Check List

One more thing we must put together is a checklist of all the things we must take with us and things to do prior to departure. The list will include the really important stuff:

Pay Bills
Call Bank
Call Credit Card Company
Passports
Meds
Glasses
Credit Cards
Camera(s) and paraphernalia
Cash
Itinerary(s)
Phone numbers
Confirmation codes
Computer
Tour Books?

I'm sure we will add to the list. I didn't include clothing and the like because if we forget anything we might need along those lines we will be able to buy it. We certainly won't be traveling in remote areas were there won't be stores both clothing and grocery. Things may look different or be unfamiliar but we will still be able to purchase them.

Posting Links

I obviously figured out how to post links without including the website URL in the text of the entries. That sure does make things a lot cleaner and easier to read. The process was really pretty simple. I just didn't take the time (5 min. or less) to figure it out. Highlight the text you want to stand for the link, click the icon on top that looks like a green ball with glasses, key in the URL, then click okay. Like I said pretty simple, but easily overlooked. There are many other things you can do in this blog that I haven't even begun to look at. Once again I'm amazed by technology.

Hotels and Reservations

All of the reservations for the trip are now complete. Have overnight at the Red Lion at the Seattle/Tacoma airport. I used PriceLine to bid on the room but according to what I've read I paid too much even though is was less that half of what the site was selling rooms for there on a regular basis. Oh well, next time I will bid lower. They do have a shuttle to and from the airport on a 24 hour basis so we won't have transportation worries in Washington. Will be staying at a Comfort Inn when we return to Heathrow from Egypt on March 23rd. The rate for the room was cheaper directly from the hotel than the home website for Comfort Inns and Suites and it was also cheaper than on the big hotel booking websites. Bidding for that night wasn't an option as PriceLine is only good for the US.

We still need to contact the credit card companies and the credit union to let them know that we will be travelling so they don't block the accounts on us. That would really be a nasty thing to happen. Last week we did request a credit increase on one of our cards so we would have a margin of safety in case one gets stolen or some such thing as that.

We bought some new luggage on Monday as well. We got a three piece set that includes a bigger roller than we have and a small one that we will be able to use as a carry-on and not have to worry about carrying it around during some of our generally long layovers. If the set would have included two of those smaller bags I would have really liked that. Alaska Airlines says they will honor American's luggage policy for overseas so will have to get in touch with American to have them put the luggage limitations in our record so Alaska can see them and not hassle us when we board next week. We will probably have to retrieve our bags in Seattle and check them again on American since we are staying overnight.

I guess overall for this trip we have done our homework pretty well. I talked with a travel agent the other day and she could not believe how cheaply we were going to Egypt with a stop over in London. At least that made me feel pleased about all of the work I have put into this.

Technology

I figured out the slide show gadget. Now we will be able to post picture taken along the way in one or more slide show on the side of this blog. Right now there is one playing form a trip that we did last year to Las Vegas, Nevada. What's amazing to me is that all of the stuff that I've been doing with this blog is part of Google Apps. The blog itself is on Blogger. The profile picture and the pictures that were included in areas of the blog are part of Picasa Web Albums. And the slide show is uploaded to Picasa as an album and the blog is pointed to the album to play the slide show. The blog can also be updated through an FTP server if you don't have access to Google for any reason. If find this all truly amazing.

We live in a world where all of the technology is taken for granted. Everything is expected to be instanteous at the touch of a button. I look at these things and think about my grandmother using a crank telephone (two longs and a short) on a line with 6 other people and marvel at the computers we use to make phone calls today.

In a week we will be taking a round trip journey of some 15,000 miles in less than three weeks. There was a time when only the rich could make a trip like this. The trip would take considerably longer than 3 weeks as well. I will be taking a computer with me that has more computing power, more RAM, and more storage capacity than the first mainframe computer I worked on. The digital camera I'm taking will shot nearly 4 frames a second of still shots and do it without changing a battery, winding, changing film and hold nearly 500 pictures before anything must be done to help it along. We too soon take our conveniences foregranted and think of them as necessities and get angry when they don't instantly do as we would like. I am truly amazed every day.

