I've set up this blog site to capture the ebb and flow of my upcoming adventures in Australia and beyond. As of Monday, Valentines Day, I will be a mere 7 months from embarking on my expedition to discover the Art of Cultivation. With any luck, around this time next year I will be leaving Australia for further adventures. I hope to use this blog to journal my journey although there are likely to be challenges to that aspiration.
Challenge #1 - I'm not exactly the most literary person. I would rather absorb the environment around me than record it for posterity's, or any other's, sake.
Challenge #2 - My internet connectablity is expected to be limited at best while in Australia. Those limitations might only increase as I travel to so called "underdeveloped" parts of the world to preform aid work.
Challenge #3 - Given challenges 1 & 2... I may decide I'd enjoy my experiences more if I stopped putting effort into documenting and just enjoyed the world around me, sans technology.
In any regard, don't expect me to take this blog too seriously. Doing so would surely cause me to loose interest long before Challenge 3 even had opportunity to manifest.
So now that the ground rules are established (really... this is like a terms of use agreement for me!) Let us talk about the adventures I've already begun to encounter as I plan for this trip.
Today I spent my morning looking into visa requirements for US Citizens traveling to Australia... easy. They have a 3 month Electronic Transportation Authority document that is similar to a visa. So, rather than having to apply for a visa and get all personal about the nature of my travels, all I need is $20, a passport and a brain enough to input information on a website. Done.
The advantage of doing the ETA over a visa are all about price and convenience. Of course, I may run into trouble when they ask me for "onward travel arrangements"... meaning they want me to prove that I will be leaving their pretty continent prior to the expiration of my ETA. I'm hoping to leave that leg of my journey open-ended with the intent that I don't really know what my "onward travels" will take me. Well, I guess I can cross that bridge when I get there?
What 'eve, in the mean time I've got to prepare myself financially. Be on the look out for future updates detailing my attempts to raise funds for the aid work leg of my journey after the PRI internship.
Stay tuned...
