Butterflies en el estomago

This Mexico thing is becoming more of a reality each day. Tomorrow is sort of a turning point; it will be only three weeks until I leave, and I will (more than likely) have my visa. Right now, as I'm typing this, I have yet to get visa approval, but I'm going up to St. Paul tomorrow, or rather, today, to get my visa/get interviewed. I don't know what that entails, but I can rule out intense mental and emotional testing, the stuff that astronauts experience, because I think it'll be pretty easy-going. We'll see.

I just got back from vacation. We went to Kenosha, Wis., to visit my sister and her family. The last time I was there was New Year's Eve, a week after my first nephew, Collin, was born. He's grown up fast, and I'll more than likely be blown away as to how much he'll grow while I'm away. He'll be able to talk and walk and hypothesize complex algorithms by the time I get back, that's how much he'll grow.

The whole trip there and back (about 12 hours total) I read nothing but travel guides (Rough Guide's Mexico and Lonely Planet's Central America on a Shoestring). See, it's easy to plan things, to structure my whole trip from the comfort of the car, with only a few books, but when i get down there, things are going to be completely different than I imagine. They always are. Take, for example, my plan two weeks ago to go to the cities to apply for my visa: I printed out directions to the consulate, then to a restaurant. But when we went up there it wasn't so simple; we got lost everytime we wanted to go to a different spot. That's just how things are; theory and practice. That's why I think it's important to study theory, to imagine, to think of the concepts, but more important to actually do things. Like going to Mexico: I could learn Spanish here, just fine and dandy, but how much would I really learn? Is four hours a week enough to really soak in a language? Would I get enough cultural immersion to fully understand it, enough so that I feel as if Spanish is as much a first language as English? I think not. That's my main justification in going to Mexico. Everyone's got their opinions about it ("That's great!" or "Lucky you" or "Can't you just learn Spanish here?" or "You'll get killed down there!") but what really matters is that I'm trying it out. I'm young, unattached, ahead of my career, education-wise; why not? I've never been out of the U.S. (save for a 5-minute bug-spray run to Canada) and my first time on a plane was only five months ago. But I'm going to do it. If I die, or get malaria, or meet a hot Latina woman, or all of the above, it'll all be in the name of practice (rather than theory).

One Month

Most all my paperwork is done now; here's the rundown of what I've done in the past month...
* Applied for my visa yesterday (I'll have to wait about two weeks for that)
--This was the hardest part so far, because I had to get so many documents and deal with quite a bit of run around, especially with the financial solvency part.

* Started taking my typhoid fever vaccine a week ago; done with that now, as well as $40 (for four pills. Yikes.)

I still have a lot to do, however:
* Get names/phones/e-mails of people I'll contact
* Cancel my cell phone, Internet, credit cards, and pay library (gasp) fines
* Check about health insurance coverage
* Buy another plane ticket for the way back
* Convert money to traveler's checks



I can't believe I only have ~9 days more of work. CRAZY! And EXCITING!

Countdown: 32 days (or, 761 hours)