Train to Romania

It was pitch black outside, and just after 7pm when we arrived at the train station, we were taking a night train from Budapest to Brasov, Romania.  After the large display boards listed the gate number for our train, we found two seats on a nearly empty old train.  Four seats faced eachother with a desk inbetween, if it stays like this we should be alright.  A few more passengers got on the train, two Spaniards who reeked of smoke, and a handfull of locals.  Right on time, 7:55 we departed for the 12-hour ride.  Which of course we were looking forward to with the utmost of excitement.

A few hours went by and the noises of the train started to run together, occasionally we would hear a ringtone of Lady Gaga's "Judas".  Katy challenged me to cut throat game of 'Go Fish', when we started to realize the Lady Gaga wasn't going away.  After about an hour of hearing Lady Gaga going off over and over again every few minutes, I started to look further down the train.  There was a girl clearly passed out, and in the next seat to her were two neighbors.  One woman quickly motioned that it wasn't her phone.  So I went down to nudge the girl to wake her up...  She didn't budge.  After shaking her a few more times, I wasn't sure if she were alive or just on some really good drugs.  Anyway a few more minutes of shaking and Lady Gaga was finally turned off.  As we kept watching this sherade unfold, it seemed as though the girl had slept through her exit, and her ride was calling over and over again.  Being that it was after midnight, who knows if she ever got home.

It wasn't long until we were welcomed to Romania by the customs officials walking through the train car with passport scanners, a few questions, and some new stamps in our passports.  At this point, its after midnight, the train is almost empty and the florescent lights have never been dimmed on the train, so we pass into a semi-state of unconsious.  At the next stop (2am) in Romania, we are surprised to find that a good number of people enter on the train.

Next stop... 3am... more people get on the train.  This time, we have people join us in our section of four seats, so we have to sit up and hold onto our bags.  Next to us a family of four has shown up, with young children. Down the car a little ways a set of old women dressed exactly like you would think old women in Romania dress take a seat.  We both kept looking at each other thinking...Who gets  up in the middle of the night and gets on the train?!?

As we continue to pass out and wake up between stops, we see that at every stop we make, more and more people pack the train, with almost no one getting off.  Some people are talking, some quitely keeping to themselves, some with small radios (no headphones) playing great hits such as "Lady in Red", "November Rain" and "Thunderstruck".   The other thing that surprised us, was it was a full selection of people: young, old, men, women, you name it, it was on the train at 4am.

Finally dawn hits, we are about 30 minutes outside of our destination and this is the first time we've seen Romania.  After traveling throughout a Western Europe, Asia, South America and North America this definitively has a different feeling to it for us.  Sharp mountains are distantly in the background, fog rolls down onto the towns, the colors are uniform and the houses are simple.  As we continue from town to town, we see people driving horses and buggies on the roads.  In the fields, there are no machines, just horses, buggies and people manually doing the work.

We start to approach Brasov, the last stop for the train, everyone starts to get their belongs together and a few stragglers start to wake up; we pull into the station and get off the train.  We hop over some of the tracks and head into the station to find an ATM.

The message 'Declined' comes up on the screen.  We go to two more ATMs and Katy tries her card all with the same result...  Welcome to Romania.

Budapest: Warning Now Entering Eastern Europe

Buda on the Left, Pest on the Right

Its hard to remember arriving in Budapest, we have been here for over 2 weeks and the time has started to blur.  We took the bus from Vienna to Budapest- a short 2 hour drive followed by a 3 stop ride on the subway and we arrived at our next accommodation. First a note about the subway or metro in Budapest.  We have used several transit systems over the past month- London, Prague, Vienna- all with certain degrees of modernness or areas in need of repair. Upon arrival in Budapest we emerged from the bus and went to the underground. Upon seeing the subway car pull up to the station we both immediately stopped in our tracks and expected to hear the sounds of Mother Russia and the associated troops around the corner.  I don't know where they dug up these subway cars from but they are rough to say the least-with a hefty dose of graffiti and an apparent need for new brakes-desperately as evidenced by the noise we heard as it was pulling into the stop.  The stations we found vary in their modernness however it is apparent that the thought to put large font signs in multiples places to direct people had not occurred or was not included in the budget of the Budapest Transit Authority. (At one major station where 3 lines met there was only one sign per line on the platform).  One last thing to say about the Budapest Metro-if you want a true visual watch the movie "Kontroll" or Control in English, its about the ticket inspectors in Budapest-pretty good even if it was with subtitles.  