Hotel in Seattle

We still need to get a hotel in Seattle (SeaTac actually) for our overnight there on the 5th. Have been exploring using price line to bid on a room instead of paying the "going" rate. I listen to the Clark Howard show on KFQD sometimes and he suggested one should go to a web site called Bid on Travel to learn how to use sites like Priceline and HotWire to bid for travel instead of paying the prices listed. The research here again is cumbersome. There are pages and pages to go through if you are goint to do it "correctly" and get the cheapest available rates. I will probably give it a try this weekend when I have some more time to spare and again will post the results when and if they happen. Hopefully we will actually be able to save some money and learn how to use it for future trips. There are still so many things to do before we leave it just seems overwhelming at times.

Cell Phone

Thought about having a phone available while we are in Egypt. Would probably get a prepaid one to use while we are there. The big question is do we get one here or do we wait and get one in Egypt? I've been trying to do the research on the web but haven't come to any conclusive decisions. Some sites say get one before you leave. Buy a SIM card for Egypt and buy prepaid minutes. The logic behind this is that you will have the phone to use in the US when you return home. This just raises another question of would I really use the phone once I get home. I don't hardly use a cell phone now. We could just leave the phone in Egypt with our host family when we leave and they could use up the minutes and then dispose of the phone. I have no idea what to do and time is growing short. At least a few sites stated it would be cheaper to get one there and I'm inclined to agree. Nearly everything seems to be cheaper there than here. Will keep you posted on this topic as we travel around.

Thinking about this though has convinced me that when we travel in the US and Canada we should have a prepaid phone with us to use so we can call folks when necessary and can be contacted easily. Maybe when we get back we will just get a cell for each of us and be done with it. Who knows?

London stuff

I contacted the Elizabeth Hotel about checking in at 6:30 AM. They say, "No problem as long as you pay for the room for the night before". We are going to pass on that. They will be happy to help us with theater tickets though. We are in the process of trying to decide what show(s) to go see while were are there. We also checked with them on tube passes for the 3 days we will be in London and we were told that the passes were only available at Victoria Station. Guess we will have to make our way to that station shortly after we arrive in London.

Will send off another email to them when we decide on shows and to get directions for riding the tube to the hotel from the airport. Hopefully they will be able to help us with other touristy stuff as well.

We have an itinerary for our time in Egypt and will be posting that shortly, maybe even this evening.

Weather update

The weather in London has been improving though I'm sure it can be pretty bad in March. In a browser key "weather in London" as a search argument or use this link http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/03772.html if you want to check on the weather like I do most every day. Hope the next two weeks improve even more than the last three have. At least the days are getting longer even over in the United Kingdom.

The weather in Cairo is about the same as I wrote last time. The night time temps have come up some but the daytime temps are about the same. I'm sure with the longer days they will be getting warner during the day as well. Checking on Cairo weather use http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/62366.html.

Weather in Anchorage is mid 30s F daytime and mid 20s F evenings so both locations are much better than here. It would be really nice to have and early "summer" on this trip and then come back to spring. That would really be fantastic.

We have gotten an itinerary from Nardeen so will post that here one of these days before we leave. We still need to sit down and decide what we are going to do in London for the three days we will be there. More on all of this later.

Egyptian Pounds

The Egyptian pounds we ordered came in on Thursday last week. Bonnie picked it up on Friday. We requested all five pound notes but it didn't come that way. I think out of the 150 pounds we got 8 five pounders and the rest were larger. Now the biggest problem I have with this exchange is that the bank charged us a five dollars "service" fee for the Egyptian pounds. The whole transaction was only for $35 dollars that that equates to between 15-20%. Pretty stiff penalty for trying to be a good citizen. I realize that banks are in business to make money but this is just a little ridiculous I think. If they are going to charge that much they should have a minimum purchase amount even on foriegn currency. Of course this is just my opinion for what it's worth. I guess we should have taken the advice of a couple of seasoned travellers to take US dollars and exchange them when we get to the destination. We won't be so foolish again. Time grows short, less than three weeks.

Weather

Seems the weather in London is going to require much different clothing than in Egypt. It has been cold there by English standards and though temperatures are slowly rising it's difficult to know what to pack. Obviously we are going to have to take clothing similar to what we wear in Alaska in March. Layers is probably the best way to go. Footwear is going to be a problem. Seems like it may be wet and sloppy in London and I'm sure it will be relatively dry in Egypt. Don't plan to take much winter or rainy day footwear. If we need it when we get to the UK we will just have to buy it. We will take an umbrella or two though, maybe. Depends on how much space we have to pack them. That may be another thing that we purchase when we arrive if need be.

