Ready?

It’s T-minus 18 days, and I’ve got almost everything I need!

I just got an email this morning from the New York consulate notifying me that my visa has been issued: it should come in the mail tomorrow.

I bought plane tickets back in June, so I won’t have to book any more trans-Atlantic flights until the spring (or real soon, if I decide to come back  to the States for Christmas)

I have luggage!  A lovely three-piece set of hard-shell red suitcases: I’m only bringing the two larger, but the small one will be great for short trips in the coming years.

That leaves some more paperwork, my required writing class (to get communications credit for lab classes I take in the UK), and a lot of goodbyes.  I guess the first of those goodbyes was a couple days ago: we bid farewell to the 1985 Jeep Cherokee (red, of course) that has been the family car since before I was born.  It’s the car that shuttled me home from the hospital, took me on summer trips, and let me learn how to drive a manual transmission.  And finally, after 23 years, it needed a replacement.  Actually, it needed replacing about ten years ago, but since functional manual-transmission Jeeps are a rarity in the used market, it took a few extra years to find a replacement, and come to terms with the increasing dysfunctionality of the old one.  The new car, yet to be named, is a 2001 Jeep Cherokee Sport, in black.  It’s zippier, twitchier, and, once we get accustomed to its fidgets and stop missing the old one, is a really nice car.  And it has all sorts of new-fangled (not really) things like power windows, power door locks, A/C, and an adjustable steering wheel.  It’s a little easier on the body, and definitely more comfortable at highway speeds.

I’m going to miss driving next year, but I’m not sure that trying to drive on the opposite side of the road, as an inexperienced driver busy with school, is really a great idea.  Maybe if I visit some friends in a nice isolated part of England, I can try it out on some quiet back road where I don’t have to worry about roundabouts and lots of traffic.  Which reminds me; item [##?] on the list of paperwork: get International Drivers’ Permit.