Getting Ready

I leave for India in a week and a day. I think things are mostly under control. Since I’m a very type-A person, I’ve put things into lists.

Things that are done/purchased/ready to go:
Student Visa
Many pairs of scrubs
And lab coats
And coveralls
Immunizations (Hep A and B, Polio, Rabies, DPT, Typhoid, plus whatever I needed to go to college in the first place)
Water purifications drops (which may or may not make my water taste like bleach)
Nalgene bottle
Vegetarian meals for the plane rides
Doctor’s appointment for Tuesday – so I can get anti-malaria medication

Things that I need to do/buy/prepare for:
I still need to get anti-malaria medication
More SPF 1,000,000 sunscreen
DEET cream (don’t want to get malaria… or Japanese encephalitis)
Purchase 20ish $2-3 gifts and 3 or 4 $20 gifts for people at the teaching hospital/veterinary school where we’ll be spending the majority of our time… Hopefully I can find some cute and quirky gifts and don’t have to settle for something really iffy. I should have started the search a while ago. (oops.)
See if the international step-down converter I have will work
Buy a bunch of those travel Kleenex packs (in case we can’t find bathrooms for the non-teaching hospital part of our trip)
Imodium – apparently everyone will get sick
Webcam and skype account
Purchase headphones and don’t let the kitties near them for a week so they don’t get eaten
Investigate the cost of a small mp3 player so I don’t go crazy on the plane trips
Let my bank and credit card companies know that I’ll be out of the country for a while
Find an image hosting site

Things I need to find out:
If I need to bring boots (though I think I’ll bring my own anyway – I’m an over-packer)
If I need to bring my own towel
If I need to bring detergent (I’ve heard that the stuff there really kills your clothing)
If it’s really bad that I’m not planning on bringing any travelers checks but instead bringing some cash and hoping for ATM usage for the rest
What’s up with our trip to Agra
If I need to do anything special to get a cell phone there

Ok, so there’s way more to do than I thought, but it’s totally doable, albeit expensive. Hopefully it won’t be too daunting to get everything together –I’ve still got over a week.

-Erin