It cost HOW much?

I got the first of my many plane tickets today, this one from New York to London. It cost a whopping $7.50. Yes, that was seven dollars and fifty cents. Our dear friend Tommy the Wig (He is a wig-maker, hence the name. If you have seen Wicked or any opera at the Met in the last five years, you've seen his great work.) said he would give me some of his myriad frequent flier miles for the first leg of my trip. So the ticket came out to costing $7.50 (which he is also generously paying for-- I could have gotten that!). Thank you, thank you, Tommy!

Does anyone perhaps have a bunch of frequent flier miles that they would like to donate from Qatar Airways??

Guests

I got a lovely letter from a connection in Australia inviting me to use their guest house for a week while I am on my travels. I responsed back that I would love to use it the week of Christmas.

I received an email from her saying she hadn't realized WHEN I was thinking of coming, and that time didn't work for them. (No problem, I have other connections that I'll use and abuse.) She then went on to talk about how everyone wants to come stay and how many guests they'll have this year. This to the woman who had seven guests last weekend, a different seven this week, and another THIRTEEN at the weekend! A house in Australia is much like an apartment in NYC, she wrote. Yes, or a beach house in the summer...

(People ask me what I do during the summer, and they think I'm joking when I respond "Make beds.")

Um, Dickie???

This photo is of my bedroom here in New Hampshire. I hope the accommodations for the rest of my trip are as convenient as this.

Packing, stage one

I'm leaving St. Louis in three days, not to be returning for a year, so I am starting stage one of the packing. At this point, I am seriously considering just getting a pitchfork and chucking ALL my clothes into the back of my car to be sorted through in New Hampshire, much closer to the date of my departure for the Grand Tour.

Packing got a bit more challenging though, as I just found out that my trip will entail both collecting monkey feces in the Kenyan forest and a black tie 60th birthday party in England. I'm thinking that just adding a scarf and earrings to one outfit might not cut it for the second. "Oh her? She's the American cousin..."

Will there be a test?

I got the briefing for my monkey chasing Earthwatch trip last week (still fund-raising, by the way... www.earthwatch.org/FAF/MyPage/LucieGarnett), so I could read up on the details of my trip. When I received the 45 page document, naturally the first thing I did was to look at all the pictures. There was a nice full-page picture of a VERY cute lead-scientist for our trip. Oooo, bonus! When I actually read the briefing though, I found he wouldn't be on my trip. Bummer. Guess I'll have to pay attention to the monkeys now. It's probably better without him, though, as he is German, and I would have tried to impress him with my "I majored in German" skills, and attempted to say, "Wow, these monkeys are really cool," but, knowing my Lucie-Deutsch as I do, it would have come out roughly translated to "Which way to the nearest chocolate shop?"

I haven't read the whole briefing yet (although I did get a lot read as I sat in the travel clinic for an hour, waiting to get my myriad shots and pills), but I read a fair bit. Enough to get excited and confused. Excited by the fact that I will be going to Arab ruins in a Kenyan forest right next to the Indian Ocean. Confused by the fact that I am voluntarily going to a place where the temperature will be 72-90 degrees F, and the humidity 80-100%. Don't I make a big noisy fuss about ESCAPING that every summer??!

Back to the pictures in the book (which is what my co-teacher tells the kids "good readers" do when they first encounter non-fiction pieces--look at the pictures. I didn't know that was a strategy... I thought that was just delaying the inevitable of having to read the assignment.) At the end of the briefing, there were FLASHCARDS on how to identify the individual female monkeys that I will be studying (Angle, Susa, Pong-pong...). Along with descriptions of the salient features, there was a picture of their face, their tail, and their nipples. Yes, apparently one way to identify monkeys is by their nipples. Angle, for instance, has a right nipple which is longer than the left, and they are pale pink (no dark splotches).

I wonder if we could do that with humans...

"cherish the journey."

"cherish the journey" is written across the front of my t-shirt today. I wore it quite intentionally, as this is my last official day of first grade after ten years. I've never been one to strike out on my own into unknown territory. If I was marking my own progress report, next to "Takes Risks" I would give myself a PE (progressing towards expectations... only one step higher than Area of Concern).

I bought this shirt when my best friend was getting married and I was the maid of honor. I bought it as a reminder to myself that I needed to enjoy all of the pre-wedding madness. Plus, it was orange, like our dresses. (Don't groan, it was actually my suggestion, as we looked fabulous. Or at least I did, which really is all that matters.)

Now here I am, about to embark on what definitely will be the biggest journey of my life, both literally and metaphorically. I've travelled to Europe many times, but not beyond. And in all of my travellings, I've always been going to see people. This is the first time that I'll be on my own.

A good friend, when I told him my plans, said, "Some days will be hard." He just wanted to prepare me. I'm sure they will. I just need to keep reminding myself to cherish the journey.

Tomorrow the journey begins.

Back to the Fold?

In my quest to organize a potentially vastly expensive trip to foreign lands where I know not a soul, I have been using my resources as best I can to find friends of friends of friends in convenient locations. A distant cousin of my father, whom I have known since I was wee, now lives in Paris (convenient!) in an 8' x 12' room (not so convenient). His family had an estate in Kenya (convenient (Never thought I’d be saying that!)), but sold it many years ago (not so convenient). He does have some connections there, and suggestioned people I might be able to stay with.

This is his list:
Brother John at a girls’ school in Meru
The family estate is now a Catholic church, and he suggested I write to The Rev. Parish Priest there.
The Carmelite Nuns in Nairobi

Do you see a trend here? As the man was a Benedictine Monk for many years, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by his connections. I’m just a little worried that my father has had words with him, and that there is a plot afoot to drag me (kicking and screaming) back into the Catholic fold.

It could be an adventure. It certainly couldn’t be any worse than the 27 hours I spent with strangers in a subdivision in suburban Dallas. (Oh, how The Fates were laughing at me on that one, as they piled all of the things that make my hair stand on end into one experience!)