Seriously? Less than a month?

Last night I dreamt that I had twenty minutes to get to the airport and catch my flight to Peru……and I wasn't packed. With less than a month to go I think my subconscious is telling me something.

I hate packing. In college packing always happened the day or two before I was to leave or return to school. So how do you pack for two years? The overwhelming consensus is you don't. Alright, I can handle that but how exactly do you pack when you don't know where your end destination is? Peru is wonderfully diverse geographically but that makes packing EXTREMLY difficult. I could end up in the coastal desert, rain forest, or the mountains. Oh boy…

Like I said I have less than one month left in the good ol' US of A which is really hard to believe. Harder to believe is that I will be gone for two years! It hasn't really hit me yet and that's probably because day to day things haven't changed too much. I finished up all the necessary paperwork (for now), I've been gradually getting things in line for my departure but my daily routine is pretty much the same. I think my friends and family are much more aware of when and for how long I'm going to be gone.

I have had an overwhelming urge to convert everything to Spanish in my head. I definitely need to brush up on that. I really haven't used it all too much since Argentina so it's a bit rusty... ok really rusty. Being able to communicate effectively is going to be essential to my success as a volunteer so it is something I worry about. Who knows it's possible I may need to learn Quechua (a widely spoken indigenous language) as well!