Outside the main Market

After the exciting journey through the socialized means of transportation, we found our accommodations easily (right next to one of the many "Szex Shops" in Budapest).  We were staying with a structural engineering PhD student named Kitti.  We had a room to ourselves in her fully-furnished apartment for a whopping $24 dollars a night.  Burdened with a full plate of working part-time, teaching and doing her Thesis she proved to be a fantastic host, telling us where to go, how to get around, tidbits about the culture and history of Hungary.  So we were off to a great start.

Terror Museum

One of the first places we visited was, based on our hostess's recommendations was the Terror Museum.  During the both the German and Russian occupation, the later of which lasted until 1991, they had a building in downtown Budapest where the secret police used to interrogate citizens for all sorts of reasons.  This has been converted into the city's most popular museum giving a history of the city during occupation. We found out that Hungary had avoided occupation in WWII until spring of 1944 when it fell to the Nazi party.  In about 6 months, the Soviet Union took over Budapest leading to a long period of socialist leadership.  It was interesting to think if the Hungarians had been able to stay independent for just a little longer, how different the country would be today.  It was a good museum, certainly not the most uplifting, and at the end you go to the basement floor and see the old interrogation / torture rooms and cells where they kept prisoners.

Over the weekend we were shown around by our hostess and able to see a bit more of the local culture.  One night she took us out to a favorite restaurant where we were able to try authentic 'Hungarian food' followed by checking out some of the night life.  Hungarian food is pretty intense... if they were to modify (or as Katy would say 'G it up') it just a bit, the food could be fantastic.  Most dishes are very heavy and not well-rounded.  Goulash, the most popularized Hungarian dish, is simply beef in a paprika sauce served over noodles.  Tasty, but no vegetables or any relief what-so-ever.  Hungarians are also big fans of cottage cheese and sour cream, they go on everything from pasta to potatoes to fried dough. All these food have potential to be great dishes, they just need a little expanding with locally available foods.  Also, almost all restaurants are packed with smokers making your reek for the next several days (get with the program Europe).  

Fisherman's Bastion

While the food needs some slight modifications, the bars don't.  We were taken to a "rubble bar" after dinner, which was an old building with several stories, done up with really random decor eclectic enough to come off as cool, with one room leading into another, and ample locations to sit, drink, listen to music or whatever you desire.  While sitting having a drink, there was a young bar-maid going from table to table selling of all things: carrot sticks.  Because the novelty, it has apparently been a big success in that bar- you can surely envision some of the conversations that must go on after a bit to much to drink and a girl sells you a giant carrot stick.  

It was 1991 when the last soviet socialist government official/troop left Budapest, only 20 years ago, so we've observed a few funny things about the remnants of the socialist era.  For starters, there are constant subtle reminders  about how everything is best here in Hungary.  One of the first tourist magazines we picked up mentions the fact that the Hungarian tap water is best in Europe!  It later goes on to mention in the General Information section that there are very few homeless people as there is national health care, people can get treatment so no one would need to beg on the streets (I didn't get the correlation either- we also found out from Kitti that the medical system is likely to fold within about 2 years and that most people who can afford it pay for private care or have to slip the workers in the national system some extra money to get any sort of decent treatment).   When visiting the National History Museum, we walked through an exhibit about how Hungarians contributed to every major leap in modern technology.  The best part of the exhibit was the phrasing about the accomplishments 'You might not be surprised to know that a Hungarian was instrumental in the development of the modern day television', not to mention the hologram, the surgical laser, and so on.  

Statues atop the Citadel

One of the must do's in Budapest is experience the public baths.  I know what some of you are thinking 'ewwww a bunch of people-some surely with questionable sanitation habits- sitting around in a giant bathtub for hours on end sounds like a sure fire way to get either a foot fungus or rash' (please note, Will is currently laughing at me).  So maybe there is a certain element of truth to it, but let's face it, people have been taking advantage of the thermal hot-springs here for a long time.  There are several public baths in Budapest, but we opted to go to the oldest: Szechenyi gyogyfurdo or as Will and I referred to it- Szechuan Fish. (Don't worry we plan to abominate every language we come across).  Its the largest baths in Europe, opened in 1913 and the water is supplied from a thermal spring with water around 75 degrees Celsius or 170 Fahrenheit.  Its a huge complex, on the inside are locker rooms and showers, after that you walk into a complex system of pools with various different temperatures from the cold plunge pool, the 34 degree pool with water aerobics and finally smaller warmer pools around the 38 degree range. Intermixed are a variety of saunas and steam rooms.  We however spent the majority of our time outside in one of the giant pools that hovers around 38 degrees.  There is a large Olympic length pool for laps in the middle and another pool on the other side which was drained and being cleaned at the time.  So we sat in the warm water and soaked away for about two hours. There was some good people watching at this establishment, from the women from Calgary who was telling stories about being chased by moose, to the old man corner where they set up a chess board on the edge of the pool and a heated battle of the minds occurs with visitors taking pictures.  Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the baths to post- if you Wikipedia-it, those are similar pictures to what we would have posted. 

