Bhromon:

On Tuesday morning I received my passport! This may seem a little lame, but I’ve never in my 27 years had my own passport. In the past when I was significantly younger, I always flew under my parents passport and though I’ve often traveled to the U.S. it wasn’t until recently that you actually required a passport to travel to the states.

I’m pretty excited. I am one step closer to making this trip real. A few more things still need to get done though. I need to apply for my visa obviously. I also need to buy new luggage, maybe buy some new clothes and (blast!) save some money for rent for while I am away. Oh, and (blast again!) my computer has recently decided to fail me, so I need to buy a new laptop for the trip. How else will I blog and post photos otherwise?

So while I am closer to making this trip so very real, I am well aware that there is still much to get done. Slight things, in the grand scheme of things, but things none the less. So off I go to keep plugging away.

-R.

One of the nice things about being a recent graduate and thus being extremely broke is that there are graduation presents at the ready. This trip is a graduation present graciously offered by my parents and though my mother is concerned about me flying across the world on my own, I think we all agree that this an experience I need to have.

For me I feel that this trip will be a fantastic time for me to catch up with family that I have not seen in far too long, catch up my reading, catch up on my thoughts and while I’m at it, perhaps do a bit of shopping and lots of eating.

My plane tickets are already booked, my travel itinerary has been confirmed and with stopovers in London and Kuwait it looks like I’ll have lots of time to kill all on my lonesome. While normally this would be the point where I ask for book recommendations, I recently vowed to get through the books already sitting on my shelves, most of which now have a thick layer of dust. For the plane ride and stopovers I’ll have to go through and find some lighter fare. But for the trip itself I plan to take Melville’s Moby Dick, Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and Tagore’s Selected Poetry. The classics. What better time than a vacation to sit for hours at a time and read books that I should have read years ago?

While I still have yet to apply for my Visa and buy new luggage, everything else is pretty much already in place, so I occupy myself with what to take with me and what to do while I am there. For the latter, I will certainly take on suggestions. I hear that there are fantastic museums in Dhaka, and that the Nilkhet book market, supposedly the largest in the world would be a dream come true for me. For my time in Nilphamari, I will especially take on suggestions. Aside from visiting my many relatives, I’m not sure what else I’ll be doing. So suggest away my friends*!

-R.

*I’m well aware that many of you reading do not have a Tumblr account so feel free to make your suggestions and comments through email or through Facebook private messages. :)

I am not familiar with planning overseas trips. At all. The only planning I have ever done for a trip is booking time off of work and buying train tickets. But now I am applying for a passport, looking into obtaining visas, and figuring out how much time I can take off work in order to make my $1400 plane tickets really worth my while.       

I leave for Dhaka, Bangladesh this October and for the first time ever I will be taking an overseas trip completely on my own. I can’t even say that my trips within North America have ever been completely solo endeavors either. So needless to say, I am already feeling a bit anxious. I am traveling to Bangladesh alone and leaving behind loved ones that I won’t see for four whole weeks. That in itself also makes me feel quite anxious. However, I am also very excited. For the first time in 15 years I will be seeing relatives I only ever talk to online. We hold memories of each other of our younger selves. Oh how far I am sure we have all come.

I’ll be honest, I am slightly apprehensive about chronicling my trip online. Mainly I’m apprehensive about anyone reading my writing and whether they will find it interesting or not. But I know this is a great way for my friends and family to see what I’m up to. So read on. I hope you enjoy. I’ll try and make time to post as frequently as possible.

-R.