Lent

As in 40 days from today. Arriving at this significant marker prompts me to post a few lines at least. The concerns and business of the present have kept me from venturing too far off into the future, but I have managed to tend to a few details.

One of the things I accomplished recently was booking the ferry from Rostock, Germany, to Helsinki, Finland. I splurged a bit and reserved a private cabin with a window, as opposed to a considerably cheaper option of sharing an inside, windowless cabin with three strangers.

The global roaming SIM chip for the phone is supposed to be here today. When I received notice last week that they were back in stock, I ordered one right away, along with a universal plug adapter. The packaged arrived Monday with the plug adapter, but no SIM chip, so I called their help line. I thought I would have to explain and verify things to no end, but the customer service rep was quite easy going - "Oh, OK... sounds like a mixup in shipping; we'll get one out to you today."

When I was online looking for a place to stay in Berlin (there are no monasteries in Berlin) I happened to click the B&B tab on Tripadvisor. The second entry was Pension Peters. I took it as a sign from God, as it were, and emailed right away to check on it. Turns out it's in the area I wanted (near the zoo), was a good price and had an availability for the dates I wanted. Reservation made.

Lots to do in the next 39 out of those 40 days, especially in handing over jobs and responsibilities. There are also a couple of projects that have been hanging for a while that I said I'd get wrapped up ... we'll see if that good intention gets realized in practice.