Dove from Jesus Christ Superstar

Fuzzy Pig

One day we were able to hitch a ride outside of Budapest from our host, Kitti and visit the neighboring city of Szentendre, a posh little town where all of the tour buses go with fur shops, the 365 day-a-year Christmas shop and all the overpriced ice cream you could hope for.  It was pretty similar to Niagara-on-the-Lake, entertaining enough to keep us busy for a solid two hours and to grab a coffee.  But outside of this little town we visited an outdoor history museum where we spent the afternoon.  This was the equivalent of 'Colonial Williamsburg' or 'Black Creek Pioneer Village', with acres upon acres of houses built to reflect the different regions of Hungary around the turn of the 19th century.  While there were many pretty churches and houses setup for us to walk around, the highlight of the afternoon was undoubtedly the petting zoo.  Why, you must ask, would the highlight of this trip be a petting zoo?  Because this zoo had fuzzy pigs... fuzzy pigs, I tell you!  The pigs and all the other farm animals were just a little different from North American animals, enough to make it interesting.  The sheep had extra pointy horns, the cattle were super-sized and the doves wore bell-bottoms.  When Kitti picked us up and we explained with delight how we had a great time, she, being a local, didn't seem very impressed, but I'm sure you back home can appreciate how this was a highlight.

Parliament Building

Finally, the one thing that everyone raves about regarding Budapest is how beautiful the city is, we are here to say, what you have heard is correct.  For those not up on their Budapest history, it was once two cities, Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube River cutting through the middle of this capital city.  The vast majority of sights to see are on the river where Bud and Pest has tried to show each other up when building their cities over the many years.  Per all the guide books, and again Kitti's recommendation, the best way to see these sights is on bike.  So, Katy and I bummed Kitti's bike, rented another and biked the town.  Seeming how we had been walking the city for a week at this point in time, we were pleasantly surprised as to how much ground you can cover on a bike instead of foot.  We toured a pedestrian island, road past Parliament, across the many World Heritage bridges, and finished the day by climbing to the top of the city and scoped out the city Citadel.    Skeptics, if you are out there, we must attest biking the city is the way to go.

All in all we spent two and half weeks in Budapest and had a great time.   Our hostess was great, the city had plenty to offer and was financially viable, the people were welcoming and we had no problems considering we only knew two words in Hungarian.  Both hello and goodbye are szia, pronounced 'see-ya'.   We could have cut the time back by a day or two, but the city definitely warrants a visit. Until next time...Szia! =)

Vienna... So Much Sexier Than North America

After our adventures through the Czech Republic, we were given a ride to Vienna from Jakob, a recent Civil Engineering grad working for a hostel.  By paying a sizable amount we were given the scenic tour of Czech Republic heading to Vienna, full of small villages, back roads and a guide/engineer to answer our various questions.  Passing from one country to the other was unnoticeable as there was simply a stand and a sign on the side of the road; no guards, inspection or any other hassles.

When we arrived in Vienna, there were a few striking details.  1) Vienna is beautiful.  2) Vienna is expensive.  It didn't take us much longer to realize that 3) Vienna's layout is bloody confusing.  Even for us seasoned travelers, we got completely lost the first night, walked in circles until we approached a well-dressed couple walking out of a Doctor's office, when asked if they could help they responded 'Sorry, we don't speak any German, do you speak English?'  Shortly afterward we were on our way to the hostel, finally heading in the correct direction.

While we had had great success finding activities that were free or close to it in other locations, Vienna was quite the opposite.  No museums had free admission, and all prices were steep for us (10+ Euros).  After assessing our options, we did splurge and bought tickets to the Vienna Symphony.  The following night we went to the Vienna Konzert Haus and attended the best musical performance either of us have heard, simply put the musicians were perfect.

