3 weeks, and counting!

We're getting down to crunch time! It's been pretty crazy over the past few weeks, and I've done a lot of preparations recently for this whole thing.

I started out by buying some new clothes. The ACM packet mentioned that we should wear lose clothes, no spaghetti straps or short shorts. Not that I generally wear that kind of thing anyway, but my mom and I went on a quest to find more "appropriate" wear for being abroad. We ended up with some cute button-up shirts that look like I'm going on a safari and a bunch of guys' shorts, since I couldn't find any bermuda ones I liked in the girls' section. With my dad, I bought a pair of seriously cool Chacos, that I think will be great for walking around in, and a new backpack for the longer travel I'll be doing near the end of the semester. I've tried it out bringing it to Colorado Springs a few times to visit campus, and so far, I'm loving the size and shape of it.

My mom has been spending a lot of time looking at international insurance, and getting freaked out by options created just in case my body needs to be shipped back to the United States. Awesome, right? We went to the bank today to let them know that I would be traveling, and a teller told me about her brother's year-long trip to India. She joked with my mom that by the time I came back she would probably be completely grey-haired with worry. I called Verizon today to make sure they knew I was going as well, and it turns out they're actually very helpful when you want to suspend your account for six months. Instead of keeping my American cell phone with me in Pune, I'll be buying a phone abroad and using that instead. Maybe today is just my lucky day, but so far, everyone has been helpful!

I also called Continental, because I was starting to get worried that the sketchy Indian company I used hadn't sent me a copy of my ticket yet. Turns out, I am definitely on their passenger manifest and will, in fact, be flying to India on August 14. That is a relief, to know that I have a seat on the flights.

I also finally filled my Malaria prophylaxis, which is a relief. I also got away with a steal! Apparently King Soopers has the kind that I'm taking on their $4/month prescription list, so I got 160 pills for like, $30. My mom and I were expecting this to be more like $200, so it was pretty cool when the whole thing turned out to be only about $40. We flipped out a little bit and the pharmacist was seriously confused. I think he thought we thought it was super expensive, so he was trying to reassure us that it was indeed only $30 for the Malaria pills. Wow!

There are very few things I have left to buy. I need to find out what I need to get in terms of voltage converters and plugs for India. If you have any advice on this front, it would be greatly appreciated. I only need to plug in a few things (camera battery charger, computer), but they're expensive so I want to make sure that I don't fry them the first time I go to plug them in on the subcontinent. I am also anxiously awaiting a meeting where I'll be awarded a $1000 scholarship for my time abroad! I'm very excited about this, as my summer job hasn't turned out to be quite the cash cow I expected.

Now, all that's left is to buy gifts for my host family, finish reading my two books for India, (Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry and India: From Midnight to the Millenium by Shashi Tharoor) and take my Typhoid vaccination! Oh, and pack, of course! :)