We're not ready yet

With just over six weeks to go the nervous excitement is starting to build and many loose ends are starting to be tied up, even if some are in need of double knots.

Here is a status check and look into the hollow mind of an Internet-addicted RTW planner...

Flights - are looking good. The biggest expense, one of the biggest decisions, all questions have been answered, just waiting to see if our favourite airline, Finnair, answers the same in both our languages. The Oneworld site has been very useful but all the difficult questions have been answered on the Lonely Planet forum by seasoned RTW flight experts.

Countries and climate - Miss Deli and I have a fairly good idea of what we are getting into. We are kinda following the Spring out the US, which leads to the start of the afternoon rains in Central America, mild weather in South America and the start of the ski season by the time we get to the high Andes. We also have spring in NZ and Oz and perfect time for Indochina.

Finance - not the best news to find out that my bank, Lloyds, is the worst to travel with in the UK. Which cards, which bank, what belts and what other security measures we will take during overland travel are currently hot topics.

Gear - my research has me thinking that we should be packing extremely light; I mean very, very light. This means that we are going to have to spend on new sleeping bags and some other specialist gear. I have been eyeing up trail shoes, retractable ski poles (for those flat bits when we are snowboarding big mountain), sleeping bag mummy liners, waterproof bags and rain ponchos. We will send our snowboard stuff home from LA (shame we won't have it in Chile) so deciding if we should take warm stuff through Central America is a dilemma. We plan to save money by buying most new gear in the US.

What else - well, I have the aching arms from a jab session with doctor Arnie, who needled me all over; there is a new lock on the closet door for our valuable when we are away but we are still waiting to hear about the flat rental; unfortunately Spanish is a language neither of us have practiced but hopefully we should get by in CA with tourist Spanish though I am on the look out for a good phrase book; I have a new passport - let's hope it doesn't run out of pages if those Latin border guards get carried away; and I have a lot of lists... a lot of lists... and I have nearly finished the FunkiDeli website, thanks to Niclas' help.

MC Delicatessen