With our uncanny eye for  a deal, we sniffed out the fact that we could wander the grounds of the Schoburnn Schloss for free... and there was a hedge maze!  This was the summer cottage  for the Hapsburg's (ruling family until early 1900's)  a nice little summer home.  The palace was enormous, gardens were spectacular, and in the backyard beyond the fountain was a little breakfast nook.  But more importantly there was hedge maze, one tall enough even for Will.  Being the children that we are we decided this was worthy of our 6 Euro investment.  After Will victoriously beat Katy through the maze, we both made it out alive.

Breakfast Nook

Hedge Maze

We try to partake in the local gastronomic staples wherever we travel and as a result we were forced to look for the ever present Wiener schnitzel.  We had obtained a map/info guide from the hostel we were staying in, the map wasn't worth the paper it was printed on but the food section put together by the hostel staff was slightly more helpful.  After wandering outside of the tourist district we found ourselves at "Schnitzel World" or something to that effect. From the outside it didn't look open, but when we opened the door the place was filled to the brim with locals waiting for tables.  Now this is our kind of place!  In Europe if there are large tables with some seats available you will be sat there and served independently of the other group. Keeping in this tradition we were sat at the table with the family of three who were finishing up their lunch.  Will was able to roughly translate the menu-there was certainly no English menus here like in the tourist area. We ordered and then waited.  As we waited we did some people watching, lots of people in and out, lots of large plates of tasty looking things going by, the local cops in to pick up their lunch.  Our plates finally came and our plates included the following: a piece of pork schnitzel that when unfolded was larger than a dinner plate, fried potatoes, potato salad, red cabbage, cucumber salad, lettuce salad, and 1/2 of a canned peach.  We are probably missing something that was on our plate due to the schnitzel coma that was induced after eating.  (The locals were impressed that we cleared our plates.)  Seeing that we had accomplished what we wanted to do in Vienna- eat some schnitzel, go to the Konzert Haus we got on a bus to Budapest.

P.S. We might be leaving out a few details regarding another stellar set of roommates in the hostel which involved snoring, vomiting and loose women in an 8 bed dorm room but we will spare you the details.

Czech Republic: Where Beer is Cheaper Than Water!

We've now been in Czech Republic for over a week starting in Prague and then moved over to Cesky Budejovice.  From our time spent here thus far, the impression that it has made is that it has plentiful history, beautiful cities, most people smoke a ridiculous amount and the beer is cheaper than water.  To further clarify that last statement, let me reiterate that one of the greatest things about North America is that you never pay for water when at a restaurant, throughout Europe, tap water is never served in a restaurant.  So, anytime you're out, a drink should be expected to be tacked onto the bill.  Beer here normally runs you 25-35 Czech Krown ($1.50 - $2.25), a pop or water will generally be the same for a smaller volume.  So you as you can see, good friends, in order to be fiscally responsible we have forced ourselves to sacrafice our livers for the betterment of our wallets.  Fortunately, Katy knows some good transplant surgeons back home.  

Prague is absolutely beautiful. Your average building has more culture and history in it than America & Canada combined. We started off on a tour around the city. Jeff from Nebraska who is living in Prague told us all about the highlights, the astronomical clock, the churches, St. Wenseleslas square where the velvet revolution occurred, and where Mozart premiered some of his work. Jeff wasn't an overly impressive tour guide, however it gave us a good overview. Prague is filled with tourists. In the main square you can find tours of every language, rent Seqways to drive around town and we also saw this bike contraption where 8 people peddled and one was in charge of steering (we figured it was a reminant of the communist days).  We went to Praha Castle which is according to Guiness Book of World Records is the largest ancient castle in the world. Its big, its gothic, its got gargoyles that act as gutters, its pretty cool. After coming down the stairs from the castle we made our way over to the Charles Bridge. You may not be familiar with the Charles Bridge, but you would recognize a picture of it. Its really old, survived wars, fires, storms and like everything else in Prague its gorgeous and filled with tourists.

