Wow, so it's certainly been a good few years since my last "real trip", but as I'm preparing for my journey, I'm finding my head is spinning with all the new possibilities that exist.

For my last long trek, which was longer ago than I care to acknowledge, we went crazy burning CDs and assessing how many we could carry- 10, 15, was 20 too excessive?-buying film, looking into phone cards to call our moms or make reservations, finding the perfect notebooks-and yes I mean paper-for journal keeping. Though email was already in use, internet cafes were unreliable and pricey, and I found myself getting less than stellar responses to my bad habit of sending group emails. I know it's hard to imagine anyone not being captivated by my general ramblings, but my apparent tendency towards verbosity didn't suit everyone's taste.

I bought something called a netbook today. Until last week, I'd never heard of such a thing, now I own one. It's the ultimate travel accessory and it's ridiculous. I have the ability to store my pictures, do some writing (I can hear the groans already-just say thank you to the blog gods for not allowing me to junk up your inbox), carry music and movies, access the internet, video chat and of course employ the most important source of entertainment a pc can offer, spider solitaire. All this comes in a mere two-pound package. As a complement to my new toy I have my cell phone, so I can track down my travel buddy when he tries to give me the slip, my digital camera that even has a video function for when I'm feeling egolicious, my ipod which will be handy for drowning out the banter of drunken fools on long bus rides, and even portable speakers for hosting impromptu dance parties. Kinda like summertime; the livin' is easy!!

And so, as the Disney song plays in my head on a repeated loop (yes, I'm about to quote Alladin) I have to marvel at this "new fantastic point of view" and as cheesy as it is "share this whole new world with you".