These days, Australians travelling to Canada and the United States do not need Visas, as such. Not of the old fashioned type anyway, but we do need ETAs (Electronic Travel Authorizations). These are not expensive: They cost CAN$7 p.p. and US$14 p.p. respectively. You just fill out all the basic info required online, which takes about 15-20 minutes p.p. and pay the money. Usually they notify you to say, yes, you're in! But as I just found, sometimes they forget, so best you make sure you double check how things are going, and not just wait anxiously.
So, anyway, we're good to go now. Just have to think about packing now, and getting our teeth, eyes and general health checked, so as to hopefully avoid any costly, unanticipated surprises while away. We also need to prep our home for our house sitters who arrive the day before we leave. They're a nice American couple of grey nomads. Having sold their life-long home they've spent the past year or more roaming around the US and Canada, then New Zealand, and now Australia. We hope they enjoy their time in our neck of the woods, or green fields, as the case may be. They're here for the whole time we're away, which should be good for them, as they've been hopping around Australia at an exhausting pace.
It is somewhat disconcerting that they've spent the last month or so in the tropics though. It is certainly not at all tropical down here! It is mild now, as we're experiencing later Summers due to climate change, and thus much warmer Autumns than ever before, but come June it will start dipping to below ten degrees celcius for daily highs. Laurie has been putting in extra effort to ensure our wood stocks are high, so they can easily stack the fireplaces with custom cut wood, light the fires and make things toasty and warm. It's a real treat to live with authentic home fires burning. Admittedly June is not too bad, and by July the cold is so clear and still novel that it's almost enjoyable. It's August that is the truly hideous month in our parts. That's when the cold has gone on for far too long. It feels bitter and damp and almost everyone's mood and outlook becomes negatively impacted, to some degree. In an ideal world, I think most of us would go away each August. I should remind myself of this thought for next year!
Where we're going it'll be the beginning of Summer, so again quite lovely, at least in Quebec. I'm expecting it to be high twenties in Montreal and QC, and low to mid thirties in the South. But I know it will be sultry heat down South, and maybe a bit sticky. Time will tell. I'm looking forward to that slow Southern sensuality. And all those mansions and droopy, drippy trees. I started reading Berendt again, for the first time since 1998, but soon decided it's best read on the plane down there, to introduce the mood, once we leave Quebec. That's 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' for those of you unfamiliar with the novel. It placed Savannah firmly on the map of readers at the time, and for many years thereafter.
Going back to that topic of ETA's. The 'Department of Homeland Security' always ask what your address will be in the U.S., which strikes me as a non-sensical question, as anyone going as a tourist is likely to be tripping about from place to place.If there was space to list everywhere we're going I would, as that's the type of gal I am, but they don't allow that fuller explanation. So I always choose the first destination. In this case I was somewhat surprised to realise that Charleston, South Carolina, is our first stop in the U.S. That's the Airport where we leave the terminal, collect our car and drive off in the dark, on the wrong side of the road! So that's the address I gave them. I told our host, so she's in the loop. She's so lovely. But again, there was no opportunity to state what type of accommodation that is, or offer any context whatsoever. Seems weird to me that they don't require context. For a detail pedant like me I find it hard to understand why they don't want to know. Just sayin'...
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