So enough with the tourist sites, one of the most memorable experiences in Prague were our accomidations. As with any trip the accomidations can play a big role in your overall experience. Again for budgetary reasons we stayed in a 5 bed dormroom in a hostel. The hostel was fine, no complaints. However, starting our second night in Prague we were joined by what we surmised to be 2 young military guys from an unknown Eastern European country.  They didn't speak English, German or French but claimed to understand Italian so needless to say we didn't talk much.  Our first impression of them was the smell of smoke, complete with a pack of ciagrettes sitting by the open window.  After expalining that there was no smoking in the smoke-free hostel, we were off to a great start.  Everytime we came into our room to drop something off they were sleeping in bed, we estimated that they spent about 20 of their first 24 hours in bed.  The first night proved not to be very restful as the snoring from the miliary contingency rivaled that of only Amy Klassen or Uncle Jim.  Night two only got better... it turns out that the military group not only snores, but one of which talks in his sleep... aka yells and then sobs sporatically. From what we can only surmised to be P.T.S.D.. By night three, we knew exactly what to expect, the night would start out with PTSD leaving his night-light on, no snoring but the occasional shout & wimper for a few hours, then at 2am the snoring one would  return, close the window, pass out.   We were armed with our earplugs and got a good 3 hours of sleep.  Needless to say we were ready to move on.

"Now Friends, please observe the cylindercal conical tanks in front of you in the process of mashing the ingredients to make beer."   Jan, our friendly tour guide who spoke like a German scientist toured us around the beer factory in Cesky Budejovice, home of (the real) Budweiser founded in 1895.  Our second stop in Czech Republic continued the theme of beautiful landscapes, and of course more beer.  This city has felt more authentically Czech as not everyone speaks English, the streets aren't stacked with tourists, but unfortunately our accomodations still smell like smoke.  We've been getting by on my German, and the interntational launguage of 'I'm foreign and will smile and nod to anything you say'.  Thus far its worked great!  We were able to buy EuroRail tickets for next month and get onto a bus to Cesky Krumlov.  Cesky Krumlov is a neighboring town with a picturesque castle, hills dotted with redroof top  houses all cut by a winding river.  A nice day trip, as the town was nothing but restaurants, cafes and shops featuring wooden toys Milton Bradley could never touch.

To top off our trip to Czech Republic we are off to th Koh-I-Noor pencil factory (since 1790!) tomorrow... and I suspect there might be some more beer.

The Real Will & Kate go to England

We started our journey in Toronto.

With our bags all packed and ready to go we hopped aboard a plane to England via Rykjavik, Iceland. We flew Iceland Air. The flight was not bad and we even got to put our feet on the ground in Iceland as we boarded the next plane. The interesting thing about Iceland Air is that the entire trip is a tourisim promotion for Iceland. You can watch Icelandic documentaries, learn about the culture and find out all sorts of interesting facts. Did you know that the primeminister of Iceland's phone number is in the telephone book? We arrived in England without a hitch. Our friends were there to pick us up and were gracious enough to let us stay at their house and sleep off the jetlag.

The first part of the week was dedicated to family. I (Katy) have family friends and relatives that I have not seen in ages so it was a good opportunity to catch up with them. We wandered down to the town my parents met in, went to the family church I was baptised at and stretched our legs after the long flight the day before. We had our first official picnic of our trip and I assure you there will be many, many more to come. We went to Marks & Spencers and bought our 2 buns, our 2 individual packs of cheese, a few apples and splurged on a yogurt- total cost around 4 pounds. The following day we went to Windsor to visit my Aunt and Uncle. After having some lunch with the relatives we went for a wander to Windsor Castle (the Queen's weekend residence), through the town into Eaton College, and then over to see the crooked house. Which as the name implies is not very straight. After that it was a quick ride back over to North Cheam where we were staying and out for dinner with a second cousin of mine who I haven't seen in 15 years.

The following day we were off to central London to do the tourist thing. We arrived at our second couch surfing spot midday and were able to wander down to St. Paul's Cathedral and on to the Tate Museum of Modern Art. Now I would like to point out for general knowledge sake that I personally loathe going to art museums.  I know it makes me uncultured, and narrow minded amongst other things. But other than a walk through glance at the art I really don't see the need to spend hours at an art museum. My fantabulous fiancee on the other hand likes to stroll the hallways taking in the art, reading all the discriptions and taking pictures. Now I will go to art museums because I know Will likes them and I will patiently wait for him to go through, but I was glad that we had got our token art museum over with for the England portion of the trip.


Day two of the London visit involved heading to hang out with the Royals.  We wandered over to Buckingham Palace, queued like all good Brits and then wandered through one of the only working palaces that exists still in the world.  Queeny was out at one of her many other properties for the months of August and September, so its the only time of the year the public can visit her digs.  We toured many of the states rooms, which were mostly up to our standards, saw some of the rooms where Will & Kate's wedding pictures were taken, and they had Kate's dress, the wedding cake and some of other miscellaneous paraphenelia on display.  Did you know the Middleton's were given a new coat of arms?  The perks of marrying royalty, I guess...

