I'll stick to things medical, since we're just starting out.

An update: adding to the antibodies you're currently brewing, Kolz, Papa Wabes has informed me that he will be providing us with an arsenal of medications to combat the straightforward stuff that the travel docs recommend and the bad bugs that come to his mind. This via air mail, in addition to Live! Oral! Typhoid!, that $200-some of shots (x 2), and the ever-present Cipro. I have to think we'll be pleased about all this, in the end.

It really is an industry, travel medicine, and quite an interesting one. After surviving The Bug here in Germany, I'll try to see myself as the advance guard for our trip, testing the mettle of the bio-landscape or, really, just taking one for the team. But tonight at least, it leaves me with the feeling that all those vaccinations and a veritable traveling medicine chest gives us a false sense of security outside of the "developing world." We'll decide whether and how to drink the water wherever we are, it will all be fine, but you still just shouldn't eat the potato salad from the buffet.

Now, to plan for all the critters people keep mentioning to Kolzman & I. This must be alarmist. Just something you get used to after a day and don't remember? Certainly less significant for us than, say, giraffes/lions or the beaches on Zanzibar or the treasure trove of documents that awaits me. I can take things with legs. Totally. Mostly. Things without legs...yeah. Figure out how to vaccinate me against THAT.