More steps, freight worries and carbon tax
I haven't yet decided which U.S. 'Southern' east coast city I'm going to fly into after Europe. I have a lot of friends in that part of the country, but none of them seem to have friends with particular mechanical expertise. I've been hoping to find somebody willing to tag along when I shop for a van for my road trip, in exchange for dinner, a few drinks and travel stories. So I might just need to teach myself how to buy a good used vehicle, one that has good fuel economy and can have another ten or twelve thousand more miles put on it without it needing maintenance.
The only other flights I need to purchase are between Peru and Guyana, and between Europe and the Middle East, if I do in fact go to the Middle East-still waiting to see what this year's revolutionary events mean for Israel and its neighbours. I recently wrote that the cost of flights to and around South America have gone up a lot; I'm happy to say that the fare from Surinam to the Netherlands hasn't changed at all, despite the rise in oil costs. That's quite a relief, since it was by far the most expensive leg.
I'm spending this weekend moving into the spare room, so jensolo and Keer's new housemate can move into my room. It's actually exciting to get rid of so much stuff-none of the reasons I've been hanging on to various items make sense in this context, and it's quite freeing.
The only problem is that it turns out the U.S. postal system don't do sea mail anymore, so the cost of sending stuff to Australia, Europe and Peru is probably going to be several times as high as what I'm expecting. I'm pretty amazed that they've done this; I'm hearing about all kinds of small businesses having been hurt severely by the cost of export. It seems that USPS are determined to be as environmentally unfriendly as possible, with their single-use packaging and overuse of airfreight. This is exactly the kind of reason we need a tax on carbon, and why I hope the Australian Government, at least, is serious when it says it's going to impose one.