6 days left

And nothing to report except the stress and completely-not-ready-ness are leading to quite a few shouting matches.

Well, we are pretty sure we will leave our cars at Tom's parents' place because it's a safer neighbourhood than ours, and I've asked one of my friends to take my gp for me while I'm gone; no response on that yet.

We were in Oregon for the long weekend and on the drive back we hashed out an enormous list of what we need to do and have before we go, so there is some organization happening, but not a hell of a lot else.

Oh, and Tom's mom has heard from many sources that buying tickets to Spain from England is cheaper once we are already there, so that's one less thing to do before we leave.

I found some car rental places online that have unlimited mileage offers... but it would still cost us $700 between four people.

I talked to a guy named Jeremy who was in Spain in April, and he said the bus system was good for getting around. Tom thinks he meant the buses that go from city to city, because he remembers the metro ones being pretty bad. So we are still not sure how we are going to get around once we are there.

Jeremy also went to Morocco, and warned me to stick close to a male at all times. It's a Muslim country, so their take on where woman should and shouldn't be and what they should and shouldn't do is a bit different from ours. He told me that his girlfriend got glared at when they entered a coffee shop that was only being patronized by men, and then got hit on while waiting in the hotel room while he went to a male-only massage place. And when walking around they were followed by a group of boys that wanted to "touch her bum". Hmm.

There is a tv show called The Lonely Planet and some woman wrote to it and said that Tangier (the city that you first arrive in when docking from Spain) is by far the worst introduction to any country for tourists that she has ever seen. Worse even than Afghanistan. But I'm determined to set foot on African soil.

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And my work concerns have been nullified, because yesterday the company hired me officially. Sweet. (And whoops, I'm writing this here before I've even told my parents.)