It’s Monday, What Have We Done This Week?

The weather has drastically changed already and it is cold.  The mornings are dark and depressing and we can’t wait to be in a warm and sunny climate.  As usual, the weeks are flying by faster than we can keep up.  But also as usual, the list is getting smaller and we are checking things off daily.

Our India Visa is ready for pick up and that is when I always feel that yes, this is official.  We had a bit of a laugh when we brought our Visa’s in.  We had done everything properly according to the website. We made out a money order to the India Consolate of Toronto for $62 (because their website specifically said Money order or certified cheque only) and then we went down to the office.

It turns out the the Consolate has outsourced its Visa applications, which is kind of ironic since so much of Canada has outsourced our jobs to India.

When we got to the application office, what a surprise they accepted Visa, MC or Debit and DID NOT accept our money order.  Plus, they added at $20 processing fee to the application because it is outsourced.  So we ended up throwing away the $7.50 each to buy the money order at the bank and had to pay another $20 each to pay for the application, so all together our India Visa cost us and extra $55.00 above and beyond the actual price of the visa. Sheesh.

If only I knew about the new bank account that I signed up for a week earlier.  All bank drafts, money orders are included!  But the best thing about this account is that for $24.95 per month (I know, it sounds like a lot. Especially since we normally refuse to use a bank account that charges any monthly fees) we get free unlimited withdrawls world wide.  We found it to be worth it because those $3 to $5 transaction fees can add up and we hate to be taking out a tonne of money at a time just to save on fees.   The new account came with a lot of other perks too.  They upgraded our Visa Card to a travel rewards visa where they waived the $99/year charge and they gave us a free U.S. account. (We always refuse to go for any of those credit cards that charge a yearly fee- there are some great free reward cards out there.  But how could we pass up a free upgrade to a travel rewards card that earns 3 points for every dollar spent)  There are many other perks to the account to but you know what?… For $24.95 per month, they should be giving us a lot of perks.

However, I do think that the fee is worth it alone when traveling. Not having to worry about ATM fees is a very good thing.

So our banking and our visa’s are finished, we have changed our addresses and forwarded our mail.  We have moved almost completely out of our place, and the actual big move to storage happens this weekend. For the last week in October, we will be sleeping on a foam mattress and sitting on pillows.  We wanted to move out a week early to give ourselves some time to clean the place and fill in the holes from pictures and shelves for our landlord.  José is such a wonderful guy that we want to leave the place spotless for him.

Once again our great friends Greg and Jody have let us come and stay with them for the final couple of weeks in November before we go.  We realised that we first stayed with them back in 2003 before our Asia trip and it has kind of become a tradition now. Dave and Deb leave and before they go they have a last hurrah with Greg and Jody!  They really are the best.

Dave’s show Happy Town goes until the end of the first week in November and then once the show is over, we are off to visit family and friends for the remaining 2 weeks.  It really doesn’t even feel like we are leaving so soon. Friends and family keep asking us if we are excited, and we seem very nonchalont about the whole thing.  We keep wondering when the excitement will kick in.

We have a lot of work to do on the blog still.  We are very unhappy with the speed of the site and we are going to have someone work on fixing it up.  We have a few bids and hopefully by next week it will be running faster.  I don’t know all of the technical jargon, but a lot of our script is messed up.  We don’t want to start traveling with a slow site. I feel that we are probably losing a lot of traffic due to slow loading times.

Dave added a neat little side widget with choices of Recent, commented and favorite posts.

I was just hating the long bar of recent posts and top commented posts.  He cleaned it up nicely and I love the slick look of it. We have a few other little tidbits that we are working on, but overall, we are liking the look of the site.  Other than the speed we are happy.

We have a guest post coming out tomorrow at ALittleAdrift.  I have been lacking on contributing to other people’s blogs these past few weeks, so I am very excited to have a post coming out again. I just love Shannon’s blog and the travels that she has just completed from the past year. Never fear though, she is going to be taking off again soon to Central and South America.

I am still struggling away with MatadorU.  I am getting the assignments in every week so far and I am really hoping that I can stay up to date with it.  I don’t want to fall behind and be working on a course into my travels.  I have noticed that my writing has sort of a melancholy tone to it lately.  Especially my MatadorU articles.  I don’t feel sad, but there must be something going on because my writing is definitely reflecting a certain down feeling to it.   It is kind of interesting to see.  I have never written so much in my life, so to watch the trends of my writing change with the seasons and energy levels is a learning experience.

So, there you have it. The Week in Review at ThePlanetD

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