Preparation And Logistics

 

There's actually a lot of work and preparation required before we leave.

 Aside from the packing (multiple climates and dress codes), the two major items are passports/visas and prescription drugs.

First-world problems but definitely time-consuming.

In order to take the trip, we need ten blank pages in our passports to account for all the entry and exit stamps. We also have to get visas for India (longest form ever), New Zealand (fairly easy), Australia (through a really cool phone app), and, in a few weeks, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and finally, Nepal. We've also created multiple paper and electronic copies of everything - just in case!

The second major issue was getting a 5 month supply of prescription drugs. Nothing about the American healthcare system is easy. For those of you outside the country, prescription drugs come in 30 or 90-day supply with no exceptions. Except .. we needed more than 90 days. Engineer-brain John did some research and created a flowchart of how to get it done and beat the bureaucracy. Turns out the best approach was to be kind and pleasant and ask everyone for advice. So you can get a vacation waiver - which only lasts 24 hours. That means getting every doctor to send in their prescriptions on a chosen day and then visiting the CVS pharmacy to pick everything up - again, being sweet and pleasant even though they had to re-authorize every prescription individually. Just because.

Turns out the process was smoother than we expected and mission accomplished!

(Weird process note - no one ever asked for proof that we were actually going on vacation!!)

We are now at T-4 days.