It's the final countdown... tomorrow I'll be flying like an Eagle!

I originally wrote this post two days ago and the title was "Freaking Out." As you can see from the date/time of this post, and the fact that I haven't written since December 7th, I have been way too busy to write. Hence, there's no more time to freak out. Here it is! I'm leaving for Fiji in less than 24 hours! It's the final countdown! (Begin dramatic electric guitar solo...)

Sitting in my mom's computer room in San Dimas, CA at 4am in the morning, going over my final to-do list of everything I need to accomplish before I need to get to LAX tomorrow at 6pm for my 9:30pm Air Pacific flight, I can't believe it's actually here. My friends keep asking me if I'm excited, and all I can say is that I'm in utter disbelief and denial. Sure, I'm physically, mentally and spiritually prepared, more or less-- I've certainly been vaccinated for every disease known to man, packed and repacked my bag a million times, memorized my Vagabonding and Rough Guide travel books, and said all of my heartfelt goodbyes to friends, family, colleagues and loved ones. I thoroughly enjoyed my last few weeks of a week-long trip to snowy DC, to finish projects and bond with my now former colleagues (sniff sniff). I thank my lucky stars that I somehow arranged a 6-week internship with a coalition for population, health and environment issues in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. I'm so excited that I'll have concrete projects to work on, I'll have a wonderful place to stay for free, and that while I was in DC I was able to meet with colleagues and learn about the project so that I'll actually make a difference. And I had a rocking Christmas and New Years with my beautiful LA family and friends. Maybe it's because I'm feeling so very loved by the important people in my life right now, that it's so weird to be leaving everyone tomorrow for the next 4 months. For example, it wasn't until the clock struck midnight on New Years that I realized-- 2010 will always be defined for me as alone abroad. Crazy!

To be honest, I really don't think reality will hit me until I get off the plane in Fiji and feel from the humid atmosphere that I'm in another place and time. (That's right, I said time-- since I'm going counter-clockwise around the globe, I'm leaving January 4th and arriving January 6th, essentially losing January 5th, incidentally my older brother Jared's birthday. Guess he gets to be 30 for another year in my book. :) ) A few of my well-traveled friends warned me that I'd be freaking out right now in disbelief, so I'm just kind of rolling with it. Maybe it's reverse-culture shock? All I know is that although I'll get virtually no sleep tonight for being worried about a million things that could go wrong throughout the duration of my trip, when I'm actually on the plane with my Fiji book at this time tomorrow night, I'll be crazy excited for my adventure. :)

You'd think I should feel more grounded, given all that I've done over the past few months to prepare for this moment. I have my 30 pound backpack full to the brim with every polypropolene, nylon, and quick-dry fabric imaginable. The dudes at my local REI, Best Buy and the lovely Distant Lands travel store in Pasadena know me by name since I've been going so much lately to pick up goodies. In particular, I'm excited about these items:

-Action sandals, better known as Keens which you'll see in a lot of my photos next to my tattoo :)

-Green zip-up fleece jacket purchased with my mom and cousin Lisa back in September

-Olympus stylus tough shock-proof camera, which my brother Jared also has and swears by

-Quick-dry underwear (I just think it's really cool since it dries in 3 hours... sorry if that's TMI-- too much information ;) )

This whole process of "what to pack on a trip around the world" is just SO incredibly fascinating to me, since it's a letting go of all your "stuff" in life to really narrow it down to the bare essentials, and is a very freeing process. This is probably why I've obsessively packed and unpacked so much, and I'm sure will do so plenty of times before I leave tomorrow. In case anyone's interested, the most useful resources for my packing process have been my Rough Guide and this really great website for independent backpacking travelers. I particularly liked how the Rough Guide emphasizes that all you need for a trip-around-the-world are sandals, and how the independent traveler website breaks down the great debates like a sleeping bag vs. sleep sheet, shoes vs. sandals, and umbrella vs. rain jacket. For the record, I'm bringing both sandals and running shoes since I'm planning on doing a lot of hiking; just a silk sleep sheet since I won't be camping and will mostly be couchsurfing/staying in hostels; and a rain jacket for added protection against the cold. (See, isn't this just so fun to think about??) :)

Clearly, I think my issue of feeling unprepared has to do with my weird priorities in how I got ready for this trip. A month ago, my number one priority was getting my uber-symbolic tattoo so it would have time to heal; 3 weeks ago, it was going through separation anxiety with finishing all of my Sierra Club projects; 2 weeks ago, it was purchasing my big-expense items like a camera, clothes and sleep sheet; and for the past week, I've focused on spending quality time with my loved ones to say good bye. During all this time, I haven't done HARDLY ANY research on the places I'm going. Safety advisories, health notices, wiki-travel websites and blogs have remained virtually untouched on my computer's search engine.

Which is why I had a huge freak-out the evening of January 1st when I casually googled about visas and realized that I completely forgot about obtaining them for Ethiopia and Kenya, which are required for entry into the country and take a week minimum to process. (!!!) I called my friend Tim who works at STA Travel in Georgetown who booked my flights, terrified that he'd have to re-book my tickets for a week later than tomorrow. He helped calm me down, but really it was talking to my Dad that made me realize that I will get through this, it's just my cold feet looking for an excuse to freak out. As one of my friends told me, "I'll make it work while traveling, because I have no other choice than to make it work." :) Sure it's a bonehead thing to have forgotten, but I'm going to wake up in 2 hours and call the Ethiopian embassy in Washington DC at 9am their time Monday morning, and hopefully they'll tell me one of three things: 1) I can get a same-day visa tomorrow in their LA office; 2) I can pick up a visa while I'm in New Zealand; or 3) I can simply show up at the Ethiopian airport and hope they don't tell me to go home. Either way, I have faith it will all work out. And as my best friend/roommate Adriana reminded me, everything happens for a reason. ;)

Which brings me to why I chose these pictures for this, my last blog in the U.S. for at least 4 months. They're from when I went sky-diving with my Dad at age 18. In the first picture, I LOVE the look of terror on my face when I first jumped out of the plane. At that moment, I was in complete disbelief that I had just jumped out of a plane, and was actually hurtling toward the ground from 13,000 feet. But the second picture marks the moment when I realized, while free-falling, how much I felt completely alive like I never had before experienced. Right now I'm feeling the moment of total anticipation and fear before I jump out of the plane. I have been soaking it up ever since 2003 when I first dreamed up this crazy scheme. That day of skydiving, I bought a T-shirt which has one of my now favorite quotes, to commemorate the experience-- Take risks not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping. So that's what I'm doing! I may be terrified right now, but I truly can't wait to be soaring through the air... I can't wait to fly like an eagle and let my spirit carry me. Cassie Joy Round the World here I come! :)