After hanging out at Queeny's, we wandered over to Parliment, saw Big Ben and then strolled through Harrods to cap off the day of tourism.  Then headed back to our accomodations with Will's roomate from Singapore, her husband and their 10-month old boy, the next Prime Minister of England or Spur's soccer star (I guess it'll depend on how that career fair goes in 8th grade).  On the last full day of England, we repacked our bags, blow-dryed some damp laundry and saw the Mousetrap, London's oldest continuously running show (59 years).  On our last night, we were treated to a wonderful British stew and some crumble, then headed to bed so we could get up at 4am to catch the bus for our flight.  Here's hoping Czech Republic treats us as well as the Motherland.

Packing and Itinerary

As we've been explaining our trip plans to friends, family, and coworkers, the two questions that always come up are 'Where are you going?' and 'What exactly are you bringing while traveling for 10 months?', so here it goes...

Explanation about our itinerary...
We didn't book our flights with a 'Round the World Ticket', as we found the lack of customer service when initially inquiring to be frightening, and the limitations to be extensive.  So we booked our flights through a discount long-haul travel agency called 'Air Treks', who specialize in this type of travel... with fantastic customer service.  That meant we had to book our flights up-front, and put ourselves onto a bit of a schedule.  We have booked our flights from now until March (flying into Thailand), and will need to coordinate with Air Treks while on the road.

So here is the itinerary thus far:
The Motherland (London, UK)
Czech Republic (Prague and Cesky Budjovice)
Vienna, Austria
Budapest, Hungary
Romania (Transylvania and Bucharest)
Greece (Athens and Thesolinski)
Turkey (Antalya to start, then we plan to explore)
India (into Delhi out of Bombay)
Namibia (Windhoek)
Thailand (Bangkok)

The tentative plans:
Vietnam (maybe stopping in Laos and/or Cambodia)
Sydney, Australia
New Zealand (into Auckland, out of Christchurch)
Fiji
...and then back home!

Questions about packing have also been at the top of the list.  So here's are lists of what we are taking:

Will's Stuff:
6 pairs of underwear
6 pairs of socks
3 pairs of pants
2 short sleeve shirts
4 t-shirts
2 shorts
1 swim suit
3 set of shoes (1 boots, 1 sandals, 1 flippy-floppies)
1 rain jacket
1 fleece coat
1 button down
2 long sleeve shirts
1 base layer

Bag weight: 12kg (26.5 lb)

Katy's Stuff:
6 T-shirts
3 pairs of pants (jeans, sweat pants, travel pants)
1 pair of shorts
1 skirt
1 pair of capri's
2 tank tops (tank top + skirt=dress)
1 long sleeve shirt
2 button down shirts
1 sweater
1 coat
1 rain coat
1 pair of rain pants
1 swim suit
7 pairs of underwear
5 pairs of socks
3 pairs of shoes (hiking boots, sandals, shower flip flops)
1 quick dry pack towel
1 sleeping bag liner/blanket
and the customary toiletries including a very small hair dryer.

Bag Weight: 11kg (22 lb)

In our combined housewares section of our bags we have a set of collapsable bowl, sporks, nalgene, a steripen to purify water, a laundry line and a small assortment of duct tape, garbage bags and clothes pins.  All of this is now rolled, squished and shoved into our two backpack and sitting downstairs waiting for us to leave.  T-minus 9 hours until departure!

Preparing for Departure

So here is what we have done so far:
-Packed up our house in North Carolina and moved our stuff halfway across the country/into another country and into storage.
-Survived driving a 16 ft moving truck through the font end of a tropical depression through the Appalachian Mountains.
-Moved both cars are in storage, one in the US and one in Canada. Insurance has been changed over, plates removed, batteries out, fuel stabilizer in place.
-Visited with friend and family in both countries, (it was great to see everyone we'll have to do it again in about a year).
-Explained our story to various customs officers at least 10 times. The tricky question was always "Where is your residency?"... somewhere between my parents basement in Canada and Michigan-ohh but we have North Carolina plates.
-An astronomical amount of lifting, cleaning, packing, re-packing, list making, phone calls, and driving.

This has been our new full-time jobs for the past few weeks. Here's hoping that we have thought of the most important things, if we haven't I don't know how much more planning and organizing we could have done. I'm sure we will have forgotten something-fingers crossed its not a major one!