Time to be brave

Decided it was finally time for me to try and rid myself of my real, but slightly over-the-top fear of all that is under water, especially sharks. I figued it may become a bit of a hindrance when I try to become a surf babe in Baja.

So i did it, i booked an appointment to see a very composed & unruffled therapist named Francesca. She is a Meridian Energy Therapist and her webiste promised emotional freedom and to be rid of my phobia in 3 - 6 sessions. Perfect, as I was only around for another 6 weeks before the big trip. I had considered many different types of therapy - hypnotherapy, light therapy, aversion therapy (Patricks favourite), to name but a few but plumped for MET as it sounded the least scary.

Anyway to cut the whole episode short I arrived for my preliminary session and got tapping straight away. (Apparently the mind and body have a bioenergetic field of electrical energy meridians running through them. Points on these meridian pathways can be manipulated, to improve energy flows. The therapist helps you tap your own energy points/or taps them for you, in a certain pattern to neutralise aspects of each unpleasant memory you want to deal with. Your energy system then reprogrammes the way it has stored the information. And hey presto - you've got emotional freedom.)

Well, I certainly came out feeling a little different and with a slighly bruised face and forehead from all the tapping. I think we established that my fear may have arisen from the time my foot got stuck in a wave pool machine or from my very young fear of the wombles and big noses. Either way it hasn't made too much impact on my life as yet and i still get freaked out by underwater pictures. But i live in hope and have booked in my next 3 sessions!

Surfing World Champion I may not be, but hopefully I should be able to paddle around, maybe 'hang ten' and have some fun.

The Sweet taste of....

success.

After a lot of stress, mostly from me very little from H, last minute preparation (everything gets done last minute with the two of us!) and a very early morning we arrived at the American fortress that is the embassy. The embassy is typified by concrete barricades which look extremely permanent, crowd control barriers, security and a lot of British policemen with guns. For those brits reading this you can understand how odd this is. There's even one poor chap who is situated just inside the security checkpoint who is standing behind bullet proof blankets laid over steel crowd barriers. Not the best assignment of the day. Mmm...

What is it about high security area's that get's one talking about politics, gun control, foreign policy of your and other nations and makes you eye up big men with guns in a curious/suspicious manner. I always do god knows why. Hannah kept telling me to change the subject!

After queuing for about 30mins in the first cold morning of the year, Hannah with open toed sandals, we got through the security check, a long walk around the building past more men with guns and we're in. That felt like achievement enough, I thought we'd done the hard bit. We joined another queue; this was beginning to be tedious, and paid the fee to have our documents returned. We entered the transit like lounge and sat down. All of the initial interviews appeared to be brief just to take in one's documents. Hannah was called first and I was right behind her. Standing in front of the bullet proof glass at my allotted window my brain seemed to shut down, I managed to thrust my application through the gap. The American official behind the bullet proof glass asked if I had any supporting documents I said no. The fact I was sweatily clutching a whole bunch of bank statements, airline tickets and other assorted proof of my wholesome intentions passed me by completely at this point. The idiot switch had tripped and all I could muster was my now stale sweet boy next door smile. No way was that going to wash with this lady. She looked at me and was entirely unimpressed. I was instructed to take a seat.

I sat down and swore quietly to myself, I'm sure the lady next to me thought I had turets syndrome or some similar ailment. Three hours of an electronic voice saying 'number 217 please go to window 7' later and Hannah was called to window 19. We had fathomed this was the window were all the interesting cases go so being called there was a worry. H made her way over to her interview and scanned away her right to privacy at which point she made my life extremely easy. Asked if she knew what number her traveling companion was she gave the official my number. I was called and dutifully trotted over to the window. I scanned away my right to privacy too with some enthusiasm; it's amazing what you'll do when you want something enough. The man behind the window asked how much money we thought we would need/had. My first answer was met with barely concealed contempt at which point I started to tell him about all of our contingency options. When I had finally sold my soul to the devil and had mentally spent all our cash in America he nodded and said no problem. We were in!

The American Embassy interview/interrogation!

Our next hurdle is passing the interview for our US tourist visa. We have an itinery, return tickets and some cash in the bank. We've got the photo's, paid the non-refundable application fee and I've declared I have never been a soldier or been a part of an armed conflict!

We simply need to make it through the interview. As we've no idea what the interview is going to be about there is some uncertainty. With the US becoming stricter all the time on their application process I simply hope we don't look wrong and I don't offend anyone with my terrible sense of humour.

Wish us luck...

Camper van luxury or dirtbag van living, only six weeks before we get the answer?

The question that most prey's on our minds at the moment is what kind of van are we going to be getting,

will it be the luxury winnebago...

will it be the modest but comfortable...

or will it be budget!

Stay tuned to find out...

Economy, unbearable!

Oh god please dont let it be this one...

Modest is probably best

Moderate luxury, we wont freeze but we wont be having mad aprties in this bad boy either.

The Lap of Luxury, only if we win the lottery first...

The lap of luxury, can we afford it? Perhaps not!

Camping preparation

52 Sleeps, that's a long time...

52 sleeps is a long time in my book...

Staying motivated at work is far from easy but there's lots of events happening at the store which have to go well or my last month with the company (www.snowandrock.com/stores/show.asp?store_id=3) will look terrible, and I don't want that, do I?

We've been planning this trip since July 2003 and after last years amazing summer spent mostly in our local park slacklining (www.slackline.com) the long British winter has been something of a grind. We've been snowboarding in Europe a couple of times this spring and dreamed of Fernie's wide open slopes whilst doing the bump, shuffling and grind in the crazy busy European lift que's. So here's to Canada and America and lets not forget Mexico, may you be everything we've dreamed of and less of the things we've worried about.

Patrick 

Not long now!

Just 7 weeks before we both jack in our jobs and become full time boondockers. No more 7.45am alarms. Only 9 months of sun, sea, rock & snow to follow.

Thats 52 sleeps and counting.....