30 days. I’m leaving. I’m gone. I may never come back.*
When I made the decision to take this trip about 10 months ago the days crawled slower than an amputee in a horror movie (Chloe Sevigny in American Horror Story anyone?) until the time when I could tell my bosses that I was leaving. I figured for my primary job I would give them my notice in August, with a week deduction for every time they pissed me off (only happened twice, but got negated for times they were excessively nice). The other jobs would get notice after Thanksgiving since a bartender is much easier to replace than a seasoned office bitch.
To kill time until that point, I spent my time doing lots of research/looking at pretty pictures of foreign places and created this blog. Then September came and I told my bosses that I was leaving after dropping some super subtle hints all summer – like being drunk and saying “Remember that time I told you, I’m going to travel the world? … I’m going to do it.” And “Hey, I think I’m quitting and traveling the world next year,” but see I threw the word THINK in there which totally made it not an official quit notice. Fortunately, my bosses took the real delivery of the news really well.
After that came my birthday, Hurricane Sandy, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and holiday stuff (aka busy season at all restaurants/bars) and BOOM – I’m leaving in a month. At the present, none of my jobs have fired me ahead of time despite knowing I’m leaving so I’m taking that as a good sign.
Now, here I stand, a few days before Christmas and 30 days till I leave and I just realized that apparently I’m much more adept at doing research than actually being productive as the list of shit I have to do is getting increasingly long and my days are numbered (DUM DUM DUM <– dramatic music) I have 30 days to get my Brazilian visa which apparently takes 3, not 1 week. I have to get my Indian visa – and while I’m thrilled about experiencing Holi I am now petrified of being there after talking to a customer at work today who told me about this. I probably need to get a whole lot of other visa’s too. I need to plan what the hell I’m doing between Carnival and Tahiti. I also need to get shot more times than 50 cent – which is going to set me back somewhere between $500 and $1000.
So much to do, so little time. Not to mention I want to spend as much time as I can with my friends and family before I leave so hopefully I won’t be forgotten. And if I can squeeze in a trip to Montreal and eat at Au Pied de Cochon before then too that would be just swell. Long story short, I’m beginning to freak the eff out about everything, but I guess I just have to keep in perspective that a month from today I’ll be on a plane getting ready to start a trip that will likely change my life forever. What I mean to say is, suck it up Risa, pull your shit together – in a month you’ll be on the beach in South America with hot foreign men sweating all over you speaking to you in languages you don’t understand. Sigh…30 days
*If for any reason this blog turns profitable and I’m able to fund myself from it, I will happily travel until I visit every country – or get bored.**
** I will probably not ever get bored of traveling***
***While I probably won’t ever get bored of traveling I might actually start to miss some of you guys
If it's there, I'll do it 