! The good thing is that it has taught us to back everything up. I bought a couple of USB memory sticks specifically for that purpose. Between Gustavo’s cancer, my concussion and this computer “infection,” we are really stressed out and health and security conscious. That’s why yesterday we also went and bought emergency travel medical insurance plans. I guess that doesn’t help with the laptop though, huh?

The good news is that we are almost done getting the bus ready for the trip - a special thank you to VW mechanics Dave Pinder and Scott Lyons for this. We are especially glad that we ended up changing all the tires (they were new, but the wrong size). The bad news is that we went and bought the wrong battery (apparently, we need a deep cycle battery in order to run the fridge without draining it). I know that many of you probably think that we are completely crazy (come on, admit it: even if you don’t say it you are thinking it!) for attempting to do a trip like this with little or no mechanical knowledge or experience whatsoever – you are probably right. We shall see.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIA EVA!