The weather in Cairo is another matter. The temperatures are in the 70 F range but sometimes getting to the 30's F in the evening. Again layers will do the job. With a much dryer climate though footwear will be less of a problem. Time is growing short, less than three weeks until we begin the journey. There is still much, much more to do in preparation to our departure. Hope we are able to get it all done.

Ordered Money Today

Went to the bank today and got 50 GBP for the trip. Thought is best to have some local currency in our pocket since we were going to arrive on a Saturday and likely the banks would not be open. I will check the exchange rate online before I close this update and let you know how badly we got ripped off by Well's Fargo. The exchange rate they gave us was 1.5445 dollars per pound. So 50 GBP was $77.23. The exchange rate listed on the web is $1.4823. So Well's Fargo charged an extra $.06 and the sign said they were buying GBP for $1.42. Looks like they take a 3% commission on all exchanges. Of course if I were changing a million dollars I would probably have gotten a better rate. But, alas, just after a little pocket change.

As suspected they didn't have any Egyptian pounds so they had to be ordered. I requested 150 EP in 5 pound notes but they said they wouldn't guarantee the denominations of the notes but would request 5 pound notes. They are supposed to be in Anchorage in 7-10 business days. That would make it the end of next week. That should be plenty of time. Obviously I don't know the rate for those notes yet. It's a pay when they come in kind of thing. I would guess it will be around $30 US, probably a little less. It really seems like we should have more than that but we are supposed to be picked up at the airport. There are always ATMs where we can get cash.

Must remember to contact the credit card companies and the credit union about our travelling so they don't cancel the cards. Probably should do that a week before we go.

Invitation to Lunch

We received an invitation to have lunch with a family in Cairo while we are there. Three years ago there was an exchange student here that was from Egypt that we got very close to. She spent many wonderful hours with our family and she has invited us to have lunch with her and her family while we are in the country. This would be wonderful for us and we hope that it can be arranged. If there is no time in the scheduled trips to Cairo we will just have to put a special trip in to just spend some time with the Abdelaziz family. Each day I get more excited about going.

Health Care Providers

So it turns out that our heath care provider has 237 preferred providers in the United Kingdom (UK) and 58 in Egypt. I actually find this quite incredible. These providers include hospitals, clinics, and individual physicians. Since we are going to spend all of our time in the UK in London I just checked out the availability there and came up with 64 preferred providers. In Egypt 45 of the 58 are in Cairo. There are 4 in Alexandria where we will be spending a couple of days. There are none in Port Said where we will be staying most of the time.

The health care provider provides an international website to get the information from and there a surprising number of countries listed. They also list collect numbers in the USA you can call if you are not able to find suitable care at the listed facilities. The collect numbers are not listed on the plan "card" that we carry so you should make note of that before you go. If you will have access to the internet while you are traveling you should be able to access the health care provider's website for additional information.

The site does say that in the event of an emergency get treatment and then call them to get authorization. If it's not an emergency call them first regardless of the circumstance if possible. There are claim forms available from our provider for international claims. You may have to pay all or part of the treatment up front depending on the arrangements with the facililty and the insurance provider. This is something you will have to take care of yourself because most plans will have their own particulars. Ours looks pretty good but won't know for sure until we have to use it and hopefully after the trip is done we still won't know how good it is.

Good luck with this part of the trip.

Waiting

Seems we are always busy, busselling from place to place and getting little done. Still need to get to the bank to get some GBP and EP. I tried on Friday but got the address mixed up and was looking for is on West 5th Avenue instead of East 5th. Obviously I didn't find the place. Have a website to check out for health insurance stuff but haven't done that either. Must stop procrastinating and get to work or we won't have it all done when it's time to go. Monday for the bank for sure and today for the website.

Exchanging Money Again

Seems Wells Fargo Bank is about the only place in Anchorage that does money exchange. Called their customer service line today and talked with someone in the lower 48. He thought the bank would have GBP on hand in many denominations but that they would have to order Egyptian pounds, especially if we want specific denominations. I know the smallest note you can get Egyptian is 5 and I think the same is true of Great Britain. Smaller denominations are all coins. Probably won't get any coins on this side of the Atlantic just folding money. It's easier and lighter to carry. I'm sure we will get enough coins while we are at our destinations.