Logistics

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As you can imagine, I have already produced quite a robust list of things I have to do/sort out before the WAP can work. There are a lot of logistics. I also find that I worry about very silly things like how useful is it to bring shampoo, how many shirts to bring, what kind of bookbag I might need, how readily available school supplies will be, and are there any advantages to buying a laptop there? Yes, one: the pound sign on the keyboard. (£££ Is that a good enough reason?)
I have learned that my car has to be insured, even if it will be parked for a year. I can't take a year long educational leave of absence at work so I will have to quit and be rehired. Whatever. Hopefully the same bosses will be there and it will be somewhat easy.

My passport will expire while I'm gone, and will cost $75 to renew. Thankfully, they will return my old one with the new one!

My national registry expires next spring, but in a surprising and out of character gesture, they will allow me to renew this year so that I won't expire. I am shocked, the registry is accommodating!

Sending and receiving calls internationally is an expensive venture. Even with some sort of plan it is $1 a minute to call there. That's tricky. I haven't figured out yet what to do about that, other than suck it up, or get a sweet vodaphone or virgin mobile phone and probably pay the same to call the US.

I'm still looking for a debit card with no foreign transaction or ATM fees, any thoughts?

Comments

PowersTwinB said…
Hi, I happened across your blog, reading some from different paramedics (My daughter in law and oldest son are paramedics). I wanted to tell you about your passport. To keep the old one, you must just apply for a new one and tell them you've lost the expired one. Otherwise, they normally dont return the old ones. Thought you'd like to know that. I am about to begin reading your blog, hope thats ok, being I am not in the medical field myself?
23 January, 2009
Anonymous said…
I strongly suggest you renew your passport while at home, it's much harder doing so from abroad. You won't need to carry it as ID by law while in the UK, though it may be useful when out socialising, but if you visit mainland Europe you generally have to carry ID at all times. While over here, it will definitely be worth taking advantage of the ease with which you can visit other European countries.

Stationary supplies are easy to get here but you will find the paper sizes different and line spacings may be different too. (iso216 - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size)

Things like shampoo are easy to get too and not worth using up your flight weight allowance on.

International calls from the UK are expensive, but you can buy pre-pay cards to use from a landline to make them cheaper. You can easily get a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile (cell) phone to use to call other UK based people.

Hope that helps!
24 January, 2009
Chris said…
As regards phoning the states - get skype. You can call for free over the internet, as long as the people you're calling have too.

Or make use of web based messenger services such as msn or AIM - they tend to have voice call options too
26 January, 2009
Tony said…
Skype is good. You can also get a local phone and do your international calls through a VoIP provider that won't leae you tied to the computer. i'm actually playing with a system to do that. If you're interested I should be able to set you up with a local number in the UK (four a couple dollars a month) that would link you back to a computer in the states and let you do calls for $0.02 a minute.

Wow, that sounded like a crazy sales pitch it was not intended to be since I'm not trying to make money :-)
found your blog BTW from your comment over at Maddog's about EMS Today.

-Tony
20 February, 2009
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