Ready for action

I stopped by the local "Naturkompaniet" on my way home today.
Naturkompaniet is a store specializing in gear and wear for outdoors activities. I needed a pair of "utility" trousers. The kind of trousers that have zip-off for the legs so that they can be turned into shorts.

I want to travel with as little baggage as possible and those trousers are perfect - they're two in one. And I will look soooooooo much more like someone from an adventure game when I walk around Angkor Wat in these and a pair of hiking shoes, than in the standard tourist wear (Nike-shorts and flip-flops, or whatever the kids wear these days) - big plus. ;-D Remember kids - Image is everything!

I think I have the list of stuff to pack set now. I have laid it all out on the floor just to see if there is something obvious missing, and to make sure it all fit in the bags I'm planning on using.

I kind of feel like there is something missing... I'm traveling way too light according to the stuff on the floor in front of me. Hmmm. Ah well. I have a couple of days left to figure it out and go shop whatever it is that is missing. Time to wrap this up and prepare for the trip to Stockholm tomorrow.

Better late than never

I started to listen to words (and some basic phrases) in Khmer some weeks ago using the Talk Now!™ series.
Well. This software is nice and all, but it is just that - Software. Software requires a computer, a computer is not present at all times (truly, I swear, I am not constantly connected to my laptop, although some may beg to differ) and you need to sit down and focus on the single task of language learning in order to use it.

I was hoping for a more traditional language course like the "Teach yourself <X> in <Y> days", which can then be ripped to mp3 and stored on my media-player for listening while walking to/from work each day and during the +20h flight.

Well. Today I found a more "classic" course on the FSI¹ Language Courses web page. Already in mp3-format and with a +400 pages PDF. This was what I wanted!

OK, so it's only a little over a week until takeoff, but I can probably extend my vocabulary a little and perhaps say something more intelligent than "Hello! My name is Roberth. What is your name?", which is about the most advanced construction I can formulate right now - other than that my knowledge consists mostly of words without the grammar to fit them in to a proper sentence.

I guess I will not be able to add Khmer to the list of known languages in my CV any way, but I like being able to understand at least some of the words around me when visiting foreign places.

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1] FSI - Foreign Service Institute. US government training institution for diplomats. More or less...

Welcome traveller

In this corner of the void I will hopefully have time to post some thoughts, experiences and photos from my vacation in Cambodia during February this year (2009).

I am not sure I will have internet connectivity each day, but when I do I will try to upload something - be it a photo, comment or deep insight...

Takeoff is set to 4th of February (but the vacation starts 31st of January) and I will be back in the cold of Sweden on the 19th. Not much time to experience the country in full, but I will try to get as much as possible out of the few days that I do have.

Note: The time-stamps on this blog will be in GMT+7, which is the time zone of Phnom Penh.