The Bait

Mihai says to write, because we will forget and I’m sure he is right. For a long time I was somehow numb, yeah we took the decision to go around the world, but nothing more, no enthusiasm. Mihai was trying to find the best route, where to go, what would interest us, he would change it every week, always finding a cheaper one, what if we left from a different place and not States, because the tickets are too expensive. I liked to hear him talk, just because he reminded me that we would leave, but also because he was making plans (unlike me, who couldn’t think of anything). I had to prepare school for two years in one and a half. To divide the curriculum. To chose a new curriculum for Maria. When can she take the test for the senior year if she finishes in November?

We would talk in the evenings and he would tell me that he feels alone, because we are not interested. He is the only one who starts the subject at dinner and nobody else comes with something new. And so it came that I made two presentations in Keynotes about India: Red Fort and Qutub Minar. It felt good to find pictures on the internet and informations. It was frustrating to put them on the page and work with a program that I did not know.

And then again, quiet, I returned to that place where I did not have time to think. I was getting ready to finish their homeschool year and had a lot of things to do. At one point Mihai sent me an email about the types of towels that people take on their trips and following the links I found onebag.com, a trove of all the informations that interested me, details about making your luggage, how to go on a trip with only a backpack of necessary things, no matter for how long or what climate. I fell in love with this site! I read it from top to bottom, and felt sad when it was done. I bought some of the things that it recommended (e.g. mooncup). I started to become interested!

Mihai started bringing home documentaries about the different places in the world, to upload them on iPods so we can see them on the road. One of them was about Galapagos. In the meantime he received an email from LAN who will start a new route in September and to attract travelers it offers free tickets from Guayaquil to Galapagos. In the evening I go to sleep, after he told me about the email, saying it is interesting but not for us and in the morning he asks me seriously if I could consider going to Galapagos instead of the congress in Florida. YEEES! The answer came immediately, no time for thinking or waiting.

He asked me again after coming home from work: did I change my mind?

Long story short: we’re going! We bought tickets.

The consequence is that I’m “feverishly” preparing for the trip. I’m looking for the best clothes for us: they have to be washed frequently, wrinkle free, preferably not plastic (I can’t stand the smell of sweat on plastic), to keep us worm (the thicker ones). I read the opinions fo those who traveled with their family, I’m trying to be inspired by their experience.

All these things could seem normal and common, they happen to all the people who are interested in such a project. But I DREAM! I dream that I need something for my trip, or that I am on the trip and I would like to take as a souvenir a big shell, bigger than a suitcase and I realize that I can’t carry it with me, and so, I don’t need it, and I’m telling myself to enjoy it  right now, because I can’t take it with me.

I’m thinking that we leave in two years, and that I think again and realize it is going to be next year, and then I get scared, time is too short, then I remember we still have 509 days and feel better, there is still time to get ready.

But until then we have to prepare for Galapagos with one backpack. It is the perfect bait!